2011-01-07 - 10:18 p.m.

Starting to get excited about my next hiking trip. The nice thing is that I am a member of a fabulous hiking group that plans trips well in advance so when it is finally time to go I just forget all about it and realize it just days before.

I am also excited to go to Buffalo for a few upcoming shows the kids are in. Katerina was cast in a lead in a musical so I can't wait to go see and hear her beautiful voice. Its a fabulous show! And of course Soren is a lead in a show he is up in soon as well. There is another project coming up that he and a friend are directing which also features him so this Spring will be full of terrific theater experiences featuring my awesome kids!

I think the little ones FINALLY fell asleep. They were reading for a while, and are all enjoying a slumber party in one room together. Its Friday night...

I thought they would fall asleep EARLIER however!

A little disappointing as I was going to watch a movie but now it is really too late to start one for me.

Excited that our HIKING GUIDE has planned another nice hike for this weekend. I have a co-worker who loves to go hiking whom I hope joins us one weekend as well. I think she might hit it off with "the Guide" . He is the nicest guy that Pocohontas and I met last year on our backcountry backpacking treck and we have kept in touch with. He called and I (in typical fashion) lost his number, never called back, and was just plainly not that interested or that organized. My neighbor laughs about that and thinks he lucked out... and frankly there is an irony in that as honestly I am not attracted to my neighbor and think the Guide is actually a rather attractive fellow. Had I been INTERESTED in dating I likely would have followed up. But the truth is I don't really WANT to date. I don't really WANT to focus on a relationship with a man right now. So to be more accurate, I am happy to date but just casually once in a while when I have time to get a break and enjoy a change of pace. Not really interested in developing any serious RELATIONSHIP with intention of it going anywhere other than someone to spend time with and enjoy companionship with once in a while.

For that reason I so loved the dating relationship I had with my Marine! It was so perfect for us both at the time.

New develpment for him is that he is healing VERY WELL and he is going to have the operation to put the bone back over his frontal lobe next week. I joke every time I visit that he is still sharper and more quick witted than me WITH his TBI, as I still pause and have to think for a moment to catch his rapid fire dry humor. He is SO GOOD AT IT; and I am still mentally FOGGY.

The friend dates with old neighbor who I had knicknamed "the date" tapered off for both me and Pocohontas ( who used to joke "Hey its my turn!" )- since his wife finally came around and decided to be vested in her marriage! THANK GOD!! We are SO HAPPY for him (and her). It was good for us to have his companionship over that year and a half she was flaking out (OK to be more accurate - the year and a half she had an affair and then came around and decided to get over her midlife crisis and hormonal imbalance and take care of herself with improved habits and health- and WHEW her old self is back. Mental Health issues are challenge to navigate and she is one of the most wonderful people and honestly we all think the world of her- but it was just clear by her behavior she was actually SICK in a most definate bi-polar or depressive cycle during that time. Its like she worked through it and is back. Literally... she was just not there as herself but was fighting an illness and seeking relief in any way she could and the man who loved her that time in the way she wanted when her husband's love wasn't enough did give her something that we all suppose helped her. Its like she had this need for her very survival and her amazing loving husband accepts and loves her through it all.

She threw the most wonderful 50th birthday party for him! Both Pocohontas and I were delighted that she invited Pocohontas and got over her anger at her for having continued to invite the hubby to our social group functions after she had moved out of the neighborhood.

I do have a nice man whom I enjoy dating once or twice every other week. Its again a perfect casual dating relationship.

I did decide to date my neighbor as well which has been fine, but for the fact that while he said he would be glad to date me casually and knew I was seeing someone else when he started taking me out, I don't think he every REALLY listened to the conversations we have about once a month.

They are kinda like this:

When some opportunity arises at a perfect lead in I will say " I am NO WHERE NEAR BEING IN A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP And it will be a LONG time before I can even see myself being ready to even think of that possibility"... along with

" I do want to continue to freely date whomever I choose and NO I am not interested in dating only you at this time- I don't want to be that serious."

OK, so we would have the same converstaion once a month , and it would always end with him saying " I don't know how I feel about that" but then nothing more, no follow up, no further discussion.

I would even tell him when I have other dates on occassion (but usually not- but just once in a while.)

HE was stopping over the night before I had a dinner date planned at a nice restaraunt in Leesburg ( The Lightfoot) with ANOTHER restaraunt owner/cook who had a very popular restarant that had rave reviews for years here in the area. Somehow I had planned that date forgetting that I wasn't free and it fell over the holiday time when I did have my girls. So my neighbor had stopped by and I literally told him I needed to take care of seeing if I could find a fill in to go in my place and posted a note to my single lady friends to see if anyone wanted to go to the Lightfoot for dinner. IN typical fashion I had no idea where I put the gentleman's number, and in typical fashion I don't need it as he calls me once in a while anyway... or I swing by once in a while to say hi where he works (which is a place I love to eat on occassion!)

