We all know the drill. Never give up! The secret to success is to pick ourselves up when we fall down and try, try again.

I mentioned my wish to run again – just 4-5 miles a day – not too far, but far enough to give me a few more calories to play with, and maybe a better behind. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, but so far I haven’t taken myself seriously enough to make it happen.

The beauty of a blog is that even if only a handful of people read your stuff, someone is bound to be paying attention. Accountability for the win!

Any of you who followed me over from Datergurl might remember the January when, full of Holiday grog and plenty of baked goods and sugar, I decided to become a ballerina. I didn’t expect to be recruited by a company or anything, but I planned to gun it for my toe shoes.

I took class twice a week, and I was pretty good at the barre. The floor was a whole other ball of yarn.. I was not much of a leaper or a twirler; I had vertigo and was chunky in a way that made getting off the ground a bit of an engineering problem. The whole thing was pretty disorienting, especially since I grew up leaping and twirling with ease.

Eventually life happened and I quit class. I never did end up en pointe or anywhere even close but I did develop excellent posture and I dropped fifteen pounds. The thing is, when you are a ballerina in your head, you stand up tall and you eat really really well.

When I ran my half marathon for Team In Training, I was already doing ultramarathons in my mind by the third week. I’m a little delusional like that.

I also mentioned already that I’ve been slowing down and losing muscle and function and the normal rallying I might usually muster was thwarted by Covid slothiness. My weight didn’t change but something nuts happened to my body. And it took me some time to notice.

I began to suffer from an interesting syndrome I call SFTDL ( Single For Too Damn Long.) I’ll talk about the upside of SFTDL later but right now I’m here to air my dirty laundry. So here’s the slacker side of it. Without kids or a partner I developed the questionable habit of coming home, feeding the animals and then getting into bed to read and watch stuff on my laptop. Some nights I fell down a Tic Tok rabbit hole, some nights I watched high brow documentaries, and sometimes I binged on The Voice.

I’d space out and enjoy the no-demands aspect of being flat on my back so much that I often stayed up until 12 or 1 a.m. – prone, and happy as a clam.

In an act of self-care, I moved my work start time to 10 a.m. but with the late nights I didn’t really feel any more room in my mornings. I was waking around 8:30 or 9, showering, watering the yard, feeding the animals and – off to work.

So what’s the big problem? Well first off, I sometimes spent thirteen hours a day in bed. I know that’s outrageous but there was nobody to complain and I wasn’t hurting a soul so who cares. I mean I could have forced myself to remain upright but I was tired and I didn’t wanna.

Fast forward to now and I do have a problem. I want to do too many things to sleep through my mornings, work all day and spend my evenings flat on my back. For a long time I was happy enough with my lunchtime hike but over time I still wasn’t fitting in Spanish, ceramics, blogging, violin or weight-training. I did get back to gardening so yay to that.

So, today I ran. From the outside I might have looked like a fluffy little hobbit bobbing up and down, but I got my heart rate up for a good thirty minutes and my butt feels tight so I know I did something good.

As I recall from the last time I did this, if you just keep going you get stronger and stronger and you can go longer and longer. In my case I never got much faster though. I’m so slow that well-meaning friends have asked me if I’m sure I’m not walking. My friends are a bunch of smart-asses.

I’m gonna show you a picture because today was super beautiful and also to prove to you that I really did do the dang thing, and uphill at that.

*

It’s now about 8:42 in the P.M. and I am going to attempt to do something really outrageous. I am going to try to stay up until about 10:30 – and by up I mean upright in this living room. And then (and this is when Sh*t gets crazy) – I’m going to bed without my laptop or my phone or any type of screen. I know this is pretty radical but I want to see if I can do it.

And then I want to see if I can wake up at 7 a.m. feeling rested.

I will report back tomorrow, because I know I am not the only one suffering from SFTDL. I know plenty of us have developed less than wonderful habits and when they stop serving us it’s time to bust out and try something different.

