Story-time

"I loves me some books"

The kids and I have an evening ritual of story-time.  Yes, even my Teen likes to settle in at the end of the day to listen; it helps us all calm down and connect after a busy day.  For the past two and a half years, we've read through the Harry Potter series and last week, we reached the last page of the seventh book and I felt a little verklempt.  I love story-time!

This was my second time reading through the series as I had begun reading them to the Boy when he was 4.  We'd read them as a family when the Ex and I were still together and the Boy finished the last book on his own because we were going through the separation.

My own memories of storytime go back to when I was a little girl and I would visit my Grandma and Grandpa every weekend.  My Grandma would drive up to the countryside from Ottawa and bring me to their downtown apartment on Friday night for a dinner of fish n' chips & peas and each night, I would snuggle up to my Grandpa and he would read a chapter from one of the books they'd bought for me.  Simple books, some of which I still have like, "Would you Rather" and Professor Wormbog's Gloomy Kerploppus" (Seriously one of the most bizarre and awesome scratch and sniff books - Remember scratch and sniff books?  My copy's smells are all gone except for the peppermint smell, that one is still faintly recognizable...  But I digress). 


As I got older, my Grandma bought "Anne of Green Gables" and so began a very long courtship with the awkward, redheaded orphan.  Grandpa read each book in that series to me except for the last half of the last one because he went into the hospital with Leukemia and never made it out.  It took me a couple of years to take the book up and finish it on my own, but I did.  I can still remember the feeling of snuggling up with him and getting lost in each story he read, the different voices he gave each character and the smell of him, a faint perfume of cigarettes and gin.  


I wonder what my kids will remember of story-time?  I hope they remember it fondly of course, but what pieces will linger with them in their memories when they have children of their own?  When I read to them, I feel very connected to my Grandpa.  Of course, later on, when they read studies about how reading to your kids helps them develop in 101 ways, they can feel good about helping them build a better future, socialization skills etc., but the grass roots of the whole thing boils down to a time to settle down, de-stress and let your imagination build something visually from words on a page.  Being read to is the way I learned to read.


Now I have to figure out what series we can get lost in next.  We spent a very long time with Harry Potter, I confess to being just as into the books as the kids and completely let myself get carried away with the characters; I cried when some of them died and felt happy while reading their accomplishments out loud (Does that make me a Pot-Head?).  How long will the Boy want to continue on with this ritual?  What kind of book will capture his imagination as well as the Girl's?


Santa brought us the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, I think that will be a fun adventure for us.  Tomorrow, I get to see the kids again and we can pack our Pj's for the next trip.   

Blanca Juanita

You don't know me...

Otherwise known as White Juanita.  As mentioned in my last post, every once in a while I get the urge to bolt.  It's during moments when I want to drop everything and disappear.  Of course I wouldn't, not with The Boy and the Girl to keep me grounded to the life I've made for myself.  But on the occasions when they're not with me, my imagination begins to wander.


It's in some of that imaginary wandering that I pack my car with my essentials and hit the road.  I've disappeared before, though not entirely anonymously.  I moved across the country with a 2-week warning to my family and friends when I was 20, when I woke up one day and knew I needed a change.  But this is different.  When I get this feeling now, I know that it has more to do with an internal change or shift that has to take place, but it just feels like it would be easier to disappear.


Where would I go?  I would drive to Mexico, change my name to Juanita and make a simple little life for myself as a barmaid in some dingy little Mexican bar that served fresh tacos.  I'd sling shots of tequila to the regulars every day and make terrible jokes in broken Spanish.  They wouldn't just call me Juanita, they'd call me White Juanita, or rather, Blanca Juanita because of the obvious non-Latin features I've got.


I would make my life very simple there in the anonymous Mexican village, not getting to know anyone very well, keeping to myself and perhaps taking on the occasional lover, always making sure he left before sunrise to avoid any complications.  My best friend would be a stray cat that comes to my window for scraps and the deepest conversations that I would have would be philosophical exchanges with the man I buy coffee from at the cantina down the street.


