So, “the sweet boy” and I are getting along great. It’s sort of strange, I feel very comfortable around him almost as though I had known him from a past place. I keep trying to remember where I recognize or seem to feel him from and I can’t quite figure it out. We haven’t discussed what we are to each other and that’s okay. I know we aren’t dating anyone else and what we are right now to each other really doesn’t matter. I just know I enjoy his company and want to know more. One of his dad’s good friends passed away suddenly and “the sweet boy” was going to go back home to be there for his dad since he was as a good friend with him as well. So I wasn’t going to see him all weekend, which I was disappointed but I did understand. I felt a little sad that I wasn’t going to see him but I also knew I needed to understand as well. Anyway, he called me when he got done working Friday night and told me he wasn’t going to go back home because it was more important to spend time with me right now. I was elated and I was happy. So we made plans to spend Saturday together.

Saturday

We ended up heading out to see a couple of friends of his that just had a baby. They had invited us to their place to grill. Anyway, his friends are awesome. The husband is a cop for the metro area so talking with him was very familiar to me and odd at the same time. I had closed that chapter of my life and I really never wanted to open it again, but all was okay. You see, “the sweet boy” was a correctional officer and was going to be a cop for the same area when life took a crazy turn and an inmate banged him really hard on the head. “The sweet boy” started having seizures which also means any type of career in law enforcement is a done deal. Back then “the sweet boy” wasn’t like he was. He was one of those that were cocky and enjoyed intimidating people. I know when I first talked to him and found out he had been in law enforcement I wasn’t interested in him at all. I’ve been down that road and it didn’t work. He assured me he wouldn’t be going back to it any time soon and he said when we met in person he would explain the rest. Yesterday the friend had one of his chases on video for us and I could see how “the sweet boy” looked at it. He misses it to an extent; I can see it in his expression that he was excited at the idea of the thrill of the job. We talked later and he assured me that the chapter of his life that included law enforcement was over and done with. This of course makes me feel much better because I’m not sure that I would or could be capable of being with someone in that career choice again. “The sweet boy” assured me that he was completely satisfied going to school to be an electrician and he knows what he wants now and it’s not that.

He’s made comments about what our house could be like if we ever built one since I have the design element and he has the actual mechanics element. That tends to make me believe that he is thinking of a future together. Although we don’t know each other that well, I don’t want to push the issue and to be honest I am quite content with just keeping the things the way they are right now. I miss him being here, yet I like my own space too. I have my way of doing things and it is hard to have someone in your space that has their way of doing things. It’s just a matter of figuring out what a person can and cannot live with. So again, time will only tell. I’m not going anywhere nor am I in a huge hurry for anything….I just know that I do like this “sweet boy” and he is really sweet, caring and easy to like.

So the guy….hmm, where to begin?

Well, it’s weird because there are things I can’t explain as to why when I am with this guy I feel as though I have known him my whole life. We can talk about anything, he listens, he hears, he speaks and he tells and knows some great things. He’s been married, he was in law enforcement and he’s a bit younger than me, but he’s worlds ahead in age to most men that are 10 years older than him. There are a couple of coincidences, the first one; I was at his high school graduation, oddly as it seems I was. He graduated with my ex husband’s youngest sister and I was there. I feel as though I have met him somewhere but perhaps it’s because there are so many things about him that seem so familiar yet I never knew him from anywhere but a dream that I possibly had once upon a time. He has family that lives near where I used to live when I was married. He remembers driving by my house and seeing that we had painted and redid the landscaping. He even remembers seeing me outside once in awhile.

I am not sure if I have met him but I feel so comfortable it feels as though I have. He told me Saturday night that he feels as though he has known me for a lifetime.  I had a fever blister on my lip and I don’t get things like that but I think my nerves have been up in the air from work lately, anyway, he told me I was very beautiful regardless of some silly thing on my lip. Um, okay, my lip was swollen, it hurt and it was ugly but this sweet guy told me I was beautiful. This week I haven’t seen him nor will I until Saturday night, he works weird hours right now with going to school full time. He’s trying to get a factory job so that he can work 2pm-10pm Monday through Friday so we can at least spend weekends together until he is done with school which will be February.

