the Dating Game - part one

I suck at playing games... Not checkers or Monopoly -  I'm pretty good at those and I will totally hand your ass to you in any trivia game. The games I suck at are the dating games. You know the playing hard to get and acting like you don't care when you do? Or pretending to be unavailable when all you really want is to spend time with your new favorite person. Don't text him first or too soon after he text's you. Or my personal fave - don't tell anyone you're dating for some mysterious length of time and if you ask for status first then you lose.


Who decided that these were good games to play??  Who makes the rules for these games?? Where is the damn play book??  Its 2017 and we aren't past this? We found proof of life on MARS for Pete's sake but if you like someone you still have to act like you don't?  You can have a parade about embracing your sexuality but don't do it with a man you're dating or he'll think you're easy. What in the Hell is that?


Before you ask yourself if I'm oblivious I can assure you I'm not. I am fully aware of the cavalcade of books devoted to the subject and even though I am a complete bibliophile, and even though I have actually read a few, I think all those books should be burned. Seriously. Just make a giant bonfire and all the single, fed the F-up women can dance around it with glee. Yes, I also realize there is an entire industry built around perpetuating these games. Books, movies, lecture circuits, Pinterest pages you name it - it exists. But that doesn't mean it's doing us ladies any favors.


Humor me though wouldya? Next time you're at the market take a look at the magazine covers at the check out stand. Most of them consist of articles evenly split between the top 6 sexual positions you've never heard of, how to lose 20 pounds and how to get a man or some variation on those 3 topics. Sure, they throw some empowering interview skills article in next to a moving, emotional cancer survivor story but the thing that keeps us reading those rags in the bath or on the beach is the exact articles I'm bitching about and therein lies the rub. I might complain but I'm also honest. I want the answers too and dammit if  they're to be found between the pages of Cosmo I'll take it. I sure as hell haven't figured it out on my own.


To be continued.....

SINGLE

Recently someone lectured me about the fact that 6 years post-divorce I am still single. It’s true. I am but I don’t view this as a problem.  Going through a divorce is hard work as anyone who has done it can tell you. There are knots to untie, messes to clean up and lessons to be learned if you do it right. You could choose to jump right into a new relationship, lots pf people do but I chose to focus on the work and trying to see my own part in the failure of my marriage so that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes again should there be a next time. There’s also a fair amount of grief involved, at least for me there was. The loss of the dreams I had for my life and for my kids’ lives..the happy ever after that wasn’t going to look the way I had planned. Divorce is kinda like a death and trying to renegotiate that other persons place in your life moving forward can be tricky.

If you have kids with the ex then that’s a whole other layer to the onion. Some people choose to walk away from parenting or to make up for “lost time” with partying but I made a choice to put my kids and their needs before mine. I don’t regret that decision or its results. My kids needed to have as much stability as could be gathered in the middle of the shit storm. If I did date or go out with friends it was typically only when they were visiting their father since I don’t subscribe to the “meet Uncle so-and –so” theory of single mom dating. I didn’t want one more cliché in my life or theirs. We have a bucketful already.

Truth be told – I didn’t have the energy or time to devote to learning about a new person. I was busy for years trying to unlearn all the things I knew about my former spouse. I also needed to unlearn my own unhealthy patterns and I needed to teach my kids that despite pain, betrayal and fear you can keep moving. You can be happy even if the fairytale implodes. I want them to know that it is ok to trust people and it is also ok to decide that people are untrustworthy. I want them to cultivate healthy boundaries and take care of themselves without being self-absorbed. In order to teach those things I needed to be doing those things and no.. a man didn’t really fit into that picture.

My bullshit meter is set on high at all times. I pay attention to the red flags and when I see one I run. I make no apologies for cutting a guy out after one date or 27. A couple of guys have managed to fly under my radar over the years and one even met my kids. Even though he turned out to be a mistake I am grateful for the growth. My kids are older now and if I want to spend time focusing on dating I can do that. As it turns out I enjoy being single. I like not having to answer to anyone else. I enjoy my big groups of friends and all our activities. I like making my own schedule. I am not without love by a long shot it just doesn’t come from one single human..it comes from many. I have become selfish with my time and I choose to only spend my hours on people who are trustworthy, loving and real. I hate the “ I don’t need a man” mantra but I really don’t. If that makes me defective in someone else’s opinion then that’s just fine by me. I like who I see in the mirror..minus the wrinkles I’d like to remove.

