...well...that was...different...

sometimes, the strangest events all converge in life, and create these moments that sort of conspire to make me laugh and cry and marvel at the life G-d gives me. friends and neighbours...this year is setting up to be one for the record books, if for no other reason than totally bizarre beginnings.

tuesday morning arrived the way most mornings during cedar season do...sticky eyes, lots of throat clearning, some light coughing, making the bed over the lazy cat that gives me daggers when i get up before a time he considers reasonable, crushing the snooze button as many times as possible before going out into the day, and doing my work. but this tuesday was different. see, when i woke up, there was already a text message on my phone from this guy, who we will refer to as "mr. wow". instead of that drop in the stomach that pressages all good crushes (and some of the bad ones), or that giggly giddy girly feeling i've recently gotten back in touch with, when i saw that i had the message on my phone, i just wanted to throw the phone across the room and have it shatter into a thousand pieces. kind of an extreme reation, right? that's what i thought, too.

so i went on a date with mr. wow on sunday night. we'd known each other for a while, but hadn't seen each other in five years, or so. (**as an aside...the devil incarnate must run the codes at eharmony, because this is the second ghost of crushes past that this stupid website has set me up with, and the second time it was so wrong that i almost called dr. neil clark warren and told him exactly what i thought about his twenty-nine dimentions of compatibility. my ass, sir. MY ASS.**) i think we all know my proclivity for giving people one extra chance to act right. i mean, it's the kind of grace and mercy i know i have to have in my day to day...why not extend it, too...right? except this time, it was just a perfect storm.

i'm not hateful and catty enough to write down all the things that made me want to throw my phone across the room, or tell you about all the red flags and WARNING signals that started wailing at top volume. i'm just going to tell you that i spent an hour with therapy mary, sometimes crying so hard that i couldn't talk, trying to explain that the only things i could feel after less than 48 hours of hanging out twice with mr. wow were anxious and overwhelmed. i literally felt like someone had taken a sharpie and written those words on my body, over and over. the upshot is that the last two years of working my nuts off in therapy are paying huge dividends. instead of spending the day sobbing at my desk (ok, so i cried...like twice, but got my shit together, and for the record, one of my favorite old ladies died tuesday morning, too), having explosive stomach issues, or vomiting like a total nutbar, i did a lot of actual work and was able to find words to use to talk about what i was feeling.

**insert cameron crowe movie reference here*
now, i know we all have to get right with our own awesomeness. i also know we all have to get right with people loving us, even when they love us in ways that are hard to look at, accept, understand, or appreciate. we don't get to dictate what that looks like. i get that. i understand that. this is not that, at all. mr. wow is going to make someone a fantastic lloyd dobbler-esque boyfriend, one day. but i am not diane court. and i don't want to date lloyd dobbler. it's not that i don't think mr. wow is a nice guy, or sweet, or any of those other things. but i was real clear...at about hour five...that things were moving in a very different direction for me. and rather than string someone along, or convince myself that i was wrong, i cut my losses and did what i felt like was the kindest thing to do, and just made it clear that i had gone as far as i was willing to go.
**end of cameron crowe movie reference**

see, i have really spent the last six months doing a lot of talking to G-d. and i've tried to listen a lot, too. i have been going out on (for me) lots of dates. not a single dude has gotten past date number two, and some of the dudes haven't even made it to date one. not all of that has been left up to me...just so you don't think i'm eating men instead of breakfast tacos, these days. i was all frustrated and sitting in the floor, trying to do yoga poses, a couple of weeks before christmas. and in the midst of stretching and thinking and praying and listening, this still, small, gentle voice whispered in my heart, "little girl...you will know it when you see it." and my eyes have been wide open, ever since. and i have been utterly unafraid to act, because i know i am where i am supposed to be, doing what i am supposed to be doing. and this feels awesome.

mil besos,
rmg