It’s been a long time since I have missed someone. It’s been a long time since I really started to think about someone during the day, it’s been a long time that I have cared about someone else. It’s been a long time since I have longed to see someone or wished they could be there with me. I get scared to trust myself and go with what I feel in my heart and he understands and knows exactly where I am coming from because he’s been hurt too. He has his insecurities just as I do yet somehow we just go with what we feel….I’m not 100% sure what I feel but I do know I like where things are going and I am comfortable with how they are. I get freaked out when I start thinking about more than what is just right here in front of me, so I concentrate on the things that I can that are right here in front of me….and I know when the time is right the other things will fall into place just as they are meant to…..

This week I am struggling. I have been working on my thesis that I am writing on how large corporations outsource much of their work to foreign countries and how it affects us as Americans. I have found a ton of material to use but my problem is that it has to be written in an APA format, one would think that is easy but it is not so much. I have a professor that frustrates me, he seems like he enjoys tooting his own horn and making himself look important, and after all he wrote a book when he was in high school. He basically told our class tonight that the weak ones are the ones that don’t dedicate more time to school than anything else. Well, I have a mortgage to pay, a car payment and other bills the only way those things get paid are if I work close to a 50 hour week. He basically told me in my private forum I needed to spend more time on working on my thesis than working so much…um, okay, are you going to pay my mortgage? Geeze. I was kind of pissed. What I have written isn’t bad, he claims that the whole class is writing at a high school level, well, that’s the last time I wrote a paper. When I was in college it was a trade school, I did hands on for fashion and room design, I didn’t write papers unless it was something for a piece of furniture or clothing, back then my instructors encouraged being different and standing out….so having to write in a certain format is new to me. This guy frustrates me, he seems overly confident, I am sure he is successful, but there is a difference between being pompous versus giving constructive criticism. I’m a perfectionist, but this is hard and I’m frustrated….ARGHHHH!!!!

I’m off to mediate and then try to get something written that doesn’t come  across as being something written from my high school days……..

So I had a third date. I typically don’t go on third dates and as a bonus I have a 4^th date for Saturday. I’m not sure how I feel, I know I like this guy, a lot actually. He says some of the sweetest things and I wonder how I got so lucky to have finally found a genuinely nice guy. We have so much in common and so many of the same interests and beliefs it scares me but then we have so many differences. I feel at home in his arms, I feel as though I found that safe place I have been searching for and that place I have wanted to fit into. I feel secure and he likes me just the way I am.

I am definitely smitten. I miss him already and I haven’t missed anyone being in my life for a long time. I long to hear his voice, I miss his smell when he’s close and I miss his soft tender kisses on my forehead. I miss when he draws me close to give me a hug. I think about him and I wonder if he’s thinking of me…then I’ll get a text message from him letting me know he is indeed thinking of me.

Last night we were cuddled up on my sofa watching a western movie and talking. He all of sudden pulled my face close to his and said “you are so cute and so loveable”. I got a bit scared, but sometimes it’s good to be scared too; it amazes me that a guy can be so free with how they feel when it’s typically the girl that wears her heart on her sleeve, so this is nice, it’s refreshing and a bit scary all rolled into one.

I sometimes wondered if I would meet someone that I just fit with….I am hoping that maybe I fit just right with him…….I know the more I get to know, I crave to know more and more and he has told me he too wants to know everything there is to know about me…he wants to know what I was like when I was a little girl…..he wants to know my “isms”, my quirks, what makes me mad, what makes me sad, what makes me happy and anything in between…..so something is evolving between  us and I like what I feel…it’s a really nice feeling to know that someone out in this crazy world really likes you and wants to spend time to get to know you…..  