REO freakin Speedwagon

“I can’t fight this feeling any longer”….the first few notes of that song hit my ears and it’s 1985. I’m standing against the wall in the gym at my middle school, the lights are low and it smells like Polo, Loves baby Soft and Aqua Net. Against the wall on the other side of the gym from me are all the boys.  You remember the rules, boys on one side, and girls on the other with the exception of the few brave dudes who would get out in the middle of the room and breakdance. Yes. I said breakdance and yes I realize how old that makes me sound. What about the girls who would walk back and forth between the DJ table and the girl’s side of the gym with that look of purpose on their faces?  Like they were on a mission or something.  I stood my ground holding up the wall on my side of the gym and intently stared at one particular boy. Tall, braces, pegged levis, skate highs, a plain white t-shirt and a black members only jacket.  I sat next to him in science class and observed that he had the Subhumanz and DRI logos written on the front of his pee-chee folder. I was in love.

I kept up the same routine at each dance for the entire school year. I was committed to being a wallflower and since that boy was one of the most popular guys in school the chances of him picking up on the purpose behind my awkward staring was not likely. The last dance of the school year came and I decided to be brave. I marched over to the boy’s side of the gym when the DJ announced “ladies choice” and that damn song was on. REO freakin Speedwagon. And a slow song at that! Why couldn’t it be something cool? Depeche Mode?  Yaz?  DRI?? YEAH right. The chances of any of those bands being played in the gym at a middle school in Palmdale were about the same as that tall handsome, polo drenched boy saying yes to me asking him to dance.

But he did. He said yes and there we were following each other onto the dance floor with all eyes on us. At least that’s what it felt like. REO Speedwagon “I can’t fight this feeling” was now our song. He draped his arms around my waist instead of just laying his hands on my shoulders Frankenstein style like all the other boys. His hands were folded at the small of my back and I was sure he could feel the butter flies in my stomach as I reached up to put my arms around his neck. That was a stretch since he was taller than me. Another attractive quality in the land of “I haven’t hit my growth spurt yet”.  The top of my head hit the bottom of his chin which made his lip catch on his braces and begin to bleed. Our magic moment was cut short for a trip to the nurse but not before I managed to get covered in his Polo cologne and have my 13 year old body closer to a non-related boy than it had ever been.

I apologized for my clumsiness as his friends came over to assess the damage. He looked over his shoulder at me as he was headed out of the gym to the nurse’s office and winked. He winked at me like he was Frank Sinatra or something. This boy had swag before any of us even knew that word existed. I went home that night and wrote all about the dance in my diary with my Lisa Frank pen like any good 13 year old in the 80’s would do. I’m writing this now entirely from memory however because some things just get burned THAT deeply in our minds.  1985, REO Speedwagon and that boy. It’s the memory lane trifecta.

The Friendzone

It’s not often at my age that I get to do something new.  The new thing I’m working on isn’t what I would have picked out if I had all the new things in the world to choose from but life is a bit of a crapshoot so here I am.  I have to learn how to be friends with someone I used to date.  Isn’t that about a bitch?

When I was younger I had lots of rules about who I would and wouldn’t date.  It was mostly about not going out with anyone that my friends had ever expressed interest in or dated at any point. It’s that whole “I licked it so it’s mine” thing. That still applies of course but it’s less of an issue now that most of my friends are married. I wouldn’t date anyone who had ever cheated on someone – regardless of their reason and I wouldn’t date friends.  Now that I’m divorced and a little older my rules are still pretty much the same with a few additions to satisfy my shallow side – like no tribal arm bands, no clunky, white Costco tennis shoes, no white sunglasses, no balls on your trucks’ tow hitch. You know - the basics.

If you’re half-awake as you read this you can probably guess what’s next.  I broke my own rule. I dated a friend. Initially I thought it was a grand idea. We knew a lot about each other, we were already comfortable together, had tons of mutual friends, liked a lot of the same things and clearly had interest in whatever the other side might look like so why not?