Known that guy for a number of years.

Totally enjoyed being a hiking buddy's Company Christmas Party Date. As he is an engineer at the Pentagon that was a kickin good time at a really nice restaraunt with dancing in D.C. with his amazingly beautiful Asian boss and her hot Asian friends. It was truly a blast of a good time. I had gone on a 5K run that AM so my legs were spent and in pain after dancing til 3AM following the mornign run!

I then did have a lovely date with neighbor for New Years Eve. We went to the big Gala at the Gaylord Hotel in Washington D.C. Neither of us have ever been to a big New Years Eve Gala and it was really wonderful. What surprised me was that we were the older ones in the crowd! D.C. is full of young professionals with disposable incomes, and I think no one else HAS disposable incomes at this point so they were the only ones who could afford the ticket price for the party! Seriously, there were only a handful of older couples- and I thought it would be mostly an older crowd~

Young 20s and 30s mostly, dressed to the nines as they say...

It was really a lovely time.
I slept in the next day and then awoke to soak in the tub and sleep more as my "boyfriend" ( the neighbor... I guess its fair enough to allow him to hold that title. I mean he has been thinking of me as girlfriend for a while now and I am starting to NOT cringe if I hear him utter it. I think my reaction concerns him as its somewhat apparent I am not fond of being thought of with even that level of commitment!); as I was saying , as my "boyfriend" went out on a walk around Arlington where we were staying at the Westin, and then found some food and brought it back.

I had gotten a text from Katerina that I had to call her. Called to find that while the financial aid forms are due normally at the end of Feb, because she applied EARLY DECISION to one school she hopes to go to, that the forms were due THAT DAY- JAN 1, for that application.

We had a hotel and plans for the whole weekend excursion in Arlington. Truth be told I was GLAD for the reason to have to go home early. I was READY to go home! I really wanted nothing more than just to go home and clean my messy house to get MY SPACE and MY LIFE in order! I had to clean up the remainder of the post Christmas mess. And I really wanted to relax with the good book I am reading The Hunger Games.

Even now... I am wondering why this guy so clings to me and a relationship with one he wants as a girlfriend when I am so clearly not that into him? I mean the plan was that after the kids were asleep we would relax and he could come over and watch a movie with me. Now when I was dating my Ex Boyfriend that plan was always very MOTIVATING for me. I was always EXCITED that he was coming over. The excitement was thrilling, and I had energy and enthusiasm, and had the girls read to and tucked in and if it was 8pm that was THE NORM. If it ran late on occassion it would be 8:30 or 9:00 pm. Because that was MY TIME for ME and for ME and my MAN to develop OUR RELATIONSHIP.
I VALUED That time with him. I relished and protected it. I didn't allow the girls to deviate from their routine in the least as I CRAVED that time with my boyfriend.

So when I don't stress over the girls dilly dallying, and even having their spats, then creative making it up to each other in songs of sorry
( Tonight's was a classic dramatic soulful song written by three sung to the one they excluded earlier);and then their bonding in slumber party with smuggled flahlights reading to each other believing I don't know...

Well, when they are finally settling at 10:30 and I don't even MIND to not have had company but would rather enjoy this quiet time ALONE WRITING EVEN WHEN I HAD ALREADY MADE PLANS... and only NOW realize " Darn I better call him"... as an afterthought..

Well, I think I really just should NOT be DATING this man and setting him up for a broken heart.

But then again, he can only get a broken heart if he has unrealistic expectations (so I tell myself- but laugh knowing we who are NOT in love can SAY That to try to JUSTIFY our knowing sometimes its impossible to protect another from being hurt when affection is not returned...)

OH well... Its not that I don't value the FRIENDSHIP and care for this man who is so good to me and all of us-- I do... but its just that right now, I value getting my life in order MORE.

I AM NOT THERE YET.

When one has been broken they really do end up at the bottom of that Maslov's triangle and need to grow to be strong again first meeting the basic needs before they can cultivate the higher functions such as falling in love. I do see that as a higher function.

I am still working on basic needs.
And I am still stubbornly insisting I provide them myself to the best of my ability.

I think it will be a long time before I could ever trust another to provide any of them; and perhaps I never again WILL be able to have that kind of trust.

The thing is, to fall in love, one truly has to be able to surrender.

One who has been broken by abuse but survived is a survivor. A survivor does not survive through surrender. There is something instictive and intuitive and visceral that gets turned on, and the higher rational and emotional and at times spiritual realms have to be blunted in order for that instint to be heard loudly enough for one to stay alive. I am convinced of this- and I think that after that happens there really is a permanent change in the brain that makes it very hard to just undo.

I have talked of this with my neighbor, and with the other man I am dating and the one really understands it well, and the other-- well he just doesn't get it at all.

Those who TRULY get it, would know to absolutely steer clear of any sort of dating relationship AT ALL. They would understand that at this point I am NOT CAPABLE of TRUE INTIMACY.

At least not now; not yet.

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