I Don't Post Immediately and Y'all get cranky

Okay so here is where things are at...

Feeling wise I feel excited and like roller coaster terrified though I've never been on one... I just well didn't expect this and I know that's cliche.

On one tiny level the cliche of it will happen when you least expect it is one of the most irritating ones offered to single people but it seems it has become reality.

But really you want details right? Yes I'm not going to hear the end of it if I don't share those.

So Saturday we texted back and forth and it was really sweet - it's nice to have that balance between feeling wanted and not feeling like I'm being smothered. He had plans on Saturday night and I washed my hair and fell asleep in the presence of one of my loves, HP.

Sunday morning I went to church and sat next to the Douche (seriously he needs a new name because dating has made him so much less douchey, he's actually friendly) and his girlfriend and then after waiting forever in line at the local drug store for the important things - mints and chapstick... I hopped on the train and then had to wait a little for him.

Which truthfully was totally fine and my headspace had been distracted a little too - my flights from Florida have been seriously messed up by Delta and I just haven't had the emotional space to get on the phone with them and fight it out because it's ridiculous that they cancelled one of my flights and rebooked me on an early one that leaves as my flight arrives... yes because that makes sense - there has to be an algorithm that would prevent that.

Anyways, we bought salad makings, I proved myself to be awkward in my refusal to just make a decision, which as most of you know I'm happy to make a decision and piss someone off if I care about said decision, but a decision about which vegetable to go in a salad, whatever all work for me.

We then had lunch, moved to the couch, talked and then while I may or may not be a lady, you can fill in the blank.  I had to head home to help start the process of moving out some furniture for the eventual moving in of some furniture so CW being brave decided to come along.

Frankly I know my PU is not the man he was when I was younger and the twins cause him more stress than he deserves so I wasn't concerned about that, what I was concerned about was CW agreeing to help move the furniture. On one hand it was great, my back has flared up and on another hand I know my PU loses his grace and attention when it comes to moving furniture and construction and I was a little terrified that it could dissolve very quickly. I went well and in some ways endeared me more to CW, that he could hold his own with my PU.

CW stayed over for dinner and late into the evening, missing many buses and quite frankly if I knew of a way to keep him here with me and keep our respective employers happy I would have suggested it but well that seems like that's a recipe for disaster.

Speaking of work, we're trying to balance telling people we love that we're dating and keep it from our coworkers. And quite frankly as KAB burst my bubble this afternoon, I'd have to agree, that while I would love it to be until mid August, she managed to keep hers a secret a week. I am beginning to wonder after CW's light but on the target grilling by our receptionist is either of us is going to be able to keep this unwraps much longer than a week.

So there you have it... a little throw back

We're Getting All Rebellious In Here

This post might be a bit hard to understand but I'll do my best to explain where I am coming from. I was raised in a family that took certain aspects of their ethnic/religious group/religious beliefs to what some would consider extremes. One such "extreme," dancing was and still is strictly verboten (forbidden).

While there are some religious circles who believe dancing leads to sex, Mennonites seem to believe that sex leads to dancing, which is to say that it is the worst possible activity a single 31 year old woman could be engaging in, even if she was, as I was last night, very clothed.

I still remember my mother's reaction when at 13 she found out that I had been to a lunch time dance that our public school put on (truth be told I'd been to a few of them before she found out about that one). But a 12 or 13 year old's awkward swaying most often at arms length was nothing really and if anything when I look back on it, it wasn't a place for me. That is not reflective of any faith values, but more so being the awkward nerdy plus sized kid that I was with little to no self esteem and no support network, I was easy pickings for being teased and being groped. Let us be honest, regardless of how curvy I might have been I was the only girl in our class with breasts, like real full on breasts and I had had them for a while. Everyone knew it and I knew everyone did. And so when my mother declared that I had seriously transgressed an boundary I was perfectly fine with getting my insecure ass back on the "right side" of it and staying there.

Interestingly our grade 12 grad, non-school sanctioned because there was dancing, boat cruise played out in much the same way, though there was a little more girls dancing with girls. In the end one of my classmates still thought my ass was the best place for his hands and that soured the night.

I have had roommates and even a boss try to get me on the dance floor in various situations, even in East Indian weddings where even the bride joked that I just needed to "open the door" and "screw in the light bulb."

Stepping on to a dance floor as I realized walking home last night was a space I never felt safe in, not so much about the groping and the grinding but more so me. Stepping on to a dance floor meant that I truly needed to be okay with me. I needed to know that I was okay, awkward or not awkward, chubby or curvy and well spanxed, that I, me, this person, in this body was okay and even more mind bending for me worth acknowledging in a celebratory fashion. That I needed to be able embrace a kind of freedom I'm not sure I ever would have been really ready to embrace. But like those things in life that I don't feel ready to embrace there comes a time when I receive the necessary kick in the ass to make me realize I was ready.

