After not being able to write much while my friends were here, last night I couldn’t stop. I wrote the blog, Manatees and Men, and then two poems. In between the poems, I wrote another whole post as I tried to figure out what it is that holds me back with Tim.

I realized that the whole day together we did not really laugh. And laughter is such an aphrodisiac, I so miss hanging out with someone who makes me laugh hysterically all the time. It actually has overridden the fact that I was betrayed on a grand scale, so many times. I think that’s why I kept talking to him periodically over the last year, because I wanted to laugh, and feel sexy at the same time.

I went to sleep easily last night, and didn’t wake up until about 3 AM. I knew yesterday was the anniversary of the night my mother died last year. And that also marks the beginning of Scott’s re-entry into my life. I pieced it all together like a movie in my head for a couple of hours last night, just observing all the emotion I felt then. Because I wanted to understand what the incredible attraction to him was, when he was able to so betray me, and lie to me and to Betty so easily. Why did I still feel affection for him, so many times, and let him back in? The answer to that would be the answer to why I could not feel a connection to the other nice men I’ve dated.

Scott and I had been talking the whole week before my mom died, every day, many times more than once a day. because Betty had just found out about me and this blog a week before, and was never going to talk to him again. He and I had fallen into our old routine, of talking, texting, picking up where we left off before Betty’s re-entry into his life. When my mother died, I called him.. It was late at night, I’d just hung up the phone with him and knew he was up. He offered to come just be with me the next day, so I wouldn’t have to be alone, and I was so bereft, and so grateful that he would do that. He came, and we swiftly fell into bed and a relationship again. For 3 weeks, til Betty found out, got jealous, and wanted him back. I’d known that would probably happen, that at some point she’d want him back, I understood the pattern. But I didn’t expect the attacks from him, designed to convince her that it meant nothing to allay her jealousy, when of course I knew better. Later on he confirmed what I knew, and I thanked him for that, because I’d taken so much shit about our relationship from him, and then from Betty, who in her jealousy, felt she needed to weigh in on my relationship with him. And then his cryptic messages….oh it went on. We stopped talking at all for 3 months. It’s all here in the blog over the last year.

But the point is, no matter if I was crying, or if I was furious with him, or loving him, he made me laugh. I mean, wonderful belly laughs. I once cursed him for making me cry, and then making me laugh while tears were running down my cheeks. When we broke up, he used to say the thing he missed most was hearing me laugh.

I won’t go there again with him. I am just too tired of the games that get played, of the insecurity of caring for someone I could never trust. The last time we talked, I just looked at my phone and exhaled “I am SO sick of this game.” That was the end, and I won’t start again.

But neither will I settle for someone who can’t make me laugh.

I don’t want to hurt Tim. He is a nice guy, really nice. Kind, loving, sweet. But he doesn’t make me laugh. He makes me smile, but that’s not the same. And, I think it’s too soon for him after his wife’s death. He doesn’t think so, but he has said that he really needs a woman in his life. I don’t need a man, I really don’t NEED one. I am quite happy to be alone most of the time. But I want one, I love men. I think I should call it quits with him before I end up hurting him, because I don’t see me ever feeling very amorous with him, and I know he’s heading there now. He said he has his own life that he loves, and he does, but he’s got a hole to fill. He says he NEEDS a woman. I don’t think I will ever want the job of filling a hole left by the death of their spouse.

I’m just going to keep on looking. And, to keep on loving the life I’m creating here. As I get more involved in community projects, maybe I’ll meet someone in real life, who can make me laugh hysterically. I can only hope.

But I’m going to stop obsessing over it. I know better what I want now. But I’m also very grateful for the life I’ve created, and live. It’s seriously joyful most of the time.

It’s nice to have the house to myself again this morning. I haven’t done my meditation since before the girls came for 3 days, because I need quiet, no distractions and none of them are meditators. It’s something I need to do, to keep myself centered.

I think I’ll go do that now. Love and light, all.