When you hit a bump...

It seems as if most cities have speed bumps. They are highly annoying, I might add. I know that they are placed in strategic positions so that normal people who are just trying to get to their designation can't get there quite as quickly as they would like. It's not like I speed or anything excessive like that, it's just that slowing down is not in my DNA..which is a good and a bad thing.

I have been pretty proud of myself lately. I've been handling events and people more like a normal person would..well, more like a normal person who is meeting new people and trying to navigate the world of singledom.  For instance, I started talking to a man who seemed nice and interesting. We did the online dating thing.

1. We e-mailed on the online site.
2. We then exchanged numbers and started to text back and forth.
3. He seemed to find me very attractive, desirable..which kind of amazed me, since we hadn't met.
4. When I mentioned that fact, he got defensive and said that I was "holding on to the past" since I didn't feel like I should run off to Tahiti with him, and tell him that he was the greatest thing since the Coach purse...or the invention of the Sharpie.
5. I decided he was a bit psycho...and declined to talk to him again.
6. Bonus points for me.

So there I was, very proud of myself, and thinking that I was becoming like the "Rambo" of  the dating world, when it happened. 

I got an e-mail from a man that I was fond of, and someone who had been very generous and kind to me. 

Do you ever get a funny tingling in your chest when you see something that you know is going to be bad and scary? That "heart attack" kind of feeling which spreads throughout your body and makes you feel like you are going to throw up? 

That's how I felt when I saw the e-mail..before I even read it. 

Not good.

He talked about how busy he was, how he missed talking to me, how he was still planning to move to Thailand, or the Philippines perhaps, and that I would be proud of him because he was going to take two trips in the late summer and fall. I really don't remember the rest of it, because as I was reading/skimming it, the panic inside me began to grow and build. 

I had (foolishly, I know) mentioned to him that he could come over to my house for dinner sometime. He said although the invitation was "alluring" he was now "pretty much" dating someone that works for him,  and someone who was like a mother figure.  She wasn't the description of the "ideal" that he said he had to have to be attracted to someone, but I know people do change. 

But it hurt.  And it was even more hurtful since I felt I was on the right track..and he was a friend, or so I thought. 

And I didn't want it to hurt. I was tired of being hurt...and feeling hurt. 

So I have been highly irritated with myself about it all, because deep inside I knew I was holding on to feelings that I knew were not healthy for me.  And I still have some work to do in that area. 

But then I realized that by hurting I work through my feelings, and then can let them go.  I was confusing someone being nice and generous to me with love. But at least I took a chance, and although it does hurt to know what people say is not always what they mean, I will be ok. 

Bumps are necessary things in life as well. I don't like them, but I will get over this one too, and once again add to my "Lessons in Life" manual. 

Which is getting pretty thick, I might add.