My life coach yelled through the phone: “You should not be at Costco by yourself on a Saturday morning! You should be eating French toast with a man who knows how lucky he is to have you!”
We were having a conversation about abandonment, vulnerability, family of origin issues, emotional affairs, re-entering the dating arena, and chopping up pine trees.
“No worries”, I chimed in, “I’m getting myself ready. I’m just not quite done percolating yet.”
“Good! Because you’ve got too much to offer to sit on a shelf for the rest of your life. You are a catch. You just don’t know it because Husband #2 talked you into thinking that you’re needy. You’re one of the least needy people I’ve ever met.”
What a shot in the arm. Get yourself a life coach. They keep you from setting up permanent residence in a House of Despair.
With that said, I’m not looking forward to dating again, but that doesn’t keep me from getting ready. I know you have to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find a prince.
For now, my finger is on the pause button.
I’m moving through my feelings of failure with Marriage #2, after all someone I loved very much left my life by conscious choice. That’s a big plate of rejection to stomach. So I’m forcing myself to wait, to sit with my emotions, to get my head on straight and not jump into a rebound relationship just because I’m lonely. I’m identifying the mistakes I made with Husband #1 and Husband #2 and changing myself into what I envisioned back in my teens, which is why I continue to read relationship books even through I’m not in a relationship.
I’m making myself into a better person—the person I want to be.
And, by extension, I’ll become a better partner for the next guy.
My perspective through this whole situation:
Failure is just a rehearsal for success. ~Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
The big question in the back of my mind floats to the surface every once in a while. How will I know I’m done brewing? When is it safe for me to venture back into the dating pool? Have I been alone with my crummy feelings long enough to be self-aware or am I getting to the point of martyrdom?
This is where Divorce #1 taught me a valuable lesson about surviving the bad times. I’ve. Got. This.
That first time down the Divorce Road was scary, humiliating, shameful, and incredibly painful. I had the same thoughts and distress then that I do now, especially my big fear, but I came through those 3 years of turmoil and made a different life. So I know I can, and will, do it again. I’ve got this. Bad days may be here for a while but they won’t stay around forever.
I won’t die lonely and unloved. I bring too much to the table to be ignored.
Plus I’m incredibly normal.
Laugh if you want. I certainly did when the Roofer first said it to me. But the more I talk to single men, the more I realize “bitches be crazy”.
Who knew non-crazy normality would be an asset?
I was privately struggling with my high points and descriptors. In a world filled with people who ski-paraglide off of Alpine mountains with GoPro strapped to helmets, my statement of “I can cook” seemed somewhat vanilla bland. But apparently I should embellish a bit, “I can cook and I have no plans of slipping arsenic poison into your food because you didn’t take out the trash when you said you would.”
Just wait until the next man peels back my parfait layers of normality and finds humor, intelligence, independence, devotion, creativity, curiosity, loyalty, fierceness, enthusiasm, and determination. And my desire to travel at the drop of a hat.
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