Keeping myself sane

I have now been skiing 6 times and have discovered that I love it!  How could I have missed out on something so amazing for the first half of my life?  And this is all thanks to Mr. Intelligent and some fortuitous luck.

I knew that Mr. Intelligent was very keen on downhill skiing.  Despite that, I still had no interest it.  As far as I could tell, you were taking your life into your hands and you were one tree away from brain damage or worse… death.

For some reason that he couldn’t explain, he decided to ask me to a special showing of a ski film called ‘Solitaire’.   This didn’t particularly interest me as a matter of fact but, I decided to accept the invitation because it interested him.  It was actually a very good movie and I enjoyed.  There were several scenes in the movie where I really felt like I got it – I understood what drew Mr. Intelligent and so many other people to downhill skiing.  Because of this movie, I decided to try skiing.

Mostly I have gone to Whitetail but I have also made a trip to Liberty.  Believe it or not, I have been down a black diamond slope at Liberty.  Hard to believe but its true!  We went to Liberty on the weekend.  I tried some of the easier slopes and then went off to my lesson.  To be honest… I was a bit bored by the whole day and after a couple of hours, Mr. Intelligent wanted to go home.  He was bored too.  I convinced him to let me go down a blue at least once before we got home.  We went down several.  I fell a million, bazillion times but nonetheless I had a blast.  At the end of the day as we were heading back to the front of the ski resort, he told me to go down this bit of a hill and then turn left instead of right.   I did as he instructed and apparently headed down a black rated slope.  I fell just once so I feel pretty proud of myself.  He told me as we were packing up that I made it down a black slope!  Sneaky devil… he knew that I would freak out if I knew it was black.  Instead I trusted him to tell me where it was safe to go and just followed.

Since then, I have been to the top of the mountain at Whitetail and skiied down several long blue slopes.   The first couple of times I fell but I managed to negotiate the runs without falling the last couple of times.  I wish I could say I looked elegant and sexy as I headed down the slopes but I don’t.  I stop, I start, I waver,  I flail a bit and I recover.  My ski gear looks far sexier than I do.   But it is a start!

And I have discovered that it is one of the few ways I can shake off the stress of work.

Taking my life into my hands

I have decided to learn downhill skiing.  I have been twice to Whitetail in Pennsylvania and have taken a couple of lessons.    I am already off the bunny hill although I have to say that was actually kind of frightening and I fell really badly hurting my knee.

I haven’t given up although I think that black diamond runs are not in my near future.

Easy does it

It has just been over two weeks since Mr. Intelligent has decided that he wanted more than friends.  I won’t have any problems remembering this date since it happened on Thanksgiving.  And when he decides something, he isn’t wishy washy about it.   He has jumped in with both feet.

He was worth waiting for is all I have to say.  He is so very different than anyone I have dated in years.  I didn’t even know nice guys like him existed anymore.  And this is where I sadly profess that dependable, sweet and reliable is sexy.  It’s true… I don’t need a bad boy to go weak in the knees.   I just need him.

Eduardo always said it was about the little things.  You could always tell someone’s character by the little things.  Based on that, I have hit the jackpot.  He will hop up and find my glasses because I am too lazy to get them myself.  But he knows that I can’t read the subtitles very well if I don’t wear them. If we leave the bottle of wine in the kitchen he will go out and get it so he can fill up my glass.  He even picked me up from the airport at midnight this week.  He volunteered… I didn’t even ask.  Volunteered!  Wow!  He cleared an evening and spent it with me because he knew I was super upset by something.  Thoughtful beyond belief.

I don’t know if I treat him as well as he treats me.  I think I have the little things covered with ensuring there is coffee in the house for him, giving massages and even purchasing a little guide for hikes that he wanted.  I write him my scribbles just about every day and send him “Todays view” which he enjoys.  I can only hope that the little things I do in return make up for all the ways that I feel treasured by him.

