Summer of George

If you don't get the reference of the blog title, then don't even ask.

It's been a shameful five months since I posted.  After a few months of torturing and teasing, spring finally gave way to summer in Chicago -- and it's turning out to be a busy one for me!  I'm trying to schedule a dinner for my new Meet Up group in July, and I literally have only one weekend to fit it in.  I'm going kayaking on the Chicago River, having dinner at ING and Moto, swimming and cooking out for the 4th, spending a week in Hilton Head, hosting my two oldest nephews for a long weekend, and spending a day tubing in Indiana -- and that's only the beginning.  There's also work, which I have to figure out how to fit in somewhere, since there is always so much of it to be done.  And then there's the scariest thing of all:  dating.

I haven't really dated since I was 25, which (let's face it) means I have never really dated.  Dating in your twenties, as a student, means falling into relationships with guys you happen to know and like.  Dating in your thirties, as a professional, is apparently completely different.  I say apparently because I don't know the rules, and I have no idea what I'm doing.  So get ready to be entertained.  

Fair warning:  if you're a guy I've gone out with, you might want to stop reading here.  And if you're a guy I'd like to go out with, then I want you to stop reading here.  

Here is how post-divorce dating-in-your-thirties starts when you have no idea what you're doing:

You start a Meet Up group, which thankfully doesn't turn out to be a complete disaster involving you sitting alone at a table for ten wondering where the other nine people are.  In fact, most of the people who show up turn out to be pretty cool.  And they come back to the next meet-up.  Which is also cool.  One guy in particular seems like something of a loner at the first event.  Kind of quiet.  A lurker.  But he comes to the next event, and you have settled into your role a bit and are rocking it as the Meet Up host, chatting everyone up.  He's only been in Chicago a few months, and he's been to a ton of places, so you suggest that you should join him on one of his food forays sometime.

Be advised:  you just asked someone out on a date.  

But of course, no one so advises you.  You and The Lurker meet for a casual dinner after work one night, and he's an hour late.  And you have serious timeliness issues.  But he's new to town, he got lost and he's embarrassed -- and it's not like it's a date or anything, so no sweat.  You have some bbq, go for a beer, and generally have a great time.  The next week you decide to get together again.  

You're a little nervous about this whole thing, not sure what the deal is, if he likes you, if this is just a friendly thing, but you're sure it must be.  Because you're not dating yet.  That is, until you're sitting outside on a Thursday evening, sharing chips and salsa and beer (salsa because this lunatic doesn't like guacamole), and he asks you when you last dated.  Other than this, that is.  

Guess what?  Apparently, this is a date.  

It turns out that dating can sort of fall into your lap if you're not careful.  (And, if you're dating, you should definitely be careful about things falling into your lap.)  But truth be told, I like The Lurker quite a bit.  I won't go into details here, which wouldn't be fair.  But we've continued going out, and I have fun with him.  

This is how post-divorce dating-in-your-thirties continues:

Another guy from the Meet Up group asked me out.  This time he was pretty clear it was a date.  I texted two friends to find out if it was okay to go out with two guys from the Meet Up group (like I said, I have no idea what I'm doing).  One wisely asked if I'd read the Twilight books.  The other said hell yes.  I went with hell yes.  

He was nice.  Not unattractive.  And had freakishly small hands.  I don't mean that in the "you know what they say about a guy with small hands" way.  I mean in a Seinfeld episode way.  I couldn't look at anything else.  I also couldn't get out of there fast enough. On a Saturday night at 8 p.m., I told him I had to go home and work.  Yes, I actually said that.

Also, I met a guy on a plane.  He was cute, we chatted, and I stopped at least fifty people behind me waiting to get off the plane to introduce myself and give him my email address.  Yes, I actually did that.  Because why the hell not.  

I had an epic five minute date at a bar today.  First clue:  my best girlfriend met him on match.com, but nothing panned out for them before she met her boyfriend.  She figured we're both single, so why not.  Second clue:  he's a musician.  

We were arguing withint ten seconds of his arrival.  And I mean that literally.  I was like, Music Guy, we are clearly just not compatible.  I mean, we have never met before, and we are arguing.  He took it personally.  Which I guess I can understand  There probably aren't a whole lot of women who will call a date within thirty seconds.  But really, why waste your time when you are literally fighting ten seconds after you met!?  No thanks.   

I was badass, but I call it like it is. 

I'll tell you later how post-divorce dating in your thirties ends.  I'm not there yet.  

