Release

I let him go.

It was a relief for me, but I'm wondering if it wasn't also a relief for him.
No one likes giving bad news. But it is so much better to give it than to wait and hope the other person does it first.

From my list of probable fallacies:

Once something is started, it can't be stopped without bitterness apparent for all to see.

It was a fallacy; at least, it appears that way at the moment. What I wanted to do was have it be simple. Have there be no explanation, because explanations often sound like excuses. I have no intention of leaving the dance community, and I wouldn't want him to either. But I also didn't want to encourage false hope. I do feel like a number of people have given me false hope and incomplete breaks, and I've found that horrible.

The answer in the end was simple: take my time. Give it a chance. Find the light in him and see if it encouraged my own. And then simply tell the truth. He said okay, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, gave me a hug, and said we were good. I can't help but think he was getting frustrated at my busy schedule and lack of initiative. As he should have been.

I can't even begin to list (because I don't want to put myself through enumerating them all) all the guys who have given me headaches over the years with their lengthy and detailed explanations as to why they couldn't date me. Somewhere there has to be a middle ground between no explanation and something that leaves the hearer searching for chinks in a very logically presented and well-thought-out presentation of a rejection. Therapist J asked me why I even listened when the last major crush went on his whole explainy thing.

I think last major crush thought he was doing the right thing by explaining himself and by talking it over (and over and over and over). At the time I thought he was doing the right thing too. We were really fricken proud of ourselves about it. It was only after I really thought about how much unnecessary information I'd listened to and how little time he spent getting to know me in the first place, that I started to feel dumped upon.

I don't want to cause people the same headache. And while I think when a relationship ends there should be some coming to an understanding and some discussion, I also think that laying all your issues on someone as a reason is not the way to go -- for their sake. And when you're not even in a relationship, when you're choosing not to get started with a relationship, the less headache for the other person, the better.

So I don't want to be too self-congratulatory, because I really don't know if his response was relief or a defense mechanism. I choose to believe that since he said we're good, we're good. In the end the simplest explanation -- I don't feel that way -- was all there needed to be.

Single

So, so, so much of my identity is bound up in being single. Being on my own. Being independent. Different ways of saying being alone.

Therapist and I are exploring this idea of being alone-independent-single.  It's weird. Therapy is weird. Someone listens to what I'm saying, don't realize I'm saying, or what I'm not saying, and tells me what I'm saying or not-saying. And then I'm like, whoa, because he just said in one sentence that thing that I am taking my whole life to say. And it sounds so simple and obvious and so frightening I cannot accept that it's true.

When the boundaries between me and my willingness to believe the truth are thick, I continue past the saying and not-saying and add on not-hearing.

I love working in my yard pulling weeds. However, I have a really hard time staying present for pulling weeds. I tend to have imaginary conversations, which would better be described as me-talking/someone-listening-and-being-very-interested-and-asking-me-many-questions. Whoever it is, is usually someone that I kind of like in a squishy-innards way, and is quite often someone who has already turned away. When it's someone who is still a contender, it begs the question, why am I not having this conversation for real.

Because conversations don't go like that.

In conversations I have to listen to the other person tell me about their day no matter how much I am just not interested in their job and the thing they had to get that didn't work even though it was a brand-new thing.

In conversations I have awkward moments when I'm going to say something and they're going to say something and I'm nice so I don't want to talk over anyone so we both stop and that's how I find out if someone's not nice, because they just keep talking. But then we have to figure out who gets to talk first.

In conversations I don't keep habitually finishing others' sentences like I do in real life because I can be a bit impatient.

I was having a conversation-in-my-head. It was with someone I could have with the snap of my fingers. Who I don't want and am not attracted to.

Except every day I let the idea in a little, mull it over, play with it a little.

But then I think about the time when it will be over.

I remember the last time someone came this close. I held out my hand, he grabbed on, and then he tumbled faster than I did, right into all kinds of future plans that I wasn't ready for and I got scared and I knew -- I knew -- that I would calm down if I broke it off.

The panic evaporated and I could relax again.

I script and practice how I'm going to let him down, how I'm not going to feed him 20 minutes of bullshit detailing all I've gone through in the last year and how that contributes to Not Ready and Need To Be On My Own.

Last time, the time when it will all be over was the time after it began. It hasn't even begun and I'm thinking about being on the other side.

And yet I don't go there. I don't say the dreaded words, "we need to talk." I sit down next to him to take my shoes off, let him hold my hand as we walk out the door at the end of the evening.

Do you see how far I'm talking around what I'm supposed to be talking about? Which is this identity issue.

Some examples.

