Reach out and touch

Aside from going on bust-dates, I have also spent some time in the past week or so reconnecting with some people that I had not seen or spoken to for a while.

These days with a child to take care off, a full time job, a 2nd job, and all kinds of other stuff going on in my life, life just sometimes seems to swallow me whole and spit me out a week later without any warning… Like I said the other day: I sometimes just feel like I can’t keep up with the pace of life…

Sometimes life just “happens”, you know?

It started when I downloaded the What’sApp application on my iPhone the other day to be able to send messages back and forth with Jill and on my contact list of people who are using the application one of my friends that I hadn’t seen for a while showed up. I sent him a message and we got back in touch and messaged back and forth about all the stuff that has been happening in our lives lately. And we are now in the process of finding a date to meet up so I can catch up with him and his wonderful wife.

And then my thoughts wandered off to a mutual friend of ours, who actually used to be one of my best best friends until a few years ago. We kind of had a blow out about something, our friendship went sort of bust, we tried to reconnect before summer and it never happened…

So this afternoon I sent him a text message to ask him how he was doing and he replied instantly… and asked me to come over for drinks and catching up… As it happened I had to take The Kid to basketball practise near him, so I dropped off The Kid, and then went over to his place for drinks…

From the moment I walked in it was like nothing had ever happened and we reconnected like we had never been apart. I felt instantly comfortable, we had a drink, we talked, we laughed, we reminisced, it was good…

I learned that good friendships are for keeps. I learned that sometimes you just have to get past your grievances and let go of shit that happened in the past because the good by far surpassed the bad…You can always get passed your pride, your busy times, take initiative and reconnect. And if you are real friends, you will welcome eachother back in your lives. No matter what. It just takes reaching out…

I re-gained 2 great friends, and you know what? It feels great!

So here’s to FRIENDSHIP!

Another lifetime has ended…

Just days after we learned that my aunt, the only sister of my father’s side that was still alive, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and a tumour in her head, she is no more… We were informed this morning that she had passed away late last night…

It’s a weird feeling. Aside from being very sad about her passing, it’s just a weird feeling to know that on my dad’s side of the family there is, if I am not mistaken, only the youngest brother left. All other siblings passed away in the past 13-14 years, including my own father… They were ages 49 till about late 60′s when they died… That’s a scary thought… That’s way too young to go…

I say “if I am not mistaken” as we are not in close contact with my Dad’s side of the family anymore. I won’t bore you with the details but it has to do with stuff that happened when my Mom remarried. Right now, both my sister, my Mom and myself are mostly past it. Of course I can only speak for myself truly, but I am not even angry anymore. A few years ago I decided that being upset and angry was costing me too much energy and pain… So I got past it in the respect that I am not angry anymore, I am just done with it. I don’t hate the relatives of my Dad, I don’t hold a grudge anymore, I just choose to take myself out of that equation and not be in touch with them anymore than I have to. It’s a self-protective thing and I am pretty sure that The Mom and The Sis feel pretty much the same…

My Mom was still in touch with this particular aunt as it was one of her girlfriends when she was in her early 20′s. My aunt was quite a character, quite the drama queen I might add, but a good woman at heart too.

And even though I had not seen her for a long time and was not in frequent contact with her… I still mourn her death. Cos I still remember the good times when we were kids, teens, young adults and they were all still very much part of our lives… Even though she was quite a character, as was her (late) husband, we loved visiting.

Even though I had not seen her for a long time and not spoken to her for ages… I miss her already…

And it’s a weird thing to realize that a part of your life that you knew so very well, aunts and uncles… Are slowly diminishing, one by one, until soon that part of your life is non-existent… And I look at The Mom, losing another one of her girlfriends, and realize how much that must suck, to get older and have to go through that…

You Live, You Learn

I learned something last night. The learning experience came with a lot of hurt and upset, but if all positive that I can get out of it is a learning experience, I guess that is ok.

I learned that you cannot win with people that have trust issues, general trust issues. I have learned that you can tell people like that you are honest and sincere till you are blue in the face. It doesn’t matter. In their heads distrust is carefully lodged and it doesn’t matter what you say or do, they have their own truth and they will never believe you.

Someone from “the past” contacted me last night and started saying they were missing me. I reached out and told this person that I was willing to see if we could be friends but that this person had hurt me right before we fell out of touch. That I had worked through that, and was willing to see if we could be friends and that this person could let me know if that is what they wanted.

I was contacted through email and almost right off the bat I was confronted with heinous distrust again over issues that we had long discussed before. Things that I have always been honest about and that this person chooses not to believe. The way this person acted last night has hurt me to my core, again. And I hate it that I let this person hurt me again. Do NOT contact me saying you miss me, still love me and then lay all this shit on me, again. If YOU have serious trust issues, which you do, you need to work on those and not lay them on me or anyone else.