I regret that this post sounds like a bunch of ideas inspired by Oprah magazine, but Oprah isn’t wrong. She’s just sort of annoying in her constant push to make us better actualized humans. Mostly I don’t want to be reminded to stretch beyond my comfort zone. I’m pushing 60, dammit.

But this is different in a really move it or lose it kind of way. I don’t want to be a complete apple – that’s my vanity talking – and I do want to see if I can get up earlier so I can maybe play some fiddle or conjugate a few verbs en español.

I’m a little pissy atm because I’m a bit hungry and I am sober as the day I was born. More on that later but I made myself a mocktail and I need to just cool it and wind down because in my mind I am now a bit of a waif, and an artist like Edie Sedgewick, minus the overdose. Or Lillie Mae. I’m her and Lillie looks like she doesn’t eat for fun after 7pm.

I have already started rimming my eyes a little darker so clearly, the sky’s the limit.

Sweet dreams, monkey love and wish me luck.

I’m going to tell you the truth.

For most of us, at birth, we are gifted fifty years of pretty good health. In my first half century, self-care was a part of my life, but somewhat erratic. I exercised sporadically, ate okay, drank as much as I felt like , which sometimes was a fair amount – and my dirty little secret – I smoked cigarettes. And I felt fine.

I was never in amazing shape, but I could keep up in hot yoga, attend barre classes, hike forever – and I once ran 18 miles.

But when I hit fifty, everything changed.

I went to doctors with various complaints and basically was waved off as an overweight female, a smoker and in need of some better eating and exercise habits. So I struggled to lose weight and to quit smoking and to exercise more and sometimes I did great and sometimes I sort of crumped.

Life is like that.

More and more I felt awful in the way that so many peri-menopausal women describe. I remember listing my symptoms which were classic middle-aged female complaints and this skinny woman doctor told me that she runs at lunch blah blah and I left feeling like a hapless derelict slacker. Never once did she mention “the change.”

I tested my hormones even though she didn’t think it was necessary and sure enough I was in full-on menopause. For me that meant migraines which I’d never had before, anxiety, feeling sluggish and bloated, and an expanding midsection I seemed to not be able to do much about.

My favorite gynecologist put me on the pill and did a full hysterectomy/oophorectomy for me (lots of reproductive tumors in my family) and while I was thrown further into menopause, I slowly started to feel better. One day I got a superficial blood clot and I stopped the pill, but bingo, I was okay.

But now I had a whole new set of issues. My blood pressure took off through the roof and I started to wrinkle. I had always looked very very young for my age but my skin got crepey and things started to sag. I went to a new doctor who insisted I take estrogen and I finally relented but I blew up like a balloon and I hated it. The one good thing about menopause is you don’t have to be moody anymore. Once it’s over, the cycling and mood stuff sort of evens out and you feel like you did when you were eight years old. That part is fantastic!

This horrible woman (her name is Dr. Lisa Hudson) shamed me for smoking and when I teared up because my kids were all moving out she said I was unstable and needed a psychiatrist. She wrote that in my chart.

Luckily I saw a cardiac specialist from Germany and when I told him I smoked 4-5 cigarettes a day he said he had no concerns about that (Germans smoke like fiends) but if I didn’t get my blood pressure under control I was going to stroke out. I loved this man and I took his words seriously.

No one managed to solve my blood pressure issues but me. I tried Dr. Mean Girl’s medication regimens and they didn’t work. That really pissed off her off and she fired me. She sent me a letter saying I was rude because I didn’t get in line with her recommendations. So what I did myself is I is found three meds that in small doses worked synergistically to bring my 200/100 BP down to an amazing 118/60.

The only issue was that it also lowered my heart rate quite a bit and this makes hard exercise a bit tricky. But overall, amazing results.

I am going to deliver a medical pearl and a bit of medical history. In training we were all taught to maximize one drug’s dose before adding another. Dr. Lisa Buttface adhered strictly to this dogma but I had learned a different approach. My favorite gynecologist (Kurt Wharton, but he retired) once told me that since the majority of a drug’s effects are produced at low doses and the majority of the side effects occur at high doses, it was often better to add a second medication to work synergistically with the other med or meds. That is precisely how I solved my blood pressure issues.