1. I bought a house.
2. I ripped up carpet on a Wednesday after work.
3. I ripped up carpet at 9:00 on a Friday.
4. I painted rooms and their ceilings in a color palate that would make many a man -- and I expect, this particular man -- shake his head in disbelief.
5. I drove here, and there, and back again.
6. I moved to the Grand Canyon because a guy broke my heart. (Did I fail to tell this story? Maybe later. Maybe never.)
7. I always liked the guy my friend liked, especially if he liked her back.
8. I had to start school a year early, but Brownies a year late.
9. My legs were too short to reach the hollow below the swing. I was the only one who needed a push.

And now some of the most meaningful conversations that give me what I think I want, I have alone, even though they are with someone who exists.

But he does listen when I talk. He isn't just waiting to talk, himself.

So I'd have that. If I would let myself.

I can never get all the weeds. After two hours I'm tired. And the hedges still need to be trimmed, and all the other weeds, in all the other places, pulled, and the mulch spread, and the ivy cut back, and the basement vacuumed, and the kitchen floor scrubbed clean, and the living room painted and the gutters cleaned and repaired and the upstairs walls explained and repaired and painted and the vinyl removed or remedied and the furniture moved and the boxes unpacked... And I wonder what I was getting into.

 

I imagine that I could turn around tomorrow, dial a number, and have all of it -- everything I've ever wanted. Have motorcycle rides, ice cream after dance, sweet thoughtful texts that show he was listening, help with this never-ending project of house, and the last dance every Tuesday night.

What I will need to give in return is too daunting. Too precious.

S is right. I need to do backbends.

Things I think I get now

I think I get it when women try to dress their boyfriends. They're thinking,

If he'd just wear something other than t-shirts and jeans, or lose 10 lbs, or do something different with his hair, I think I could like him. I want to like him. But first I have to make him presentable.

Supposedly none of that shit matters when you really like someone.

I don't know if that's bullshit or not.

The little things eat at me and become the big things. I dated a guy whose cell phone ring I hated. I broke up with him at least seven times. Not because of the cell phone ring. But the cell phone ring was really really annoying.

I think I get it, why I keep going for the guys who are not interested and/or too busy for me. I'm thinking,

If I can get him to slow down and pay attention to me, I must really be something. I must really be that amazing that I can get someone like that to totally change for me.

If I can get him to totally change his life. Totally change his look, his behavior, if I am worth all that, I must be worth something.

I get, too, that this is all flawed thinking, Yes, the right guy will have loads of time for me, will want to be around me frequently, will do not whatever I want, but many things that add to the good and make efforts minimize the bad or annoying. I think it will feel less like "he totally changed for me" but "he was right there, right from the beginning." I've never really looked at someone and thought "he would be 'the one' IF." I don't really like that way of thinking. I don't want to feel like I need to change anyone's appearance or habits. I don't think I could manufacture attraction for someone by changing these things. I think it's either there or it isn't, and efforts to rationalize why it isn't there, or remove the reasons it isn't there through external changes, aren't going to make it there and are just going to lead to frustration.

But when I get to know some people, I do see the IFs. Even as I feel it's not up to me to change those IFs.

Befloor and After

I can't believe I didn't post a picture of the finished floor product. Chalk it up to setting automatic posting (if I don't do that I will tweek posts endlessly) and not being able to find the cable to connect the good camera to the computer. I took some pictures in the daylight with the iThing, so you can really see the difference.

You remember this disaster, right?

This is what I came home to after our yoga workshop weekend. I was a little bit like, whoa, three days and they've only gotten this far on the stairs. The rest of the floors were done. The stairs still had a long way to go. You can see that the risers are exposed but the treads still need work. The risers don't even look that great here; there were lots of dings.

The next day, the stairs were pristine. They still had to fill in a lot of the gaps with wood filler, but their piney beauty was now apparent.

And here they are, finished and gorgeous.

Dear readers, here are some things to know:

Sometimes, you really should not D it your Y. I am a huge DIY girl, to the point of stupidity sometimes. Like right now I should be coordinating some people to help me unpack and move furniture (really, we could have a big ol house-based dance and then people could move stuff up and it would be done), but I know I won't. Partly because it's asking people for help and partly because I want to Stain All The Things before I move them back in. But floors as damaged as these were? Totally need the professionals.

The other thing is a little more esoteric: People come into your life for odd reasons, and they are never the reason you think. Recall that I found my realtor through a broken boy who broke my heart. I found West Coast Swing -- and my floor guys, and community, and a new guy-possibility -- through someone who turned out not to be the right guy for me at all. Letting people be who they are and play the roles they end up playing, rather than the roles I want them to play, is a continuous challenge.

But it brings good things, if I let it.

