-My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, the latest romantic comedy I viewed
Now I know why I should not have renewed my Netflix. Once the kids go to bed, what do I do? I spend my Saturday night watching yet another romantic comedy, start feeling things again and reopen the scars that have been so neatly sewn back together. Or at least covered with flesh-tone band-aids.
I have sat down at a new coffee shop and wrote entries in my journal three different times in the past few weeks. None of them felt right to post here on my blog. I have had plenty to write about. My water heater and garage door broke all on the weekend I decided to tackle the overgrown burning bush and vines behind my shed...causing me to hit my head and what friends/coworkers are pretty sure gave me a concussion. I made it through though. What impressed me most, looking back on it, was that unlike when I fell that first winter I lived alone at this house, I didn't cry because I was alone and that no one cared. I simply cried due to the pain of the fall. For me, this was big.
My work situation, while not completely finalized for next year, I am blessed with insurance and will have a job. This too was a great weight off my shoulders, as you can't focus too well on much else when you don't know where you are going to work in a couple months. As a friend said though, a day after I heard the news, "You were so right Lisa! You put it in God's hands and didn't stress about it, you knew he had a plan and it came through!" I responded with a small smile, saying yah I guess so. It was only a couple of days after I had fallen and still wasn't feeling great, or like myself.
I also had a few not so great evenings of texts from my ex husband, the last evening I blogged, I posted some of it and was upset with myself afterwards. Mostly for ever responding to him, for letting him get to me again. I had become quite good at standing strong and knowing not to even bite back. I guess I am human and can't always do what I know is best when I am at a weak moment. With personalities like him, if there are others, I know he just wants to get a reaction out of me. No response, no reaction and eventually no more upsetting comments. I knew better, I know better, I have learned to know better. Yet, like anything in life, we at times digress.
As for my personal, what one could call love life, that is if one was in love, searching for love, or could even remember who that emotion feels like...it does not exist. My guy friend texted me something last weekend and I commented how I hadn't dated all of this year yet, why start now! Well, I know why. First, I refuse to go back to Match or any online dating website. I've learned my lesson from there, that most men, perhaps most people on there are out for something...whatever that something is, I'm not that something. I don't want to find a man because I am seeking him out. I want to meet someone I can become friends with, have fun with, talk to, share stories with. Let me step back and share what my 9 year old daughter explained to me when she was showing me a tour of her Lego hotel she had been building this evening...
"So, Mom, this is the honeymoon suite up here! This is where a man and women go to talk and learn about each other's families and see if they like each other and decide they don't want to be jealous of other people who are married or have boyfriends or girlfriends, so they dance together and fall in love."
Yes, the Lego Harry Potter and Lego Hermione were standing across from each other not realizing what they were about to get themselves into. I guess that pretty much sums it up. Although, fortunately for me, I am not having that jealous feeling every time I see another couple together anymore. In the movie tonight, I went from feeling glad I wasn't out there dating anymore, glad I wasn't in that vulnerable place to feeling awful that I wasn't in that place. I have been enjoying the time with my children, the time I am at work and the activities I have been finding to spend the days I am not at work or with my children. I haven't had that incomplete feeling that I need someone else to come home too, or that feeling that I wanted to be dating. Not until tonight, when I allowed myself to get sucked back into a romantic comedy and remember what I am missing or rather what I may be missing. As they reminded me in the movie, it's not about living happily ever after, rarely does that happen, but yet it does in the movies...for this leading lady who had been through a divorce, she gets her happily ever after, after all. Yup, I know, it's a movie. At the same time, how many of my friends are at home watching movies with their husbands, or at least at this hour, sleeping in bed next to their husbands. Okay, I'll end my pity party now, or at least let you be excused from it.
So, at the Learning Express Store today, I was looking at Legos with my son, my daughter looking at other items nearby and a women questions me about something, then a moment later asks me how old my son is. I explain that he is 6 and she excitedly answers that her grandson is seven. Ok, I wasn't sure why this was exciting at the moment, but then she pats her hand on my arm, smiles and enthusiastically says, "My son, he's single you know!"
Yes, I didn't really know how to respond to that. I dont' think it sunk in until after we had left the store. Was I suppose to be flattered that this Grandmother thought I appeared to be a suitable person for his son, or scared that there are mother's out there trying to find dates for their grown sons. Again, as I sit here now, reflecting on it, I'm still not sure what to think about it.
I realize I am doing pretty well. I am set for work for now. My kids are doing amazingly well with school and life. I have been spending more time with friends and working on getting a better garden going this year and I am even eating healthier. Tomorrow I am beginning a five day healthy eating cleanse I believe it's called, through my friend who is a Beachbody coach, who is also providing me with some optional workouts and interval trading both for the gym as well as at home. So I am working on my ongoing goal of being healthier as well. Something is just missing, which I haven't figured out yet, but I will continue to work on it.
I guess as a side note, my co-worker and now good friend pointed out a week or so ago, how much I have grown the past few years since she met me. I know exactly what she meant too. After explained to her how, while it was fun having a man 12 years younger hitting on me at a bar/restaurant and having the manager also appear interested, really, neither of them were wise to spend any time or energy around. As flattering as it was, I no longer need or desire that kind of interest. After hunting so diligently for a man, for "the one", I realized I was going about in all the wrong way. At times I feel now that doing nothing won't help either. But then I am reminded that I am not really, "doing nothing". I am becoming whole and healthy on my own. I am not only showing my kids that I can be successful and happy on my own, I am also finally convincing myself too.
Watching the movie tonight made me feel rather concerned about when will I be ready to date again...but I guess that was the point from the quote, that no one ever is ready, when an opportunity presents its self, you just have to decide to be brave and take that leap. Tonight, I am not feeling that braveness or strength, so I guess it's a good thing that opportunity isn't there. I'll let you know when it is though, as the co-star of the movie tonight showed, when you find the one that inspires you, that believes in you, that is when the writing really gets good.