Have you ever had a gut feeling, one you just couldn’t shake? Well, I have been learning and  teaching myself to follow that gut feeling and it’s a good thing too because I listened to it and I found out some things about someone that wasn’t quite portraying who he really was…..Anyway, that sums up the second date. I have no time for people that think others should support them because we “owe” it to them or how people embellish what the actual truth is, which is they just weren’t good enough, perhaps because they lack the confidence in who they are to be exactly who they are or they think embellishing will impress, it doesn’t. That disgusts me and makes me not want anything to do with them at all. I despise liars, embellishers and cheaters….especially ones that have no regrets, it says very little about their integrity and that is not someone I want to associate with. So, the second date was an eye opener….

But then as my dad says there are always more fish in the sea….which there is…….

I had another date; you have to realize that I either have lots of dates or none. I go through spurts of many and then dry spells of none.  

So, the other date I wasn’t excited about because I was worn out from the deception of the other one, but my mom encouraged me to go out with this other one because he might be nice. Funny thing, my mom was right; he is a genuinely nice guy. I can feel it in my gut and even stranger our paths have crossed on numerous occasions. He actually graduated with my ex husband’s little sister. Odd and he spent a ton of time in the neighborhood I lived in when I was married and even noticed when the house changed colors and he commented on how much he liked the landscaping that I had done….weird….

Anyway, time will tell and so will my gut…..and listen to your mom! Seriously they just know things!

Today I took a day off from life. I was lazy. I slept in. I stayed in comfy clothes all day. I watched TV. I ate dinner. I barely did anything. I existed. It felt good. I had a review from my professor last night and I didn’t like it. I thought it was slightly obnoxious, but today, it’s alright, he is obnoxious and I will take the criticism and be okay with it.

Anyway, I was doing some reflecting, it seems when I have time that I am not doing anything in particular I think back to a different time and place. It’s like looking into a mirror and seeing your past. I often times wonder how did I get here. It seems not so long ago I wasn’t where I am right this moment. Yet I have come so far and I know I have further to go. I look back and a few weeks I knew which direction was taking and the next I was a college student.  I look back and see this young girl that got married and then this woman that took a stand and got divorced. I look back on that strength of how I empowered myself to be a woman yet at the time I never even possibly knew just what I a strong woman I would become. I didn’t know I would be where I was. I didn’t even know if I could exist let alone function on my own. I had been with him and that seemed like a lifetime and now it almost seems like it happened to someone else and it was just a dream.

It’s crazy sometimes where the journey leads us, the paths that we take to get from there to here and from here to there. We build everyday to be something more. We become more, we want more and some of us crave more. Then there are those that are very satisfied with how their life is, they have no desires to make it better or to better themselves. Some are afraid of change. I have learned to thrive on it, I’ve had to, I’ve had one choice and that was to survive by thriving on every change that came into my life. I long for change, I like it and I’ve learned that if I embrace it, things only get better for me. I put value on the things I have and every day I wake up I thank God that I have another day on this crazy place called earth.

I know I am different than most and I truly try not to categorize myself as anyone because I am different. I think differently, I feel things differently than most, I look at things differently than most and that does without a doubt make me different. I’m atypical in a many ways. I like that about me, it’s what makes me unique and special. I think that’s why sometimes I have a hard meeting someone that I connect with, perhaps it’s because there are so many layers to me and the people I meet only have one or two of significance. Maybe it’s because of where I have been and where I know I am headed, maybe it’s because I am so sure of myself and have such confidence that I know I need someone that not only challenges themselves but also can challenge me. I strive to be better and I want someone that wants to keep up with me, someone that can walk along side of me and be my equal and I theirs.

So, with those thoughts of reflection it’s been a beautiful day, I found another piece of myself along the way today……..

So I’ve met someone that I actually am having a second date with tomorrow. I know that’s a hard thing to believe with my dating history…..I’m not sure what to think….but I will say there quite possibly could be more chapters to this story that might just be beginning, one just never knows…..Have a beautiful weekend friends…..

So as of late my life has seemed to be busy and a little bit crazy. This post is a vent session, take it however you want, it’s just me venting on something that has been eating me for awhile and if I write about I think I can get it out of my system. I’ve dated and I think I have about met all of the liars, cheaters, not quite so honest one, I’ve met them all or at least it seems. True I have had a few good dates, but many, first dates with no chance of a second one.