5 reasons to give it a chance

1. I get to talk. If we both talk at the same time, he shuts up and lets me talk. Of course, I do this too.
2. I'm taking the time to practice my ideals of being kind, of not gossiping, of reserving judgment, of not jumping to conclusions. Of finding out.
3. I don't feel at all kooky or goofy talking about yoga. Even the spiritual aspects. But maybe that's me. Or maybe it's that, okay, this sounds horrid, but I don't care. I don't care what he thinks of me. And I think that's what the change is starting to be, letting go of caring what other people think and of how they might judge me. Because that's their problem, if they judge me. Not mine.
4. He's not anyone other than who he is: not pretentious or slick or charming. And I don't have to be either, even if who I am is not someone who feels the same way.
5. He's not an extrovert. That means I don't have to live in an extrovert's world, competing to be heard, fighting not to fall back into the shadows.

Hell yeah you can do yoga!

Cool thing about getting to know someone: I am now an expert on something.

All of a sudden I'm an expert on yoga (which I'm not) but to him I am, because it's totally outside his experience. I'm sure he's an expert on something too. We all are.

So I'm trying to explain what yoga is.

When I teach I start with breathing and the physical practice. That's what they signed up for (maybe). I start explaining here, with posture and alignment, things that make sense because everyone has a body.

Because he does want to get to know me, and because anytime the question is "What did you do today?" the answer is going to include "yoga," we return to this again and again.

He says, "I don't think I would be good at yoga."

 Source: fridgedoor.com via Katherine on Pinterest

Can you breathe with awareness? Can you be here, now? Can you pay attention to what your body and your life are telling you? Hell yeah, you can do yoga. You've probably done it a hundred times already. You just thought you were dancing or playing or fixing something or falling in love.

Why mantras

A little over two years ago I walked into my first Kundalini class with K, and things have never quite been the same.

My yoga practice was mostly just a physical practice at the time, something we friends did together, and went out to eat after. Sometimes it seemed like there was too much breathing. Savasana was the hardest pose. When there was a substitute I would be irritable, impatient. Why are they so slow? How long are we going to hold this pose? I wanted "my" teacher.

Then I was on spring break. I had my days free, and the studio was doing a lunchtime series. I had been curious about what this "Kundalini" was, so J and I went.

The first thing K had us do was get up and dance.

I love to dance, if that isn't obvious. I was taking Afro-Modern dance, and sometimes I went to the Yogarhythmics at the studio. We noodled about for a bit. We did some sun salutes. And then we did these kooky exercises that we had to do for set amounts of time.

And there were reasons we did them.

We chopped through the negative thoughts and experiences, we pushed away the debris, we surrounded ourselves with protection like giant butterfly wings.

And all the while she spoke words that I had no recollection of ever hearing. Words that, if I ever heard them, never stuck.

You are light; you are bright; you are beautiful. You are kind. You are strong. Wahe guru.*

It couldn't have been much more than a week later that the guy I was seeing wrote me an e-mail explaining that he just didn't have anything to give right then. I was far from home, administering standardized tests for the state, staying in a room with three other women I barely knew. I read this e-mail while the kids were testing. We came back to the B&B after testing, after lunch. I curled up on the couch, covered myself with a blanket, and repeated the mantra until I fell asleep.

When I woke up, it wasn't okay but it was better.

Three days later I was back at home. I called my realtor.** I found my house a few days after that.

For the next year and half, K was "my" teacher. I went to her class weekly, rarely missing unless I was ill. She became my close friend, my guide, tried to help me as much as she could when I lost my job. Through teacher training, I've been able to let go of the idea that I have one teacher or one practice. But I still make it to her class as often as I can, and I still find that insight comes to me through meditation and through mantra.

Today as we were chanting Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo*** I remembered.

I don't have to be anyone but myself.

I don't have to do anything that is not true to who I am.

It's hard, sometimes, to do that. It's hard sometimes to know who that true self is. And when I come up against something that's new, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, my instinct is to run from it, because it's not what I know. My instinct is to resist.

So now I'm getting to know someone new. Someone who is not like anyone I've ever dated before, except the very first person I dated. Someone who doesn't fit in with my idea of who I date, at least not as far as I know at this point. I don't know what to do. I feel it's important to negotiate this situation honorably, without creating tension for myself or him, because this person is part of the dance community, and I've only just gotten that to be a not-awkward place for me to be.

But there is a teacher inside me. There is a self that knows what to do. I will try to be still and listen.



* Wahe guru means a lot of things, depending on who you ask. Wonderful teacher. Hooray for existence. A greeting. A name of God. A guru, or teacher, takes a student from darkness into light.
** ...whose name was given to me by another guy who had separated himself from me for similar reasons three months before.
*** I call upon Divine Wisdom -- again, among other things. I listen to all the teachers in me and around me.

