Day 2

I think one important process that will surely continue throughout the next few months will be profound reflection. Not regret, but taking the time to really remember my past loves and acknowledge the mistakes that I may have made during our relationship/courtship, etc. I think that it’s easy to vilify or even fail to recognize anything beautiful with someone that you may have veered so far away from. Maybe that's easier than owning up to your own faults in the relationship....

I find a pattern that I’ve had in the past is also in idealizing a past lover, convincing myself that they were “the one that got away” except the reality would be “the one I ran away from”. The only truly amazing men I've been with, I left. I felt like I wasn't ready, maybe I actually didn't think I could handle being happy? Who knows! So reeling from that, in the past 4 years (actually, it may be more), I have been the master heartbreaker. Not that I'm proud. I think it just means that I'm not picking the right men to be with, and eventually it always fizzles and dies. I've also recognized that I tend to date men that I know will never leave me, and end up leaving them instead. Abandonment issues, much?

To get around this, I started experimenting with the state of my relationships - nothing official, no restrictions. Since I wasn't really anyone’s “girlfriend”, I could easily bend the rules and easily bow out of the affair. Though I always felt that I rooted everything in openness and would be quite frank about how I felt, what I could offer, etc., sometimes it still ended with heartbreak. I think that in a few cases, the men I was with didn’t really believe that I wasn’t falling in love with them. Maybe they thought I was afraid of commitment but with enough time I would come around. Maybe…but I never stuck around long enough to find out. Why am I so fucked up? That’s the question. I think it stems from two major relationships in my life that I haven't really dealt with. But that will be discussed another day.

I mentioned in my first post that I’ve always been boy crazy. When girls become women, boy crazy can become something far more risky; much is at stake (hearts, homes, happiness), the dangers become more real. My boy craziness had me going from a series of 2ish-year-long relationships, back to back to back to back (with occasional overlap - bad, I know). By the end of ohhh almost 8 years of really making an effort with my partners, living with them at times, travelling with them at times…I was simply exhausted. I always felt at some point that I was taken for granted, or the attraction would wane, or my wandering eye would start up… Sometimes, I realize now, I would lack patience. I have huge expectations of the men I’m with once we’re together. When I first meet them and they have little to nothing going on in their lives, I don’t seem deterred. Which is kind of interesting. The whole fixer-upper syndrome, perhaps.

After my last serious partner, I kinda…got crazy. I was living in a different place, much more laidback than back east. Far less emphasis on conventional relationships. There are heaps and heaps of single people in this town, and they seem genuinely thrilled about it! Through this, I was losing my strict discipline/standards that I had worked so hard to gain through the rough times of my teenage years into my life as an undergrad in Ottawa and Spain. I spent some time in short-lived, but lovely, flings that each lasted a few months. I also experienced some of my first “take someone homes” in this time. But I’m not one for one-night-stands, so these typically turned into little flings as well. It was fun, but a few years later I feel…even more exhausted than I did before.

It seems that staying in relationships for years that aren’t really making you happy is exhausting. So is being single and dating and experimenting with different types of love and lust, jumping around from guy to guy. The whole thing, wow. Just typing this and remembering all the intensity, the debates, the distractions, the eventual crash and burn, the hurt, the frustration, the anxiety, but also the passion, the excitement, the novelty...it's overwhelming.

So at the end of these years as a lover/partner….I’m tired. It’s not to say I’m sick of men. Oh no – I simply adore men. Their smell, their lips, how clumsy and cute they can be. I just need to take a breather because I actually want certain things in my life that I’ve been unable to attain in my previous approaches to love. OK, that’s some more background, but back to the day to day.

To celebrate my first day of hetox, I finally went to a Moksha yoga class that I’ve been meaning to go to for months and got myself a month-membership. I was sitting on my couch, thinking about SR annoyingly enough (he was supposed to call to “chat” but never did), and I said to myself, “what the hell are you doing?”. To which I quickly self-replied “what the hell am I doing.” I jumped up, walked down to the studio and spent 90 minutes sweating and stretching – kinda like sex, minus the lovely ending. Ha!

Lying in the room, feeling my breath, I released my tensions and celebrated this new path that I’m creating for myself. It really felt great. Afterwards I popped into a vintage auction and scored some lovely pieces for my place. It was a warm balmy evening and by the time I got home, had a bath and a tea, I was spent. I did falter though. I tried phoning SR while I was in the tub. We had this ongoing thing where we would talk in the tub and I rationalized calling him to make sure he didn’t misinterpret the message I wrote him explaining my little 'mancation' since he didn't phone earlier. Sigh! Excuses, excuses. He didn’t answer, I didn’t leave a message. I will NOT phone him again.

Tonight is Friday and there are some fun things going on. I’m going to really limit my drinks, as I tend to misbehave when under the influence. I’m also considering leaving my cell at home to avoid my occasional habit of drunk-dialing. There’s also an early morning yoga class I want to go to, and have a full day of running around, tattoo touch-ups and going-away parties to attend!