Just Me, Myself, and Joe

I couldn’t believe I was about to miss my date for the night! I’d kept “Joe” waiting all day. He was flexible and didn’t mind that I’d not been able to set a definite time. His schedule was open until 9 p.m.

But where did the afternoon and the evening go? How did 1:30 turn into 8:15?

Jumping in my car, I quickly calculated that if I hit all the lights just right, I could maybe get 30 minutes with him. Those 30 minutes would be wonderful. I’d take them and enjoy every moment.

Like me, “Joe” loves good food. Though he’s a year younger than me, he seems so much wiser in the “ways of the world.”

Like me, “Joe” loves variety. Though his house is not that big, he has “mementoes” from many lands.

Like me, “Joe” likes good wine. Though he might choose something expensive, his “signature” bottles are, well, cheap.

Like me, “Joe” loves to have fun. Though he’s quite serious about business, he always looks like he’s going to a luau.

Like me, “Joe” loves communication. Though he’s not one for sitting down too long, he’ll “ring my bell” when something needs said.

Like me, “Joe” can be full of surprises. Though he’s often sure and steady, he’s always got something new and different for me to try.

Ah, “Joe,” forgive me for being late and thanks for unlocking the door when it was time for me to leave at 9:30.

Can’t wait to do it again soon!!!

The Challenge of Surprise in Dating Myself

I suppose it just makes sense that one of the challenges of 52 Dates with Myself is figuring out how to incorporate the element of surprise.

Those of you who despise being caught unawares are no doubt cheering this dilemma. While my surprise-embracing allies empathize with the difficulty of delivering the unexpected.

So how does a gal plan a surprise date for herself?

Ponder & Chat: What ideas and thoughts come to mind about this challenge?  Come on, surprise me!

Outside My Own Ordinary

Recently, a friend said to me, “I always enjoy going to theater or concert events when you ask me, but I don’t ordinarily plan to do it myself.”

This got me asking myself what I might enjoy doing that I wouldn’t naturally think to do?

No doubt my natural preferences and my history of experiences inform, as well as limit, my creativity in planning my 52 Dates with Myself. I don’t naturally think to plan a date for a spectator-sporting event. I’d like to go dancing, but my lack of experience makes it a bit intimidating and has prevented it from making it to my calendar so far.

I’m thinking it’s time to move beyond myself here, to muster up my courage and create some new experiences. As Yul Brynner once said in the movie, The Ten Commandments, “So let it be written; so let it be done!”

Ponder & Chat: How do your natural preferences and experience history impact your recreation choices? How about your relationships?

Four things my friends do for my relationship with myself

Sometimes even the best relationships need a break. Including, and perhaps especially, the one I have with myself.

Now, I’m not talking about a break-up like the one in my April Fool’s day post. But rather just a simple hiatus from the daily routine and sometimes narrow focus that happens in a long-term relationship.

This past weekend, I had just such a break from the relationship with myself at a mini-retreat with three life-long friends. Life has taken the four of us down unique paths, even as it has given us much to share and learn from each other.

For years we were only Christmas card friends, but a few years ago we reconnected and established a loose routine of an annual retreat. We know our early histories quite well, the families from which we spawned, the siblings, the parents, the school days, the church groups, some of the spouses.

Our first times together were filled with catching up on the long, yet somehow short, years of life when we were not so connected. The children, the loss of spouses, the loss of parents, careers, faith, health, struggles, joys, happiness. All the things that make a life.

Now, having added more history, we just enjoy being together. Sometimes we’ll throw in a show or a museum. We may seize the hot tub from the kids at the hotel. But more often than not we’re gathered in the hotel room, chairs encircled around a game of cards or our feet propped on that same table with laughter and tears flowing.

I love my friends and am grateful that they:

• hear me out and give me other perspectives to consider;
• love me and challenge my faulty assumptions;
• laugh with me and never mind the tears that closely follow;
• feed my soul then release me to fly re-nourished for my journey and reinvigorated with commitment for my other relationships.

Breaking Up!

That’s it!

I’ve had it!

It’s over!

I’m sick and tired of your neglect, your childish ways, your uncaring antics, your selfish choices!

We’re through!

 No, your “I’m sorry” is not going to do it this time.

I don’t know what I ever saw in you in the first place!

 Just go!

 Have a nice life!

