So this is happy :)

Back into my daily routine after several trips, I get up early play with the dog at the beach and hit yoga.  Then off to work where I am being creative and challenged all in good ways.  After work hooking up with friends, family, neighbors and dates.  I am the one next to you on the freeway rocking out in my car, singing in the shower, dancing at the bowling alley, endlessly laughing and smiling.  And of course there was that really fun make out session.  In therapy the other day I mentioned that I thought I might be walking down a bad path of being immature, irresponsible, not focusing on the future or possibly reliving my early 20’s.  My therapist laughed and said you aren’t doing drugs, you aren’t abusing alcohol, you have an incredible career, a strong network of family and friends, take care of your furry dependents and financial obligations….did you happen to think that you just might be happy.  You are living in the present.  There is a feeling of enlightenment and it finally hits me, this is what all the ancient proverbs, yoga books and many writers attempt to describe.  Of course the over comfy couches, the warm room and I start tearing up.  How could I have forgotten what true happiness felt like?  How could I have gone so long on edge in a strange paradigm that was my artificial marriage?  Imagine spending one more minute, even one more second in my unbeknownst sham of a world and missing out on these moments.  It hurt like hell to find out, my now ex-husband, had an eight month affair and cheated throughout our relationship.  It has been embarrassing, shameful and I still hate that I was so naïve.  Throughout this horrible journey I knew that discovering the infidelity was the best thing that could have ever happened.  I never knew it would lead me here to happy, an old friend I had lost for quite sometime.  Living in the present is a true gift and yes, ultimately would like a partner, another house to call mine, and of course kids.  But right now I am joyful and know true happiness.  Thank you again to my incredible family and friends, you mean the world to me.  That’s right happiness and I are back together again. We just friended each other on facebook and we’ll be posting our instagram photos together soon.  I think the toaster filter will capture this occasion perfectly.  

I kissed a guy and I liked it!

Mom and Dad please skip out on this one.

When I was younger I adored making out with boys, as several of you may know.  That first look you share that has a spark, the shy lowering of the eyes, the quick look back, the decision to initiate a conversation, the flipping of the hair, the light touch on an arm, I adored flirting.  What woman hasn’t seen every episode of Sex and the City?  It was always fun to identify which character you aligned with in their different encounters of the opposite sex.  My story doesn’t include any of the posh restaurants, glossy conversation and not one piece of clothing, shoes or even a handbag you would find in Carrie’s closet.  I happened to be traveling for work and met up with a friend just to hang out and catch up on life.  She had some great friends in this little town and we hung out with several through out the day, some of them guys but I never really thought anything of it.  As many of you know through my previous posts, I’ve seen a few guys here and there and appreciated their good looks and well toned physiques (I love yoga).  Through these many months and almost a year of being separated and then divorced I hadn’t really thought of physically being with anyone.  Yes I have been on a few dates but was still petrified of just dating that the idea of it really “going” anywhere was a complete void in my mind.  The goal was just to make it through the awkward first meet, do we shake hands, do we hug, and the hope that the conversation won’t have those long uncomfortable silences.  I never thought about the end of any of these dates either, I couldn’t even wrap my head around could there or would there be a kiss.  Just writing this I am already feeling clammy and sweaty with the prospect of what could be.  Being out with this girlfriend and her friends was a blast, hilarious conversation, dancing all night and no expectations.  All of a sudden a wrapped arm finds it’s way around me pulling me close and I am a bit startled.  He is much younger but I don’t pull away, it feels nice.  I haven’t had an arm around me like that in what feels like forever.  I am smart enough to know this really doesn’t have anything to do with me there really weren’t any sparks all day and night that we hung out.   There was inner turmoil, a Charlotte type voice in my head, mentally checking to make sure I played by the rules.  Reconciling that I was an adult, officially divorced and could do what I want.  But that arm and being close to a guy was great so I turned around and I kissed him. I didn’t care if there was or was not a real connection and sadly didn’t care what this guy thought, I just wanted to make out.  I finally reconnected with a tiny bit of my inner Samantha.  I find it fascinating and mind boggling that I still had trepidation kissing a man well after being divorced.  How was my ex-husband able to do this, much more and even carry on a relationship while being married?  All I know now, who cares!  Those sweet kisses reminded me, I can do what I want, and I am attached to no one.  I know I titled this blog with this statement but I am saying it again….I kissed a guy and I liked it!  