I’ll tell you why not … because if you don’t wind up with a happily ever after story it never goes back the way it was. It’s like trying to push silly string back into the can after you’ve sprayed it. The shits all over the place, it’s a sticky mess and it’s never going to go back the way it was.  Sure we said it would be fine, I think we may have even believed it at the time, but its bullshit.

We don’t talk like we did before, no more easy, side-splitting conversations. I can’t send him the funny things I see online, and he doesn’t send me the stuff he finds.  We don’t spend any time with that ton of mutual friends. If I go, he doesn’t. I can’t tell him about any of the times I see or hear something that makes me think of him…and it happens a lot. Not in a gushy, girlfriendy way, in the “hey check this out” kinda way.  No more inside jokes. No more “name that tune” sessions.               

No more friend.

Don’t get me wrong, I miss all the non-friend stuff we did too but not having my friend anymore is worse. Maybe it will go back to the way it was and maybe it won’t. It’s too soon to tell. The lesson is never date a friend. Keep em in the friend zone, keep your hands to yourself and never, EVER break your own rules.

All the Ordinary Days

My last post was about my son flyin the coop, cutting the chord, pullin up stakes..whatever cliché you like. It was a little rough and it took some adjusting. Circumstances being what they were he only spent a few months at his Dad's house and then the rest of the weeks before boot camp were spent between his buddies house, my house and his grandparents house. Kinda just being a gypsy and he seemed to liked it that way. Im sure he had his reason's and he didn't share them with me. Now he is the property of the US Government and his home is Great Lakes, Illinois for now. He's doing well and is on his way to whatever his future will be.
Our routine is different now being just the three of us. It's only one person less but it feels like a huge empty space that he left in our house. Now it's his little brother's turn to be the "Man in the House" as he puts it. It's his shoes that are layin all over my floor. Nintendo patterned Vans and bright blue running shoes. Soon it will be baseball cleats and Nike slides trippin me up in the middle of the night. It's his botttonless pit appetite that I have to contend with which is actually just fine with me since I can't figure out how to cook for only three people.
His sister has decided to follow in her big brother's military footsteps so in a year or so I will be doing the boot camp routine again. Until then she helps me with my eyebrows and makes sure my hair looks ok in the back. She shares all her funniest texts and memes with me and we laugh till we cry. Lots of spontaneous karaoke in the kitchen and late night talks at the foot of my bed.
A million ordinary days and seemingly insignificant conversations but these are the things that life is made of. These ordinary days filled with nothing but mundane shit are the magical glue that holds everything together and the days are going too fast. Like I said in my last post..I am acutely aware of the time going by - Isn't that from a song? THAT I can't remember oddly enough. My point is this...
Each day holds the potential to be burned into your memory like it was a trip to Disneyland. Each day can be the best day ever (in my SpongeBob voice). It all depends on your perspective. I choose to grab each day with my kids and put em in the vault like the treasures they are. Even on the days when nothing goes right and I wanna run away. Because for every day like that there are two days when my daughter cooks dinner and has it ready when I get home. For every bad day there's days when I get a letter from my Sailor telling me thanks for the sacrifices I have always made for him, his brother and his sister. There are days when my little dude tells me I'm  more beautiful than any dumb man can see...
These ordinary days are the ones that get me through and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Thursday, April 2016 - UPDATED