I was finally ready last night and it might have been awkward, it might still be awkward from now until the last time I step on a dance floor but you know what, I'm okay with that, even if I'm not sure about some of the song selections.

Thanks to KAB and AE I crossed a major life threshold and we had fun doing it.

One of the songs it is no secret that I do and will always love:

I Could

Lament feeling bruised and a little shaken, but I have realized something, I'm not alone in that feeling - I'm not alone in a lot of my feelings.

In feeling like:

Damaged goods - in a religious perspective I am not "pure" though that language makes me vomit a little in my mouth - though I respect those who hold to their convictions even when I do not know what mine necessarily are...

In all the work of therapy I'm still wired wrong - touch, love, commitment all of it still hurts in places I doubt it should, misfires in others and overwhelms me in places I really wish it wouldn't.

I'm undesirable - single and in my 30's, there really has been little to do with being picky in any of this to this point.

I do not know how to channel desire in a healthy way - sure I said I would like to be able to put MW in a box, but I don't even know what that box looks like or what I want it to look like or even if I want to do the whole box thing.

I want to date but I don't want to date and I being the liberal feminist I am being aware that I might have to look in unconventional places while not switching teams - I'm definitely not at that point

I do not know how to have these conversations yet as I realized this afternoon talking with the roommate these conversations must be had,

Just not at this exact moment.

I am not good but I'm not bad, I'm just tired, overwhelmed and in all that I just want someone to hold me and not leave me until I need my space (an introvert's prerogative right) and remind me my fears are only unexplored paths, they are not dead ends or that I've lost the chance to have love, the kind that lasts.

Clarity

My first weekend class was this past weekend. I opted to be the "brave" one and fling myself out for my prof to counsel and analyse in front of the class. I do not regret it, well maybe a little. I think I regret being a person for whom getting verklempt is an easy and often undesirable reaction. So yes I got teary and it got worse once RB, on my request gave me feedback, given that he was one of two people in the class who knew me best, likely the one who does know me best. He teared up, and the NLLL'ing waterworks came. When it was all said and done and he and I hugged, and I realized that while I would and can say that I love him, he's really a dear friend, he's also an entirely lame potential boyfriend given previous experience and where he is in life. Oddly though in all that I realized the things I love in him, who he is, are rare (ish) things. They are the core qualities that made me fall in love with AB. It's a tenderness with a joyful carelessness that somehow runs deep even if either of them weren't entirely sure how to navigate life. The Douche doesn't have that - tender and him do not go in the same sentence, maybe they could, but I think I am realizing, that I'm a tough enough nut on the exterior and broken enough on the inside that I don't think it's healthy for me to be off trying to open someone else up. Sure he may now even *gasp* publicly acknowledge me, and if he ever asked me out I MIGHT say yes (what the hell right?) I know that he's not it, quite frankly I cannot say I think anyone in my life is it right now. And while that's lonely in many respects, in others, well in other respects, I wonder if I find the pickiness freeing in a way. I know I'm messy - good gracious I am messy and I actually need a lot from my relationships, as much as it pains me to even consider that, never mind articulate that.  I'm working on me and I know, man or no man, that there is something freeing in loving the good men in your life for who they are, where they are and knowing that that's all they need from you and that's all you can give them.

Photo:http://inside-out-22.blogspot.ca/2012/09/crying-with-my-mom.html

What Have I Done?!!!

I have signed up for an online dating site, 5 years after I shut down my last account.  I must admit that while a lot has happened in my life in the last 5 years, it seems that not a lot has happened in the online dating world.  I am still over educated and fishing around in a pool of men who seem to seriously undervalue the importance of a capitalized "I."  It will be good for laughs with JS and my roommate, but I seriously doubt that anything will come of it. But I will let you know.

So in light of this whole profile business I must post this which seems to be the story of my life these days.  Not me sleeping around, but I've sort of, shall we say marginally, come to accept that I am going to be the "slut" of the school.  Personally I hate the word, I wouldn't use it on anyone, but it seem in my very conservative school that because I'm a woman with breasts who does occasionally have cleavage or my shoulders bar that I'm scandalous.  Even further to that scandal I'm a feminist who uses birth control which according to a very interesting but ultimately sad  conversation with DirectoryBoy, who if you remember is a medical doctor, birth control is only for promiscuous women.  Yes you heard me.  I guess I haven't been using mine to its full potential.

Primarily because I love this site: http://editorrealtalk.tumblr.com/

FOOD!

I love food.  I love cooking food.  I love teaching others the beauty of food and its simplistic beauty, of wonder of fresh and local food.  Because of those loves, I have a special place in my heart of Jamie Oliver.