What do you want from me?

It’s kind of a funny question, what are you looking for in another person? Now that I’m actively trying to date it is something I have thought a lot about. I try to stay positive and look for the qualities I want verses the ones I don’t want. But it is so much easier for me to come up with things I don’t want from the lessons I learned when I was married. Things I know that are important and things I’m just not willing to settle for. It’s an interesting position to be in really. The last time I dated was in high school, and you seemed to stumble upon your next person, there wasn’t much thought behind it. Now that I have lived a little and have seen so much more, I can make a knowledgeable decision in the guy I choose to spend my time with. Instead of stumbling into love, I can have more of an active part in this whole process and pick a better person to give my love to.

So what do I want?

Some sweet, caring, adorable guy to spend some of my awesome life with. A guy that is genuinely interested in spending time with me because I’m fun and funny and interesting to talk to. A guy that has some of the same interests as me and makes me laugh. A guy that I can share things with and will show me new and interesting things that he likes to do. Someone who has his own life that I’m just adding to. Someone who is honest and faithful and treats me like I matter. I want to find that guy that somehow we were made for each other because we compliment each other so well. Doesn’t seem to me that I’m asking for something impossible.
And in the end it boils down to…all I want is someone who is nothing like the ex.

But how to do you say all that without bringing up the a-hole and pretending like all your baggage is gone. How do you say that and still sound like an emotionally healthy person who wants someone as emotionally healthy as you are? I’m not interested in showing someone else that there are good people left in the world. I’m not interested in fixing what someone else broke or making up for something the person before me did. I’m not going to be the girl that can make it all better. I cannot take on that responsibility and I refuse to. I have done too much hard work on myself to now have to pick up someone else’s pieces. I know that no one else is perfect (and I’m not either) and I also know that the past leaves scars that will always be there. But there is a big difference in learning from your past hurts and moving on then living with them and dwelling in them. Call me picky but there are just things I’m not interested in wasting my time with. I’m well aware that you can’t change someone else and I don’t want someone I feel like I would have to. That means they aren’t your person and I want my person. And for the first time I feel like I’m really ready to see if I can find him.

So as I step into the dating world and try on different guys to see which one will fit me and my life, I’m staying a step behind and evaluating the people and situations as objectively as I can. Maybe the perfect guy for me won’t require that and it will be all over as soon as we meet but until then I’m going to keep going. All I know is my life is too amazing to settle from crap ever again.

Single, eh?

Just because you're single and I'm single, that does not mean we should date. I wish my well meaning friends figured this out.
I had this conversation with a friend of mine that ran a race with me this weekend. Being single for the first time since I was in high school, there is a lot I'm figuring out along the way and this is one. People tend to view single people as less than, that they are missing out, some of them feel it is their duty to fix up their single friends with other single friends. Just because they are single, no other criteria needed.

For me after spending 10 years of my life in the relationship that I was in, there is no way I will ever be with someone just so I'm not alone. That thought never crossed my mind while I was married but I wonder if that had something to do with why I stuck in there so long. But future me, I want to be with someone I have something in common with, who is awesome and I like spending time with. Who is the best person I know, who has my back and I can be myself with. I have my certain likes and dislikes and those aren't taken into account. And if they are, they are very baseline (like oh you are a guy and like to run but we have nothing else in common).

I just feel like if people are going to try and do their match making on me that they actually consider who I am and what kind of guy would fit into my life. Here's an idea, maybe ask me what I want? I appreciate the sentiment but seriously. And it isn't like I asked either so I don't know why all of a sudden it has been a thing. I had this conversation not too long ago with my mom when she had the perfect guy for me. I asked her why he was perfect for me? She said well he's single and I stopped her. I said that is great and definitely the baseline for what I want (I got rid of one cheater, who needs another one?) but if that is all we have in common then I'm not going for that. Sorry if that makes me picky and makes me apt to be single forever, but I suppose that is the risk I'm willing to take.

I think for me I'm not willing to waste my time in a bad unfulfilling relationship ever again. It is a tricky thing because you have to be open but still have standards. You have to know what you want but be flexible. You have to get to know someone but still be able to see any red flags and proceed with caution. Or know when to call a red flag a fire and run the other way (which is sometimes easier but sometimes it can be hard). I suppose a lot of it comes down to going with your gut and hoping it doesn't guide you wrong. I hope I'm smart enough to truly listen to it and not let myself get distracted enough not to see it. I'll be cautious but hopeful. I hope I can do the relationship thing again but I suppose only time will tell. And I guess maybe all this comes down to my fear of not being able to trust myself still. That was a big one after the divorce, how could I not see that coming, how could I have picked someone who could do that, how could I have stuck it out for so long? How could I trust myself to pick someone better? I'm still scared that I can't trust myself but I hope that I have learned enough to choose different. But I have to try to see if I did...