I also thought about processes in the body. My issues are inflammation and autonomic dysfunction. I know my flight or flight and stress hormones are through the roof. So I when regular meds for blood pressure didn’t work, I decided it was because they were targeting the wrong pathways. Once I got the stress pathways contained, it all fell into line. I did it with pills because another thing I have learned is the natural stuff is all good but our environment and lifestyle has stressed us to the point that celery juice isn’t going to cut it.

I have to say that I was kind of stunned that no doctor had ever taken the time to consider why my blood pressure was so high. A few cigarettes a day and menopause and a fluffy belly was all they needed to know before funneling me into the standard blood pressure med protocol – the one that didn’t work.

Once menopause calmed down I did quit the smoking. I had quit a million times before but I’m never going back. I also wanted to get into fabulous shape but stuff started falling apart faster that I could put it back together.

Without dragging this out too far, I developed a burning stomach, difficulty swallowing at times and if I drank coffee or dairy my digestion was trashed. I saw a GI guy, got scoped and was told everything was fine. I had terrible reflux if I ate much after seven, and sometimes food got stuck in my throat if I ate too early in the morning. I certainly didn’t feel fine.

Then I went through a period of breaking a bunch of bones and spraining a few ankles.

And then, I started to bleed. Black tarry stools. Another scope, a capsule endoscopy where you swallow a camera – no cancer, no site of bleeding found. I had every symptom of an ulcer but I was told I didn’t have that.

I kept on bleeding and one day thought I would pass out. I convinced my new much better doctor to give me an iron infusion. After many many months of restless leg and chewing ice and extreme fatigue I felt much better. But I kept having bleeds and as my iron fell, my energy tanked.

I had always hiked a bit and taken a few barre or yoga classes or gone to the gym and lifted some weights but with covid the classes and gym were out. I think my fitness suffered and little by little I noticed my reflection looking a little more stooped and my shape becoming more and more apple-like.

I am beginning to hone in on how to get better, but I don’t feel like I have really good support in this. So what happens is I only manage to do some of what I need to do. I take my BP meds and I don’t smoke and I walk a little but I am not getting enough of the right exercise to build enough muscle to reverse this apple issue. Weight-training is the fountain of youth if you want to keep your curves. And, I do. I really do.

I eat very well some days – tons of veggies and lean proteins, but last weekend I had fish tacos, fries and an In-N-Out chocolate milkshake because I just effin wanted to. My body is so sensitive that I can very easily offset a week of great eating with one or two big splurges. And my job is so demanding that sometimes my discipline fails.

I still drink a bit and I wish I could find a good drug but edibles over time cause me to have word-finding difficulties and after quitting smoking I really don’t want to mess with my lungs. I tried Kratom and it’s interesting but disgusting to choke down and I don’t think enough is known about it. So what I really want to do is run.

I want to run because I am a person who needs drugs like pumpin’ endorphins. I already get sunlight, I take my lexapro faithfully and it works……but when I get home from work I need something. Running sounds good to me.

Switch to yesterday. I had held my phone for three hours so the neighbor kids could watch Curious George and The Tom and Jerry movie (see previous post). I knew I was cramping up but I ignored it. Doctors do that. We are taught to serve others even if our stomach hurts or our arm is cramping up.

Well huge mistake because I did something to my trapezius that caused my neck to freeze and it was bad.

I had to ask my little patients to please not fight me because Dr. Maria had a really bad neck owie. Amazingly the toddler set fell into line and held still and I made it through my day. I got a little chiropractic, called my doctor for a virtual visit and eventually got a call back from a different physician I am now calling Dr. WhereHaveYouBeenAllMyLife.

He talked to me about nerve causes (my entire occiput was in a vice) but didn’t discount my muscle strain concerns. He gave me muscle relaxants, gabapentin and steroids. Because I mentioned my stomach issues (which still aren’t solved) we talked about that too.I wanted to get the steroids but wait and he respected that. I told him that after two years of the bleeding and symptoms, about a month ago, I had another capsule endoscopy at my insistence and wouldn’t you know it — bleeding ulcers. The thing that made perfect sense that I was told I didn’t have is exactly what I have had for years.

