Category: Single Again

proud of us

If there’s one thing I can say about my recently ended relationship, it’s that I am so proud of the way we conducted ourselves. I haven’t always been able to say so, and I’m just so glad to see how much I’d grown:

  • I stood up for myself when it was called for.
  • I broke down and allowed myself to cry and shared what I was feeling in the moment when it was the right time to do that (i.e. when it was authentic to what I was feeling).
  • I accepted and admitted where my baggage needed some tidying up, and was willing to see it, own it and make some changes in my own behavior. And I was willing to draw the line and say so when the baggage wasn’t mine.
  • I argued well and respectfully.
  • I was genuine and truthful.
  • I gave love a chance. I was present with an open heart and mind.
  • He was a gentleman and employed excellent manners.
  • He showed discipline and adherence to principles such as honesty, respect and justice.
  • He allowed me to be a bit of a princess, but let me know where the line was.

I’m not saying I don’t have room to improve. I certainly witnessed / experienced areas within myself that still require some healing or some work. And I’m going to nurture myself and take care of those things and go on with life and, some day, new relationships.

Right now, I’m just grateful and happy to have experienced a truly rewarding, respectful and fun relationship. I feel nothing but love and respect for my recent ex …which is more than I can say for my ex ex! I’m proud of us and the way we cared for and supported one another, and it’s a blessing to be able to look back and feel that way.

what’s wrong with you, girl?!

If there’s a single phrase I’ve heard more than any other in the past few weeks, it’s “What is wrong with you, girl?!” Insert the cuss word of your choice before “wrong” and you would likely sound just like any number of my girlfriends.

All of this in reference to my letting a perfectly decent man go because I wasn’t ready or something wasn’t right or whatever that feeling of unease I was having that was telling me that I needed more time to find balance within myself. It’s difficult to place just what it was anymore, in part because their shocked expressions have made me question it all. I’m a Libra; I weigh all input and feedback. Let’s summarize by saying my breakup has been unpopular amongst those who met my former beau.

Even the response to my recent guest post on The Plankton clearly demonstrated a bias toward hanging onto a good relationship, even if it’s one I was not, at present, fully capable of appreciating. The pendulum of public opinion, it seems, has clearly swung to the Mr. Good Enough camp.

The problem with this, of course, is that Mr. Good Enough wants to be prized — he doesn’t want to be just good enough or for so many of his gifts to go unnoticed or unappreciated by someone who is unable, at this moment, to fully embrace them. Surely Mr. Good Enough for me is Mr. Over-the-Moon Love-of-My-Life to some ecstatic woman. And he deserves that.

Unlike many of those vocal girlfriends with whom I’ve been spending time, I already have children. I’m not on the clock; I don’t feel a biological imperative to settle in to the first relationship I find after my divorce. In fact, I think something inside me was biased against doing just that. A part of me hopes to see a little more of what’s out there — even if the only purpose that serves is to show me how great I had it.

I’m not looking for perfection — I would have been willing to fully embrace the relationship if I had been absolutely certain that it was right. But I wasn’t 100% in it. And it would have been wrong to try to feign otherwise.

the fear

Having gone to bed the other night blissing out as love, abundance and sweetness, it was super weird to wake the next morning feeling abject fear; a fear that took a long time to shake; fear for no immediate or apparent reason.

When one wakes feeling something like that, one has to wonder:

  • What was I dreaming, just prior to having woken, to feel this way, so incredibly different from how I’d fallen asleep feeling? And, if that’s the case, I’m glad I don’t remember my dream.
  • Is it possible that, in digesting meat I’d eaten the night before, the chemicals of their fear were what I was experiencing? Not kidding, I’ve wondered about this before and it makes me contemplate eating a more vegetarian-based diet.
  • Was it my body releasing some of my own deeply buried and previously unprocessed fear, peeling back yet another layer of the proverbial onion?
  • A counselor once told me that it’s natural for us to relive the moment of our birth when we wake — could that have been it? Was I really in such terror as I exited the birth canal? Seems reasonable that I might have been.
  • Or is fear just that healthy sign, as I read in some email or blog recently (I’d link if I could find it), that I’m moving the right direction? Am I? I think so.