All 3 of my kids are laying in their beds under my roof tonight. Just a Thursday. Each of us doing whatever our bedtime routine is now. I don't rock anyone to sleep anymore. No more story time or one more last cup of milk to deliver. I do remind them to brush their teeth. Shut off the TV. Say their prayers. Set their alarm. There's a time limit on these days. I hate that sentence. Seriously.
There is a finite number of days when all 3 of my kids will fall asleep under my roof because they all live here. They'll come back and visit but there are only so many Thursday's just like this one left. I can shout out to each of them in my little house and say I love you and they can hear me. That makes me grateful for such a small building. I'm tired most of the time and there aren't  enough hours in the day but I wouldn't trade a minute with my kids. And if I'm honest I don't want to share either. I deserve all these minutes. I'm the one who wiped the tears and cleaned the puke and ran the errands and got the last minute night before fill in the blanks. I hope I've given them the roots to find their wings as greeting card as that sounds. I'm certain I've given them a few things to talk to a therapist about because I'm not perfect. I am however, totally devoted and loyal to these beautiful humans I was blessed with. I don't make choices that could harm them. With the exception of the fact that I still smoke and I eat too much cheese and don't do any cardio. I worry more about them than myself. They get the stuff before I do. Sometimes I resent the fact that I have no partner in this and then I remember that I don't have just one I have like 30. Family and friends. Maybe I don't have their father but I really never did and I don't want him. I want these kids all to myself. He doesn't deserve one good night hug, one "this happened at school today", one single extra kiss. Not one "smell my hair" or "hold my backpack" or "where's the toenail clippers". He sucks as a parent and didn't make them a priority ever. What these kids deserved was two parents that were hopelessly devoted to them. They got one. I hope it was enough. In the mean time I'm gonna treasure my Thursday's and Tuesday's and all the days in between until it changes again. Thank you God for my Mason, for my Samantha and for my Declan.

- UPDATE- June 2016
I wrote this but didn't publish it. Since that day back in April my Mason moved out of the house to live with his father until he leaves for boot camp. I'd like to think this was wholly my sons choice but given what I know of his father's manipulative manner I highly doubt it. I understand my boy's desire to be in his father's light because it feels good to have his attention. He makes you feel as though you're the only human that matters once he decides to acknowledge you. He makes you feel like only you can provide what he needs. Point being that even as I wrote this post, laying in bed listening to my kids bicker, things were already changing. The limit for Mason was reached on June 10th, 2016 and that was it. It felt like an earthquake in my soul. Possibly because it wasn't on my terms or on good terms at all. Possibly because as a mother you're not ever prepared for your babies to leave. Either way it's come down to text's he barely responds to and me begging him to come over for dinner. One thing I do know is that regardless the discomfort or sore heart things are exactly the way they are supposed to be. He was taught to be loyal and kind and to look for the good in people, It is time for him to apply that to his father and to see where it takes him. I wish my number one son all the luck in the world and the door is always open at Mom's house.

The Dude

I saw on Pinterest once a meme that read "The thing about dating is.. you're either going to break up with the person or marry them'. There it is in a very tight nutshell. Love sucks. We know this. Movies and books are devoted to the topic. Songs are written about it. Pat Benatar is singing one as I type this. A hundred years ago I thought I knew what love was... the romantic kind. Today if you asked I'd not only say I have no clue but I'd add in fuck it anyway for good measure. I 've been dating someone for a few months and admittedly I have no patience but I thought we'd be further along the food chain by now. If you look at my social media you'd suspect that I am in fact dating someone. His....No clue. He allows photos to be added but posts none himself. He did this with the last chick too. The woman he dated prior to me is still on his page and likes all his pictures. Which is fair I suppose because when they were dating I did the same thing.  Maybe he's going back to her? I wouldn't know. I know the world feels differently regarding social media than I do but I don't have ex's on my page. I don't gather new male "friends" who show sexual interest in me. Years of abuse make me leery of all motives. Really WTF is wrong with me? 

22 years with a narcissistic, emotionally abusive drug addict will leave you with some scars. Thing is most of them weren't visible until I developed feelings for Him and I have BIG ones. I don't think I'm so broken that it's a waste to date me and I don't think my baggage is too heavy. Hell.. I'll happily leave that suitcase where it sits for the right guy. Is he the right guy? Too soon to tell. He and I have been friends for a few years and truth be told I've had it bad since we met. Of course getting down upped the ante and now I'm screwed. Literally and figuratively. My damage tells me to trust no one. My past experience tells me that every woman is out to take what I THINK is mine and that every man is willing to go. Maybe this growing knot in my stomach is right.. maybe He is on his way out. Despite the fact that he said he had feelings for me, despite the fact that he said the sex was amazing. Despite the fact that he has met all my family and my kids which NO ONE has done since the addict. Despite the fact that we have a great time together and have a ton of things in common. I try to tell myself it will be His loss, or not to worry that it's all in my head. Truth be told..it's all in my heart and it f u c k i n g hurts.