Spring

Lately I feel that I've been coming into a new beginning.  That probably sounds more optimistic than my posts usually do, but sometimes beginnings require death, and perhaps this last year has been a death for me.  It nearly killed me, but not quite.  There is something in me, and it tickles and kicks at my core, demands to get out.   It makes me wonder if my sense of being "stuck" after the new year was a moment of rejuvenation, a pause to gather energy for the growth to come.   

Bulbs sit, seemingly stagnant under earth and snow while life grows, multiplies inside, and still the bloom must crack through the bulb, claw its way out of the very core of its own sustenance, and then crawl, ever so slowly, towards the sun, pushing pounds of dirt away a fraction of a millimeter at at time.

I am beginning to think that I am not the bulb, buried and choked by the earth, rotting in darkness, but the flint of growth, the glimpse of green struggling to unfurl and dig my way to the sun.  And I feel its warmth.

More

When the Professor and I were dating, his younger brother, Junior, had a series of girlfriends.  Junior was edgy, creative, hilarious.  I think he was searching for something -- someone -- lighter than himself.  Every year at Christmas, he brought one home with him, and every year, his mother had a stocking for the girl, one with her name embroidered on it.  Every year, there was a new stocking, a new name.  I don't know what happened to the old ones.  Maybe they were tossed in the attic, gathering dust.  Maybe they were thrown out.

I still think of the Professor's mom as my mother-in-law.  She hasn't acknowledged me once since the Professor told her that he wanted a divorce.  Neither has Junior.  Not once.  You would think that I was a serial killer, or a serial cheater.  You woud think that I left him. But maybe they hated me all those years.  Maybe they breathed a sigh of relief, followed by many more sighs and much more relief, when the Professor actually left me.  But I didn't breath a sigh of relief when I lost them.  To me, that is what it was. And is.  Loss.

I wanted to tell someone a story the other day, and it started with the Professor's father.  I opened my mouth to speak, and realized I didn't know what to call him.  My ex-father-in-law?  He died before the Professor left me, and so that didn't seem right.   And I had loved him, and I thought that he at least liked something in me, some fire he saw, however much he worried it would burn out his son.  I couldn't tell my story, because I couldn't figure out the words around that.  So I started, and stumbled, and thought of the Professor and his family, which had been my family.  And I found that I couldn't think of anything else, so I stopped talking.  There was simply no way to begin that felt adequate.

I once thought I knew where things stood.  I once believed that I knew people, and that they knew me, and loved me anyway.  I have learned much in these last sixteen months, mostly about myself.  About others, I have learned that I did not know, that I did not see and certainly did not not understand.  I was, probably, simply wrong, about many things.   About many people.  That knowledge, and the painful learning of it, has made me someone I was not.  Someone stronger, someone scarred, someone deeper, someone hurt.  I am brave, and I am terrified.  I am changed, in both good ways and bad.  I can never be unchanged.

I was wrong about what it means to love someone.  Love goes deeper and longer than I ever knew.  Love is less selfish than I once was.  Love treads more carefully than I did.  And love can bear you up against intolerable pain and make you stronger than you dream possible.  But everyone does not love the way that I do.  Or, at least, everyone I love does not love me that way back.  But still, I am not a stocking that can be replaced or tucked away to gather dust in the attic.  You can pack me up and leave me up there, but I am not.  I am not fungible.  I am deeply flawed, I know.  But so are we all.  And there is beauty and kindness --something uniquely worthy of love, tenderness, loyalty -- in me.  In you.  I may not know yours yet, but it is there.

I don't know yet what it all means.  I don't know what to do with all that I have learned, or how much more I will heal, or in what way the breaks and scars might make me even better -- or worse.  I want hope for the best, although I have no idea what that might bring.  But I know I have to hope, because I yearn for more.  Despite, and because of, everything.  More.

Auld Lang Syne

It's been more than two months since I blogged, and I feel guilty about that.  It's not that I've been too busy, but that I haven't known what to say.  I feel sort of like I'm writing a chagrined letter to a friend I've neglected.

