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Relationship/s

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Twoapenny:

--- Quote from: Hopalong on April 05, 2019, 06:25:35 PM ---So do YOUUUUUUUU, Tupp, so do you.

When you're down please remember:
1) How truly amazing and smart and wonderful and deep and VALUABLE you are, and

2) If ole Hops can receive a random act of kindness from the universe at nearly 69, it can happen to you too.

I don't think there's any magic potion except that I really did work on accepting whatever is while ALSO insisting that I find some way of being that kept space open for the possibility of good things happening. I'm no "Secret" believer, but I do know thinking that way made life better. Even if M had never responded to my profile, I was still feeling more open. Just...open. Not expecting.

Meanwhile, for you to be moved for me moves me. Thanks, dear. I really mean this gratitude.

(Of course, should M and I unexpectedly hit the dust or I discover some awful deal breaker, where else would I recover? Right HERE, thanks to you and everyone.)

Love,
Hops

--- End quote ---

I think you are a shining example of how going through all the therapy and the figuring it out and the loneliness and that fear of always being alone can really pay off.  It's nice to see someone being rewarded because they refused to settle and just 'put up' with someone else's annoying habits.  Someone knowing themselves well enough to know what they want, what they don't, brave enough to look through it realistically and willing to risk 'being alone for ever' rather than selling themselves short - it takes nerve :) And yep, there is always a possibility of some awful revelation further down the life but that's life, isn't it?  I am increasingly aware that I'm looking back and regretting not taking some opportunities when I was younger - I had chances to make friends with people but I didn't feel confident enough, I had a chance to go to America as part of an exchange programme when I was at Uni and I turned it down because my boyfriend wouldn't have liked it.  There have been jobs I could have applied for and yes, it might have gone wrong but I wouldn't be wondering 'what if'.  So yes, I am delighted that you were brave enough to keep hanging on in there and to keep trying and I'm so happy that you and M will be playing the piano whilst wearing your mad socks :) xx

Hopalong:
I am grateful that you perceive me as having been brave, and maybe at some junctures I have been. But no fooling, I truly have missed and neglected and bailed and skeered myself out of opportunities too in the past (and present) that could have made a very positive difference in my life.

This time I think I've been both lucky and open to the possibility of good things happening and did take one action. After years of it NOT working, I hopped back onto the older-folks dating site one more time, freshened up my profile making sure I said what I really wanted to say, and this time I'd told myself...well, I'm just going to keep at it longer. And stayed busy in between so I didn't obsess over it. And I wouldn't let myself get all up in knots about myself being a failure or success or whatever, however it went...I was just meeting new human beings for coffee. That was all I let it be. So I did enjoy that, even though most of those meetings were one-offs. I didn't regret meeting the "wrong" people, because I just kept the whole thing feeling kind inside toward myself and the other person. These 70-ish guys were vulnerable too. And I'd not even look for messages except about once a week, and contacts were slow. I turned it into just one thing I'd try to remember to check on now and then.

I feel lucky and grateful and so glad for friends here who'll put up with the blow by blow.

love
Hops

sKePTiKal:
LOL.... telling stories on myself...

Hol INSISTED I let her look at my profile on that dating site and let her edit it. Since she met her new sweetie on Tinder, she now considers herself an "expert". (She always has been a good writer.)

Yeah, there was a glaring "message" that I really didn't want ANY attention, from ANYONE. And that, she said, meant I wasn't being honest with myself about what I really wanted -- and therefore would be interpreted as being a "hot mess" to any guys. It was my usual scaring people off - protecting them from ME - because I really did still feel I was a hot mess at that point in my travels from grief.

She also removed the bit about chasing guys down the aisles with chains and a roll of duct tape. LOL. Dammit. I thought it was cute & flirty. But my perception of these things, I'll admit, might be a tad bit skewed after one considers all I've been through. (Trying to get her to admit the same, of herself, is still a little hard. She compares us, a lot. And thinks she's stronger. LOL... totally forgetting all the years I spent working to help her keep an "open party line" between the gaslighting/projection in her relationship with Matt - and her real self. So she could see it; and deal with it.)

