Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

Growing. Painful but good.

The things I'm learning: 

I am pleasantly surprised at how well my new found positive self image and self esteem has held up while I nursed the wounds of an unpleasant breakup. I am truly surprised someone would hurt me (and even break up with me) because I am actually really funny, kind of smart, very open hearted and honest and also cute. Yes, I'm cute (perhaps even sexy sometimes). 

After so many years of deep and crippling self loathing it is amazing to look at myself in the mirror and be happy to see me. 

I worried that was tied to the person I was seeing, perhaps a false boost of confidence, and am happy it was not. 

So I'm learning that I like who I am becoming. I like hugs now, I talk on the phone and I am really learning when to hold my tongue and let things be (this is still a work in progress but I have made great strides). 

Other things I need to keep working on:

Extending invitations to people I enjoy spending time with or might enjoy spending time with. My ex was the social director in our relationship and I find the rejection of someone not being able to hang out oddly anxiety provoking. It hits on some insecurity I would like to not have.

I would also like to be more confident in my work life. People tell me all the time that I know more than I think I know. But almost everything I know feels so simple that I very rarely feel confident enough to tell people what to do, to set standards and create policies. I'd like to be able to do that. 

Did I mention I had to talk in front of a whole bunch of people at work last month? I did. And I didn't die. But I would like public speaking to feel at least marginally less like dying and I would also like it if I could talk in front of a crowd, hell, even a small group in a conference room, and sound intelligent, confident and also funny. 

Here is the other thing I learned while licking my wounds. 

You have to know what you expect and what you want in a relationship. You have to ask for what you need and here's the part that I get tripped up on. If you don't get what you need you have to be willing to walk away. 

This is a stunning epiphany for me.

I think when I met my ex I was very young and I actually didn't really know what I expected or what was okay to ask for and I certainly didn't have a clear grasp on what my deal breakers were. As I got older and our lives moved on there were certain things that weren't acceptable to me but I wasn't very good at asking for what I wanted, I didn't want to 'be a nag'. Other times I did ask for what I wanted and it became clear it wasn't available I wasn't willing or able to walk away. (And of course there were other times I got what I needed. Of course.)

I'm pretty sure I'm learning to ask for what I need and to make (and keep) boundaries. But I can also see very clearly where the holes in my armor are. Sometimes I don't know what is or is not okay to ask for. Maybe I'm being neurotic? Maybe I'm misreading something? Maybe my version of reality isn't true.

This is, of course, exacerbated by the fact that I actually have overreacted to things and created unnecessary strife in relationships. So...there's that. It's very difficult to trust my perceptions and I am not sure what will make that better.

It's throwing me off kilter, all this navigation of relationships (friends and others), but being off kilter is also breaking me wide open. Failure is teaching me a lot about myself and where my weaknesses are and moving through other areas of my life with confidence is teaching me a lot too.

I'm really wondering who I'm going to end up being through all of this. It's exciting, even the stumbles. 

I'm a fish and, you know, sometimes I just feel like riding a bike.*

Last week was rough.

To call it a rough week is saying a lot because I've had some pretty bad weeks in the last 9 months or so. But this one was truly rough.

I've been dating a little since around October. I know, I know. "Take it slow." "Wait until the divorce is final." "You don't need a man!"

You are correct, I don't need a man. I have a great job, a loving family and amazing friends. I live in a great house, my financial landscape is calmer than it's ever been before, I have a handyman, a lawn service and I just bought a new car for myself. The first car I've ever bought on my own without even a co-signer.

I feel like my divorce was final the day my ex actually moved out. Things had been crumbling and I had been holding out hope for so long that he would "come around", when he left I knew it was over. I never, even once, thought maybe we would be separated and realize we actually loved each other too much to let it all go and end up happily ever after. That's why I saw my lawyer exactly 5 days after he announced his decision.

As for taking it slow…I had my first kiss when I was 19. Yes, you read that correctly. I did not kiss a boy until I was NINE-TEEN years old. How's that for taking it slow? And boy that worked out really well for me.

I met my ex when I was 20. I dated him for 4 years and was then married to him for 14 years. I loved him and was only occasionally wistful about missing out on my 20's where I dated lots of people and figured out more about who I was and what I wanted before I chose the right guy for me. I think the right guy for me would still have been Logan but maybe I'd have been more prepared for our life together had I met him later in my 20s.

It's like how I feel about having Maddie when I was 25. My life as a mother got started about 5 years before I was really ready for it. I never doubted that Maddie was the absolute perfect baby for me, she's still the perfect daughter for me, but I did sometimes feel that I'd have been a more perfect mother for her if she'd come into my life when I was 5 years older.

So "taking it slow" doesn't feel right to me. What feels right is putting myself in a lot of new situations and meeting lots of people and learning the things people learned in their teens and 20s that I didn't learn because I thought I had found the love of my life and before that I was terrified of being hurt.

I am certainly not looking to get married again any time particularly soon. But, I do think it's reasonable for me to date, kind of a lot.

So I have been and I've had plenty of nice 1 or 2 hour meetings. Surprisingly I haven't found it stressful which you'd think, since I haven't dated in my adult life or…actually in my life at all (aside from my ex), I would. But actually I think it's fun chatting with someone new for a little while. Flexing those muscles, making someone laugh even if they're not really a fit and if they are or might be? Even better.

My ex was very good at talking to lots of people and I never really was. I was almost never even innocently flirted with in the last 14 years. So it's nice to know I can be interesting and/or desirable to members of the opposite sex.