More randomness, inspired by another random blog

I just wrote on my other blog on Sparkpeople a blog with a title "Randomness, because I'm feeling random".
Which got me thinking about something entirely different.
I do feel random lately.
Like my mind is always going a million miles a minute, trying to make sure I'm doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing and being all the places I need to be. I feel like I'm pulled into all kinds of directions and that sometimes I don't know which end it up. All my roles in life have me in so many different directions...but I love it. I may not be a wife or even a girlfriend but I am a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a Godmother, a student, and a friend (just to name a few). I'm doing the things I love, like spending time with my nieces and nephews, run, Zumba, or hang out with my friends. I do the things I'm supposed to do like homework and my service learning project. I don't have much free time to watch TV or relax much but I'm doing all the important things in life and enjoying it. Even when I'm stressed and wanna pull my hair out :)
I guess my point to all this is my life is full. I'm lucky to have the things I do and the people in my life I do. I have chosen to spend my precious time with people who are amazing and have my best interest at heart. I do the things I love and even the stuff I don't love (homework!) I get an enjoyment out of doing a good job and being the best person I can be. Just because I'm quickly approaching 30 and am divorced with no new boyfriend, that doesn't mean that my life is less than or not full or that my life is sad. I have moments and some emotions to deal with but over all my life is amazing. I focus on the good and positive and let the rest heal in the time it needs to heal in. One day I will be all healed up and maybe even in a relationship again but for now I'm completely content being me and all my other randomness.

Quiet Reflections

I’ve felt rather quite lately.
I have had so much homework and work and feeling like I’m constantly doings something I *have* to do and I feel like my mind is slightly lost in it all. It definitely can be a wonderful thing to not think about the current state of your life and just go with the extremely busy flow. But usually by Saturday night it catches up with me and I feel this uneasy sadness that I wish I could make go away. I have friends, probably a bit too many pulling me in all kinds of directions. I have a family that has been more involved in my life the last year then in my life ever. I have lots of new nieces and nephews to ooo and ahh over and I love them to pieces. But then I ride the bus home and walk the four blocks home, and I can’t help but feel alone. As I go into my apartment and crawl into bed with my cat, I can’t help but feel alone.

The truth is this loneliness used to consume me. I hate to admit it but it did. I was absolutely boy crazy and wanting to prove some point that I was desirable and worthy of someone else’s’ affection. I suppose that is something cheating will do to you. You feel like something that is easily thrown away. Something that even after 10 years could be discarded so easily. It messes with your self worth and everything you thought you were. Well it can if you let it and I did for a while. I let that fear of being someone who wasn’t special enough or beautiful enough or good enough to want to be with, I let that fear or thought consume me. I had to prove it wrong. I finally figured out that somehow I had to let my self know that I wasn’t the problem, that the problem was him. I mean it was my fault for choosing a selfish little boy who could never care about me enough to not treat me like shit. But he’s decision to cheat and lie to me, that was all on him. There was nothing about me and who I am that made him do that; that is just who he is. I’m just the fool that didn’t see what he was capable of. But that is a story for another day.

Slowly that urge started to fade as time went by. I learned that I was ok on my own, that I didn’t need a guy in my life to make my life fun and complete. I realized that was truly in my own hands and I can choose to focus on that one tiny fact of not having that special someone in my life (that society/biology/everyone else in my life tells me that I should have and should strive for). Or I can focus on who I am becoming, how I want to live my life and who I want to surround me. I can choose to focus on what the aspects that are going awesome and let the rest fall away. I can’t control someone else being interested in me and lord knows I will never be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to be there. But I can control how I see my life and how I decide to live the life I have. It’s not easy sometimes and sometimes that loneliness tries to creep back in but I do my best to shut it down. I remind myself of how terrible my life was when I was married and how lonely I was when I was with someone. I remind myself of all the ways it can be horribly wrong and how awesome my current life is. Being with someone else doesn’t make it any less awesome.

