Quarter Past

I don't know what that title means.

It's Sunday.  My day to do absolutely nothing.  It's 10 o'clock(ish) and I have a little list of things to do and I might do them, I might not.

Change my bedding, do something with the messy piles in my room I've allowed to accumulate.  Tackle some laundry.  Go out and try to buy a pair of jeans.  Remember to drink water and stay far away from the yellow cake with chocolate frosting I made last night.

Simple things.

The weekend of the sixteenth I plan to go and see my girlfriend Julie and my 'Niece and Nephews'.  Pay down my debt with the extra $ I have this month.  Pretend like December doesn't exist.  It's so appropriate John died in December.  I have always hated that month, now there is one more reason.

I have some little goals... get my heath and mental health going in the 'full gas tank and long road ahead of me mode'.  That's where the drinking water mention comes from.  I realized I wasn't drinking very much water and that I was stress eating easy foods aka bread... hand to mouth sort of stuff.  I've gained weight.  Nothing anyone else seems to notice because I'm blessed with even weight gain... LOL, yes... LOL!  I don't get just a big ass or a big belly to signal I have to make changes.  I distribute.  This is not such a lucky thing as you may imagine.  Nope, I just notice my head seems to get smaller.  *giggle
It's not really funny, but it is. My clothes are a bit tight and I am not going to just go buy bigger me clothes.  Screw that.  The jeans... well, I need a pair of jeans in general and a pair of black slacks simply because it is getting cooler.  Something a bit more tailored for work.

Surprisingly water is essential for physical and mental health.   So is getting off your ass to take a walk.  That's step two, pun intended.

I am struggling to wake up, to start taking care of myself.  I want my life back. I like that I want my life back.

I've finally stopped thinking about myself in the sense of having a relationship.  I'm not sure how to explain myself.  I'd think about myself and John... about myself and relationships in the past.  Relationships in general.  Friends, family, men.  After John died I wondered how I'd be in six months, 10 months, a year. I've wondered about being in love, being with someone again. In the sense of being afraid of repeating myself, in the sense of being with someone as a distraction from my life, or as a covering for fears as opposed to facing them.

I've found I am different, but the same.  I find I am content now.  Content with my life and my relationships.  I don't want to have a relationship with a man.  John changed me.  I was watching a silly series, catching up online.  There was a line about never forgetting your first love, never really losing that love for them.

There was a boy when I was younger, that magic age of 17.  All the best songs about young and vibrant life are about being 17.  Actually I was sort of like those songs.  I was going wild at 17. Well, I thought I was in love with an idiot named Jay, Jason W.  My first love?  Another life moment that didn't deserve my time... But he didn't change me.  Greg didn't change me.  He changed my location, I went right back to it.  He was the first guy I'd ever lived with, before my ex-husband Steve the Pathetic One, and John.

Looking back it is so very clear that John is the only person next to my sons I have ever Loved.  I didn't really know what love was before my sons and John.

I have learned so much about myself in the past (almost) year since his death.  John profoundly changed my life, my view of myself, my expectation.  I'd started changing and learning the moment I met him.  This is something I have never experienced before on this level.  I have had those painful reflections of myself.  Seen things about myself I want to retreat from and can't.  I suppose it is easy to see the failings.  I am still learning to appreciate myself, see what is good, what I have to offer this life and understand my purpose here.

It could be different now simply because I am in my 40's, a mother, experienced my first loss attached to my heart.  Sure.  Life on a whole new level.

My sons helped me focus.  Becoming a Mom, I had to be something other that what I'd been.  John is something else, similar but different.

I lost myself in him, and I am gaining myself.  When he broke my heart, nothing short of losing one or both of my sons could make me feel that shattered again.  John's death, the fact he doesn't exist the way I knew him is still hard to grasp.  I still feel like he'll walk in the door, drive by me on the street, turn over in bed and pull me close.

My life is quiet now.  There is no drama.  My sons are growing up, which I want and dread equally.  I really enjoy my career, though, with out child support I don't make enough to survive. Yet.  So, if I have drama it is financial fear that plagues me.

Knowing my fear, I work daily as much as I am able in that day, to move forward and to better my circumstances.

I have spent a lot of time until recently thinking about relationships.  This is reflective post... this is a recent change, a recent letting go.  I am unfamiliar with this new me.  I'm a little embarrassed of the me I was before John.  I am/was ashamed of the me with John (after he hurt me).  I'm a different me after John.

I have a different standard.  I like my life the way it is.  I don't care to just let Just Anyone in, and I am not just referring to men.  I'm content in my life and can't see myself involved with anyone.

John's sister asked me if there was anyone in my life.  It bothered me.  It bothers me.  Why would there be?

Sometimes I crave intimacy.  I can't say I haven't kissed anyone.  Once I chose to because, well, John would have I told myself.  He would have used the distraction to hold off the pain.  I tried to go that route.  Well, I ended that before it started.  I've given my number to a few idiots I thought maybe I could practice on.  You know, go out for coffee... learn to be social, to simply play at dating.  That proved to me the kind of men I meet are socially retarded at best.  I had a bar hopping night with a few girlfriends and one of my girlfriends invited a guy and he brought a buddy (bar hopping, something I don't do, and I did just to do it and I had fun) and drank enough to say to my girlfriends guy friends buddy asking for my number (who didn't deserve my number) "What the hell, I'm drunk enough to give it to you.  Any yes, that is my actual number"  I kissed him later that night, and let him know it meant absolutely nothing to me, but that he was a nice kisser, thanks.  While this sounds crass, he is jerk that is involved with another woman and tried to play me by saying 'What if it isn't that serious?'  Meaning his relationship.  I told him what are we in Jr. High?  I don't have time for that kind of bs in my life and that I wasn't interested and maybe he should go home.
It must be nice being a man.  I know women that are like men.  I just can't really wrap my head around people like that.  

And, it's true.  I'm not.  Had I not been merry of heart with whiskey I wouldn't have let him touch me.  But it was fun being drunk and letting someone flirt with me.  Feeling attractive.  Not enough to need to do it again the next night, or the next week though.

Back to, 'sometimes I crave intimacy'.  I do.  It's a physical thing.  A desire created by hormones and loneliness.  And it is so quickly passing I hardly remember what it was when it has passed.  Initially I wanted to emulate John.  Lose myself in the distraction.  He wasn't very discerning.  Well, he had a type... anyway, that isn't me.  Sometimes I wish it was.  Sometimes I wish I could just meet someone, have a tumble. Let them help me forget.  There is no shame in that, no judgement.  I wouldn't judge myself for it. Sometimes I wonder why I can't scratch that itch.  Play that game.  Then it passes and sometimes I can't remember what it was I wanted to scratch. Sometimes I know it is because there isn't anyone, anywhere I am remotely attracted to enough to go there. Unless of course I am barhopping and drinking whiskey I guess.

I want more.  I want more and I don't see it happening.  So I am content with myself.  For the first time in my life I enjoy being home, going to work, going out sometimes with a girlfriend ... and having no internal agenda of Mr. Next.  This means I am in the moment with my sons, at work, with my girlfriends. This is a first for me.

These are the things I am learning about myself.