The last two months have been full.  There was a trip to Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, for Thanksgiving.  I found getting my SCUBA certification to be more challenging than I anticipated.  There is something about it -- the water pressure of being so deep, the ceasing of all sound but your own air bubbles, the feeling about being completely isolated from the divers hovering only five feet away -- that makes me want to rip the regulator out of my mouth and scream.  With each dive, it takes me some time to get past that, to breathe through the anxiety and relax.  And my friends helped me do just that.  I made the trip, and the dives, with my dear friend, Julie.  I won't get into all of the gory details here, but long story short, as they say, I came pretty close to not getting certified.  Julie, who already was certified and who fears nothing -- who cannot possibly understand my own anxiety -- supported and cheered and pushed me all the way.  Julie is the kind of friend who takes your or leaves you on true terms.  She is one of a kind.  Love it or hate it, she will tell you her truth.  We all need a friend like that.  I think it helps me see myself in a way I would not, otherwise.  And it pushes me to be a better person, to be less afraid, or to at least walk head-on into my fears, knowing that they won't destroy me.

Christmas came upon me suddenly, which I suppose is probably best.  I didn't spend much time this year feeling very festive, but that also meant I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the holidays, missing the sweet joy of sharing the holidays with the Professor, and all of the excitement that always went with that.  And so I made it through the holidays mostly unscathed.  But I will admit I thought of the Professor a great deal.  I missed him.

Things have been kind of dark and blurry since then.  I chalk it up, at least partly, to generic post-holiday blues.  I think it's pretty normal to feel down after the holidays, especially in a cold, snowy city like Chicago.  But I also think it's another transition phase for me.  I kept pretty busy last year, kept myself focused on concrete things I had to look forward to, a new job, parties, vacations, etc.  Even the divorce itself was something to focus on.  I had an objective:  getting through the divorce in a dignified way, not doing anything to give the Professor a reason to think he made the right decision in leaving me.

Now that it's over, and the holidays are done, I feel kind of lost.  The challenge, however it might be described -- getting through the divorce, handling it in the best way I could, being the best person I could, giving the Professor every opportunity not to go through with it -- seems over.  And what is left?

I don't know.  That's the answer.

Things -- life -- haven't turned out how I expected them to.  I did get what I wanted out of this last year, or at least what I could have hoped to dig from the remains of a decimated life, which is to say that I recovered some dignity, I put myself back together as best I could, I didn't kill myself, and I kept moving on, waking up each day, pushing myself, doing what scares me.  What choice did I have?

And that question keeps coming back to me, because 'what choice do I have' is a fine way to get through a tragedy, but it's no way to get through a life.  Lately, I feel a little stuck there, like I'm treading water.  Where do I move on from here?  Honestly, I want what I had, or thought I had:  love, companionship, friendship, acceptance.  But the thought of going through it all again, meeting someone, learning to know someone, sharing myself with someone (which part of me feels must be a completely screwed up and unlovable someone, or else I would not have been left), seems impossible, like an unmoveable weight on my chest, bearing me down so that I cannot breathe.  If the person who knew you most in the world -- the person who knew all of your weaknesses and flaws -- could not stand to be with you, how could anyone else ever love you?

Before I met the Professor, I honestly thought my opportunities for life-long love were over.   I realize that sounds dramatic.  I was only 27 at the time.  But I had put myself, and others, through a lot by then already.  I sort of knew I was a little screwed up.  I doubted anyone could stand me for very long.  I actually ran like hell from the Professor.  But he eventually wore me down, and I decided we were both equally flawed, and that we were both lucky to find someone to take us unconditionally.  The thing is that the more I think about that, the more I recover from the last year and think more objectively about the ten years preceding it, I can't help but recall those feelings.  I thought I was done before I met him.  I thought he saved me.  And I know it shouldn't be true -- I know that my strength and goodness this last year should mean something to me, should be a light of my own future self, shining to show me the way -- but the truth is, I can't help but feel that his leaving me only confirms what I already believed.  That I am too screwed up for anyone to properly love.

That makes it hard to move forward on the love front.  How can I pretend to be this great, SCUBA diving, hang-gliding, litigation wonder, when I feel like I am such a mess, inside?  If the one person who truly knew me -- knew all of my worst habits, saw me at my ugliest and most raw, but also saw my best, my most generous and loving self -- left me, how can anyone else ever love me?

So what is next?  What is left?  Am I loveable?  Will I be alone forever?

I don't know.  I can't say yes and I certainly can't say no.  Life hasn't turned out as I had imagined it would as a child, and that sort of breaks my heart for my child-self.  But there has still been beauty in my life, and wonder, and warmth.  I have been so lucky, to have loved so deeply -- and more than once.  Perhaps all of the love that I have already had in thirty-five years is more than most people get in a lifetime.  I can't argue with that, because I have had some beautiful and intense love.  Perhaps that will have to be enough.