Feeling a little disjointed this morning, I have so much I want to do today, but it’s early.  It’s Halloween, and my neighborhood is Grand Central in this small town. A friend is coming over to help me hand out candy.  I’ll make dinner, we’ll have a glass or two or three of wine and enjoy the kids.   I was just reminded we set our clocks back tonight, whoo hoo. I guess that means I’ll be waking up even earlier tomorrow, lol.

I am glad I didn’t spend more than a week figuring out Jim was not the guy for me.  I need to let my intuition guide me a little quicker.  I have been saying I didn’t really feel a connection, and trying to allow one to form.  I should know when there’s not one, there’s not one. When there is, there is.  I’d like one that is good, intimate, loving connection but not so intense that I feel the person all the time.  That’s way too distracting.

I realize I tend to be too direct for a lot of people.  I just don’t believe in pretending to be someone I’m not. Especially in the beginning, when just meeting someone.  I am not brazen, not pushy, I can usually get across what I need to say with a smile, a flirt, some humor, some self deprecation, a little funny sarcasm.  But I get it across.

Games are not part of my personna.  You know, where you pretend to be what you think the other person wants.  Or just be untruthful, because you’re unsure of yourself, because you think another person won’t like you as you really are.  Personally, I think games bite you in the ass.  I think they lead to depression, to insecurity.  Control, manipulation.  Because you have to keep up the fake personna to keep the person.  Sooner or later, you wish you could just be yourself. You would wonder why you couldn’t be, why you thought the person wouldn’t care for you if you were yourself, but by then…you’ve lied to them so much, you’ve worked so hard at this fake personna, you risk ending the relationship if you make yourself known, and admit that the person they thought they knew wasn’t you.  Vicious cycle.

Vulnerability is hard.  It’s scary to put yourself out there, not knowing what the outcome will be.  But lying, faking, game playing…is harder.  It will never end well.  At some point the truth will be known, and it will leave you cold, alone, and empty.

I think the thing that shocked me the most about S was that he was playing a game….with me, with her.  with everyone, I think. He was obsessed with the game “Go”, an ancient Chinese game where the point was to have no losers so that everyone saves “face”.  I always said, look if I screw up, I don’t need to save face.  I need to own it, and change that about myself, and make amends for any damage I did.  Save face?  A mistake is just a mistake if there is no lesson learned.That’s the bullshit about shame.  We all have it, the point is to learn from it, and use it as a tool to become a better person, and raise our vibration.

I know that the fact that I kept allowing S into my life after all the crap he pulled on me was starting to damage my relationship with my son.  What a mistake that would have been, to trade off my relationship with my son for S.  Another bullet, that would have literally killed me, dodged.

It just occurred to me, that my ex, who obviously didn’t think he was lovable because he grew up in a family where love was a reward, not a fact of life, felt he had to manipulate and control people to keep them in his life.  He truly thought that if I professed to love him, which I did, it meant that I was either a.) stupid or b.) wanted something from him.  I think perhaps the same was true of S.  Because it is an innate human condition to want to be loved, but when we are taught at a young age that we are not lovable, we learn not to trust it.  To see it as another manipulation, since in an abusive household everything is a manipulation. My ex’s father was physically and emotionally abusive, his mother was passively abusive, she didn’t stop his father, and used the threat of him to keep my ex in line and in fear.  S had the same situation.

S says I can’t let go of my marriage, that I talk about it all the time.  Well, yeah, I do talk about the things I learned from it.  It was the experience from which I learned the most in my life.  I spent the first 5 years of freedom trying to understand what happened to me and my son, and undoing the damage.  I realize that the wisdom I gained from that search, might be valuable to someone else.  It has nothing to do with the marriage, or letting go of it.  It has to do with life lessons, and learning, and sharing.  I know for a fact that sharing the wisdom has helped others, when I was active in an online community for abuse survivors.

I couldn’t convince either my ex or S that they were lovable just because they existed.  It’s water under the bridge now.  I need to find someone who already knows it.

I was watching Amy Schumer on HBO last night, after my boring date.  She just cracks me up.  I love her honesty, and she’s hilarious.  She reminded me of how my relationship with S used to be, open, funny, physical, flirty, honest….  Watching her just made me laugh, and remember part of my life.  I didn’t get sad, or upset.  I know S is not that guy all the time, I know he morphs into another person when he’s with a woman that probably wouldn’t find Amy Schumer funny. Or if she did, she would think she was outrageous, and that no one is like that.  Not knowing that S was for 18 months with a woman pretty much like that, though not as funny, lol. I know he and I both thought she was hysterical.  Real.  She’s very real.

Well, whatever.  I’m sure there’s a man out there who would appreciate and enjoy an open, honest, monogamous, sexy woman, and is open to falling in love, and monogamy too.

God, I sound a little needy.  I think I just miss having sex, lol.  Nah…I need a connection to have it.  I’m just longing for that connection with someone.  I’ll find it.