Friday nights

Typically, I have plans each Friday night at 8pm. It's a standing appointment (yet one more thing for another post). I've been trying to get out of going to this appointment EVERY Friday. I'd like to have a life that doesn't include going to this thing. I have yet to get that so called life so I continue to go.

Tonight, I was fully intent on not going at all. I had plans at 6 and I had every intention of missing the 8pm thing. But my friend C decided to bully me into going to the 8pm. So I dragged her to my 6pm Car Club meeting. Where it was me and C...the others didn't show. Dicks...

But I got to hold court with C. She's a great audience. She'll laugh at all the right places and doesn't argue. But lately she has been giving me shit back. It's becoming a bit more even sided...I'm going to have to stay on top of this because I think she might actually out sarcasm me...she's tricky like that.

So I was already in a good mood when we showed to the 8pm and sure as shit...I had a good time at the 8pm. My girls T and A were there and it was like some big slumber party. Giggling, and snorting (T!!!). A lot of the giggling was at inappropriate times; which just makes it more fun.

Just when I start feeling sorry for myself...I get to be with people that WANT to be around me. That's humbling for me because there weren't a lot of people that wanted to be around me 3 years ago. That speaks a lot to me about how much I've changed and how much I have to lose if I were to get lazy. Sometimes I have to be reminded about that.

So here's the story about dating - Part 1

So dating…I have a lot of practice with this but not a lot of experience. I have gone on 3 dates with one guy but only first dates with others. I take that back, I went on a 2nd date with a guy but it was about 2 months between the 1st and the 2nd one so I don’t know that that counts. I haven’t really dated for about 3 years. That’s the amount of time between my divorce and now. I spent the first couple of months trying to find ANYONE to give me some kind of acceptance. Please….just throw me a bone, wouldja? I signed up for every dating service. I went to bars on a regular basis (which is a whole different story). I couldn't work hard enough to get attention. Surprisingly, I got nothing…which is good because I had this terrible fear that these men were going to get to know me and realize what a loser I really was. So it took constant vigilance on my part to keep these men at an arm’s length away. Something of a talent, I think.

So you might ask, “Why am I dating”? Because I’m ready. I truly do believe that I am in a place where I am ready to meet that one person that is going to be my partner in crime. I really do believe that. And I have spent the last 3 years getting to this point. The one guy that we did a first date and then 2 months later did a 2nd date? I stopped talking to him because I really wasn’t attracted to him and after 2 months I thought that that was superficial of me so I contacted him again. He was funny and smart and really nice. But physically, it wasn’t there. But I thought I’d try again. We got together for dinner and we then sat around my apartment, we were going to watch a movie. Well, that’s when Chuckles seemed to think it was at that point that he should go in for a kiss. I have to admit that, at this point in my life, I was not ready for anything intimate. But I hadn’t told him this nor had I really put a lot of thought around it. See, I thought I was ready. But when he leaned in for the kiss…..I panicked and I ran to the kitchen. Literally…I panicked and I ran to the kitchen. Where I promptly tried to act like nothing had happened and we were just talking with a wall between us. I know that I botched the date up at that point and that was the last guy I went on a date with for the next year. I just knew that it wasn’t time for that.

Fast forward to today and I suddenly feel ready to sow my wild oats. But first…I had some unfinished business. I was still hanging onto the ex. We were “friends”. We hung out, watched movies, and went on bike rides, dinner, etc…it was like we were dating but not married anymore. Free to come and go as we choose but no commitment. This has been going on for the 3 years I’ve been divorced. I know that I held out hope that we would get back together. I did everything in my power to give him what he wanted, hoping that he would want me back. But I had already done the damage. Although I changed, his opinion of me didn’t change as much as I had. So I never really had a chance.

May 5, 2007 is the day I became damaged goods. And it took me exactly 3 years to move past that. In the past, I had actually said to people that I think I would die if I were to cut the ex out of my life. Like I would literally die if I stopped talking to him. At the time, I didn’t even see how crazy that was. Those in my life were so patient with me…I’m sure they were all so tired of hearing me go on and on about how I was never going to get over him. I was never going to be loved like that again. That I don’t deserve to have a 2nd chance with him….on and on and on….towards the end even I was tired of me saying it. But I felt powerless (not the first time or situation where I feel powerless) to stop the actions that I was doing with my ex. I felt that I had to follow this to the end. So it ended…my way (small amount of satisfaction on my part) on May 17, 2010. That is over 3 years (by like 12 days but who’s counting?) from when he asked for the divorce. I was suspended in this world in my head where I lived around and for my ex. I was trying so hard to move on and show him how I was going to be better off without him; that I never really moved on. I was stagnant…I felt like I had missed out on so many things. But in reality…it took me the exact amount of time that I needed to get through that. Towards the end, I actually had remind myself to act as though he was the only option I had. I had gotten so tired of the way things were between us but I still felt like I had to follow it to the end. I was supposed to go through all of that in order to move on.

The past 3 years have been HUGE in my life. And I say that because I have a life now that I never had before the divorce or even before the marriage. I say I became damaged goods after the divorce but in reality I was damaged from very early on. Not to use as an excuse, but rather to set the stage. I was broken and never really whole until lately. And that is only because I have worked my ass off to get to this place. I’ve done the cliché “finding myself” and I, at first, did not like what I found. I did not like the person I was before I got married, while I was married and after I was first divorced. My character defects are a mile long but they were glaringly bad before the divorce. And now, I see where my part was in the marriage failing. And it’s a pretty large part. But these character defects are things I DO have control over. These are the things that I don’t like and I don’t have to be like that. That is a big deal. I was one of those black & white people. Either it was or it wasn’t. No grey area. I had no color in my life. I was constantly in the dark. And I had to work really hard to come away from that dark area.

