Squinting at the morning sun

[ciluzen]

Is this confidence? I don't know...I'm just learning to not care as much about what others think, as long as I don't do anything to harm them. I'm not in charge of their actions, reactions or perceptions. Just my own well thought out intentions...which means I need to think about what possible consequences my actions will bring and take responsibility for my choice. Yep...I'm an existentialist.

I have continued to talk to two guys on my dating site. One is just lonely. I think I may wean him away, though. There isn't much to attract me except that I feel for his awkwardness and lonliness. The other is a biologist. I like his sense of humor, intelligence and we seem to have a lot in common interest and activity-wise. Talking online once a day is a much slower way of getting to know someone than meeting face-to-face imediately, but I'm kind of enjoying it. I'm sure he speaks to others, as I do, so that's fine. "No expectations" is good for new relationships, too.

My mother is visiting right now. I believe I mentioned (I'd have to check) that she arranged with XH to have him do some dental work for her? So he has used that this past week to stay in contact with me, even though all he needed was to verify when I should bring her and even that I told him was for the two of them to figure out.

I brought her to the office and sat in the reception area. No staff helped, but he got D26 and her hubby to spend the weekend at the river and he brought D26 to assist instead of having me do it. She brought her post-surgical dog (my "grandpuppy") who stayed in the front room with me. At some point I was told by him that I could sit in the room with them, so I sat and read an interesting article in one of the magazines he had. He kept looking up to ask me questions about my life (art show, school, vacation). As I've said, this is a new thing. I answered briefly, but would go back to reading. At one point he asked me to help with a procedure. The funny thing was, D26 could have done what she was doing AND the other at the same time. My mom joked afterward that we had three out of four family members working on her; three generations if we counted her great-grand-puppy curled at the end of the dental chair.

My mom and I were leaving as another patient came in (weekend emergency) and asked if I was his wife, the artist, and I heard him stammer and grunt, then say "and this is my daughter". I just started laughing and walked my mom out saying, "Bye!" and hugged D26 goodbye. One of my friends told me he has no problem now referring to me as his ex-wife, so that discomfort was probably due to my presence.

Mom and I went to a nice restaurant for brunch when he called to see how she was doing, then wouldn't get off of the phone (we were on the patio). He wanted to know where we were, what we were ordering, expressed surprise that they had brunch, was it good...I finally told him the first bite was great, but I would really like to eat the rest with two hands and enjoy a conversation with my mother. He now has finally created a way to end phone convos, though. It went from being, "I love you" to awkward goodbyes, to now..."We'll talk again" or "I'll call soon". Right now it causes me to just reply, "ok...bye". I wonder what would happen if I said "Why?"