Whatever the case, it seemed like aeons before I was able to pull myself together emotionally. Luckily, life, children, work and even the laundry forces me to keep going, even when I’m more inclined to cower in the corner.

At some point, the feeling dissipated…but the weirdness of it all — waking up feeling so 180 from where I was just hours before — stayed with me long enough to inspire me to write about it. Do you ever feel that way?

my dating story

Earlier today, The Plankton was lovely enough to post a little something I’d written about my recent relationship and break-up. I was surprised at some of the commentary it received, and reading some of those comments really made me think about the entire dating experience:

Months ago, actually about a year ago, I started dating. I think I thought I was looking for something special. I think I thought I’d be ready for something special if it came along. I think I thought I’d end up going on three or four dates with a few different blokes before deciding to share more time with a single one among them. I think I thought I’d have some varied experiences against which to measure a man. I think I thought it would all begin a little more slowly. I think I thought it would take time to meet someone special.

So no one was more surprised than me when a gentleman asked for an exclusive arrangement early in our dating relationship. And it turned out he was pretty darned great!

Looking back, I’m a bit surprised how quickly a few weeks became a few months and then suddenly it was six months. And, looking back, I had no idea how difficult it would be to keep my life in balance with children and other obligations, especially starting a new job. And he, too, started a new job and, rightfully, wanted a supportive girlfriend…which I was sometimes available to be.

From what others tell me, six months seems to be a new magical number in adult dating, one I hadn’t realized before. That’s apparently when things “get serious” or don’t. And, life being what it is, I realized that I’m just not ready for a serious relationship right at this moment. Even with a great guy. I haven’t really dated or had any other relationships since my (obviously) unsuccessful marriage.

I’m not sure I was mentally or emotionally prepared to fully embrace the possibility that the very first person I really dated since my divorce could be the person with whom I’d want to spend the rest of my life.

My failed relationship lasted, give or take, a dozen years. And, despite the ambivalence I feel about having a serious relationship right this minute, I do genuinely desire partnership and hope to find the mate with whom I’ll spend the rest of my life. Given my family’s genetic make-up, that could easily mean spending more than forty years with someone. So I’d like to consider carefully, take my time, and be healed and whole enough to make a better choice than I made last time around.

I think I could have gone on dating and enjoying and being with a man — this particular man — for much, much longer, in a sort of dating status quo. If he’d asked, “Do you want to stay together? Do you want to continue to spend time with me?” my answer was simple: “Yeah, for sure. You’re wonderful. Why wouldn’t I?”

But he was looking for a different answer to a different question. He wanted to know: “Woman, are you as crazy about me as I am about you?” And he was looking for a resounding “YES!”

I still believe it’s possible that my “Yeah” would have grown into a “YES!” over time. I didn’t need the knock-kneed, butterflies-in-the-stomach feelings of infatuation to care deeply for and share physical excitement with this man. I wasn’t seeking perfection. I was willing to take time to allow my feelings to grow and blossom naturally.

In the end, he thought I’d had enough time to know. My having been honest about how I felt, he chose to venture back out there in search of that woman who is absolutely, positively crazy about him. And I can’t say that I blame him…because who among us doesn’t want that?

there you have it

I think those of you who follow here can tell that I’m fairly real and genuine. One moment I think I’ve forgiven and moved on; the next I’m behaving badly out of lingering blame and resentment.

These are realities for the divorced, and these are the things I choose to share here. I don’t dwell in them. It’s not my whole life. But it’s the sliver of me you get to see for visiting here.

basking in the glow

I’ve written about my guy and about the aftermath of our break-up which, thanks to a loving and respectful relationship and split, has been minimal. But I wanted to write a bit more about the things I miss, because I think they say a lot about the kind of relationship we had:  I miss being hugged and held and Eskimo kisses. I miss hearing that I’m valued, and worthy and appealing and attractive and that someone finds me a blessing in his life. I miss being caressed all night. I miss feeling the glow of being in another’s light.

