You're not YOUR. sorry. TY for the kind words SuperG ... I will add something, and this is just my thing, but I'm putting it out here in case it resonates with others:
I'm working hard to identify all the roadblocks I put between myself and a possible romantic relationship. There are quite a few more than I initially thought. The benefit of all this circumspection is that one of the realizations I've come to is that I am really uncomfortable with people pleasers. Like, that's a deal breaker for me. How can I trust you if you're always trying to tell me what you think I want to hear? Or you're not telling me if you're upset about something, because you don't want to risk a difficult conversation? Gotta tell ya, that makes me not trust the people pleaser, and I'll go one step further: I don't feel safe with people pleasers. It's not safe, because it's not being authentic, and if they're not being authentic how can I ever feel safe, trust that there isn't something that's going to blindside me down the road? Been blindsided once, not open for it a second time, gotta say.
You are just knocking it out of the park! This is exactly what I’ve been trying to express. People pleasers feel untruthful to me. It’s hard to trust them And I was one for a long time. I understand what guys must have meant by “something is missing”
Lots of self discovery in dating, that’s for sure
thanks. it's honestly why i've never pushed for more with K, whom I will be seeing this evening in another of our non-dates. for the record, i don't mind that it's a non-date. we get along great, have a lot of fun when we're together. I just ... can't fully let down my guard because, God bless his heart, he's a people pleaser of the hopeless variety. I know his family history. I know why. Doesn't make me feel any safer with him. Authenticity. That's the keyword to look for when dating, imho. And it takes at least 6-8 MONTHS to find out the real person behind the best foot forward mask we all wear.
M 20+ T25+ S ~15.5 (BD) BD 4/6/15 D 12/23/16
"Someone I loved once gave me A box full of darkness. It took me years to understand, That this too, was a gift." ~ Mary Oliver
When I was "in town" today I stopped off at the grocery store where "S"'s middle son works - the one that ended up living here for a short while after his Mom and younger brother left. I don't normally shop there as they have a more limited stock and higher prices than where I usually go.
He said that he's doing great. He made a point of mentioning that he is now eating healthy all the time, has started in doing boxing and other martial arts. I did remark on how he's bulked up noticeably.
A long way from the anxiety ridden kid who only ate pre-packaged food or take-out food, only drank canned iced tea and who was on multiple medications for anxiety, depression, ADD and whatnot. I remember his mother getting upset that I'd asked him to pick up garbage tags as she believed it would take multiple therapy sessions for him to work up the courage to do that (he popped out one day and it was no big deal).
I'd like to think that I had at least a small part to play in this as especially when it was the two of us, I taught him to cook some basic things and emphasized the importance of fresh basic ingredients and showed him how to do laundry and other basic household things.
He seems very proud of his accomplishments and for good reason.
Made me feel good. I didn't ask after his family and didn't go into many details on where my life is at beyond that I'd adopted a cat.
So sometimes good things "can" come from bad.
I have no clue on what's going on with the rest of the clan - I frankly haven't paid any attention.
Still can't find spray starch anywhere which reason I went into his shop.
As an aside, all of the masking mandates etc have now been lifted in my area but it was nice to see that probably 80% or more of the people in the shops etc were still being cautious and masking up.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Maybe that was the purpose for that whole messy chapter in your life - you gave that boy a few basic tools and modeled a different way of living for him. Good job!
A bit worried (again / still) about my son. He canceled brunch yesterday "not feeling up to it". Poor kid. I expect that he's still not found a new job and is struggling with depression and anxiety about it all which provides a negative feedback loop making it harder to get out there I'm sure.
He knows that I'm here and that I can cover rent if he needs it. It's tempting to just send him some money but I think that would probably upset him.
His sister does know that he's off work as of the middle of the month since he told her when they chatted at my birthday. No clue if that's been passed on to their mother or not. I suspect she doesn't talk to her mother often.
It does make parenting tougher when you are running blind with what the other may be doing. I suspect nothing.
Wish I had someone to talk to about this. I of course don't know what if anything his mother knows or is doing. If past experience is any guide her response for things like this when we were married is to get angry and then demand that I make ultimatums. And then get angry with me when I would refuse but also not do anything herself.
One of the things that makes it tough to work with my son is that he and his mother are very alike personality-wise. It's not as triggering as it was years ago but I do still remember that treading carefully around difficult issues is necessary to prevent explosions.
There's a couple of job fairs this week that I've sent the info to him about. Hopefully he goes out to those.