As one of my other friends said to me last night: It is a shame that some people are so jaded, suspicious and even maybe paranoid at times. But really, until they work on those issues and learn that even in this world, the way it is, people cán actually be trusted, there is no way to “win” with people like that. I think if you start a relationship or a friendship with someone, the start out point needs to be that you feel that you cán trust that person. If you can’t do that, for whatever reason (some totally understandable, don’t get me wrong, but you should really attempt to not judge every new person based on past experiences, in my opinion), then you might as well not get into it to start with.

Trust is a tricky thing.  But it’s an essential ingredient for a relationship or a friendship to succeed and I wish that this person would get that.

Yeah, so I had a bad night. I found myself defending myself over stuff that I didn’t do. Defending things that I had said. Explaining till I was blue in the face that this person was wrong. It hurt, and I hate that this person was able to hurt me, again, like this. I still feel sorry for this person. It must be horrible when you feel you cannot trust people. I genuinly hope this person manages to work on that and find a way out of it, as I think this person is missing out on a lot of good stuff in life, acting and feeling this way.

I won’t be in that life no more though. I can’t allow myself to get hurt over and over again by someone who chooses to not believe me, even if I have been and am completely honest and sincere with them. I can’t deal with that kind of distrust and I really think I don’t deserve to be treated like that.

So sayonara to you… I hope you have a good life… Please stay out of mine… Too much negative energy… I don’t need it. I’ll just chalk this one up as a learning experience…

I Miss “Him”

I had waaaayyy too much time to think in the past weeks. I’ve been by myself over the weekends a lot lately, due to some switcharoo-activity in the weekends with The Ex. And I found myself mostly at home, on the couch, contemplating life in general and my love life specifically.

You see, my life is richly filled with activities. It’s not like I am hermitting or withering away here. I am busy holding down 2 jobs, taking care of The Kid and, although it comes in “waves”, a pretty nice social life with friends and family. Thing is, there has been something missing for a long time, and though I get through life fine by myself, deep inside I do miss it. Every single day.

I miss having someone to share the basic stuff with. I really miss having a partner.

Everyone keeps telling me that I do great by myself and that someday it will happen. And it’s not like I am pessimistic and think my chances are over, because I don’t. And though I am not actively looking (besides, what the hell is actively looking anyway, really, cos I’ve tried the dating sites and shit and well, trust me, it’s not for me), it’s not like I am sitting around catatonically waiting for “it” to happen.  I do go out, I do meet new people, I do engage in all that stuff. I guess I have just not really met him. And I do very well by myself, I just would prefer not to, which is a big difference. I have proven to do well by myself, fine, we know that now. That’s a good thing and I appreciate that.

The thing that hit me last weekend though is that what I miss mostly is not the physical side, the sex, or anything. It’s intimacy. Trust me, no worries, I love sex, but I can do fine without that for a while, if I have to. It’s the true intimacy, the loving care intimacy, that I miss. The being able to tell someone how your day has been, someone to lean on, someone to talk to, soft loving kisses on lips, an arm around me, a look, putting my head on his chest and listening to him breathe, encouragement, love, care… That is the stuff that I am having a hard time living without. I am so done with going this road alone…

I can get “just sex” if I want to, but thing is, I did that for a while. Several years in fact. I don’t regret any second of it. But I am at that crossroads that “just sex” is not cutting it for me anymore. Not even “while I am waiting” for The Right Guy. I can’t do it. I need more, I wánt more, and I can’t settle for less anymore.

I guess it is phases you go through. And though at some point after the divorce things like that were enough for me, they are no longer. I know that nothing is perfect. I’ve been in plenty relationships to know that everything has it’s pro’s and con’s. But after being single for the better part of 9 years, I am ready to give it a shot again, dammit. In fact I have been for a while now.

I know this feeling of loneliness, this feeling of a huge void in my life, is at a high right now, due to having been by myself for 3 weekends in a row. And frankly, being at the wedding of my friends was awesome but also very confrontational (as I had expected it to be). And I know that it will subside to an acceptable level again in a while. But I also know that it won’t go away. I have a wonderful son, a great family, awesome friends, and they are the absolute best. Always there for me, and I am very grateful for that, as I realize there is people getting through life with much less. And seriously, I love you all to bits. But there is that part of life that, however much all of you would want to, you can’t fill for me…

Sometimes a girl just needs a kiss, a hug, a romantic embrace, a sweet whisper in her ear…

So… yeah… I miss “him”… I don’t know WHO the hell “him” is (yet), but I am sure he must be out there. Just a matter of finding him… in the right place, at the right time… Right?