9 probable fallacies

1. If he knew my secrets, he would find me too complex.
2. If only one person is interested, that means I'm settling for the only thing I'm being offered.
3. Similar education, politics, and religion are indicators of compatibility. (Extra bonus example of fallaciousness: Whether these things are similar or different is unknown.)
4. Once something is started, it can't be stopped without bitterness apparent for all to see.
5. Having a large group of strange-quaintances know about my personal life is bad.
6. My friends will think he's not good enough.
7. He won't be able to relate to my friends.
8. He won't be able to relate to me.
9. Letting someone care gives him the power to destroy me.

Here I am: jumping the gun.

All the possibilities. All of them.

Is it a good thing that I'm trying to date again? Last week I spent a night in tears, refusing to do yoga, refusing to meditate, refusing to do anything at all to take myself away from the story I keep telling myself.

If we haven't formed the habit of staying in our center, when things get rough we will run in ever-widening circles away from or around our center. We may be more comfortable with our histrionics and with the drama ... than we are with the simple practice of staying centered.

I'm always so private about my dating. Because it doesn't work out. Because I'm ashamed it doesn't work out. Because talking about it might jinx it. Because by the time there is anything to say it's over. Because I shouldn't have to be dating at my age. Because I've still never had a long-term relationship. Because everyone remembers being single, but everyone also remembers being secure in a loving relationship. I don't know how that feels.

J says it is good that I am trying to date again, because failure is not an option.

The problem is that failure is an option.

It has been an option all this time.

In such a state of contraction, it is just as impossible to let go as it is to open up to the potential freshness of the next moment.

It is an option I cannot control.

When I say "I am open to all possibilities" that includes the possibility that has become my current reality: the possibility that I will be alone. All the possibilities means all the possibilities.

I found a way to buy a house.

I found a way to keep earning money.

I have not found a way to do this, in twenty years of trying. I know nothing more than I did then. This is probably not true. I know a lot of things that don't work. I know there is not a formula, and that works with one person doesn't work with another.

I have been told that there must be something very wrong with me, if I have not been in a long-term relationship at this point in my life.

Unfortunately, the thing that feels most concrete is often our deep place of holding and our scars.

More than once.

... the monsters aren't stuck to us, we are stuck to the monsters. We become stuck to them by thinking and believing that they are who we are.

I know that the sort of men I am attracted to are
not finished with something that is finished with them
arrogant
concerned with material things
extroverted
strong-willed
bad at listening

They have some good qualities too, but they are not good for me, because they choose not to be.

Not only is the same thing happening, we choose the same reaction to our problem.

Every time I open this book, she says what I need to hear.

Any attempt to keep the heart open when we most wish to close down is a movement in the right direction.

Source: amazon.com via Katherine on Pinterest

In which, for the first time, I openly blog about the horrors of dating

When I started this blog, the tag line was slightly different. I described it as "The adventures of a single girl and her house." Recently, with no fanfare, I took out the "single." Not because I wasn't single. But because I felt like I needed to stop claiming that as part of my identity. I don't want to be single, so I shouldn't use it as a descriptor.

This has not made me less single.

Truth be told I wasn't even trying to date. After another one of my Divorced-Guy-Not-Ready-and-Not-Right-for-Me-Anyway mishaps (sometime I'll tell you about the other two, and why I bought a house, which are the same thing), after losing my job, my Jerk Detector was broken and I needed to get a few things straightened out.

>Source: 25.media.tumblr.com via Katherine on Pinterest

I wish everyone did that.

I'm trying to get back out there, but I have no idea how except the same old strategies that have led to meeting Divorced Guys who are Not Ready and Can't Communicate to Save Their Lives. No one has any useful suggestions for me, so I just keep going on first dates.

The good news is the last couple first dates have not been horrible. Last summer I was going on dates with rude, arrogant people who told me how they told off their boss or who didn't even wait for me before leaving a room in an art exhibit. These have been better. Conversation and laughter have flowed. What there is not is second dates.

Source: via Katherine on Pinterest

Unfortunately, there are lies. I am wondering when I'm going to meet someone who doesn't lie. These lies are probably well-intentioned, because no one wants to feel like someone did not enjoy meeting them. But there is a difference between "Thank you for meeting me" and "Let's do this again." There is a difference between a handshake and a hug. To me, saying "Let's do this again" and then dropping off the face of the Earth is a lie. This is pretty much the standard farewell phrase now, and I'm not sure what the phrase is that actually indicates a person really does want to do this again. Similarly, a hug says "Meeting you was important and I feel positively about engaging in physical contact with you." That's what I mean about can't communicate to save their lives. If you want to communicate "Thanks but no thanks," don't hug me. Don't talk about meeting up again. Just say farewell.

But then I go to yoga. And K says, this too shall pass. Nothing lasts forever. Not even holding one arm in the air for three minutes. And the other side. And now both arms out to the sides, opening your heart, vulnerable and strong. This is the hardest pose for me

Source: ashappyaskings.tumblr.com via Katherine on Pinterest