But it wouldn't last.  One day, someone from this life, the life I have now, would go on vacation and walk unexpectedly into the dingy little bar and order a shot of tequila, some chips and salsa before even looking at the barmaid. Then, as I turn to pour the shots, I hear them say, "Jess?" and I pause for a split second before Augusto, one of my regulars at the end of the bar replies, "No, eso no es Jess, que es blanca Juanita. No la conozco."  And at that moment, when I look into Augusto's eyes, I realize that there is nowhere I can really disappear to, nowhere I can really hide myself because someone will always see right through that facade, right into your soul where you can't lie to yourself anymore and you have to go back.  And it's at that moment that I decide to not drive to Mexico and embrace my alter ego.


At least not this time.

Cars I've Driven - Little Pieces of Freedom

Sometimes I drive topless ;)

I haven't driven a plethora of cars, but each one I've had have all afforded me a little piece of freedom.  


I know that might sound a bit ridiculous and that freedom is a state of mind and all, but when I am without a vehicle, I get a bit wiggy.  I really was able to identify it this summer after the breaks on my car broke and I spent 4 days without a car and had to rely on others for transport to a fro.  Environmentally speaking, this post is not eco-friendly in the least.  I prefer to guzzle gas on my own that be forced into a carpooling situation.  There may be a touch of selfishness to it.


Growing up in the Gatineau Hills meant that everywhere we went, we drove.  There was no public transportation.  When you're a kid, this is mostly fine except on snow days when you want to go to Suzy's but the Chevette couldn't get out of the driveway until the plow went by and even then, it wasn't the safest day to drive, so you had to stay home and amuse yourself.  When I was about 10 or 11, we moved further up into the bush, further up a hill that was a good 45 minutes outside of the city - a commute that my Mom didn't make twice a week when she worked late and stayed at my Grandma's place in the city.  As a pending teenager, this was beginning to seriously cramp my style (you know, all the style a pre-teen in the late 80's had).


I remember a few times, resorting to (MOM, DON'T READ THIS) hitchhiking to a few parties or riding my bike to the village even though I wasn't supposed to, petrified I would be seen by one of my parents' friends and be squealed on.  Fortunately I wasn't kidnapped or raped during the hitchhiking and when I was 16, like almost every other 16 year-old in my surrounding area, began the process of getting my driver's licence.


Because she was a good half year older that I, Stephanie was the first of us to get her driver's licence and then a car. Being able to pile into her car with our friends and go out was beyond thrilling.  My first lesson in driving a standard was with her in the parking lot of a rock quarry in Wakefield (Strangely this didn't prepare me for the actual driver's ed).  After one failed attempt on my practical exam (they frown on running red lights for some reason), I had a good friend give me some pivate parallel parking lessons and I was good to go the second time around.  


Except I didn't have a car.  Driver's Licence + No Car = Wrench in Plans.  I wound up moving into the city for college and made use of public transportation (the "Spo" fr short) until my Grandma gifted me with her car.  The Granny-Mobile was a light blue '84 Ford Escort, immaculate and washed every week (until I got it) with ultra-low mileage.  I was finally a woman, I was finally free; I could get into that car and drive wherever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. Profoundly awesome.  Sometimes it's the little things you know.


I left that baby behind when I moved to Vancouver, where having no car wasn't as stifling; the Skytrains are very efficient and can bring you so many places in a reasonable amount of time.  But when I returned to the Gatineau Hills, pregnant, back to my parents house, I was again without a vehicle and dependent on other people's schedules. I hated it as much as I appreciated the help.  The Granny-Mobile still sat in the driveway, but she needed more work than I could afford.  We moved back into the city after a few months, but life with a newborn and no car is no fantasy.  Rides from my Grandma to bring me grocery shopping were appreciated, but spontaneity went the way of the wind. 


We finally got a car when the Boy was 2 or so.  A little Toyota Echo, a good city car to get to and fro.  This is a car built for necessity, efficient and compact and it served its purpose.  But when we moved back to the country, the Ex with a job in the city and me at home with the Boy and the brand new baby Girl, I was trapped yet again.  I experienced a great deal of frustration that year before returning to work which required us getting a second vehicle. 


