Early Retirement

I started writing this blog, because I figured if I was awake maybe putting some of my worries and rants down in print might help me dish off some anxiety.  I hoped maybe it would allow me to work through some of the stress and tension I experienced on a daily basis. I certainly wasn’t having any success tossing and turning at night.  I usually ended up exhausted from the ordeal of attempting to force sleep.  So, I started writing down what bothered me, or stressed me out, or sometimes what interested me. When I first started this blog, I was living with a man that was a sorry mess.  As I look back on my life, there are a few episodes I wish I could completely erase.  This man was one of them.

As the relationship unwound, I found myself filled with anxiety and I brought that anxiety here. I also found myself awake at night worried about my career and supporting my family.  In those days, I was struggling financially, after a divorce where I ended up with ALL the marital debt.  That was my reward for marrying a man who never paid his bills. I worried about everything. It kept me up.  I ranted through it all here.  My life is in a very different place than when I began this blog almost four years ago.

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It’s Been Such A Long Time

Has it really been over a year since I posted here?

Really?

Why haven’t I stopped in, stayed a while, and rambled on here since last July?!!!

It isn’t because I don’t like it here.  I love this place.

It isn’t because I’ve been sleeping the whole night through.  I haven’t.

It isn’t because I have nothing to write about. Oh, that is most certainly not the case.

The truth is this:  I’ve been so stinking busy with real life, that I haven’t had a moment to render my version of this crazy life into written prose…until now.

Let’s get caught up, shall we?

In my last post, which was just over a year ago,  I wrote about three men that I was, well, for lack of a better term, talking to.  It was a bit more than discussion for each of these, but a LOT less than actual dating.  I don’t know exactly where that put these interactions…and I no longer care. In that post, I mentioned Man #1, Man #2, and Man #3.  I know, it sounds a lot like Let’s Make A Deal.  What’s behind door number 1?  Yeah, whatever.

As if dating were that easy.

Dating…Unintentionally

The dating site I was on seems to have generated some quality interest of late. Yes, I admit, my absence here Is due to enjoying vacation time, but also because I’ve spent said vacation time working honing my cycling skills. Yes, I’ve reached the 63-mile marker in length of ride, and I’ve reached a 14.4 mph on a 49 mile ride which is decent. I’m still recovering from that ride, two days later. Other than hills, we pushed a pretty steady 18-22 mph. which is far faster than I ever ride on my own. But enough of that. I’ve been working out. My body is showing the results, in my tummy area (good-bye muffin top) and below my knees (hello cut calves and serious cycling definition). Now, if only I could obtain the cyclist’s butt and thighs. All in good time, I tell myself.

But this is not about my workout regimen, this is about my love life, or my almost love life.

He’s Handsome…He’s Sensitive…He’s Into Me…He’s Brilliant…He’s Employed…He’s…

Have you ever been on a trip in a new city, or maybe even a familiar city, where you are just cruising along so nicely, everything is going just as planned, and then, somehow, you get absorbed in the conversation going on in the car or you allow yourself that one little daydream for a few minutes and the next thing you know, you’ve missed the exit and you are now in completely uncharted territory. Nothing is familiar and you have only an inkling of how to get back to your original path. This, describes my life perfectly over the last decade. More recently, it describes my life in the last few days or weeks.

If You Want Dates, Avoid This

After plowing through online dating profiles, you’ve finally found one, or two, that you might actually be interested in meeting. You initiate, she responds favorably. Within a few messages back and forth, numbers are exchanged. Soon a phone conversation or two transpires. You are more certain than ever that you’d like to meet this person. So, you take the plunge, call her up or text her and ask her if she’d like to meet up this evening at a local outdoor patio/pub/restaurant you both know of. She says she’d love to but she’s made other plans. Okay, that’s fair. So a few days later, you call her up, ask again, and you are turned down again. “Hmmm,” you wonder. So you try a third time. Same story. You’d chalk all this up to the realization that maybe this woman really just has no interest in meeting up with you, except for the haunting truth that this is not the only woman that this very scenario has played out with. You’re beginning to notice a pattern, and the pattern is one of you being refused. Let’s assume that the woman actually would like to meet you, or you have no indication otherwise, what could be the reason for being turned down? I think I might have the answer.

