Ready...or not?

 Twice now, I've been 6 months in, and thought I was about to see the man on one knee. The first time, I was glad it didn't happen, and the one to break it off. Hindsight is always 2020, and when it came down to it, I wanted to be his parent's daughter-in-law more than I wanted to be his wife. Side note ladies, date people you are actually attracted to. But I digress. 

The one after him though...man I really loved him. I will not go down the rabbit hole that was our relationship, as I have already done so several times, no good comes of it, and I really am moving on. I'm in a far better place than I was and feel no need to continue to open that can of worms or stir the pot or whatever idiom you want to use. I'm doing better and I would like to keep it that way.

However, that healing stage brings me to the melancholy doorstep of the state of my heart this morning. It's been a few days, maybe weeks, in coming. The tipping point was Friday on my way home from work when "Say Something" came on, and I lost it. I've heard that song a million times. But the tears leaped from my eyes, and it was as if my heart was screaming to the faceless man that my soul aches to complete. "Say something, I'm giving up on you" a line from another song says "how can you miss someone you've never met, cos I need you now but I don't know you yet." and I feel that. I'm ready to be ready.

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I have a love hate relationship with my therapist. She's absolutely incredible. And I do adore her. But she makes me realize or acknowledge uncomfortable and sad things. As the love I thought I was going to grow old in was sabotaged from the inside out, she asked me how it made me feel and we talked through the different emotions I had been experiencing. But she knew. And I knew. And I finally confessed, "even though he wasn't everything he portrayed himself to be- after all the cheap relationships I've had, I really believed I had finally found a good guy and the kind of love and respect and romance I have always been told I deserve- and it too was taken away- it feels like...I don't deserve it, nor will I ever actually get it."

And that revelation I had, sitting on her couch, has plagued me. I thought I had finally found what I had always been told to wait for, and not only was it taken from me, it was like the cruel kids, who pretend to be your friend until you come over- only for them to make you miserable upon arrival. It wasn't just taken away, it was thrown in my face as like this "haha you didn't actually have it, stupid!" I feel like the devastated, fat little girl on the playground  whos being laughed and looked at. I thought I was desired, but really I was just their point of entertainment. I was just here for them to poke a stick at, convincing me it was just a game, until the pokes became lethal jabs to my tender heart. 

I say all this, because it is the environment around which my heart find itself these days. It's not so much him I am not over, nor is it our relationship I'm trying to hold onto. Its that I so fully and completely trusted this man, and he destroyed it, in tandem with- do I even deserve a good guy, that my heart sits here and plays ping pong between "I'm ready" and "I'm ready to be ready."

So as I sat in my car, weeping, and aching and singing off key and broken voiced, I asked myself, "how do I know when I'm ready?" I know I don't like to be alone, that I miss that partnership of a relationship. That "my person" ness of dating someone. I miss the perks of arms around me, hands to hold, and lips to kiss. I miss being in love and feeling loved. I know that I want those things again. But I also sense this fear and dread in my heart- I'm not quite there yet. I bounce back fast, but this one is taking a while. Which is fine, I guess, but how do I know when I am ready? How do I know when I can start looking again, start talking again, and start putting myself back out there without the crippling fear I feel when I consider it now? And likewise, how do I go ahead and get myself there? Cos this sucks. All my friend are married and starting their families. I thought I'd be right there with them. But instead I am not only behind I feel like I'm aggressively behind and I won't catch up. 

What's the marker? Where is the goal? When do I know, "ok, get back out there girl"? I want to be ready now, I ache for it. I cry to sleep often, longing to find my lifelong companion. Missing the person my heart seems to already know, but I do not. It sucks.

So ready, set...hang on.