Unfortunately I have only been interested in 6 people out of, I don't know, quite a few that I've met. 2 of those people were not interested in return (that smarts doesn't it? ooph.) The other 4 were interested in return and I saw one a few times, but it wasn't what I wanted so we talked and parted ways on friendly terms. The other two I dated for about two months, ending one because he was just a little too flighty for me and dating the other until I met the last guy I found mutually appealing and we decided to see just each other for a while to see where it went. 

I started seeing that guy at the same time I was seeing the other two, and when I say seeing I mean literally seeing...for dinner and a movie or a drink after work, that's it. (God I feel sixteen again...like I'm going to "get a reputation" for kissing a boy). After seeing #6 for a month, I really liked him. Alot. He had my number on many levels and I like my number being gotten to be quite frank.

We parted ways once early on when I realized I didn't really want to share his attention with other people after I realized he'd taken another woman out of town on a weekend getaway. There weren't hard feelings, just disappointment. But a week or so later he said, "If you want me you've got me." So we went forward, I stopped seeing the other guy I'd been seeing and he stopped seeing the other person he was seeing. We were frank, realizing this wouldn't be a forever thing but knowing it was fun for now. 

And my goodness that was fun.

A few things I realized in the last few months:

I like getting text messages in the morning that read "Good Morning Beautiful".
I like talking on the phone before going to bed. (I KNOW! Can you believe it? Me? On the phone?)
I like walking through the art museum holding hands.
I like kissing in movie theaters.
I like holding hands in cars.
I like when I meet someone for an after-work drink and another customer says, "Wow, some guys have all the luck." 
I like watching a guy cook for me.
I like watching tv on the sofa cozy under a blanket on a Sunday night.

Sadly things ended sooner than I wanted them to end quite honestly…and not as nicely as the first time we took a break. But now all is calm and I am sad.

I am so annoyed with myself for being sad. I keep trying to talk myself out of being sad. For God's Sake, this is all part of playing the dating game. Sadness and loss is the price you pay for the good parts.

The other choice is to avoid the pain and never get the good parts and avoid learning what dating is all about. I know for a fact that I don't I want to live my life holed up in my head, alone and afraid of being hurt, just like I lived through the first 18 years of my life. 

Still, I don't like being hurt. I am so tired of being hurt. 

I also don't like feeling sad, especially not so soon after being so sad before; we all remember August and September, yes? Ugh. Me and the breastfeeding room at work got real close during those months. That red Ikea chair was like a security blanket and I'm sorry to all the postpartum mothers I locked out of that room during that time. I hope your babies didn't starve.

Thankfully this isn't as hard as that was. Not even close.

But I wanted to write about this feeling I've been turning around in my head and looking over in my hand for the last few days.

I realized that at my very core I still believe people can't be unkind or cruel to you if you're only open, honest and kind enough. And this was an example where my open heartedness was met with stone cold cruelty in the end and it just didn't compute. This brought out many old wounds and sadnesses and then helplessness and anger. Frankly, maybe even a little rage. 

My head knows that other people's unkindnesses or cruelty or hatred has almost entirely nothing to do with me. 

I ugly cried alone Friday night (after sending a nice friend home so I could indulge in said ugly cry) in my living room while Lucy nervously paced and tried to call my therapist (alas, no thumbs!). My ugly cries almost always make me feel like I am 8. And I think it's because when I ugly cry a very primal sadness/fear/anxiety is bubbling up from the pit of my soul.

While I ugly cried I realized it is very hard to live in a world where you have no control over anything or anyone. Sometimes it feels like I have a God damn bullseye over my heart and I will never stop being blown over by the reality of being a person in the world.

People can be assholes and it doesn't matter if you're an asshole, or nice, or stupid, or smart, or kind, or hateful.You can't convince them to not be assholes. You can't make them understand the pain they've caused you. You have to accept it and move on.

You'll be hurt whether you deserve it or not.

And that is far more depressing and painful than losing kisses in a movie theater or cozy time on the sofa or "Good Morning, Beautiful" texts.

And it's way worse than losing the like of any man ever. 

*Reference if that title made you scratch your head.

(Sorry no comments, it's not you it's me and my raw bleeding heart...we can't take it.)

My monthly-ish update

I tend to write like a giant matzoh ball. I throw it all up into the soup of my experience and call it "where I am at this moment in time".

But guess what...remember back in September when I wrote about how I thought divorce would kill me, that it would make me unable to function as a whole human. I thought, "Other people survive divorce because they haven't been through the things I've been through."

I thought, "I used up my animalistic survival skills back in 1982. Okay 1987. Okay...I for sure used up my survival skills in 1989"

I thought I would break open and fall apart.

I broke open, my animalistic survival skills did not call it quits, I did not fall apart and I realized a few very important things.  

I realized living with someone who finds you distasteful is, you know, seriously rough on the self esteem. 

I realized that loyalty is admirable but often misguided.

My Ex (see what I did there? No names!) pulled the plug on our marriage and I realize now it was the only way to save either of us.

The expectations of someone else have been lifted off me. The weight of feeling as if I am repeatedly failing the most important person in my life has been lifted off me. 

I weigh the same as I did when I was still married; but I look lighter. And I feel lighter.  

I am more than okay. I am enjoying every day seeing what comes next. I wish I was better at writing here. I am on Instagram and Facebook and that feels good right now. 

I prefer things that feel good right now.