Sunday #funday paddle around Alcatraz
[Another old post — this one from October 30, 2015…and ello. Remember ello?]
It’s definitely monday, sitting here with my coffee, looking yearningly at photos from the weekend. Knocked out a few things this morning, but starting slow this week. Watch out, I’m feeling a rambly post coming on.
Not that I’m complaining about slow. At all. Before last week, I was running full-tilt, fueled primarily on fumes — deadlines plus extra training/practices/rehearsals for PAWMA made for some pretty intense sleep deprivation (note to self: martial arts camps are fun, but don’t qualify as a relaxing vacation). I came back happy, but even more fried/exhausted than before my vacation.
Took about a week to get back into the normal swing, followed by a blissful weekend of rambling, hanging with people, and legend of korra marathons. Even got in a tiny bit of yardwork for my poor untended darwinian experiment/garden and washed my disgustingly dirty dogs (they hated it, but it made snuggling during tv-marathons much nicer).
And since I’m feeling bloggy and retrospective (and since #ello has become my little pocket of navelgazing that I’m assuming no one’s reading)…
Turns out it’s been about two years (soon) of being single (for the first time in 20 years!). Most of you have been around for enough of it that I can leave it at the tl;dr version — it’s been a tough but good couple years and I’ve learned a lot about myself and life and dating.
But oh yeah, dating…I can’t honestly say I’d dated much before this jaunt. At some point, after I got far enough up Maslow’s pyramid of needs (re-learning how to eat, remembering how much I hate eating alone and getting over it, feeling stuffs till the gray fog lifted, finding my way — mostly — back to sleep), I kinda applied my usual spastic work ethic to dating.
I won’t give you numbers or stats (yes, I do have some, mostly in my head, no charts as of yet tho), but it’s been a fun trip. My motto’s always been crash and burn, get up, repeat. That works particularly well with dating. (I’m reminded of a phrase someone told me about dating (men) in Alaska — the odds are good, but the goods are odd. Applies online doubly so.) At this point, I’ve given up any pretense of being anything other than the awkward geek that I am. And it’s had mixed results. Luckily for me, people have generally been pretty nice, even if they never intend to call me (might help that I’m generally pretty friendly and have a real penchant for buying drinks). My new slogan might be, “if I can do it, anybody can.”
But the amazing thing has been how revealing dating has been about me (yep, all about me…yusurprised?). Everyone’s been astonishingly pretty nice and interesting to get to know. The flow/mesh factor with people is a trip in all the best ways. You just never know what’s under the surface, and I love getting to see how who we are is/isn’t reflected in the ways we walk in the world.
Not at all sure what happens next. Tho things feel like they’re moving, and tho I do love coupleness in all its nauseating splendor, I’m also feeling super protective of (to mis?quote Warsan Shire) the sweet solitude I’ve fought hard to cultivate.
Originally published at ello.co.
