SINGLE – Celebrating My Single Status (Lil Miss D)

Last week Lil Miss D wrote a touching and honest post about the dissolution of her marriage.  Now she’s back on the dating scene for the first time in eighteen years, and loving every moment!

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx

Those of you who read my first post will be familiar with some of the ups and downs in my eighteen-year relationship (and sixteen-year marriage).

It took me a considerable number of months to get back on my own feet, let alone consider dating.  However now that I am dating (and having a ball in the process!) I’ve noticed something.

I am ready to date and nothing more.

During the last few months, on most weekends, I have seen a particular guy. Let’s call him M.  In fact there have only been two weekends in the last four months where we haven’t met up.

Now, you’re probably all thinking the same as my friends – which is along the lines of “you are in a relationship even though you say you are not in a relationship“.   It’s what my best friend and her fella said to me one day.

Yet I vehemently continue to deny the relationship status, because I know it to be true.

There is no relationship, because I don’t want one. I’m not ready.

Yes, there is a definite attraction between us – the chemistry is palpable and the passion can only be described as Italian. (Quite apt as he is, in fact, half-Italian!) I find I look forward to weekends just so that I can spend time with him. (We live a few hours apart and so weekends are the only time we can see each other).

But that does NOT mean I want to spend the rest of my life with him!

It is quite amusing the amount of people I know, who are trying to pigeonhole me into the relationship status.

Perhaps they are uncomfortable at the fact that I’m now very comfortable being by my single self? Perhaps they are just so used to me being part of a couple? Perhaps they all still can’t believe that my marriage ended after so long?

Whatever the reason I am happy in my own skin and cannot believe how I have changed in the last six months since the separation from ex-hubby.

I am doing things for me, things I’ve always wanted to do and it’s great.

BUT!!!! What I didn’t count on was the effect M would have on me when I first met him.

I did not think I would feel such a passion so soon after separating from my ex. To be quite frank there have been occasions when M and I have met up, and a passionate tornado has torn through us before we’ve even uttered “Hello”. Now, this is great. It shows me that there are other people out there who will have the same effect on me as my ex once did. I was so scared of not finding this kind of connection ever again, both before and after we split.

And it’s not just the chemistry.

We both love the same things – winter sports, climbing, anything outdoorsy really, and he shares in my appreciation of silly, quirky and often dark humour. We both love languages and cookery and have so much in common it borders on the ridiculous.

But ………. there is a catch. I am 36. He is 22.

When we first met, he told me he was 26, an attempt at closing the age gap to widen his chances with me.  I had been honest and told him my age from the start.  I was happy with a ten-year age gap, and I must admit that I almost called the whole thing off after I found out his real age. After all, he had misled me, but I can see why.  If I’d known from the start that he was 22, I would have considered him too young and never started anything.

The moral of this is not to judge people on facts, and instead get to know them first before making assumptions.

I easily believed he was 26.  He is mature beyond his young years, and as I got to know him, I liked what I discovered. This could all have passed me by, had he been honest about his age, as I know I would have walked away. And what a loss that would have been…..

That aside, it does not seem fair that I have met someone who on the surface of it all seems so perfect for me, someone who fits me like a glove, when the word “Relationship” makes me feel tight-chested when I say it.

My head spins and my eyes panic as I scan for the nearest hills I can sprint to! I am most definitely NOT ready for a relationship in earnest, and I reckon I won’t be for a long time coming.

And that’s the second catch – I don’t want a relaionship. Neither does he.

I am happy to just date without the need for it to lead to anything more. M seems to want this too and this makes him all the more appealing. The last thing I want or need right now is a relationship.  A marriage which lasted half my life has just ended.

I’ve been dating others too during this last few months and as soon as things start to get too heavy from their side, I balk and stumble and flee.

M had a 2 year relationship, a long time really for someone of 22.  It ended not long before we met. He ended it as things weren’t right, but being his first love, he too is still recovering from the war wounds of the battle which we call love.

Like me, the whole “Relationship” thing scares him.

We still have the bullet wounds, scarring us daily as we both try to move on through the thick fog of life.

And so we both continually run, away from our past and the hurt that it harbours, finding strength to face each new week, knowing that we have each other to count on without commitment, and that is all we need from each other in the right here and now.

So here we sit, both in the same boat, without any paddles as we don’t know which way to row.

But that’s ok.

I’m happy for the tide to take us where it will. And even if it turns out we are only each others’ pill for short time, there to assist in the remedy of the heartbreak we’ve both just experienced, then that’s ok.  When we finally find a harbour, we can part for adventures new.

Too many people dwell on the past, or are too busy worrying about the future, that they forget to enjoy what is right under their noses the whole time!

So I am living in the right here, right now, as is M, and you know what? I am absolutely bloody loving it!

I am not alive in the past, nor in the future. I am alive NOW!!!!

It would be sacrilege to not taste the bounty of the present to its maximum. So please excuse me ladies and gents.

I have a feast of “Now” that I need to attend immediately!

Lil Miss D

xxxxx