H.Pylori is a major cause of ulcers. No one ever talked to me about H.Pylori, I was just told to take Omeprazole, but I ran a test on myself and it was negative. I told him this and he said – well let’s treat you for it anyway. I almost wept. Then I asked him about carafate to maybe help me get better faster and he said – sure, let’s try that. I teared up for real.

I was terrified that my occipital vice-like pain was going to take forever to go away, and I can’t take motrin or I’ll bleed, so I went to bed with a bunch of pillows and a heating pad rolled under my neck in a neutral position and took the valium muscle relaxer and the gabapentin, twice, and by midnight it all started to lift.

Mr. Doctor Wonderful had been right. I think I had occipital neuralgia and I was able to calm it down and it went away so fast that it couldn’t have been muscular.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well……first I want you to follow me on my journey to get from this aging apple shape to curvy old broad. We’ll have fun and I will share my before and afters.

Second, I think everyone needs to know that it is really hard to both care for ourselves and to get good care.

And third I have one more thing to tell you.

When I was laid up in bed I did some internet perusing and I came across this C-spine expert who went through tons of physiology describing neck issues, secondary nerve issues (especially the vagus nerve which is part of our autonomic nervous system) and all the possible health issues that stem from losing the normal curvature of the neck. My mind exploded…..maybe those chiropractors really can fix digestive issues…I had never understood it all. I happen to have neck issues and many manifestations of vagus nerve and other nerve issues and this guy had a way of curing all of this by realigning the neck and then strengthening the ligaments to hold it all into place.

Furthermore, I have a strong belief that a part of the anxiety so many kids are experiencing may have to do with the vagus nerve and autonomic dysfunction. Theories include algae blooms, toxins, pesticides – you name it. Well, what if it’s from looking down at cell phones and messing with proper C-spine curvature? My mind was blown.

I was ready to fly to Florida so this dude could treat me, but not being one to jump the gun when it comes to medical interventions, I googled him: Dr. Ross Hauser.

Oooh boy.

Turns out this guy runs a racket where he injects large volumes of dextrose, stem cells and other junk into people’s necks and other joints (it’s called Prolotherapy) and he has done massive and debilitating injury to many people. It’s so bad that one of his injured patients set up a website just to warn people.

And I had fallen for it.

I don’t know what to tell you. Just be careful out there.

Medically, I’d find yourself a good allopathic physician who listens and is willing to think about your problems as a whole…not just play whack-a-mole with every issue. I would also work with a good chiropractor or physical therapist but use extreme caution if any naturopath tells you not to immunize your kids. Functional medicine people have interesting ideas and know a tremendous amount of physiology but I find much of their treatments are trendy and they thrust the same thing on everyone. It used to be candida, now it’s lyme – MTHFR – they have their own kind of dogma and as long as their recommendations are harmless, go for it. But remember that much of it may not actually work the way they say it does.

I learned this with probiotics. We know the gut biome is important. We know leaky gut is real. But that’s about all we actually know. Everything else is subject to debate and there’s a ton of providers who will throw all kinds of good bacteria and gut supplements at you and we don’t know if it helps or makes things worse. The studies are split here. What we do know is that processed foods may eff up your biome. We know that antibiotics kill off the biome but surprisingly you recolonize faster without probiotics. Hmmm. Fermented foods might be helpful but I’m not sure that all the billions of colony forming units we are swallowing are really doing any good. When I tried a GI doctor recommended protocol I looked eight months pregnant and had belly cramps. SIBO? Who knows. Stay tuned for fecal transplants because that data looks promising.

Bottom line is tread gently but pay attention to how your body seems to function. Find a doctor who will teach you what labs and tests mean and who will take the time to explain pathophysiology to you. This is important because you ultimately will be your own best healer but you can’t do it without some science and information. Even the best doctor will fail you if they are right but they don’t explain why. Also remember anything that sounds too good to be true probably is. When providers carry around their hammers, everything is a nail.