 And don’t let that April Fool’s door hit you on your way out!

Smitten with Yellow Fever

“Yellow wakes me up in the morning. Yellow gets me on the bike every day. Yellow has taught me the true meaning of sacrifice. Yellow makes me suffer. Yellow is the reason I am here.” ~ Lance Armstrong

The gorgeous yellow daffodils in the blog header are from my garden!!! They’re a beautiful mid-March surprise filling the weekend with a sense of optimism and happiness, perhaps even sparking creativity and energy.

They shine. They stand tall. They open their faces to the sun and the world around them. They shout, “Hey, look at me. I’m back after enduring the harshness of winter, and I’m blooming.”

Those who study the effects of color upon humans say that yellow stimulates us mentally, activating our memory and also encouraging communication. (Well, there you go, now we know why you’ve got another blog post to read.)

I associate yellow with taking me places, like to school on a bus or around the streets of New York in a taxi with an excitable horn. Any of you out there old enough to remember the Yellow Freight trucks? I wonder if they are still around? (Oh, was that the daffodils activating my memory?)

The contradictions in yellow fruits intrigue me. Lemons smell fresh and inviting yet attack my taste buds with such vengeance that I frown, clench my jaws, and spit. Bananas wrap their sweetness behind a bitter jacket and disguise the fact that both the flesh and the jacket are quite vulnerable. Pineapples, too, mingle sweet and sour in a manner both enticing and punishing me for overindulgence.

Famous artists disagree about yellow:

   “How wonderful yellow is. It stands for the sun.” –Vincent Van Gogh

   “What a horrible thing yellow is.” –Edgar Degas  

Fact is, yellow covers the spectrum of good and evil. From gorgeous flowers and glorious sunshine to jaundiced eyes and yellow-bellied cowards, it follows us through the range of wonder and struggle that is earth and humanity.

Apparently if yellow was my favorite color, it would mean this about me:

You are quite the powerful thinker. It’s this talent that allows you to overcome a plethora of great obstacles. Luckily, this doesn’t affect your ego and you give off a pretty easy-going appearance. You enjoy the finer things in life and also have an attraction to art. If you can help it, you try not to rock the boat. But you also can’t stop yourself from searching for new ideas, methods or styles.

“What’s this post got to do with your 52 Dates with Myself?” (Ha, you didn’t think I heard you, did you?)

Just slowing down enough to notice and give thanks for the daffodils and the sunshine. To consider and enjoy beauty, simplicity, and complexity. Cogitating the contradictions of little things both in my world and within me.

Ponder and Chat: What’s your favorite color? How does that color impact you? What contradictions show up in your world around that color?

Conflicted

“Everything we do that’s important is the result of conflict” Seth Godin

I’m awake at 3:30 a.m. for the 4^th day in a row. Like a tangled skein of yarn, my thoughts seem impossible to knit together into a useful or recognizable pattern. Conflict.

Somehow the word “priorities” escapes the twisted trap. It struggles past voices, “Won’t this get in the way of you dating others?” “Are we going to spice it up a bit?” “Are you really just trying to attract a guy through this?” “Get out there and make some big plans – just have fun!”

Opinions. Advice. Guidance. Suggestions. Judgments. Appreciation.

Watching. They’re watching.

Priorities.

“Everything we do that’s important is the result of conflict. Not a conflict between us and the world—a conflict between us and ourselves.” Seth Godin

Conflict. This journey is about my priorities. What do I want from my 52 Dates with Myself?

• I want to experience ME – with intentional focus, noticing the things that happen as a result of this year of commitment.
• I want to feel the tensions that show up – when, where, why?
• I want to develop greater awareness of my habits – which ones support me, which sabotage me? 
• I want to be attentive to what makes me happy and brings me joy.
• I want to develop awareness of my disappointments and fears – what do they mean to me? When do I most feel them? How do they propel me on or stop me? 
• I want to have fun doing things I love, yet — challenge myself to new adventures, give myself new experiences, step out of my comfort zone.
• I want to be mindful of my values – what do I proclaim them to be? What do I demonstrate them to be?
• I want 24/7 alertness to the gift that is my life, this journey that is uniquely my own.
• I want to bring ME to my world – with a richer, fuller, consciousness of what that means to those I’m privileged to come into relationship with along the way.
• I want to embrace the challenge of the conflict within — to live the story that is only mine to tell.