When I left the Ex, I moved back into the city, knowing I wouldn't be able to afford a car and was prepared to rely on the "Spo" and my legs; I sold the Echo.  Again, depending on my parents or my Grandma for rides to the grocery store, which wasn't as bad this time because my location was pretty central, but when the bus trike happened, I felt defeated.  Then something very interesting happened.  People started lending me cars.  Not just my parents, but relative strangers!  A woman I had worked with at a temp job knew my situation and in discovering that she lived a block away from me, she offered up her car whenever I needed it, then, a woman who's son took the bus with the Boy and Girl offered her Subaru whenever I wanted.  They had 2 cars and almost never needed both of them.  At that moment, when I could get into that car and drive wherever I needed to, I remembered that piece of freedom.  That car was also a pretty sweet ride.  I first drove it during the winter and as I was heading to the grocery store, I began to wonder if I was getting a fever, but finally discovered that it had heated seats!  I had never experienced that luxury!  


And so after almost a year of living in the city, I realized it was time to head back to the Hills, the kids needed to reconnect with their friends and have more stability in this environment.  It was in chatting with a very dear friend and discussing what I would need in order to get myself back here that one of the most generous offers was made to me - my current, awesome, survivor of a car.  A '98 VW Cabrio that is the toughest car I've ever been in.

The Toughest Car EVER!

It was when I first drove this       car that I understood people talking about "enjoying" driving.  I'd only ever driven out of necessity, but this car is fun to drive, it handles the road well, it powerful and hey, it's a convertible, so sometimes I get to drive topless.  This car has a pretty rich history of getting people to important places at just the right time and I'm very grateful to have it.  


There are days when I feel like getting in the car and driving off, away, to a different place where no one knows me, where I can start all over again, where I have no history.  And while I'm pretty sure I won't ever do that, I like knowing that I could if I really wanted to.  And so I will content myself with being able to up and go to the grocery store whenever I damn well please, or  spontaneously go visit you if I so please!  Because that's just how hardcore I really am.

My Warrior Princess

Current work in progress

I love tattoos. I think they're fascinating, beautiful, can be extremely attractive on members of the opposite sex and are an interesting way of expressing oneself.  I got my first tattoo when I was 16 years old.  My girlfriend and I, rebellious and full of sass, made our way over to Rideau Street one afternoon that we both had off from our restaurant job during summer break.  Pete's Tattoos was located above the still infamous Rock Junction in Ottawa and we walked in with pictures of the ink that we each wanted.


We entered purposefully because we had spent the whole morning psyching ourselves up and we walked in with a clear mission.  Pete and the other guy looked us up and down, paused, then asked us "Are you two of the age of majority?"  Being the leader in this venture, I responded with a well crafted, "What's that?".  "Are you both 18??"  After only a moments hesitation I nodded my head and said "Ohhh, yes, of course we are, right?" and turned to my friend who, despite looking like a deer caught in the headlights, nodded her assurance along with me.  So we sat in the dingy chairs and went on to have our first permanent art needled into our skin.


I'd wanted a tattoo since a very young age.  My parents had a close friend who we spent a lot of time around who had tattoos.  He had a stamp that looked like one of the ones he had on his arm and he used to stamp it on his son's and my arm, much to my delight.  But I couldn't understand why mine washed off and his didn't.  I guess my Mom never thought the desire would stick, she never complained.  But that's when I caught the body art bug.


So I left Pete's that afternoon feeling quite bold, mature and maybe just a little wicked.  I was officially bad-ass with my little smiley moon face on my chest.  I worked up the courage to show my Mom a few days later who seemed rather nonplussed except to say "Well that will look nice in a ball-gown."  Reaction to it was not too extreme and my Grandma even seemed resigned when she finally saw it over the next few months.  The only reservations I ever encountered was when I was about to meet the mother of this guy I'd been dating for a couple of months.  Just before walking into the house, he turned to me and said "Just so you know, my Mother believes that the only people who have tattoos are prostitutes and criminals.  Maybe some sailors."  That made for one of many awkward meeting of the parents over the years.


I've since had new ink on momentous occasions or at times of major change in my life.  One for my college graduation, one when I left the Ex and one this week that coincided with the finalization of my divorce - the one in the picture here.  It's not finished, but when it is, it will have covered that first tattoo.


When I got my kids back the following weekend, they were pretty impressed, the Boy, only as impressed as his pre-teen self would allow himself to be, but the Girl was quite taken.  She oohed and ahhed and touched it gingerly while being mildly grossed out by the healing skin.


