At Present

I am doing the following and trying not to be a big baby about throwing my back out next week.

While I Normally

Use this blog as a place to post about men and dating and being single and even on occasion the annoyances of graduate school all of which I hope is in some way beneficial, but at times I wonder if there wasn't a way to share more of me while feeling safe.

Sharing while feeling safe is in many ways an antithetical statement. BUT that's a whole other issue.

My point?

I am getting serious again about therapy. I started therapy with the severe intensity that only a Type A perfectionist can muster back in 2008. I did group therapy weekly and I did one-on-one with a psychologist, bi weekly for 6 months, then switching to just the psychologist and eventually down to once a month sessions and a solid 4 years later I am at about every 3 months mostly do to finances (which sucks let me tell you to make the choice of bills over brain). I am realizing though I need to get in an muck about in the sludge that remains or remains hidden still.

And I don't really want to. After the whole MW situation I came face to face with the knowledge that my belief that things were more or less working under the surface was entirely wrong. It's not. I'm not. And while I can make that statement I am unsure if I can make the statement that I still feel broken - that I still am functioning within paradigms that are unhealthy. While I may not believe I need a man to make me feel whole (oh dear AshLee from the Bachelor get yourself to a therapist), it doesn't mean that I don't often hate myself, my body that I do not lament my life decisions, that I don't wish things were different, that I could have the courage I know I need and so on.

So, I have decided to squirrel together my meagre extra funds and sign up for Trauma Yoga Class. My heart may not want to be shovelled through with a tiny spoon, but maybe my body will be willing.

So that's where things are at - I may or may not be posting as much or the tone might change, but change isn't a bad thing now is it?

A Little Music for this Week

I might not but more than likely I will disappear for this week because I am attempting to write a big paper with basically no time between me and the deadline.

X suggested the following music to me today in our semi-regular "Hey I found this and thought of you..." banter.



Apparently she reminds him of me and I will totally take that even though I do not really see the likeness and goodness if I had her pipes ya'll would have a hard time getting me to talk and not sing my way through life.

Let Me Add

As Ms J and my patron saint-ess of awesome, Flo, has instructed us in the past - the dog days are over and we need to shake it off, and to that I add the following, which I might have had on repeat tonight and even *gasped* danced to. I figure if the dancing is not done in public it does not count and thus I would not be breaking the one very verboten rule I was raised with. If it does count, maybe my chignon and pearls can balance things out.

I Still Feel Like I Might...

Pull out what remains of the tequila - all that remains after I made pork tacos this week and cuddle up with it, I already feel like spending time near a porcelain vessel at least this way that would be justified. No, no things regarding the male gender aren't at that point, well not directly. In all the stress to write 3 papers, do an assignment and exegete a passage for a presentation, while working and realizing that all that made me vulnerable for the release of this well so rolling volcano of emotion.

I could vent that volcano that this moment but I feel that though it might be valid it also can well harden in weird places where it's hard to retract and say that's really not what I meant, I mean maybe it was what I wanted, but well damn it I am taking a little time out.

To clarify my nausea has nothing to do with a case of the babies - while everyone I know is popping out babies, that's not a possibility without a medical intervention and everything to do with stress.

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.

I Wish I Could Ask

MW and friend just left the house after a lovely evening of talking and food consumption. It was all great and quite frankly deeply platonic.  I have been racking my brain for why I feel jealous, why I feel I need him.

I settled on it with the roommate, it comes down to no boundaries. I do not want to nor can I hedge him in, I cannot even remotely expect another visit and nor do I feel comfortable asking how many women he's kissed in the last few months. I would like to for the moment believe I'm special. I mean I know I am but something about Sunday has made me feel less special rather than more special.

Well I'm going to mourn that a little and move on. Sure there are things about him that make me realize that I feel the same about him as I have all these years and yet as I remember a conversation we had almost 5 years ago, I know that what things look like with MW are not as they are.

But in the end it is all too late to consider anything beyond my bed.

Scratch That

If you're quick on the posts you might have noticed that one has just disappeared.

Why?

Well there are a lot of reasons and none of them have to do with the name related to them and more so as I'm listening to Bruno Mars and tweeting - you know all the important things you should be doing when you have a paper to write.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I'm single.

I've actually only been officially dating someone for one in my whole life. One in the almost two decades when it apparently counts that you have someone in your life.

The funny thing is I have lots of people in my life that I love and that love me. If anything all these years of digging around in the shit of my life has fertilized that amazing gift - amazing people. They fuel me, they wrap their arms around me, they cry and laugh with me. And they do it every day of the year, not just on the one day that roses reflect a fraction of the worth of relationship - sexual or otherwise.

