gan 7 - Ants Marching

[gan]

Thanks everyone for your posts. Tonight I booked a date with DB to catch up with your threads and reply here. The lights are dimmed, the vino is flowing and the mood is set with the Best of 90s French Touch (?) thanks to Apple Music. I don’t know what that means necessarily, but I’m liking it so far.

Toots Honest and authentic is the way to go I think…but I acknowledge I find it a bit challenging at times and need to apply a beginner’s mindset. I also need to be ok being a bit vulnerable. As for H, we could file as of about 1.5 months ago, though I’ve heard nada from him since May. For now I intend to continue as is but if I do find myself in an R then I am sure to question why I am still M (on paper).

Jim The technical gear is serving me very well I did the 50km hike a couple of weekends ago with no dramas. This weekend I (only) did 30km as I came down with a cold during the week. Looks like I found me a team so I am officially training for Oxfam Trailwalker and loving it.

Zues Oh, sorry you’ve been thinking I was going to give you 2 x 4! That’s not it at all. Really I wanted to say how much I admire you for the message you wrote to your dad. One of my big learnings through all this is how hard I find it to bring a voice to my feelings. It does’t mean that I don’t have feelings, but I tend to process them internally. I suspect others might find me a little hard to get to know - not because I am un-friendly, just that it takes me a bit to open up. So your intro paragraph in the letter to your dad really resonated with me. I've also come to realise that I need to time to process…so while I may make do in the moment (sometimes not very well), my insights often come later. I like your letter because you gave a voice to those insights and decided to share them with your dad after the original discussion. That was both brave and constructive. So I guess I really just wanted to say thanks for sharing an example of how to manage this “headflow” (as in workflow…but what is going on in my head!) Brace yourself for the Schnarch book - there’s some pretty graphic stuff in there. I look forward to hearing what you think.

Mozza I found myself in a situation yesterday that left me wondering if Mozza would think I was “put[ting] [my]self and others in complicated situations”. Basically it involved OMUG (older Meetup Guy) inviting me for dinner after the hike yesterday and me saying no…even after i was the one who kind of raised the idea. I ended up sending him an email today, apologising and calling myself out on the fact that I put him in a bit of an odd position. I also said I’m just not sure what to make of our interactions - given that we’re both (technically) still married and there is a big age difference between us. I confess I do enjoy the interactions…but I don’t want him to get caught up in my confusion. Trying to be open about where i am at...

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So, life goes on and I really just feel like I am letting things wash over me at the moment. Actually, I often have a visual of me standing under a waterfall and just letting the water flow over (cheeeesy, huh?) I’m enjoying navigating new territory and seeing what comes of it. Sometimes that new territory is just a different part of me that I'd not explored previously.