All this can be mine???

So… to date or not to date, that is the question.  Am I ready?  Is it healthy?

Last weekend I went to LA with my friend Lisa to see the Book of Mormon (side note… it was fracking hilarious, loved it) and afterwards we had early dinner reservations.  I messed up the timing a little, thinking that the matinee started at 2, but on Sunday it starts at 1.  So after the show we had almost 2 hours before our reservation and so we found a very cute wine bar on Highland to waste a little time.  As we were the only people in the place, we got very good service from the only employee out front.  He was funny and sweet and poured us a few things to try while we discussed local restaurants.  I wound up buying a couple of bottles, and used a credit card.  Apparently he used that to Google me and sent me an email today.  Okay, so weird?  A little bit creepy?  Probably illegal?  And sort of…cute?

So turns out he’s not just a bartender, he’s a sommelier, and sent me a very cute email full of funny things and I’m…intrigued.  Yeah, he’s 35, but how much does that matter?  So the question now is what to do.  Am I ready to date – and can I be casual and just have fun and get to know someone?  I haven’t really ever done that but it doesn’t mean I can’t.

I’m definitely afraid of the whole thing – vulnerability is the hardest thing I know.  I remember when I first met my ex, he was relentless in trying to tear down my walls and understand what was underneath.  I did not want to let him in, but I did, and in some ways I feel like I gave him a blueprint for how to hurt me.  I remember saying, at various times when things were hard… please don’t use me, please don’t lie to me, please don’t leave me, please don’t make me feel like I’m the consolation prize that you are settling for because you don’t have what you really want.  Now those words feel like a map I handed him – do all of these things to me so that I will lose all confidence in myself and the world – and he did.

Despite all of this, on some level, I think I have still been hoping that he would somehow come through for me.  In the aftermath of the “clean” miscarriage which turned into an infection, which turned into 2 painful procedures, I have been incredulous that he did not care anything about any of it.  I can’t imagine a scenario in which I would abandon someone who needed me like that, but now I know it can be done.  Which isn’t the point of this post – the real question for me is, am I ready to open up again?  Am I whole enough to let parts of me escape again?

I don’t know.