Don't Force It.

This weekend I realised: I'm not ready.


It's been about eight months since my ex and I split. And for a while, I've been thinking I was ready to jump back into the dating pool, get my feet wet. I've been wrong. 


Rewind to a few weekends ago:

My ex *Tobes was in town. I knew he would be since months back, because he bought tickets to the Red Hot Chilli Peppas concert in downtown Orlando.
I don't know why...but a few days prior to that upcoming weekend, I let myself think about whether he'd call to see me, or if he'd want to hang out. I still don't really know what I was thinking may/may not have happened if I did end up seeing him. Maybe I secretly thought he'd feel he made a mistake my splitting up with me...
The whole day Saturday, I had this overwhelming feeling that he'd call me. I'd almost convinced myself not to be so stupid, when at 11:59pm, my phone rang. Even though I'd technically been expecting it, I was suddenly nervous as hell.

He told me he was just out of the concert and that he and his friends had hit one of the bars on the main strip of downtown. He asked me if I was downtown, and I said no, to his surprise. I'd actually just been sitting at home watching Breaking Bad episodes on my laptop. Alone.
It was a little hard to hear him, but he just sort of said "Oh okay. I was gonna see if you were Downtown...but you're not..."
I was highly confused. So I asked him if this was an invite. He said sure, that he and his friend's were going to still be out for a few hours still.
It was then I think his friend was trying to talk to him about something. It was a bit loud so he told me he'd call me back in five. We hung up.
Hello mini heart attack.
I didn't know what to do. I actually felt a little excited. But extremely panicked. What was I gonna do when I got there? Just act all cool and collected around him and his friends and pretend that everything was okay?

I was even dumb enough to start looking in my closet for what to wear. I'd been in my pyjamas.

Five minutes came. And passed.

It was twenty minutes later...and I knew he wasn't going to call me back.
He'd made me feel like an idiot. Who the hell was I kidding? He couldn't remember to call me back when I was his girlfriend. Why did I expect more of him, now that I was really nothing to him?
I also felt stupid because of my own reaction. Clearly: I haven't been over him like I thought I was. Sure, I've started to feel okay, but this showed me that I really just need to take time for myself, and to heal. I gave him three years total (our first year long-distance was mostly the getting to know each other: long phone conversations, texting, etc), and I can't force myself into something new, that I'm just not ready for.

There's a lot going on in the works for me this year so far.  I have a new job that I'm loving, and now I can finally make solid plans with my girlfriends to move into a place with them in the fall - something we've had planned for years, but our own personal/financial situations couldn't allow until now.
I'd like to start working out again, and get into an actual groove of feeling and being well. 
These are all of the positive things I just need to allow myself to focus on, and in time, then I will be open to dating.

I've disabled my profile on that online dating site too.  It's too forced, and I really don't enjoy how inorganic it feels to meet people that way.  Not to mention, the ones I have met have either been socially inept or completely awkward anyway.  So it's not like I'm really missing out on much. 
But at least I tried.  As my sister told me: "Sometimes it takes these things to realise you're not ready."



So it's time to just breathe, and enjoy the ride.