"Mom."


"Yes?"


"When I grow up, I'm going to get tattoos too."


She was looking at me intently.


"Ok, what kind are you going to get?"


"I'm going to get an axe on this arm and a sword on this arm."


She gestured along the length of each arm.  I was imagining that she might want a unicorn or a butterfly or...  Not a sword and an axe!?  She still wears a LOT of pink, plays with dolls and reads books about fairies.


"Oh?  The whole arm?"


"Both arms!"


"Please tell me more about this."


"Well, axes are cool.  And swords, well, swords are for stabbing people."


WHAT.  The.  fuck?


"Pardon?  We don't stab people.  You don't stab people!"


"Well no, but you would have to stab your enemies."


"Uh, do you have enemies?"


"No, but you never know Mom.  Swords are perfect against your arch-enemies."


She held my gaze intently for a moment longer, then smiled, leaned in and kissed me.


"I love you Mom!"


And she skipped off to play with her dolls.


The 50's and 60's gave birth to feminists, I never really considered the whole movement much until I left my marriage and really began to ponder what kind of messages I wanted to give, not only my daughter, but my son, about strong women.  I've never encouraged the use of swords against one's enemies (but I can't lie and say that it's never crossed my mind), but even though this was by far one of the stranger exchanges with the Girl, I'm not concerned.  Maybe she's my little warrior princess.  Maybe she will be able to balance her femininity with her strength.  I can only hope.


When I was getting this latest tattoo, the artist commented that she liked the addition of the heart, which I'd requested at the last moment and which she added in freehand.  She said that she much preferred to give someone a tattoo with positive messaging, because I'd explained to her that love was important to me, even if the heart could be construed as kitschy.  She said that it makes her sad when people want to permanently etch negative quotes onto their bodies.  "Our thoughts are powerful when they're only thoughts.  When we speak them aloud they become even more powerful.  When we write them down it's even more powerful. When you etch a message into your own skin in your own blood, that's pretty fucking powerful."

When Was The Last Time You Pissed Someone Off?

"Shut up jerk-face"

I bet it was more recently that you even realize.

You can go about your life worrying that your upsetting people for minor offenses, most likely some of which only you are worrying about, but every once in a while, I guarantee that you will piss someone off so royally and you'll have no inclination of it unless someone brings it to light.

So, who cares right?  Well lots of people do care.  As I said, lots of people worry that the slightest off side remark may have offended someone, a by-product of religious guilt and extreme political correctness (we simply CAN'T call it Christmas!).  On the other hand, some people make it a mission in their life to piss off as many people as possible, which I admit, can be fun sometimes. 

I've spent a lot of my life being pissed off.  It's really and truly an unpleasant feeling.  I've also spent a considerable amount of time being blamed for someone else being pissed off for a variety of reasons.  I didn't have dinner ready on time, I said no to something, I called someone out on their bullshit and lies, or took your parking spot.  And I also used to wear someone else's feelings about me like a hair-shirt.

A pretty wise person I know said to me one day, "What you think of me is none of my business, and what I think of you is none of yours."


That realy made me stop and think.


You can't control what others think of you, you can only control your actions, your thoughts, your intention.  You could go about being saintly and still piss people off simply because some people are in a different place and they will project their own filters onto you.  If you spend your days in misery, you will project it onto others.  If you spend your days looking for the good, most of the time, you will see the good in people.  But I'm not saying that to make you ignore the truth that some people are toxic.  On the contrary, I think it's important to trust your instincts in that respect, but when you focus more on the positive, more positive experiences and people gravitate into your reality.  Like the complainers who always have terrible things happen to them, the opposite is also true.  The better it gets, the better it gets.


Yeah, yeah, I sound like I beam rainbows out of my asshole, and there are days when I complain like a little bitch, but it's a whole lot nicer when I pause, take a breath and look at how lucky I really am.