So I have been quietly reassessing my life. Seeing where I want it to go, who I want to be beside me on my adventures and how I want to spend my free time. That is the nice thing about divorce, you get to make this new life anything you want it to be. This change is forced on you but you get to decide the end result. You can wallow in it and sulking in the shittyness that has happened or you can eventually pick up the pieces and piece together something great. It’s all a process and the great thing of being a year out is that I can clearly see some of those pieces and how I can fit them together.

A new kind of blog...

This blog has taken a lot of different directions since I started it. But a year ago it became something to help me find my way out of a painful divorce I chose not to see coming. It became something to help me find out who Buffy was again and figure it all out. To rebuild me into something better then when I started. But I think I was too scared to put it all out there and it was a shallow at best. I suppose I was too afraid I would hurt or offend someone else. But this is my blog and this is my truth as I see it. I know there are always two sides to every story and this is my side. This is my processing and I will not make any apologizes about that.

Over the last year I have made a lot of head way through a lot of feelings and I know that a lot of that is because of some awesome friends that would listen to me and to my wonderful Sparkpeople family that have been the most loving and supportive people I know. But that platform is a smaller and more restrictive platform and I want to spread my wings. So I’m working on my bravery and posting them here instead.

Divorce is a hard and devastating process. It messes with the very core of who you are or maybe rather who you thought you were. You have to start all over again and it sucks. I can only imagine how much more it sucks with kids. I was lucky to be conscious of the fact that I never wanted to have kids with the ex. To be fair I don’t think I ever want to have kids still (I feel a lot different about it now that he isn’t a part of the equation) but I knew I was never going to have kids with him. I knew he could never be mature enough to be a dad that I would be in that situation all by myself, so how did I ever think he could be a husband? That is why I said I CHOSE not to see it coming. I made up a lot of excuses to make his behavior and actions toward me somehow acceptable. Now I can see how truly miserable I was then and how much his actions affected me, even when I tried so hard to not let them.

One thing I have always tried to do with my life is to take responsibility for my life. Shit happens, I know that. But at some point you have to take your life into your own hands. You life, your happiness, that is all on you. I can rehash why the ex was a shitty husband but I would rather focus on why I let myself stay in such a lonely, unfulfilling relationship for so long. Why did I have such little love and respect for myself to make that kind of relationship to stay in ok? I feel like I started that relationship so young, with such low self esteem, that I never thought I deserved better. The problems started to become much more obvious when I was trying to improve my life and learn to love myself. It was that love that ended up carrying me through the process of the last year and I’m not sure what I would have done without it.

I think it is so important after a break up to take a step back, heal and find the parts in the demise that are your fault. A lot people are quick to blame others for what they did wrong and it is hard to turn the finger around at yourself but I feel like to truly heal and truly grow and to not make the same mistakes over and over again, it is so necessary. I wasn’t perfect and I had my faults too. Lots of them, I know that. But because I choose to see my fault in the relationship I can only hope that if I ever find myself in another relationship again that I will be a better girlfriend because I learned my lessons. Those major, tragic mistakes are often times the best teachers. Those lessons will stay with you forever if you take the time to learn from them.

Half-marathon!

I got a fancy new phone where I can actually blog from. Not sure how often I would but kinda cool to be able to :) So here I am quickly to update on my 2nd half-marathon on Sunday. I ran the entire 13:1 miles and came in at 2:22:29! I'm thrilled with how well I did.

My running partner asked if this was going to become an every year kind of thing....I think it just might be :)

Week 9...3 more to go?!?

Hey! Happy Wednesday :)
So last week’s workouts were right on target. I ran the miles I needed to, I ran them in the time frames that were listed, I got in my strength training workout (Bob Harper’s DVD) and everything. Course for the last one I hurt for three days so I can tell I was rather rusty. Ok honest, I hadn’t done a real strength training workout since the end of April when my wrist started bothering me so I was REALLY rusty. So I’m hoping this week I can have my second week like that.

I had a shorter long run last Saturday (7 miles) but I have my longest one to date this Saturday. 11 miles. Yikes! It is the longest one before the half-marathon (which is October 16th). I’m nervous but I know I can do it. I refuse to doubt myself. What’s the point in that? It will be good to have all that time to think. I have a big anniversary next week and I have had a lot of painful emotions floating around that I need to sort out. What better time to do that then when you are running 11 miles? Seriously over the last year I don’t know what I would have done without running. It’s been my savior and therapy. Stay tuned for an emotional post next week. You have been warned…