Besides finding the right providers, my feeling is to avoid as many toxins and food additives as you can, eat freshly, stay away from nitrates and nitrites and things like that, move your body and get your vaccines and preventative screens like mammograms and colonoscopies. Get some sun and put your hands and feet in the earth because there are microbes in there that are good for your mental health (really!) and also it helps to ground us. (that’s just me talking). Make time for activities that get you into FLOW – hiking, walking, art, music, writing…..FLOW is essential. If you need mental health help don’t be afraid to tweak your chemistry carefully with the right meds – but be aware that meds can also cause you to tank so don’t follow any protocol that makes you feel worse. Stretch and stand up straight…..basically what I have learned is that science is great and if you get super sick there’s a lot that can be done so don’t bash western medicine. But day-to-day, listen to the wisdom of your elders, maintain good habits, love your neighbor, and plant a garden.

The End.

I know I’m not supposed to write about boys anymore but I’m gonna have to break my own rule for the second time and be a two for two on this blog.

So there’s this guy named Brad Mondo. He has ten million followers because he is adorable. I am a fan.

I watch his videos because I also love hair and especially at home hair attempts. Brad loves them too so what he does is he watches you tube hair videos and he comments. Mostly he cheerleads, exclaims Nooooo!, and says “you go girl!”

He is gay enough to be fun but not so gay that after two or five or seven Negroni’s you don’t want to kiss him . Probably no tongues though because he really is gay. But he’ll tell you your tits look great in that dress and give you a little wink. Love me some Brad Mondo.

After some Mondo in which he created three ten minute hairdos and was judged from 1-10 by his best friend, I fell asleep. Next thing I knew, some guy was doing my hair. I had tons of volume unlike in real life and my dream hair was nappy and out of control plus my color needed fixing so I was about to get the full Brad Mondo.

Mondo is a bonafide hairdresser with a best-selling line of fabulous color so I was excited. Black hair can be challenging to work with and this hair care provider was mixed race so I let him get down with some bleach and some XMondo color.

While I was processing we made out. Right in front of the entire salon in the shampoo bowl chair we slogged. Then fast forward and there is some GQ hottie who’s into me at a party.

I know people who tell you their dreams deserve to be shot but this is my blog and you can leave if you don’t like it but don’t because it gets good.

So the hottie is into me and there’s s’more smooching and then I’m on vacation with some people I don’t know from Adam and the vacation is basically a series of big parties every night. It feels like an adult Isla Vista but with fancy drinks instead of drugs. But the maturity level is about the same.

The next night Mr. GQ is at the party where I’m at and he’s kind of sloppy and sweaty and avoiding me like the plague. Btw speaking of plague this dream was clearly a before covid type of situation where parties were not super spreader events….condoms please.

Even in my dream, I managed to not give one sh*t about this guy but my friends, none of whom I recognized, were giving me sympathy while agreeing he was kind of wasted and gross.

Then I’m on an airplane and the entire crew is geriatric and new to their job and there’s turbulence. I don’t know what to make of it but it was quite a scene.

It’s 7 am and I just woke up to tell you this dream and I’m kind of tired but overall it was a decent dream.

I’m tired because I babysat my two little favorite monsters last night and oooh boy…what a night.

Their parents were on a death watch. Lolo their grampa was in the process of letting go and crossing over. That morning I went over to return something Zobear (that’s what I call her but her name is Zoe) had left at my house the night before when we roasted giant marshmallows over my new propane firepit.

The thing I returned was extremely valuable and important, it being the witching season: a pencil case filled with kid-curated spooky things. The way you do it is you to close your eyes and pick something and you pretend to be horrified and grossed out as you pull out a fake eyeball or gooey fluorescent cockroach. You do it like a hundred times and each time you are just as freaked out.

Zoe always brings stuff over incase there’s a lull in the conversation.

