Married young and for 34 years gave me little to no time to explore other relationships. Following divorce 5 years ago, I paused and married myself to allow time to learn how to live alone and build a new life. The learning curve was overwhelming! I had never: lived alone, handled the bills, purchased my own car, made repairs on my own home. I had no one to share the daily tasks of shopping, cooking, laundry, cleaning, and landscaping. I had never paid real estate taxes or gone to see the accountant who prepared our tax return. And there are a hundred other things I haven’t mentioned!
Today, I am a very happy single. I’m a home owner, Air BnB manager, and school teacher who loves to dance her feet off on the weekends. I am blessed with two grown, independent, loving children who have doubly blessed me with four incredible grandchildren. My ex and I parted lovingly and concur that our marriage had completed.
But after a few years of living independently, I decided I might like some company or at least a fun date on the weekend, so I joined an on-line dating website and promptly met a man named Ben. Although my intuition was spot on from the get-go that Ben and I were not made for a solid long term relationship, we ultimately saw each other through Covid and parted just weeks prior to our 2 year anniversary. I have no regrets about my time with this beautiful man as I learned more about myself and saw the complete and scary truth of how underdeveloped I was in the relationship department.
After Ben, I returned to a few different dating websites, but eventually threw in the towel. It was not only a time suck, but I started to feel disingenuous as I took stabs in the dark based on looks and profiles that were possibly only semi-truth. I felt fatigued and uninspired. Perhaps I just wasn’t interested or ready.
Hence, another long break from dating. Instead, I turned my attention to the study of several relationship books, but soon came to understand that I need to be in relationship to grow, make oodles of mistakes, and ultimately learn; that I desired to be in a healthy and loving partnership despite my fear of intimacy.
So here begins my venture into new beginnings, explorations, and miracles!
This was one of the first eye-opening quotes I hung my hat on from Conscious Dating.
“Finding the love of your life is not about hoping to be picked…It’s about knowing yourself first so that you can be the chooser, rather than waiting to be chosen.” (Steele 49)