Online Dating at 36 - The Good, the Bad, & WTH?

Apparently, I've been seeing too many "Star Wars" themed memes on Facebook... which is where that title came from. There are a lot of things I am very capable of nurturing.  My students at school.  My friendships.  My congregation.  My musical ensembles.  My cats.  Plants generally do not make the list.  My one real accomplishment in that arena is a pathos that I've had since 2000.  It was a gift from a couple of friends as encouragement for my upcoming Master's Recital Hearing, which I was quite stressed about.  It has survived 3 major moves, gone from 6' long tendrils to only 2 leaves, and is now back to about a dozen leaves and growing. Then again, pathos are one variety of plant that are practically impossible to kill. Last spring, I decided to decorate my balcony with several plants in pots.  I chose ones that supposedly thrived in shade, as my balcony gets very, very little sun.  During the course of the summer, which wa...

Just a quick post to let you all know how I'm doing. The anti-depressants are successfully handling the crazy train side effects of the Depo.  They have put me in a place where I can feel "normal," and given my life right now, "normal" includes the to-be-expected feeling blue.  I really feel like I can now focus on grieving the ended relationship instead of just leveling myself out. To that end, he and I are still communicating, sort of.  He's being a bit stand-offish, and I can't blame him.  It turns out he is also being that way with our mutual friends.  L and I went to lunch a few days ago, and we agree it is a defense mechanism for him.  His heart has been hurt so many times, that it is understandable that when something like this happens, he will wall himself off.  It is taking an enormous amount of patience for me to just wait on God and wait on him, but so far I'm doing it. I have been told by trusted friends that my ... strategy, for la...

I am a theater person.  Be it opera, musical theater, or simply a well-constructed concert, I love drama and the stage.  Intermissions occur for two main reasons: 1) the audience gets a break to stretch, decompress, use the facilities, get a drink, and check in with reality for a moment, and 2) the performers get a break to prepare themselves mentally and/or physically for the next act or scenes.  That may be a costume or makeup change, or a change of the set on the stage, or some combination of the two. It has been a full 7 days.  This time, one week ago, I was arriving at my friend's house, stunned and possibly even heartbroken, clutching a bottle of wine like it alone could save me and make what had happened just a couple hours before disappear like a bad dream.  Minutes after entering her home, I would receive the text message where the ex cut off communication.  Two hours later, I would have single-handedly consumed an entire bottle of margaritas on ...

I tend to be a voracious reader, but admittedly it is of a few select genres.  Give me a murder mystery, forensic thriller, and I will escape into that world, devouring the story at around 100 pages per hour.  Having a vivid imagination and the ability to connect deeply with fictional characters -- I'm not quite one of those people who cry at dog food commercials, but I'm pretty close -- books are a way for me to leave my real world and go visit an old friend or six. In spite of being a hopeless romantic, I'm not the biggest reader of romance novels.  I have a few on my rather stuffed bookshelf, down on the bottom below my extensive collection of Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs, John Stafford, Dan Brown, Harry Potter, and many others.  I once read a Danielle Steel novel while on a gig; my homestay hosts had it on the shelf in their guest bungalow where I was staying.  One was enough for me. Non-fiction and self-help have held little interest for me.  I ...

As much as I love schedules and knowing plans, there are times where I just go with the flow.  Roll with it.  Be easy going and spontaneous.  My plans for this evening were just that: loose and changing.  And ultimately involved something I did NOT see coming. My original plans for tonight were to meet a friend at a local Italian restaurant for a drink and to chat.  She's recently made it through some major marital difficulties, and in addition to being a trusted friend and wonderful Christian woman, because of her trials and also because she found love later in life, she is a great "mentor" for me in many ways.  Well, around noon or so, she messaged me needing to cancel.  She's come down with a cold and she's supposed to run in a local race this weekend.  I told her to get better, and we'd find another time. My plans for tonight then became this: after teaching my two Thursday fitness classes, I'd go into church and finish up that which I nee...

I have never denied that I am passive-aggressive.  I think it is a required trait of musicians, particularly singers.  We have an innate mastery of it, especially in rehearsal situations.  "Maestro, I noticed the tenors are singing that note long while the rest of us are singing it short... which do you want?" Of course, as I'm trying to control my desperation in wanting my ex back -- there, I said it plainly, I want him back, skeletons, scars, and all -- passive-aggressive techniques are about all I have at this time.  I'm not going to directly reach out to him just yet; we both need time.  I'm not going to text or email or show up at his home unannounced.  But I am carefully maintaining what tenuous ties I still have to him. The best tie I still have to him is LinkedIn.  Now, I've said before that I think that LinkedIn is the red-headed step-child to other social media, but it does have its advantages.  Until this morning, my involvement on ...

We've all been there.  We've been the one with the broken heart.  We've also been the one who has dealt with a friend who has a broken heart.  As compassionate humans, we want to help.  We hate seeing our friends suffering, and we have this desire to fix it and make it all better.  We feel like we "need to do something." On September 9, 1999, in a freak in-class moment, I broke my left leg and did other extensive orthopedic damage to my ankle and knee.  In the blink of an eye, I went from completely ambulatory, dancing ballet, to unable to bear weight on one of my legs.  It took 3 surgeries and several months of physical therapy for me to be able to walk "normally" again.  I have hardware in my leg, and will for the rest of my life.  I veer into this odd tangent because it has two lessons for me right now.  First, broken bones that have healed are actually stronger than the bones that have not been broken.  The body has flo...