So, I have a live-in "mirror" these days; someone to provide feedback in a constructive, caring way. And that's kinda essential for me, I'm finding. I maybe have a ways to go, before I could claim any "being open" like you Hops, but along with spring dragging it's feet around here... I'm moving through stuff too. Dealing with some of the "other people's approval" of me - or not - too.

Puzzle pieces falling into close enough proximity, that I can see the connections and where each piece goes.

lighter:
:::Huge joyful clapping::  Hops!

 So glad you're enjoying M, and twirling like a girl in your heart.

Just twirl away, and don't worry about it. 

The twirling, today, is the important bit, IMO.

Lighter

Hopalong:
Thanks for twirling with me, imaginatively, Light!

Amber, how great that you let H have a peek at your profile. I forgot about the chains and duct tape! I remembered it as a fantasy but didn't realize you'd actually included it in a dating profile. Oh Lordy, I'm still hoping for your upscale holler guy.

The formal dinner went fine. The location and the accoutrements were formal but the people were just lovely, warm and kind and funny. His department is truly familial and all show respect and love for each other, and were very nice to me.

He was MC, in his tux, and had to keep hopping up and down to introduce the next speaker. And he did a charming introduction for her (outstanding retiring colleague, a woman, who has had a dazzling career, much of it about Latin American women, bravo!) and friends and former students and colleagues talked too. The young poet I've become pals with was there and I got to meet his lovely wife. The rest was a spinning blur of people slipping in and out of Spanish and lovely wine, great food, and the most beautiful (and historic) room in town as the setting.

We were at "Table #1" up front and I wondered how that would feel, but it was nice. People seemed very curious about me but nobody looked disapproving at all. (I was wondering whether they'd judge him for getting involved less than a year after he lost his wife.) He openly held my hand and when they asked how we met, I deferred to him and he started talking about the restaurant. His brash colleague on my right said, But yes, but how did you meet at FIRST? LOL. So M fessed up that we "met" online, and told them his late wife had told him more than once, "don't be alone." I actually felt fine, not really awkward, glad to be there with him and them. It felt good that he so openly showed that we're a couple and looked so happy.

During the day though, I LOATHED the getting ready. Partial "up-do" at the hair salon looked fine was was so tediou$ to have done, new fancy $hoes, pantyho$e, etc. But I have to admit my outfit (borrowed very glam flowy pants, old but beautiful quilted top, my own quiet jewelry) looked just fine. People did laugh when I seized a wandering insect off the carpet and carried it outdoors. As usual, I had the deepest talk with one of the caterers.

I was feeling pretty airy as he drove me home, and then got all sad. Because he can't stay off the subject of my D. He has a picnic at a winery all planned for tomorrow and I was so looking forward to it, but once he started saying he'd really like a very long talk, and he needs to understand the D story better, and what was the timeline with her estrangement, etc etc. And my heart just sank. It's so painful to narrate it. I even printed out my two "Mothering Again" threads here and re-read them, and all that old misery.... Not feeling it again the way I did at the time, but just feeling "heavy" about the necessity to help him understand it.

I KNOW he adores his family and can't comprehend this. But it'll be really really hard to re-live it through trying to explain it to him. I would rather he let it come out naturally over time.

I felt better after I had the thought: I can explain as much as I want and put a boundary around the rest. Or do it in small installments so as to not weigh down my own spirit. Or even ask, "Can you tell me why a more detailed timeline about her will be helpful for you?" It almost felt like an intrusive question until I remembered how he talks about his own people, like history, with timelines. But as soon as I had the thought that I could turn this back to him, more or less, by asking what is driving his questions, I instantly felt stronger. Vulnerable place.

So I'll cope, and tomorrow will probably be lovely. Nice weather and the winery views are ridiculously gorgeous. Pooch gets to go too, so I gotta get up in the a.m. and give her stanky self a bath.

Night, all.
Love,
Hops

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