It’s not such a Blue Christmas without you

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I’m one of those people who love Christmas. I’m not a midnight-mass kind of gal, but I love the spirit and the hope of the season. The Christmas movie version of it all. I have a friend who was able to tell me that there were 37 new Hallmark Christmas movies this year. I’m not that into it. But the songs. The downtime before planning out a new year. The parties. The catching up. The excuses to eat crap. I love all of that. I know it’s a really hard season for a lot of people as well, but currently it gets me spirited away.

I of course often feel the absence of a partner and family of my own at this time. Speaking with my Mom the other day about potentially taking all of our Christmas gift money and spending it on a trip together next year, her me and my Dad, made me feel like the ultimate spinster (though I would really enjoy it without a doubt).

Tell me about your kids

I really feel the absence acutely when attending Christmas parties with my friends and their families.  There are only one or two in my old-school group of friends that have maintained the longevity supporting (apparently) state of singledom. Every year one of these groups of friends celebrates a Christmas in the country and this year there were some conflicts. I couldn’t make one of the dates, while another full family of four couldn’t make any of the other dates. So my hosting friend had to choose between saying no to just me, or to a full family that would almost fill a room. This made me feel sorry that I wasn’t more.

I think this is why I’ve developed a somewhat big personality. I’m often described as the life of the party and I always take pains to bring some sort of spirit-enhancing items (usually costumes) or ideas for fun photos etc. And I always feel like I need to be all the people in one. There’s no time to relax at a party. No one to rely on if I’m having a bad night to pick up the slack. It’s exhausting. I ask all the questions (getting few in return), tell funny self-deprecating stories. The pressure I put on myself to be enough, to hold a solid place at the table, feels big. And most don’t appreciate it, lets be honest.

Single ain’t all bad

But there are moments in all of this that I feel blissfully happy being single. When I see the men some of my friends have chosen. When I see the couples they have become, almost less than more as a whole. The other day I mentioned that being vulnerable was a good thing to one of my friend’s curmudgeon-y husbands and he replied with “being vulnerable is weak.” In moments like that I’m so happy I haven’t landed with someone who dulls my sparkle. Who makes me feel less. Who sees the world in ways that I have no desire to.

Anyhow, Christmas still makes me hopeful that I will one day find the love of partner that I respect and that makes me and him greater in our partnership. And that one day I’ll be able to experience the joy of Christmas with them and through the eyes of our child.

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But what about the boys?

It’s always nice when bridging to the new year to have someone to talk to. Some real live hope in the mix. I’m currently talking to three new guys. Three is a charm it seems. Dudes always seem to cycle in once one is already in the mix. They can smell the competition. And then you max out at three, because, well, time. You always hope one will stick. There’s often a moment of unnecessary panic that you won’t be able to choose, but that’s never really a worry that comes to fruition. 

Here are my current prospects:

1. The sweet guy who hates texting. When I’m with him I feel great and am charmed, but his lack of in-between texts makes me feel distant between dates. He’s kind with a dry wit and seems to have his act together.
2. The sprightly joker. Everything is energized with him. He seems like a romantic. A poet. So of course I’m smitten, but I can already feel the flip side of that energy. A recklessness that I’m all to familiar with and not really seeking.
3. The friend of a friend. Good job. Kid in the mix. Really funny, but still early days of talking.

I feel incredibly guilty talking to anything more than one guy. Though I know I need to get over that in this day in age. Right now it’s just nice to roll into the new year with some actual, tangible manifestation of my hope.

NY Resolutions are not for suckers

I have all the traditional New Year’s goals. But in relation to this particular area of my life, here are my new year mantras:

• Treat dating as fun and not a means to an end.
• Go into dates without full expectations and relax on the whole emotional masturbation bit. Just because we reach date three doesn’t mean I should be worrying about him as a life-long partner.
• Consider men you are dating from the perspective of how they make you feel, not how they look on paper (though my friend’s boyfriend the other day charmingly reminded me that what he makes financially is all that matters).
• Go on dates! Stop avoiding them. Breathe and relax.
• Do decision weeks with the whole baby thing. Pick a choice, and pretend that is my ultimate choice for a period of time. For example, I choose to have a kid on my own. Journal about how that feels. What I would need to do to make that happen. Etc.