Last month I had some car issues in which my brakes failed in a most spectacular way.  There was billowing smoke, an averted concrete wall and a whole lot of adrenaline.  If it had been in a movie, I'm pretty sure Bruce Willis would have shown up.  Once the shock wore off, I realized how lucky this incident actually was.  As I came off the highway at 120, I sped through an intersection that was completely empty, having a manual shifting car, I was able to downshift the car to a slow and finally coasted the beast into my very own driveway (Before turning to the Boy and yelling "RUN!!!" in case it blew up, but that part is more fun to ignore).  


I could have spent the rest of the summer moaning about not being able to afford a new car and wondering why these things always happen to me, but instead, I realize that I still have a pretty awesome, hardy car.  She's the Vee-Dub that won't quit and I'd rather be happy.


So with happiness being my prime directive, I will keep striving for it and if that bugs you, or her or him, to effn' bad.  I'm not going to expend any energy in trying to make you feel good by trying to bend myself into an awkward position that pleases you and I have absolutely no problem with that.  I send you off with a sincere smile or a joyfully flipped middle finger, that part is up to you.  What you think of me is none of my business and what I think of you is none of yours.


“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” 
Bill Cosby

Mix-Tapes I have Known and Loved

I was thinking about the first ever gift of music I received from a boy the other day.  I was 13, he was 17 and we met at the local ski hill, he thinking me much older-looking and more mature than my 13 years.  (The fact that the Boy is about to turn 13 doesn't perturb me at all when I think about this liesliesalllies)


I was wooed by his worldliness, his maturity, his dreamy eyes.  And then he gave me a cassette-tape.  It wasn't a mix, but it had a song on it that made him think of me, *swoon*!  The cassette-tape in question was Skid Row's self-titled album and our song was I'll Remember You.  I listened to that song so many times, rewinding for the memorized number of seconds to the start of the song to hear it again and again.  I still remember the lyrics.  I eventually broke up with him because I felt that at 13, I simply couldn't offer him what an older woman of say, 14 or 15 could offer him and didn't feel it was fair to him.  It broke my young heart at the time and I wept for an eternity (or maybe a week, which is an eternity in teenaged time).  I had let him go for noble reasons, but my heart ached, so I kept listening to the song as I wept, star-crossed lover that I was.  Oh Skid Row, how your brilliant and poignant lyrics tore at my heart strings.


A few years later, a different kind of boy entered into my affections.  His aloof nature, Bon Jovi hair and superawesomecool Monte Carlo made him irresistible.  We would talk about philosophy, the universe and the Doors (all related).  We had a deep connection.  One day he gave me a mixed cassette-tape.  It was such an earth shatteringly personal gift.  The song that became worn out on that tape was She Talks to Angels by the Black Crows.  It's still my go-to song when we hit the Karaoke bars.  But what I remember about that mix, was not exactly all the songs on it, but rather the process of trying to read meaning into every song selection.  Why did he chose this song, this. Specific. Song.  What does it mean?  What is he trying to tell me?  MY GOD WHAT IS HE TELLING ME?  Another eternity was spent trying to decipher his cool-boy code, wondering if maybe I just wasn't cool enough to know what exactly he was trying to tell me.  I would have run away with him, but eventually he told me he was just too mixed up with life and didn't want to hurt me.  So nothing ever came of our cosmic connection except a collection of songs that meant something in a foreign thought process and an eternity of pining from afar.


Fast forward a couple of years to college.  Another cool dude I met and hung out with made me a mixed-tape with all the coolest songs that everyone loved in the mid 90's if you were into obscure alternative indie stuff that is.  And I was.  I had my green 8-hole Doc Martens, striped tights and plaid shirts.  This was perhaps the most confusing mixed-tape because I never did figure out if he was interested in me or just really dug music and wanted to share.  Regardless, I was still underaged in a college with a bunch of people who were of age and I felt so supremely cool to have been bestowed with such a collection.  I knew that the music on my compilation was most certainly the same that was being played at Zaphod Beeblebrox every weekend.  Oh how I yearned to get past those bouncers.


I made a couple of mixes in my later teen years that I would bestow upon oh-so lucky members of the opposite sex.  I remember meticulously selecting each song for a specific meaning or message, but only as long as it wasn't *too* obvious.  Each selection almost a test of whether they could find the hidden meaning.  And people say women over think things.  Pshht! 


