Maybell XXXV: Almost There

[Maybell]

Well, that was fun.

My lawyers are trying to wrap things up and they gave me the assignment of looking through all the financials from the last year to see if STBX owes me money for his romantic involvements. I found several dates and a Valentine's Day trip (and maybe another couple of overnighters?) but mostly he just stinks at taking care of a budget. OBSCENE amounts of money on iTunes -- we're talking around $3000. Plus several hundred on Xbox Live. Also what looks like four months of a burner phone. TONS on alcohol after we separated. For some reason, a couple hundred dollars to GoDaddy -- anyone know what that could be about?

Anyway, my friend was worried about why I was having to do this myself rather than pawn it off on a professional, but I can tell at a glance what he's probably done with/for the kids and what he's done with his fabulous bachelor life. I have to say, my life looks a lot richer, even just on a credit card statement -- and I spend WAY less than he does. And it hurts more that he's spending his money in such lonely ways than seeing evidence that he has a girlfriend, or dare I dream it, actual friends of his own. I hate seeing that he spent day after day eating alone in the same few restaurants, and then spent $200 on alcohol. I wish I saw a better life for him.

It hurts that this is who he's decided to be. I had a high opinion of him. I thought he was a good man, a smart man. He was charming and handsome and had the best smile. Sometimes I could tell him how much he meant to me and his eyes would tear up. But now he's just a frat boy. I have cried over him a few times still. I guess I'm mourning him.

Anyway, I'm so done with all this. I wish I were on to the next phase. My life is still feeling sort of heavy and my days are dragging and I feel trapped in limbo and no sense of how things will work out.

There is one thing that's worrying me a little bit, and it's so stupid and short-sighted, but I'm going to say it because it's on my mind. It's the fear that no one will ever love me. I don't know if STBX ever did because I can't imagine loving someone and building a life with them and letting that love, that relationship die on purpose, but since I clearly don't understand him at all I don't think I'll ever know if that was his version of love. But I know what kind of relationship I'd like to have in the future -- close, a real friendship, playful, loving, mutually protective, adventurous, pushing each other's comfort zones but in a really positive way -- and I'd like him to be TALL. But I also don't know if this will ever come my way. It feels too good for me. I don't feel like a good person. I feel like a lucky person, I feel like I'm treated (mostly) better than I deserve, but I don't feel like a good man will ever see me and think, yes, She's The One. I worry that there is a fenced off part of me that doesn't trust fully (and before I hear any of this... yes, I tried with STBX, he was one tough nut) and that lets people get only so close before I withdraw in fear just a bit. I'm trying to get better about that but I worry about it just the same.

One more then I'm done. A few weeks before I met STBX, I met a tall, reasonably good looking guy at a New Year's Eve party -- and I liked him a lot, and he liked me a lot, and he actually kissed me at midnight -- and I never called him back, because he was a contractor with a THICK Southern accent and I was worried that if I ended up with him that I would end up lonely in the South for the rest of my days and never see the parts of the world that I dreamed of seeing. I was still kind of thinking of him off and on when I met STBX and I felt like with him I *would* see the world (which I didn't, unless you count the four states we've lived in) and that my life would be bigger than with the cute, sweet, tall Southern contractor.

I was SUCH A SNOB. And I don't know now if I regret it or not. And I worry that that part of me hasn't gone away and I'm going to miss the next possibly wonderful person who comes my way out of the same shallowness. What if Tall Cute Contractor was The One and I blew it? And bought myself this lovely experience of heartache and divorce and hurting my children over a shallow expectation that a contractor couldn't show me the world?

Just to clarify... I'm not ready to date yet. But I have had the chance to look around me and see how many fun things there are to do in my neck of the woods, and I would love to have someone around to share those good times with. And it sure would be a fun adventure to do that stuff with someone who gives me a little zing.