What are your goals for the coming year? All the best in 2019!

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A cabin, a book (Mother Hood) and some thoughts on retraining your brain

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As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been finding it hard to forget about The Neighbour when I literally hear him knocking about. I come home every day with a ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach wondering if today will be the day that he has a girl over who has an annoying, wall-piercing laugh. Or that I hear the squeaking of his bed springs. It’s not a great way to live. I have a feeling he’s completely oblivious to my actions. Guys, in general, have this annoying habit of moving on more quickly. Especially when they make the decision to end things. It’s almost like they’ve left the relationship before they cut the cord, so when it’s finally done nothing remains.

For me, the dumpee, every time I hear any kind of noise seemingly coming from his apartment, my neural pathways start firing in their programmed pattern and I either feel sad at the loss of him, wonder what he’s doing, or think about what went wrong.  And the stories. Oh the crazy stories that my mind creates in these mini-moments that almost become my reality. That I obsess over and feel pain from even though they haven’t even happened. Stories that he’s dating a girl I once saw him with and that’s where he is whenever he’s not there. Stories that he’s back with his pregnant ex and soon there will be a crying baby next door. It’s crazy making. It reminds me of that “Friends” episode where Phoebe is mad at Chandler for something he did in her dream. It’s sometimes hard to see the line between fiction and reality when it “feels” so real. For me my daydreams almost produce the same effect.

Escape plan

My brain needed a break so I decided to get away. To find some peace of space and mind. To go to bed without the need for ear plugs and a white noise machine. So I rented a cheap little writer’s log cabin, brought along a couple of books and a journal and headed out for a little solo retreat. My version of a man cave. It was on the water in a beautiful location, covered in a freshly fallen coat of sparkly snow. Perfect (despite the morning mouse dropping sightings and fresh spider webs).

There was a small fireplace inside and I spent much of the time reading, resting and thinking. I really wanted to get in touch with my gut and what it’s trying to tell me about what I want and need in this next phase of life.

Do I want to have a kid on my own? Am I willing to make the sacrifices required? Do I want a relationship more than I want a family? Simple questions ya know???

We live in such a wonderful time (at least in the country I’m lucky enough to live in), where we have the ability to make more decisions than ever before (especially women). But with these decisions comes great responsibility. It feels really heavy to be the sole decision maker on something like having a kid on your own. A decision that will make such a huge impact on your life, on the lives of those that are in your life that you’ll probably need to lean on more heavily, and of course on the life you are potentially bringing into the world with the knowledge that they might not have a proper familial unit (whatever that can be defined as in this day and age) or that they might not have as much fortune as those around them with double-income families.

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Mother Hood

Oddly on a recent date the guy recommended a book to me called Mother Hood by Sheila Heti, which essentially follows one woman’s struggle between late 30s and 40 with all of these questions. What does it mean to be a woman? Is giving birth to art the same as giving birth to a child? Is it enough?  I mean the world certainly doesn’t need any more babies, but the societal expectation still lingers that a woman is somehow lacking if she doesn’t produce a child or at least something else of meaning. But what if you aren’t an artist? Or your art sucks? I read the entire book during this retreat and it gave me so much to ruminate over that I couldn’t get to sleep. These really are big questions and we are living in that time in between major societal shifts. This adds a lot of confusion to everything.

I really loved the book, but one thing that sort of pissed me off. I find it really off-putting when these authors (it’s now happened in two such books) talk about this pressure that is released when the main character turns 40. In this particular book the main character actually says at one point something like “now that I am old” – and she was only 39. The residual feeling seems to be that no one expects them to reproduce anymore after 40, so that pressure is off. Talk about making those of us who still feel there’s a possibility to reproduce just feel like actual shit and way more anxious that they are still holding on to some “impossible dream.”