I am taking this relationship day by day and that seems to be working for me.  Each day, I try not to misstep.  Each day, I try to show him that I care.  I try not to think very far into the future.  I just enjoy the moments I have with him.

Met Mr. Intelligent

After a number of emails, I have met him.  He is different in person than he is over the phone and in email.   Not any less smart, I might add, but his conversations involve a little less mental gymnastics on my part.

He is a very sweet guy in the sense that he is very considerate and kind.  This has been missing from my life and appreciate it to no end.   He is incredibly funny and we have the same kind of dry humour.  He introduced me to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and I have to admit that I found him hilariously funny.   I will have to continue watching that show through Hulu.

After getting a distinct hands off vibe from him for the first few meetings, I was surprised at how affectionate he has turned out to be.   It is a side that I never expected to see and I am enjoying that.   He makes you seem like you are the most important person in the world to him.

He has some of the same views I have about relationships that I hope will make us compatible.  I think we also have had some common experiences that I hope will bind us closer together.  But it is not all roses.  He is a complicated man which I think will ensure that this relationship will not be a walk in the park.  I can be a little complicated too so that likely isn’t helpful.

I am attracted to him and hope we will get a relationship off the ground but my insecurities about how poorly I do in relationships is rushing to the foreground.   I don’t know if I should just be me or try to do something different – me but a different me.  I don’t even know where to start on that.  And I don’t know how to read this guy.  Is he interested?  Not interested?  Cautious?  We had a fantastic date a couple of days ago but when I asked when we could see each other next, he said he didn’t know.  Is it really because he is busy (which he is)?  Wants to go slowly?  Or is it a repeat of John?

ARGH!!!!

 

Because my life wasn’t interesting enough

Eduardo and I have seen each other another couple of times and it always starts out tense before morphing into something pleasant.  In fact, I seem to be tense around Eduardo a lot of the time.  I don’t think it is necessarily due to Eduardo doing this or that bad thing because he isn’t always doing anything that I can perceive.  It seems that I have conditioned myself to expect some kind of ulterior motive or game behind his actions and I am looking for his “real” reason for his actions.  And generally, I think you can translate “real” into meaning negative.  There is just so much to get past that I don’t even know how to start.  And this is just to try to get back into friendship.  I don’t know that anything further is even possible.

But that is of course not all that is going on.   A less interesting bit is this new gentleman that approached me on OkCupid.  I had actually hidden myself on OkCupid but he had apparently put me in his favourites which gets around the hiding and he approached me a couple of weeks ago.  We have just been emailing and now talking on the phone. 

What can I say about him?  He is very smart and owns his own home.  He is Eastern European and seems to identify strongly with his birth culture.   He probably lives about 12 to 15 miles away from me across the river.   I can’t say that is ideal for driving but it is not bad.   He is talkative.  I can’t imagine him having any problems with striking up a conversation.  In fact, it can be difficult to get him off the phone.   He is not soft-spoken and I can’t imagine him being a wall flower. 

I am not sure if we will meet and I am not sure I am dying to meet him.  He has been very interesting to talk to but over time, I am discovering myself drained by my conversations with him.  I feel like I am in the midst of a debate all the time.    And always on the losing end.  He seems to be very informed about pretty much everything.  I can’t say if he is right or wrong but he is certainly sure that he is right.  It just doesn’t seem possible to have a simple conversation with him about anything – even movies.

And I know that intelligent conversations don’t have to make you feel like you are debating with someone.  I know I have felt like this occasionally with Eduardo but even we have plenty of conversations about weighty topics that involve a back and forth exchange that just feels like a conversation.  Other people that I consider to be intelligent and informed are Neil and Chris.  I can’t think of a single time that we have gotten into debate mode.