So when I returned it I walked into their house and the dad side of the family all had red eyes from crying and I knew Lolo was in bad shape.

Jesse told me Lolo called from the hospital and he was ready to go. His cancer was drowning him in fluid and he didn’t want to be put on a vent.

I asked his wife how long they had been married….48 years….and in between my sadness I confessed that I hadn’t made it to ten so she was a rockstar and oh my god this was going to be a hard goodbye. We laughed and cried and usually when you hug people they give you a polite squeeze and that’s that but Lolo’s wife of nearly 50 years and Jesse’s brother both clung to me and sobbed when I embraced them, and it moved me deeply.

I said I’d take the kids after work because I knew they’d be deep in the dying part and turns out they did need me so I grabbed pizza fixins and some strawberry soda and pumpkin spice cookie straws from Trader Joe’s and scooped them up for a night of their dreams: pizza in the hot tub and a sleepover.

We played our favorite soundtrack (Moana) and ate pizza without sauce which is basically bread and cheese (because, kids) and our fingers turned to prunes and then I broached the elephant in the room.

I have learned to be very direct with children because they have a built in ability to completely ignore parts they don’t understand or can’t handle. So no need to mince words. They are auto-mincers.

I said that Lolo was dying and their mom and dad were going to stay with him until he died so they could sleep at my house. Kallie was stoked but Zoe’s eyes widened. Kallie decided that Lolo might get better and I told her that he had said he was ready to die, that he would love them in their hearts forever but it was his time to die.

Kallie and Zoe had a little argument over whether or not this would mean that their Daddy wouldn’t have a Daddy anymore then Kallie spilled her strawberry drink and fake cried until I got her another cupfull.

Bedtime went fine. We were in our jams by 8pm and we all piled into bed in Owen’s tiki bedroom-the most fun room in the house because there are big paper maché parrots and fishing nets hanging from the ceiling – and tiki lights.

Without going on forever, four books later everyone was wide awake. So we watched an episode of Curious George. Still, eyes wide open. Then we went insane because Garth jumped on the bed and we couldn’t decide if we were afraid of him or not and he insisted on licking the kids. He likes licking small children because he has discovered they usually have food remnants on their kisser, or an active runny nose to investigate.

It was now 9:30 and I was desperate to get some rest and quiet so I let them start the Tom and Jerry movie. I thought they’d be out in ten minutes but we made it to the end even though I passed out twice and dropped the phone (our TV) on on their foreheads. More laughter but my god was I tired.

Lolo died before midnight and Morgan came to get the kids because she promised Zoe she would and then she realized she was locked out so they all took the tiki room and I went to my room until I heard wailing coming from down the hall.

Kallie was somewhere between fake cry and an actual tantrum because Morgan had turned off the tiki lights. She wouldn’t stop trying to faux hyperventilate and we had talked about being well-behaved for mommy and daddy who needed our support.

Morgan is a softie and I am too but I wasn’t having it. I picked her up kicking and screaming and carried her into the hall for a tête-a-tête and she was both outraged and responsive. It was my house, my rules and I said the screaming was going to stop because we had had a nice night and there would be more tiki lights later and by the way did she want to take the last can of strawberry soda home with her?

Yes she did and then her dad came home with the keys and everyone left happy.

I passed out after some Brad Mondo and that was my evening.

I love my neighbors, I love my hot tub, I love my new firepit and I love Brad Mondo. The GQ guy at the party, not so much. He can suck it.

For the win!

It wasn’t easy.

The week before, I knew that plans were made, and I didn’t want to go. The dread and the wondering if I should cancel took shape and started to grow. It grew bigger and gathered speed and by Saturday it felt like I was being marched over a cliff.

I didn’t want to meet up and I definitely did not want the sexing that surely would go along with this plan for “dinner”. Duncan wasn’t coming all the way from Marin just to split some appetizers and an entree.

I knew that for a fact.

I kept running through various scenarios in my mind where we’d eat and somehow I’d manage a quick escape. Maybe I could meet him at the restaurant and bolt after dessert? Maybe I’d get food poisoning and have to retire early? Maybe he’d be fine with us being *just* friends? Maybe I’d get covid.