Anyhow, I came back with a bunch of questions and thoughts percolating and with the rush of other inputs coming back in, it became pretty overwhelming. And The Neighbour situation of course has not gone away, so I have to figure out how to reprogram my brain from constantly jumping to him every time I hear a noise. I mentioned in an earlier post about they ways to physically create space in my apartment, but our brain patterns are tricky and stubborn things.

How to re-train your brain

Here’s a tip I got from my therapist the other day on how to re-program your brain. It’s almost the same technique that I’ve seen described if you feel a panic attack coming on. The second your brain starts to spiral into telling a story or reminiscing nostalgia, you bring yourself back to the five senses. What’s something you are touching right now? Something you can hear right now (besides The Neighbour knocking about obviously)? How does the air feel on your skin? How is your body feeling right now? Which parts are tense? It’s can be called grounding. It’s also very similar to the mindful meditation practice. I’m trying it but my brain really loves to hold on to it’s torment. ;). I’m also starting this online course in the new year by Mel Robbins which also deals with the complexities of training your brain away from the unproductive negative, to the more action oriented positive. I’ll let you know how that goes.

What do you do to re-train your brain?

Christmas is coming. Do you think I can scrounge up a little winter romance before then? Anything’s possible I guess!

 

“Open” for business

So I’m open for business. Dating like its my second job. Meeting lots of great people and enjoying the process. JUST KIDDING. This is decidedly not my experience. I did get on it pretty quickly after my decision to be more focussed. Updated the profiles and tried to be positive. And on my very first date I got a crash course in the new world of “Open to Non-monogamy.” There is literally a checkbox on one site now that sits on it’s own, indicating how common this situation is becoming. So common that in the future the checkbox will likely read “open to monogamy” as the non-monogamy position will be the status quo.

On this particular date, the guy hadn’t even checked the box, but he says (when I asked him what he’s looking for) that he’s looking for a long-term relationship, monogamous, but that it would need to be open as well. Meaning that there would be a clause in the relationship that it could be opened up if the sex wasn’t working for either party. This sounded a bit like an escape clause. An easy excuse for cheating. A get out of jail free card. Why work on things when you can just have sex with someone else? Problem solved!

The charmer also went on to say that “sex is just sex. It doesn’t mean anything.” This struck me as a bit selfish towards the male point-of-view. I mean I’m sure there are some women that see sex as just sex. But it’s a well-known scientific fact that women release serotonin when they orgasm, and sort of bond a little bit with the dude. Its harder, as a whole, for a woman to just love ’em and leave ’em (I’m sure there are loads of men that feel this way as well).

He finished by weaving into the discussion that he likes to have sex every day. Maybe 2-5 times if the woman is up to it. I feel like that’s a bit excessive and as a result the open clause would definitively need to be used. Likely with a Rolodex of call girls as there are not many women I know that are that willing, that many days a week. Let’s just say we did not have a second date. My choice.

Is monogamy dead?

Now I have no issue with non-monogamy…in other people’s relationships. I have some friends that are fully polyamorous and it works really well for them. But I’m not there yet. Maybe it’s just old school social constructs and my brain’s default that are getting in the way of me being open to it. I also have lots of friends that have had the discussion with their husbands that, if the sex was ever getting so bad that one of them wanted to cheat, they would first talk about non-monogamy. For me, if at some point things got so bad sexually in my relationship that we had to talk about it, well okay. But can we just go into things with rose-coloured glasses that it will all work out? I would like to sort of live in a fairytale of monogamy. At least for a wee bit.

Literally every other person on this one site now has clicked on “open to non-monogomy” and I feel like a bit of an anomaly. Also feeling quite disillusioned. To take the pressure off of the dates themselves, I thought it would be good to imagine that I’m dating for fun, and that if I have a kid I’ll have it on my own. In that spirit, I’m reading up on the idea of motherhood and what it means to be a woman in this world. I took myself out of the mix for a few days at a cabin solo and read Sheila Heti’s Mother Hood in one sitting. More on that next time.

How about you? Open to non-monogamy? Am I just an old-school prude? Are we, as humans, just not designed for monogamy? It certainly would take a lot of pressure off of finding the one!