Breaking the Dating Rules

Friday night. According to all the “dating” rules, I should not be admitting publicly in any kind of venue that I am at home and not out on a date. I don’t care what the rules say. I’m having a fantastic time. I’ve been grinding away for two months on major work projects. Projects that revitalized me because I felt they were purposeful…and challenging…and interesting. Projects that kept me energized and distracted me from worrying about any number of things.

Okay, sure. Let’s be clear. If Perfect Relationship came along, I would hope I’d have the sense to go for it. The problem is, I don’t believe in “Perfect Relationship”? I just don’t think it exists and I believe that perpetrating the myth that a “Perfect Relationship” exists and is even viable, is incredibly damaging.

The Goldilocks Brief

2:23 a.m. The big projects I was working on have come up to their deadline. Proposals submitted, bids received, offers accepted, contracts signed. Two out of three of the projects were successful, the third, a surprising disappointment in some ways. This third project, was not the most profitable one, so having to go back to the drawing board on this is not a horrible defeat. For me, it means, I get to return home during my evenings. I get to spend time with my kids. I get to live a bit more normal life. Which means, I’m wide awake at 2:23 a.m., for no apparent reason.

Mr. Just Right, from my last post, ended up pushing our meet up for cocktails on Wednesday to dinner and a movie Sunday evening. He showed up, promptly at 5:30 p.m. While he’s wonderful enough on paper, I knew immediately that he wasn’t Mr. Just Right after all. I don’t usually know this right away, but this time, I did. Maybe it was the fact that even though he’s only a few years older than me, he looked as frail and hunched over as my 90-year-old grandma used to look, when she was 90 years old. Not that I judge people entirely on how they look, but let’s face it: when you’re looking for a romantic partner, you have to, at least, be attracted enough to want to get romantic. I knew instantly that this was not going to get romantic. I also knew instantly that this was going to be a very long evening. Fortunately, much of it was going to be a movie, but I had to get through dinner first.

Goldilocks and Dating

Online dating is so much like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If you’re a woman, you can pretty much put up a profile, and if your profile is decent and your pictures are good, you can just dangle that bait in the water and watch the fish come swarming to your inbox. But then the real work begins. It’s just like Goldilocks sampling the porridge, the chairs and the beds of The Three Bears: this one’s too hot, that one’s too cold, will the next one be just right?

Married Men

Ever go into a business meeting or some social event and notice how many people are married? Now, I’m not exactly looking for Mr. Right. As each day passes, I become more and more convinced that the relationship/marriage boat sailed long ago and I was probably at the airport when it did. No. I’m not looking for someone to complete me. I’m not looking for a friend to benefit with. I’m not looking to get involved in any kind of romantic relationship at all. Not only that, but I live in a location that is billed as one of the worst places in this nation to be if you are a single woman. I’m not fooling myself. The odds for me to meet up with some decent guy I’m somewhat compatible with are slim. That I might have a romantic connection with the guy reduces the odds almost 100%. Even though I’m not looking,even though I don’t really care, there are times when I look around and I notice that all the men in the room are married. I then notice that most of the women in the room are married too…except for me…and maybe one or two others. Most of the time this doesn’t bother me. I like being single and being in a room of men who are married, especially if they are happily married, means I’m not going to get hit on at the company conference. I like that. It means I can actually have a conversation with these men that focuses on something meaningful that won’t necessarily lead to the bedroom.

I feel this way, most of the time, except for the meeting I attended tonight.

Finally! Funded!

Three days short of being a full month from the date of the accident, I called my new lender to let them know that the insurance pay0ff had gone through.  When I got through to my contact, I was greeted with the words, “Oh yes, your loan funded this morning.”

So ended a month of wondering when the next call from the lender would come and what the requirements would be for me this time.  So ended a month of wondering how long the process would take and whether or not I’d be car and loan hunting again soon.

So ended the last of my March and the first of my April.  A small blemish in my otherwise wonderful year.