Damn it.

I woke up Saturday wanting nothing more than to stay put, at home, by myself. Not one to rock the boat, it surprised even me when I told him I had changed my mind. My answer was now a no. I told him in a text because we don’t talk much. I hit send and I cancelled. Just like that.

I said that I wasn’t DTF because we weren’t ever going to be anything and my original DTFness had been due to me falling for him, acutely – and hard. But now I was over all of that. It didn’t sound good anymore and I didn’t feel like going through any motions. I am the woman who once said that sometimes it’s easier to put out than to cause a scene. Yes, I know I should take that straight to therapy. It’s on my list. But my point here is that saying no took something I didn’t know that I had in me.

My use of the F word was a little crass (I still remember Lauren Hutton saying “one F-ck” in American Gigolo and me gasping because she wanted to know how much one F-ck with Richard Gere would cost her and women didn’t talk like that back then) but still, I said no. I said I’d rather not do the F-word thing because without love, none of it was appealing. He didn’t love me and I was no longer crushing on him – so, no.

His answer was, “OK.” I found this amusing since by the time he answered I had called an emotional support friend and was preparing to get reamed or shamed or something but it turns out it was okay. A big fat nothingburger.

I said no and was surprised that I had ever said yes to this person. More than a year ago I not only had said yes, but I kept on saying yes when HELL NO would have been the better response. I said yes because inside my head there was this person who looked like Duncan and he was really awesome and we were a terrific match. I could see us together and it was a beautiful thing and I was all in – even though anything good that transpired was mostly in my head.

He had some reasons for why he hadn’t treated me well. He told me these reasons the last time we got together (which was several months ago.) One of the reasons was that he had still been hung up on his last girlfriend. That was understandable but it didn’t warm my heart or anything. He also said he had been in a bad place mentally. I understood that, too, but there are going to be plenty of bad mental places to navigate and knowing that you’re with someone who’s going to verbally abuse you when they’re down – I could live without that.

We never were a thing. It never got that far. It was just a lot of noise and me projecting my stuff onto him and him battling me back until I gave up and went home, defeated and alone. The little dream of us together was put away and that was that.

Except when I drank.

When I drink I am prone to alternating retrograde amnesia and fits of nostalgia and ennui, so occasionally he and I would drunken text. Drunken texting lead me to say yes to dinner even though we weren’t a thing and even though he had said things to me that should have triggered more outrage and a fiercer instinct for self-preservation. I decided he was “hurt” and “emotionally unavailable” and I periodically let the asshole in him off the hook.

My dream of him had been a good one.

For some reason hurt and emotionally unavailable were not the turn off they should have been…..the first time around….but after we reunited…..the second time around…it got old.

It got old enough that I wasn’t very excited to see him but I still said yes because saying no would have meant burying any future idea I might want to entertain of the two of us together. It would have meant saying no to the possibility of anything between us and the thing I had held in my head was…. heady. I didn’t want to completely let go of this thing I had envisioned.

Until……SLAP.

The dread I felt was the slap I needed to say no and to bury all of it, for good.

Here’s my advice, and the moral of this story.

Don’t let anyone get in your head who doesn’t belong there.

The person who belongs in your head will do sweet and wonderful things and what’s in your head will be warm thoughts based on their actual real-life interactions with you. If what’s in your head is things you wish you could do with the person, or something you think could happen if only – then, stop. Just stop it and free yourself already.

The person you probably want to spend time with is yourself. That’s who is actually in your head and that’s who you need to hang out with – not some place-holder who looked at you a certain way and sent you off into some lala dreamland where sucky manners are a substitute for sugary I-love-you’s.

That is what this blog is going to be about. It won’t be about looking for love or blowing off steam dating or waiting for some match so real life can begin…. you can read all about that in my Datergurl blog, may it R.I.P.

This will be about the many things you can have in your head when you dump out what doesn’t belong there.

Everyone hug your monkey, and let the rumpus begin!