And last night, I was pretty upset by the end of the conversation.  We discussed religion.   I said that I preferred to be with someone that wanted to share my faith.  That by going alone to church and church events, I was effectively single and I was tired of being single in that aspect of my life.  He disagreed with that assessment and when I made the comment that  I was tired of being lonely in my faith I felt like I got nailed to the wall.   It seemed like he was saying that there was something wrong with my faith and my relationship with God if I was feeling lonely in my faith.    I was feeling pretty misunderstood by the end of the conversation despite putting some effort into trying to explain myself.    And yet… when I broached this topic to my friend,  Neil , he understood exactly what I was saying after just a couple of sentences.   And he didn’t disagree with what I had to say about it.   What I was feeling was not wrong.

I will go to meet him in person once or twice and see what he is like in person but the more we talk on the phone, the less hopeful I am that this relationship will go anywhere romantic.

Interesting twists and turns

I can sum up my dating with John by saying that I took him back again and it was even worse than before.  He blew off three dates and was late (or left early) for the other two.   We lasted a week and I asked him to leave again.  

But that isn’t really the twist and turn although it was interesting.  The twist and turn is Eduardo.    When he found out I was dating John, he revealed to me that he still loved me and wanted to get back together with me.  He had talked about reconciliation before but always dropped it.  The latest has been in June.  But in June,  I had decided that I was no longer interested (if I ever was before) in reconciliation.  It was a funny thing that had decided it for me….  He gave me a passionate kiss and I realized there was absolutely no spark.   To me, that meant that resurrecting the relationship would just be too hard.   And I wasn’t prepared to work that hard.

Unlike the other times where he broached the topic and then dropped it, he was persistent to the point of scaring me a little bit this time.   During this time, he denied me access to the kids.  He felt that if I didn’t want to give him a second chance then I was not the kind of person he wanted his kids around.   He had some logic in there that appeared to be valid for him but I am at a loss to explain it.   I still have difficulty with what he did with the kids because although I was given access back to the kids, supposedly the kids no longer want to see me now.  I have to assume it is because of all the emotional crap that went on around them during this time.

 But eventually, I caved and told him I would go out on a couple of dates and see if some spark could develop.  We went out on a few dates and it seemed like something might develop.   Although I was feeling all warm and fuzzy and toward him, I didn’t have that deeper spark that meant a more intimate connection was desired.  And then a couple of things happened that did not show Eduardo in a positive light.  In fact, it completely killed most of my feelings for him including friendship.

Eduardo still wants to get back together but I am struggling even harder with my feelings for him.   I don’t feel those deeper feelings for him.  I want to try to build our friendship back up but his feelings for me are getting in the way.  I treat him as a friend and he feels that I am treating him disrespectfully.  But the ways in which he wants me to be treating him are not how I treat friends but how I treat that someone special in my life.  And he is not that person for me.  Actually, nobody is at this point.

The other big problem is that I don’t trust him.  After all the lying and deceitfulness that went on during my marriage,  there is no trust left.   Even when I thought we were friends over the last year?  I just simply assumed he was lying to me.  No idea if he was or not, I just assumed he was.   He says he has stopped lying and has said and done things that seem to back up his statement but I am finding it very difficult to trust him.

And of course lets not even discuss what my friends and family think of him.

So… that is what is doing on in my love life…

New financial goals

My mortage company approached me with an offer to refinance my mortgage.   The interest rate was more than 1% lower and they were not requiring PMI although I no longer had 20% equity in the house.  It was a good deal.  I refinanced back to a 30 year mortgage to drop my mortgage payment almost 250$.   In hard times, this will be a good thing.   My mortgage payment is being skipped this month so I will be putting that money into my emergency fund.   That means that my emergency fund is now complete at 6 months.

It also means that my goal to pay off my mortage by 62 is a little further away.  I now need to chop 12 years from my mortgage instead of 7.  Depressing isn’t it?  The good news is that my extra payment is actually larger (since my principal + interest is smaller) and each extra payment will kill 5 to 6 months in the beginning.

I think this new mortgage is a good thing and will help me out financially in the long run.