So while I could ruminate over the desire for a good snogging - heck we're all there at some point, or multiple occasions in the 365 days of the year, not just a specific day. But in the end, like I've said before about relationships - the good ones, the good ones are the ones that fuel you - they're the ones that make you feel like you're dancing on rainbows or whatever happy is to you. To me, I imagine it will be equal to the day I find a gluten free doughnut that tastes like a real doughnut. Fatty dough fried in more fat and topped with sugar you are my idea of brain explosion, knicker dropping kind of love. Yes I have weird standards, but considering that gluten free baking is still a little meh, that's my Everest.

My point?

Tomorrow if you want that snog or you just want to kick the boy you just found out is dating a classmate because your friend found out in a very accidental and awkward way remember this too shall pass and while we're speaking of passing things I'll hand you the chocolate or the wine - your choice because I love you and heck that's got to count for something, even just a little something.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpaxonreyes/5442938096/

A Case of Empty Bed Syndrome

I posted a long time ago about this issue, here.  Most days I am too damn tired or just emotionally disconnected from that aspect of my sexuality, often intentionally delineated because I do not have the space and time in my life to wrestle with it and its feelings. But this morning, even last night, as I laid down all I wanted was someone in my bed, to hold me.

It is hard to deal with but thankfully often easy to forget in the swirl of papers and everything of the deep security of that human contact, of any really deep human contact, especially that from a man. And I will even say it's a little frustrating to be reminded that I do really need it and that it can make me feel all sorts of things I don't know if I really want to at this time. I don't blame the reason for these feelings. But it has given me big things to consider. Like why I felt guilt, like I was cheating on X. Now my brain and heart know it's been a very long time since X and I were a couple and I know he's not coming back around, and as much as I love him, he and I are slowly drifting apart in time and life - what either of us truly needs we are neither.

Now I know there will be questions of subplot/background, I will say only that MW stopped by for a visit during one of his many intentional wanderings across the country. It was crazy to think of the circumstances we had met under all those years ago in the Fall of 2007, even crazier to think that the date that ended with a handshake and a slightly bruised heart for me, became a great supportive friendship where hugs are safe place and a place of growth.

That growth? I realized something sad and profound about myself, the size of my partner/interest has since CEF, and even before him had a significant weight in my life. Not their weight but their height, their presence. It's this small place of fear that still somehow has a voice that says if he's bigger than me, he can hurt me. I realized that this semester when a new student being friendly struck up a conversation with me, and all I could think was you're too tall and at the same time why the NLLL am I scared.

I guess I'm always a work in progress - and who knows maybe that's why the space in the bed next to me is empty - it's where my brain needs to reside on mornings like today rather than the warmth of a safe man.

Postscript: Apparently I forgot to mention that now I'm fighting off the needies? The conscious understanding that what I want and what I need may be fine but the expectation that someone else can, should or even be asked to address those needs is beyond unfair... putting the head before the heart before the other h words too

Awesomeness

I recently gave in to Songza much to my roommate's despair - I love the 90's music. Quite practically the 90's blew for the most part - teenage awkwardness and family drama, BUT the music has happy memories for me. That is one gift my PU's gave me, an intense love for music, especially for the purposes of remembering happy memories. For example I could tell my roommate the time and significance of each song that came on the 90's School Dance mix. But I was able to top that with the Boy Band mix.

Now I have a confession to make, I am still at my heart, a 15 year old BSB fan girl, and I might have all their music videos memorized to the degree that I could even at my age repeat the dance steps and we all know I do not dance. Oh the memories. BSB's second album tour was the first concert I went to alone and it was at the height of a very prolonged crush on an older boy. Oh the stories I could tell. Those boys, all the boy bands represented what I wanted - someone to acknowledge I was alive and maybe even more so that I wasn't as ugly as I felt. I wanted a way in that moment to feel all that they were expressing. Thankfully now the angst is gone and I can just enjoy the cheesey-ness of it all and remind that inner 15 year old fan girl that she was and still is awesome with or without the NSYNC declarations.

But on that note I needed to share this song, which was one of the first and last slow dance songs I have danced to - my teens and even adulthood were spent in no dancing zones, so oddly this song holds a lot of memories. I could even tell you which boy it probably was too...

In My Very Finite Wisdom

... there was a moment of lapse or collapse or something of that nature, because at this very moment I am sharing a table in the library with the Douche.

*sigh* or *head desk* I'm not sure which one applies at the moment.

He's out of my system, sure I would love to know what is under that crusty and often frustrating personality, but to be honest the desire to know that is rivalled with my desire to smack him upside the head with the text book in front of him at the moment. And while most days I'm not all that ladylike, I would like to believe I am lady enough at this moment that I will not do that.

So there we have it, we know where things are with le douche and now RB is dating someone and according to FB, BI is un-engaged. The world doesn't make sense. Well it sort of does but not really in regards to the last two mentioned.

I am sure that my single-ness is not a horrible thing at this moment. Not that I really considered it a horrible thing ever, but I can say for sure at this moment, while I might have a desire for human contact and all that comes with relationships I am also equally comfortable where I am.