It's tough to want to help someone but also to know that the best thing to do is nothing active. Kind of parallels the whole divorce stuff in some ways as I was always the one who fixed things / made it all better in the marriage. It was tough to let her soak in her own juices and as far as I know it all turned out ok for her without my input. I certainly can't "make" him do anything. He's a grown man who wants to do it on his own. Frustrating for a fix-it type like me.
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I was running out of bath bombs on the weekend so popped in to P's shop to pick up some more. I'm continuing to get an "I'm interested" vibe out of her. She wanted me to send her some pictures of my rubber duck and the bath-bombs in use for her daughter so I posted some on my social media and tagged both businesses. From what she's said it seems that she's talked about me to her daughter a fair amount. She also made a point of talking about how financially stable she is and how she likes to live frugally like I do.
Leads me into another odd encounter. A social media friend who has been doing some "influencer" type stuff messaged me about my ablutory adventures. We chatted for a bit and she sent me a picture of her own tub with her in it (PG rated - legs and feet only) and suggested I check out her OnlyFans account. I think she's been struggling to keep up a revenue stream - she started all of this in the early days of the internet and the fact she could make a bit of cash was a bonus for her. But after all these years she's running out of new things to try. I sympathized that social media is a beast that can be tough to feed.
Nice to know that my fondness for a nice soak in the tub does seem attractive to some though.
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We had a lengthy power outage yesterday just as I was doing up the Sunday Supper dishes. Finished them by candle-light and then went to bed. The UPS kept my CPAP going for the couple of hours until the power came back on. It was weird going to bed and having that one light and the machine working while the rest of the house and village was dark. Glad I made that investment.
It took some effort to put in the effort last night - just not been feeling it lately. I made a loaf of bread using the recipe a friend gave me that uses quick rising yeast. I did a 1/2 recipe and it worked great. Steak, potatoes, steamed veg and a slice of pie for desert (store bought).
Working from home is getting tiresome and isolating feeling. I may take myself out to the pub for dinner sometime this week to get some human contact. I still have probably at least another month of this to grind through though and need to find the focus needed.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Tell me again about your backup system for the CPAP? My middle son should probably have something like that.
I just have a standard APC 1500 UPS. I have my CPAP and bedside lamp plugged into it. It powered the rig for at least a couple of hours last night. I did have the light off - I plug it into the UPS so that if I need light when the power is out I've got it without scrambling for a flashlight.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Seems to be the time for dreams about ex-partners. I had a whopper last night that included dealing with her family, most of whom I never cared for. An opinion that I thought was shared by my xW - probably still true. Every visit there was preceded and followed by a diatribe about various family members. The kids and I were always "outsiders" to that group. So glad that's not part of my life any more. Occasionally I feel sorry for OM . They're quite the gossipy judgmental crowd as well so that's got to be fun going in after breaking up the marriage because of an affair.
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Had a call with my life insurance agent today about the upcoming renewal of one of my policies. The fee on the larger whole life policy more than doubled on the renewal. Reasonable because I'm older. I cut the size of the policy in half and now it will cost me half previous premium. I have to take a medical of course but don't expect that to be a an issue. This still leaves lots to settle the estate. The prior policy was intended to cover costs of getting the kids to majority and to support their mother. Things I don't need to worry about any more. I have another policy as well that would provide a significant legacy through work.
I'll keep this policy for 2 years and then cancel it when my xW takes her name off the Term life policy that guarantees the spousal support. Once I stop having to pay support there's going to be able to be a lot of re-thinking about things.
Nice to save a few bucks.
In other news we've made an offer to hire two new admin staff at the plant. I'll be doing the on-boarding and training. They'll probably end up reporting to me at some point. I wasn't involved in the selection or interview process as I'm technically not part of that part of the org chart. There's going to be some extra effort until we get them up to speed. In many ways our business is pretty straightforward but there's a lot of moving parts that are only able to be managed easily with experience.
I did talk to my boss today when he called me to tell me about the new hires. The plant is performing much better I'd noticed following our recent maintenance shut-down. We're getting an at least 10% improvement in throughput. He's juggled around a few things in ways that I would have done differently but it all works out. I think that he was both surprised and pleased that I've been keeping abreast of the goings on there and agrees that it can be tough to let go.
Working from home is still weird. I have a target for this project of April 18th which should be tight but doable then I'll be back on site full time again in time to work on onboarding our new staff.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
. They're quite the gossipy judgmental crowd as well so that's got to be fun going in after breaking up the marriage because of an affair.