Mad Men vs. Morality

I make mistakes, I stumble on my path, at times I can be a bitch and it all comes down to intentions and actions.  I read this great satirical about the characters on Mad Men, what really makes a good or bad person?  Do intentions count, or are we defined by our actions? We deal with personal morality daily, the struggle to stay true to those we have built, we toil over redefining our morals as we open our minds to new information and experiences and we strain to reconcile, accept, appreciate and tolerate others principals.  It only seemed absolutely right and natural for me to continue my incredible relationship with his daughter.  It’s been almost a year since I discovered that I had stepped back into this trendy retro world of the 60’s and my life was altered by womanizing, sexism, and an archaic patriarchal entitlement all of which was a complete surprise to me.  Hmmm am I more of a Betty Draper or Trudy Campbell?  The last few months of our life together, I took care of his daughter more like June Cleaver than anyone on Mad Men.  I didn’t choose not to be her step mom.  My dream a year ago today was that I would be pregnant with a brother or sister for her and felt so excited that she would be living with us and we could be a family.  Hoping her mom would end up staying in California that we could all live within a few blocks and become one of the new modern quintessential American families.  There is something to a Mad Men/ Modern Family drama-edy, Madmily, Madern, Famen.  Brilliant, I know.  It’s going to need a ton of re-writes with the lack of swagger from a Don Draper or Roger Sterling type main character who at least struggle and have some angst during their moral crises.  The lack of integrity and veracity in the Pete Campbell-ish main character of my story would get old fast.  Back to my real life story, I love his daughter more than anything and asked his parents if she could come out to visit during her summer break.  I didn’t clearly express what I was willing and not willing to pay for.  Of course I would be funding all that we did and ate while she was here and I assumed either his family or him would pay for her transportation.  While I thought we were a “real” family I paid her school fees, school supplies, doctor co-pays, contributed towards furniture, bedding, and most of the day-to-day food, shampoo and all the while he spent money on hotels, dinners and lingerie (of course non of which was for me).  I would love nothing more than to continue to be a positive force in her life but she is not mine.  Therefore after several emails of determining the miscommunication I had to call her and tell her we could not make it work right now.  He walked away from everything.  I moved, found a new place to live, a new job, new furniture, rebuilt my life, still stumbling to establish a new and different relationship with his family, and here I am for the first time disappointing his daughter.  Ugh, I couldn’t make it through the call with out crying and of course she cried.  He doesn’t have to try and keep a relationship with anyone in my life and he doesn’t have to talk to my family.  Yet here I am tackling my good intentions and actions, which have lead to difficult conversations with his daughter and family.  It would be so much easier to Mad Men this.  Sit in my office, down a couple of whiskey’s through out the day, find someone to take advantage of and never create a deep and meaningful relationship with family, friends, colleagues or lovers.  To answer the original question, intentions and actions are mutually important to determine our inherent decency.  All of us that have the best of intentions will manifest those into at least a few acts of decent reality.  The difficult, awkward, challenging conversations and situations are only moments on my intentional chosen path to a meaningful life.  Divorced and deliberate in my choices, maybe I am more of Joan Harris.  Sans the sleeping with married men or someone to save a company.  Although I do see some gorgeous and vixenish curve hugging sheaths in my future. 

A Bloke

My obvious lack of blogging has had to do with a few work trips and one incredible vacation with the family to Ireland and Scotland.  It was a little cold and rainy but nothing a woman from Seattle especially with my career can’t handle.  I would call it the land of people, pubs and pints.  Okay the history, countryside, small towns and the fact that every dish comes with chips is pretty good too.  What I realized, we don’t have enough blokes in the US.  I appreciate that it is just a UK term for a guy or man but it’s more than that for this woman.  There is no better term to describe the type of man I am looking for other than bloke.  A manly man, a guy that is into sports but not obsessively and will turn his head away from “the game” and focus on what you are saying if you happen to start talking.  A guy that has real guy friends, barbeques, likes meat and beer but would never forget the all important salad and wine for you when gathering provisions.  A man that if you were in a possible physically combative situation could protect you, hold his own, but is smart and talented enough to verbally diffuse the situation and establish peace.  A man that wants to take care of his woman and will always open the door, pick you up for the date and pick up the check.  A real man that has more tools than I do, knows how to use them, notices what needs fixing and fixes it without being asked.  A real man that loves his wife and family and puts them above all else and would never forsake that by jeopardizing it in anyway.  I know it’s that last line that means the world to me.  Hmmm a new online dating profile name Blokeless in Seattle?  Yes that was really bad and could only be paired with a mobile phone bathroom mirror picture and that will never happen.  I am sure if there really was a man or men that could fulfill all of the above they would have their own special week on the Animal Planet.  Although airing the region, habitat, feeding rituals and daily activities would annihilate the bloke species quickly.  I am sure the amount of women flocking to the “bloke region” would be astronomical.  The carbon foot print plus green house gases emitting from all of the Women’s primping tools would create an immediate global warming situation followed by a bloke extinction.  What I do know is that I haven’t run into many or any “blokes” or single manly type men in Seattle.  They are either emo skinny jeans wearing, tatted with beanies (been there done with that), or based on my last weekend balding w/ stringy kid rock hair to the waist with the strategically side cut holes in his t-shirt or toothless or wearing fisherman boots at midnight on a warm Saturday night.  I think I’ll keep traveling.