I had a date awhile ago and the guy told me had a slight limp. He did not; he had cerebral palsy, now in my eyes there is a big difference between that and a slight limp. I was hurt that someone that I had talked to for a long period of time could not be honest and say that. True, I possibly would not have met him and you can call me shallow for thinking that way or whatever, but I know what I can and/or cannot live with. This guy doesn’t understand why I won’t talk to him, I feel he lied and was dishonest with me. I felt stupid. I have no time for dishonest people in my life, none whatsoever. I digress to case number two that is more recent, I had talked to a guy for a couple of weeks and we went out, no biggy, right? Well wrong! He got out of his car and he was missing a hand! Not that you need two, but hello could you not have told me? I don’t get these guys at all. I talked to a guy awhile ago that would only call me on his way home from work or to work…hm…let me guess married? Or otherwise attached? Seriously did you think I would be so stupid not to figure it out?

I am so tired of these guys thinking that they can keep things from females and they wonder why we ignore them later…hmm…maybe because you are not honest people and we want nothing to do with people like that in our lives or otherwise! Anyway, I’m done venting now.

On a good note, a great note actually….I had a date tonight and I am thinking there may be more details to come in the near future……

I was talking to my brother over the weekend and he was telling me about a funny thing that happened to him last week that I thought everyone might get a laugh out of. My brother has a nice Jeep but he drives a beater to work. He works about an hour or so from where he lives, he’s a heavy equipment operator, and he’s kind of rough around the edges but really a sweetheart when you get to know him plus he’s an awesome dad.

Anyway, when he was driving to work last week old Mr. State Trooper thought he’d pull him over. Mind you my brother wasn’t speeding, he does have a radar detector, plus a Garmin in his windshield, well apparently those two things bothered Mr. ST and then the fact that my brother’s license place has a dark cover like thing over it. So he gave him a fixit ticket for that. Then he told my brother that his car seemed really loud and he should fix that. Now, my brother, he’s a smart butt, plus he was good friends with my ex husband who is also in law enforcement, so he kind of knows how they think. So my brother asks the officer what year his vehicle was and Mr. ST said why it’s a brand new 2008, so, my brother said oh, well my engine is a 1960, so that might be why it doesn’t sound as quiet as yours.

Hm….I laughed and smiled knowing just how clever my brother was…because Mr. ST had nothing more to say and handed him his fixit ticket and walked off….Ya gotta love it! J

This week has been a blur, where did it go? Wellllll…..my week was filled with 50 some odd hours at work plus schoolwork. I wrote papers, started planning my thesis, posted to discussion forums, did a couple of online lectures and took a couple of tests. Plus I was able to get in my normal workouts, a few bike rides and some extra cardio.

Seriously the more I do the more energy I have. I have more energy than I did when I was in my twenties. I’m still drinking about 20 pounds of carrots a week and I am thinking that might have something to do with it. My skin has taken on a nice silky and healthy looking glow, my hair is softer and I’m losing inches, not so much weight but actual inches. It’s awesome and I feel awesome!

I can’t get over how energetic I feel and how I live life with vigor and vivaciousness every day. It seems the better I feel, the happier I feel. People at work have wondered if I have a boyfriend at home and no I don’t, it’s all me. Granted I do have a date tomorrow….those details will possibly come later. I am amazed at how I am able to balance working, school, family, friends and a social life. I really thought I would struggle and so far it hasn’t been bad.

The other thing is that my brain seems to retain more and thrives on learning more. It’s like I am a sponge and I can’t get enough. I want to absorb and expose my mind to as much as it will handle and then challenge it with putting more in it. I’ve learned a ton about my computer program and the neat things I didn’t even think it could do. Plus at work we have a new computer program and I’ve discovered tricks to show the others.

I don’t feel so sluggish and I haven’t needed as much sleep either. I sleep better, I wake up better, I think better, I am better! I wish I could bottle what I am feeling and experiencing and give everyone a little bit of what I am feeling, because it is amazing! Well, I have a couple more things to add to my forums for classes and then it is time to get my beauty sleep since I have a date tomorrow!