*Postscript* I was hit on by two separate men tonight, one was older and hot but so not appropriate and the second was younger and drunk. The universe apparently has a really warped sense of humor. But I realized in all that, that religious men have the pick up skills equivalent to the drunk dude, who was seriously plastered... *sigh* staying classy home town I see.

I Want You To Know

I try to reassure myself of this on a fairly daily basis, if not multiple times in a day and I want to remind you of how awesome, gorgeous, funny, sweet and smart you are for who you are - yes you. Sure I might be talking to the woman behind you but I am also and more importantly talking to you.

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

Online Dating, I hate you.

I have opted to try out EH, and after it took 45 minutes of my life I will never get back filling out its survey, I seriously wondered if all the laughing at its stupidity would outweight the annoyance of it all.

For a moment it did.

Then I received my matches and realized that I filled out my application as my narcassistic personality or maybe I am crazily concerned about getting ahead, being obsessed about work and my body... because that's who I was matched with. I seriously considered re-filling it all out in the hopes I would find someone who is not going to be horrified when they find out I am a student basically living below the poverty line. But I decided to just ignore it - bad idea. I didn't check in for 3 days because I didn't want to deal with the stupid decision I had made, but I figured last night I should check, as my roommate who had also signed up was getting the same matches and we wanted to compare. I had 55 matches... and had a minor panic attack. So we laughed our way through them and in all those found 1 possible match.  I have come to the realization I'm picky, really picky on a superficial level.

Here were some of the deal breakers.

Poor basic spelling/grammar. Look I know that my grammar is horrible, BUT I am familiar with spell check and understand the value of capitalization. I am not a fan of the lower case i or spelling words like can't as cant. Cant is not a word, can't is a contraction and cannot is the full version.

Listing in the 5 things you could not live without all of the following, even worse if it's a combination:
TV
Laptop/computer
iPhone/Blackberry
Gym
Work/Career

I'm sorry, but you can live without those, and while I give you kuddos for being honest. How about friends, family even Fido...

EH also has questions that you can be asked which I hate with a passion - they're either complex questions that I am sure have some purpose but I ridiculously complex, like do you support abortion. They give you 140 characters to answer - there isn't space for yes as I support choice and no as I wouldn't chose that myself under normal circumstances. Or do you believe in hell. Well first theologically there is no support for a flaming Dante-esque, so what does hell look like? And then where are we coming from - predestination, double predestination etc. in other words I'm not going to give you a simple answer...

Or they have questions like do blue and yellow make green. REALLY?? Well I know who not to ask to make the icing green when we only have blue and yellow in the house...

I will keep ya'll updated - so far it's just an animator - but it's a slim hope since some of his questions to complex questions had simple answers opposite to my choice. So I'm not holding my breath.

Frankly all this makes me miss X more but alas that feeling needs to go somewhere else quickly.

If last night was any indication

2013 is going to involve a lot of profanity and drinking. And if this morning is any indication of how my life is going to go in the in between times I am going to need the profanity and the drinking.

Last night I decided to humorously tour a certain dating site I normally cuss at when its syrupy ads come on the tele. I laughed my way through the whole thing and then cringed. All the men who I was suggested with are not what I want. I might try filling it out all over again. But I cannot say I'm sure I want to date again. Sure I would love to have someone and at the same time I feel like the stress of trying to make something work at this point in my life is a greater hassle than all the warm feelings of another's hand in mine.

And oddly enough I get to say that with some bittersweet clarity or determination or stupidity. Your pick, because today I received a message from a friend of Ms. J's. I know him and we've hung out but I wouldn't say we're close friends. He came over with Ms. J for dinner on Saturday night. And maybe it was my (actually not mine but this recipe with some secret changes) pork tacos or my general awesomeness (not really) but when he left I had this gut feeling I had actually be awesome, like flirty, I'm so awesome love me, awesome. But I ignored it, the feeling that is. I really didn't think anything would come of it because said boy is just as, if not more so, wilderness and transient than MW. Apparently not. He called me this afternoon, waking me from my nap wondering if I had been on FB today. No, because sleep was and normally is my priority. He asked me to check it and get back to him. My stomach dropped and my cheeks flushed.

I ran myself a bath. I don't much like baths, but I find that they are good place for deeper yet more direct mental dwelling. After all I have to get out of it with an answer before it gets cold. I didn't and I still don't really know what my answer is. The truth in my heart is I know that while he is loyal, he is like a river, he's always going to be on the move and really more comfortable with that kind of life and a remote version of that life too. It's not the degree of stability I want, the life I want or the relationship I want or even see myself having. And yet as I said to Ms. J am I too old to be getting picky when I know he's kind, gentle, loyal and has a good income. Is that all I need? Is that I get?

Oh dear 2013, I don't know if we can be friends.