So…why the post? Because I’ve come to the realization that I have no control over this situation and that I never did. I know that God had his arms wrapped around me good and tight for these last 3 years. I’ve gone through a lot of things and I’ve come out on the other side. Maybe not perfect, but intact, sane, happier then I have ever been and smelling pretty good. To me, that means God has something more in mind for me. I just have to be patient. So…the saying “Just when you give up looking, that’s when you’ll find the one”…I’m trying to find a way to trick my brain into that mode. Because I’m willing…and I’m really good at stop thinking about something. It’s the staying stopped. That sums up a lot of my issues….stay stopped!

Next installment? Dating services stories and how I’m trying to narrow my requirements down to a few simple sentences. Which, from this post, is obvious I will have trouble doing.

I have this elaborate alarm clock system. My body lacks the “switch” that wakes me up every morning at the same time. I will sleep and sleep and sleep until I either have to go the bathroom or I’m awoken by an alarm or someone else. And I’m very good about sleeping through alarms. Not that I can ignore that insanely annoying beeping. But I can hit the snooze without really waking up.

So I came up with this great plan. I bought an alarm clock that only goes off for an hour. Now, this sucks. My old alarm would continue to go off every 9 minutes until I shut it off. We worked well together. I would slam it off and she’d come back in some insane 9 minutes and jerk me out of sleep. Well, she died. And rightfully so, she was about 2 years old and had been beaten within an inch of her life every day. She had worked hard and deserved a hero’s parade. Unfortunately, the day she died I was late for a meeting and she got a quick toss in the trash while I mumbled something about being a lazy bitch….so much for loyalty.

So I bought a new clock. Cheap; you get what you pay for. I realized later that the same saying is true for dating services but that’s another story…Well, the new cheap clock broke after about 4 months. The snooze button on top actually lost the word SNOOZE because I hit it so many times that it had worn off. So I tossed that one.

I then decided to spend more than $10 on an alarm clock. I went to Target and their selection was pretty slim but going to Wal-Mart isn’t really an option. I just can’t stand going there. So I paid $20 and come up with this fancy one that actually turns colors every time you smack it. And I decided to move it across the room so that I had to get out of bed to turn it off. This all worked well until I realized that it only went off for an hour. Something I learned by mistake. If I had taken the time to read the literature…I might have known this. But it was too late. I had thrown that out with the box already.

So here comes my plan. I bought a docking station around this time for my iPod. I found that it has 2 alarms on it. Alarm A and Alarm B. I could set them to go off around the time my color alarm clock stops beeping. Genius! So I set A to go off at 6:45 and B to go off at 7:00. Well, they both can’t go off at the same time and I have to be aware of turning it on the night before. I have to make sure that its light up. So now, I have to turn on my colored alarm clock (is that politically correct?) and either Alarm A or Alarm B…seems to be working but I’ve thrown in one more thing. My pulse meter watch…it has an alarm too and I can snooze it for 10 minutes. So…I have at least 3 things going off each morning. In the hopes that I’ll be able to wake up in enough time to get to work.

I won’t hold my breath but I would sure like to have an alarm that talks me into waking up instead of kicking me in the gut and standing back to smile while I curse and plead for more sleep.

My need to be terminally unique...buy a unique car (check), talk about things that are unique (check) and try to be humble about the fact that I'm more unique then you (....nope....)

Willingness to be humble

I find my life funny sometimes. I spend an enormous amount of time plotting and scheming to get things to go my way. They, of course, do not go the way I want them to go so I get pissy. I get to thinking really nasty thoughts about how things are crappy and nothing is ever going to go my way. And then, poof, I get what I needed. Not what I wanted, but what I needed. God knows what I need better than I do. Which is interesting because I'm pretty sure I know what I need...Guess I need to give the big guy some credit because I've got a pretty good life. There is not a lot that I would change with my life. Maybe be less stupid with my money...maybe be better about cleaning my house...maybe be more open to new things. All stuff that I have control over and are the first things to go when I get overwhelmed. Maybe that's something I need to work on?

I have decided to do art. Now, I say that because I have spent the first 35 years of my life telling people I have no creativity or talent. I truly believe that but lately I've just decided that it's OK if I try something and it doesn't work. It's OK to have an idea and it to end up looking stupid or failing. I don't have to tell people what I'm working on. I just can show the end result. So, I'm taking things slow. I have, of course, spent several hundred dollars already on getting the perfect workbench created and painted. I have spent hours and lots of dollars going over the supplies that I think I need. I have organized the whole thing (which is really satisfying). Now I just have to do....I have a notebook with ideas...I just need to do....and I want to make sure that they are unique things. I don't want to copy people's stuff but I want to do things that are attractive to me and that means looking at other people's stuff...

Dating? Well, let's just say that I'm out there and not really loving it. I went with a guy for about a month and then he went cold. So I guess that one was over. Now I'm talking to a couple different people and some are promising (one in particular). But I can't help but compare to others that I find attractive. I don't want to tear any of these guys clothes off. And that is what I think I have been missing most of my life. The passion. Maybe it can grow in a relationship. It doesn't need to be there in the beginning?!