The Dance Card

I admit that I did I did not listen to any one's advise about dating after I became officially single again after a decade of marriage.  Headstrong? Stubborn? Needing to figure things out on my own?  Yes to all of the above.  Hindsight is always 20/20 and I want to go on record right now to my friends who told me to "slow your roll", "don't jump in too fast" and "take the time to actually enjoy your new found freedom" and, as my Grandmother used to say, enjoy having a "dance card".  You know who you are and listen up because I will probably never utter these words again.  But...YOU WERE RIGHT!!!  LOL. There. I said it.


As I reflect on my dating habits all the way back to my young adulthood I always did have only one man in my life at a time.  I always have been a one-man-woman.  So when I was suddenly free to date again at the age of 40something what do you think I did?  DING DING DING!  Prize to the lady over their in the black who answered correctly: I fell for someone.  Which was the disaster one would expect.  Hated the word "rebound".  Not that I even knew I was on the rebound.  Heartbreak loomed. And then, if that wasn't bad enough I repeated it again (minus the heartbreak this time).  Not so much of a disaster but still, no cigar.  And it didn't take me long to figure out a few things.  The most important thing was that as happy as I was to be free to do ME again I had to go through the Five Stages of Grief just like everyone else.  No shortcuts.  No passing go.  No collecting a damned thing until that important work was done.


I admit now that I got stuck in the first stage, DENIAL.  I was the happiest divorced woman you had ever met. That should have been clue number one but, of course, I was so "happily" busy with the task of rebuilding my life in the image I wanted and reclaiming my old life---so I didn't know that I was stuck like a dear in the proverbial headlights.  And I mean I was changing everything!  New job, new house, new state, new attitude, new everything...and of course a man that I was crazy for.  I had worked on self long enough, right? Mediation, working out, yoga, spiritual pilgrimage, eating well, good reads, checked the ego, smelling the roses again...I was in control of my emotions and could handle the man part.  For a few years I had been working on ME and consciously kept the male species at bay while I did so.  So I was finally ready, right?!?!  Not for love, but ready to connect and engage and let some armor down. In one word: NOT EVEN CLOSE to being ready.  Okay, more than one word.  But so true in retrospect.


Flash forward to today.  The happy ending is that I "got it" before I hit another wall.  Can't claim that the work is complete---is it ever?---but I can say that instead of wearing the baggage of unfinished business I am, instead, enjoying wearing my Dance Card just as the 18th Century Viennese ladies did so ornately on their wrists and ball gowns. Its a phrase that my grandmother used to use.  I never really knew what a dance card was but I loved the phrase the first time I heard it and never forgot it.  And now that she is gone I get what she was trying to tell me when she used the phrase.  This is the first time in my life that I have ever had a dance card.  And, by the way Dance Card is full.  






Happy Hunting!


Penelope
=-)