And I will have to learn or remember how to fill myself with these wonderful thoughts and words and messages and feelings. Because they matter. And because healthy adults are able to fulfill themselves.

But these are parts of my former relationship that are going to be hard to replace. I will do my best, of course, but there’s something really valuable and meaningful about having someone in your life to tell you your stomach (i.e. paunch) is beautiful and love you even though you’ve gained back over the holidays all the weight you lost in the past year.

My children and I briefly talked about my no longer having a boyfriend. I shared with them that I’ll miss spending time with him…things like cuddling on the sofa while watching a movie, to which one of my darlings immediately — and indignantly — replied, “I thought that was our job!”

And I said, “It is. It still is.”

And, as it turns out, when you’re a parent, you still get to bask in the glow — even if it’s an entirely different kind of glow than that of a lover.

 

little thing to which I cling

There is nothing remarkable about the fact that I threw my few-month-old toothbrush in the trash a couple of weeks ago and plucked a new one from the cabinet. The bristles at the edges of the old one were bowed out and I was beginning to sense that it might not be optimally effective. Perhaps it is a bit more telling that, at the time, even though my former beau and I had broken up, I couldn’t yet bring myself to throw away the spare toothbrush he kept in the bathroom cabinet.

I actually had it in my grasp and was about to toss it, but somehow I wasn’t quite ready yet. And I’ve learned to be gentle with myself about the weird small things I sometimes feel inclined to hold onto for just a bit longer. Even now, it’s there, occupying the space next to mine, tucked close to the edge — in part to go undetected by the children.

It’s not likely to make the next round of bathroom cleaning. In fact, it make not make it through the day. If we were to change our minds, to find our way back to each other, the cost of a new toothbrush would certainly be no barrier or hurdle. I don’t think that is likely to happen. Yet I let it rest in its place, a single small reminder of the sweet and wonderful things its user brought in to my life for a while…and I smile fondly.

another brilliant dream

OMG, this morning I woke from another incredibly vivid and brilliant dream, this one vastly different in nature from the last. It was about revenge:

I heard strange noises early in the morning and heard a key in the lock — someone was entering my house. I was petrified; I couldn’t move. I gathered the strength to get out of bed and then went to the window and looked out. Trucks were dropping large lumpy bundles, like big canvas bales onto the yard.

I watched as my ex carried my sleeping daughter in his arms to a waiting minivan. It was her birthday, and I think I saw her cousin with them in the van. As I watched from the window with curiosity, wondering what was going on, the truck drivers began unrolling the enormous bales, revealing generators and inflating a veritable carnival of jumping, climbing and sliding attractions in the front yard. (This of course, could not be really my front yard — it doesn’t have the room. Rather, my “dream” home was the house in which I grew up as child.)

I ventured downstairs, still in pajamas, bed head and bad breath, and saw several large envelopes with notes in my ex’s handwriting displayed on the dining table. Each contained a rental agreement for the inflatable circus of which I’d just been thrust into the center, all charged to my credit card. Worse, there were already dozens of strangers wandering throughout my house and yard.

THIS is a positively brilliant example of what hell might well be like (if it exists at all) and, in my dream, my ex was genius enough to create it. I actually remember feeling a certain amount of awe before the overwhelming irritation at some complete stranger with small children looking around my house for a bathroom took over. Something like that should never happen before 8am!

At any rate, I then woke up, awed at my second incredibly vivid dream in only a couple of days. In my dream, I had given my ex the ability and initiative to make something spectacular happen — perhaps even turned him into the kind of man I could respect, the kind of man who might have proven equal to me in marriage. Even while dreaming, I had been impressed with what he’d done, presumably to simultaneously surprise my daughter and peeve me.

Even now, more than 12 hours after waking, I still feel lingering amusement, a bit of (perhaps unearned) respect for my ex and, yes, maybe even a deeper level of forgiveness.