Dating - Take 2

 I have been writing in this space for quite some time. At first, I had so much to say I had to stop myself writing here and other years I haven't written here very much at all. The stats for the blog have also varied quite a bit - when I log on, I give it a quick look - but in the past months, they have been solid. 

When I checked just now it may be the case that the stats will tick over past the 1 million views later today, which is a bit of milestone. I'm always amazed really that anyone reads here at all since I think of blogger as such an antiquated site and I wouldn't know how to read a blog on blogger myself. Or maybe someone looks up a word, like 'fantasy' and I might pop up. I really have no idea.

At a school reunion last year one girl that I haven't seen for decades came over to me to tell me that although she had been bullied by a few girls at school, she always knew that she would have a pleasant exchange with me. She wanted me to know that she thought I was very 'empathic'.

It was meant to be a compliment, but there was a part of me that only heard that I was a 'soft touch'. I think what must have happened in my life is two-fold. First, I was simply born with a very empathic and soft nature. Secondly, without meaning any harm, my parents unwittingly trained me to tolerate their needs. I knew they were both a little unusual and had specific needs of their own and somewhere in that process, I learned to tolerate people and circumstances.

When my husband came along, again I understood that he was a bit different, but it wasn't that difficult to accommodate his needs either. Yes, he monologued and wanted things his way, and had freak attacks, and was impulsive and so on, but I sort of knew how to turn myself into a pretzel and so I did.

It was decades later when I began to try to explain to him that my needs were not being met. He listened but it was clear by the confused, almost naive expression on his face that if he knew how to change for me perhaps, he would, but the fact was that he didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He knew he loved me and he couldn't understand why that message wasn't getting through to me.

I did know that he loved me, but I also wanted to receive that love with the sort of behaviours that made sense to me. Alas, one brain was neurodiverse and one brain was neurotypical and I was simply asking too much.

The therapist I used for some hypnosis, I recently realized, had the exact same issue. I tried to explain to him that my texting him a question and his responding with an audio file was missing the mark because there was no opportunity to co-regulate - to experience that back and forth of emotional transference that is usually available between therapist and client.

I consulted AI on this, and he/she said that I needed to find an Emotions Focused Therapist who was neurotypical; that my mind and body had been dealing with the fall out of the mismatch of brains for 50 years or more and that this was the first step.

I studied EFT when my son was doing his Master of Counselling and was very impressed with what is available to the client - the listening to emotional material, the opportunity to have the emotion mirrored back to you and to have a corrective experience.

What is important to identify is not why I tolerate so much because we sort of know why - conditioning and survival mode - but how to stop tolerating the sort of behaviour from men that could put me back in the fire again.

When going on a first date I am meant to monitor how much time they spend telling me about themselves or their pet subject and if they ask me questions about myself; if they can meet me with an emotion - not fix it or divert onto a story of their own but sit with my emotion and possibly ask me a follow up question about, perhaps, how that made me feel.

In fact, Ron, did do that on that first date, and it's such a pity that he had no interest in intimacy because otherwise I think we had something going. I am happy to say that I rejected all suitors as unsatisfactory because my antenna was up. I want someone to hold me - physically and emotionally - and that hasn't happened yet.

In fact, I just had an exchange with a delightful man interested in buying my husband's motorbike. If you go by the exchange of words, you might hope that he was single, just delightful. It's a needle in a haystack thing, but the thought did cross my mind. I am definitely up for a beautiful relationship, and I am learning, I think, to use the right criteria. 

The last few months

  I heard someone suggest on an Instagram post that one look over one's writings of the past few months and see if there was a theme of sorts. What stood out?

I may have mentioned that I keep another online journal, an 'encrypted' document. A friend, savvy about these things, set it up for me. Maybe he reads it and maybe he doesn't, but if he does, then he's the only one that reads there, apart from me.

It's hard to say what had stood out in the last few months since I wrote here. Sometimes, I still express anger over the past and the complications of the present, and sometimes I am doing absolutely fine. Sometimes. I am highly positive, and operating from that space, without being too invested in the outcomes. I would say it's a positive spirit without pining and wishing things were different than they are.

Life has had a way of keeping me fully invested in getting things done and prioritising what befalls me. I was going about my business a few Sundays ago, ready to make my way to one's son's house for a celebration of his birthday when I got a call from the Aged Care home where my mother has lived for the past five years. She was at the commencement of the dying process, and they had begun to give her low doses of morphine.

I am very pleased to be able to say that I, and two of my children, got there in time, not only to say goodbye but to comfort her. She was able to express through a squeeze of her hand that she knew who I was and she told me in a whisper she loved me, and that she was frightened. I asked for anti-anxiety medication and this extra medication allowed her to relax into sleep; a sleep she remained in for 11 days before she had her last breath in and no following breath out. It was soft and peaceful.

It befell on me to empty her room within two days in preparation for a new person into her room tomorrow, and the sweetest of girls who adored my mother, came to help me. Back and forth I went between her house and places where I took her belongings to give to charity, and unbelievably, that process is over.

So too is the arrangements for her cremation, the death notices and all those official things. A private Memorial Day will happen next month.

I must emphasise that I have the most wonderful children, but even so, I must come across as being highly organised, capable and efficient, because all these tasks were left to me alone. I do have a sibling but he's in another state and he also figures, oh well, she knows what to do and she can do it all.

When I was dating, this is exactly how I felt about the men I met. Once in a while, one of them said something like, 'Oh, I wish there was something I could do to help you'. But it was such shite. They had no intentions of lifting a finger, and I knew it.Would I fare better, do you think, if I was completely incompetent?

Since I wrote about dating last time, an update on that is that there is no update. I've been too inundated with tasks to follow up the rope classes, but that's very much on the 'to do' list. I have this perpetual daydream of this younger man looking into my eyes as he holds me in a challenging tie and listens to me whimper. 'Such a goooool girrrrll' he assures me. C a n n o t w a i t.

The men I have met for a coffee or a chat on the phone have all been hopeless and by that I mean, without hope. One fellow spent a few hours talking to me about his pet subject - healing in a group setting. As I explained to one son I will go on the second date to test my feelings about someone because on the first date, I tend to act like a journalist looking for a good story, and everyone has a story, you know? 

Clearly, he had a lot to heal and he left a very lucrative position to start a not for profit doing this sort of thing only to later discover he didn't want to be with his wife anymore, and by the time they split what was left of the earnings of the paid work, he had precious little. There was zero chemistry between us. 

I had a coffee with a nice chap a few days ago, but I couldn't even bring myself to shake his hand. We were the opposite of a match in heaven. I was polite and listened to him and even offered him advice and encouragement, but a match, my goodness, no.

That said, I have a number of options now. I can go in a few directions and it's such a vast change in my life, to have options at all. I admit, I am excited by the possibilities even as I feel confused about them and the work some of them would entail.

I don't - I can't - rely on anyone at all. I am a sole traveller right now. I navigate my life on my own, on my own terms. Here's the most incredible upside. I look out onto the world, and I am filled with wonder. I saw a pesky seabird flying by earlier today and imagined it was a white dove - a symbol of freedom and starting over for me. No sooner had that happened but a gorgeous bird of rainbow colours came and sat on the balcony ledge. I was dazzled by his beauty, and what a wondrous, gorgeous world of beauty we live in. 

I was inspired in the last 24 hours by two beautiful 'starting over' stories and it reminded me that I need to believe, to truly believe, that someone for me will enter my life; someone whom I can adore and treasure; someone to love me, in every sense of the word.

My dears, I am truly alive and kicking, very far indeed from giving up on the life I can so easily imagine.