The follow up

I'm not sure that guys in general know the importance of the follow up phone call after a first date. Sure...all dates end with the line, "We should do this again sometime," but you never know if they mean it until the phone call. Personally, I would prefer the phone call while the guy is on his way home from the date, but, from Mr. C, the call came the next afternoon. Not bad....for a guy.

The beginning stages of dating can be exciting yet very nerve wracking. I find myself analyzing every gesture. "What did he mean when he said I looked different from my picture?" "He hasn't called me in 24 hours. Why does he hate me?" Of course, I do this with my friendships in the beginning too. It's the constant pull between "they love me....they love me not." The good news is, this stage doesn't last forever. I eventually gain a sense of security and relax in the fact that I have something to offer in the relationship and apparently the other person sees it too. Oh....and it's also good when I get to the place where I remember, it's NOT all about me. Sometimes when someone doesn't call, they are just busy! Imagine that!

Moving on

This is something I didn't talk about a lot, so some of you reading this may be surprised to know that I was in an 11 year, mostly long distance, on again off again relationship, that ended in the fall. I guess I somehow felt that the relationship wasn't real since it was mostly long distance, so I kept it to myself and a few close friends. But the thing is, even though a lot of the relationship was lived out in my head, it was still real to me, and the ending of it was painful. Without going into the reasons, he ended it with pretty much no goodbye or "thanks for the memories" or anything. I hadn't heard from him in probably seven months until last night, when I get a very strange IM. It was basically a "hello....I'm sorry....I hope you're well....and goodbye." I responded with "I don't hate you....I'll always think of you fondly....it's probably best we don't try to reconnect and I hope you're well too." The interesting thing is how I felt afterwards. I felt normal. I didn't feel this desperate need to e-mail him and try to get more from him. I felt curious. I wondered what prompted this exchange. But I didn't feel that emotional turmoil that I've felt in the past. I just kinda shrugged my shoulders and said "Hmmmm.....what was that all about?" He played a significant part in my life, and there will always be a part of me that cares what happens to him, but I can do that from a distance. And the best part is, I don't feel like I need anything from him now. I guess this is what it feels like to move on. Interesting......

Catching up

I'm sure that the few of you that read my blog have probably stopped, since it's been so long since I've updated it, but I've decided to let you all know that yes....I AM still alive.

Life after loosing Lannie was pretty tough for a while. It took me three weeks before I could walk into the house without crying my eyes out. I was honestly worried that maybe there was something wrong with me, but I found a few pet loss support web sites and found that what I had been feeling is pretty normal. It helped to know that. Grief is such a tricky thing, because I don't think you can ever really grieve about just one thing. A loss just reminds you of all the other losses you've experienced. It felt like someone took the top off the big bottle of sadness in my life and it was all coming to the surface. I was proud of myself because I think I handled things in a pretty healthy way. I talked about it...I cried about it...I stayed in bed for a couple of days...and then little by little, things got better.

On a brighter note....I finally hit my 100 pound weight loss mark back in April. That was big. It took me just under a year. The progress has been slow since then, but I'm still hanging in there. My next big milestone is when I hit the weight that it says on my driver's license. Do you know how sad that is to lose over 100 lbs and still not weigh what it says on your driver's license? How does that happen? My picture now looks nothing like me....but the weight almost matches. Weird.

On an even brighter note....I actually had a real date tonight. I'd like to say how great it was...and how I hope there will be more....but I accidentally gave him my blog address, so how much can I admit? I'll just say that it's refreshing to think that maybe there really are a few nice guys out there, and maybe I've actually met one, and maybe he's even interested in me too. All these things remain to be confirmed....but I'm hopeful, and that's a nice place to be.