As time went on, a couple of girlfriends of mine and myself would make tapes for each other and it became much freer, sharing the top tunes being played over our respective college radio stations or from bands that had just played at this intimate college pub and for-sure they were on the cusp of making it big!  One friend of mine had sent me a mix that included Massive Attack and Tricky, whom she had seen in two consecutive weekends and those two songs remain favourites to this day.


Nowadays, I get super mixes from my Gay and my Audiophile and fellow blonde trouble maker over at Life In Audio.  It's not quite the same as the Mixed-tape of my youth, but the music keeps me going.


So I'm curious, have you ever made a mixed-tape?  I guess now it's mixed CDs or MP3 Playlists, but as someone mentioned yesterday, you can' decorate a playlist.  What factors do you use in selecting your music?  Is there a hidden message or is it just, Hey, I'm digging these tunes right now and I think you will too! 

So Your Marriage is Over, Now What

There is light at the end of the road!

So many people I know seem to be going through breakups lately.  Some are in the fresh, deep wounds of it and some are already fully down the path, but not knowing where the hell it will lead.  


While I may not know where the path is going, I am further down said path.  I know which shortcuts aren't worth taking and I know where the clearings are.  Or at least sometimes I do.  Actually a lot of the time I have no idea what's going on in my own life, but I have a good knack for being perceptive about other people's, so I thought I'd write a bit of an outside view of where my friends might be finding themselves...  Maybe they won't feel quite as alone as they might be feeling after they read this.  Or maybe they will, but I'm writing it anyway.


So your marriage is over, now what?  Oh God it hurts.  Maybe it's been hurting for a while.  Actually I guarantee it has been, but you might not know how deeply it's been hurting, and now the band-aid has been ripped off and taken some hair and skin along with it.  Well it's going to bleed for a while.  For the first little while, you might believe the hurt will never stop.  You might think that there is nothing that will ever feel like joy again, that everything is empty.  You might wonder where you went wrong, how you could have been so stupid, how you could have ever loved someone who has hurt you so badly.  You might wonder how you can get them to take you back, you might wonder how to set them on fire without anyone knowing it was you.


This sucks so fucking bad is normal.  If this stage lasts longer than say, 4 to 6 months, you might want to consider some drugs and heavy drinking medical intervention.  (For real though, if you encounter feelings of deep, dark hopelessness, talk to someone.  I think a good gauge is to ask yourself if your reaction to your current situation is situationally appropriate or whether the darkness might be a little stronger than it should be.  Talking to someone is not a sign of weakness.)

The second thing that is important in order to move forward is to actually let yourself feel.  When I first left, I had the kids full time except for every other weekend.  You would think that that one weekend every two weeks on my own would have been heaven, but I did my best to get myself out of my apartment and keep busy for as MUCH of that weekend as possible.  I took on extra teaching jobs and would walk round the city for hours.  Why?  Because the moment I would settle into the quiet of my awesome little apartment, I would start to feel.  EW!  That wasn't something I wanted to do!  Nonononono!  When that would happen I would feel like I was back at stage one.  At some point though, I realized that I had to stop.  In those moments, I would sit and cry, sometimes for hours, about nothing specific.  It was exhausting, but I realize now that it was an important part of the letting go.  Even if it was a hellish relationship, you need to grieve it, it needs to be purged from your soul.  You may not need to spend hours crying, it might be that spending a day stacking and splitting 20 cords of wood while yelling profanities, maybe it's taking up running, kickboxing or, heaven forbid, poetry.  The point is that a physical release needs to take place.


That brings me to point number 3.  A physical release is not the same as distracting yourself immediately with a new squeeze.  That first exchange that happens outside of your old relationship can be intoxicating.  I mean quite literally that it can be toxic to your system.  It is your first foray into intimacy with someone you have NOT sworn to spend the rest of your life with.  It's exciting, it can potentially mess with your self esteem because you think, Oh hey, he/she-Ex was WRONG!  I AM desirable!  Screw you, look I've got a boyfriend/girlfriend!  And then it can become like a drug and there is a neediness that seeps in.  Whether that neediness manifests in wanting that same person to be around, or looking for multiple people to, ahem, fill that hole, it's not a healthy headspace to be in.  It's a way of looking for fulfillment outside of yourself and that is not fulfilling in the long term.  


This is not to say that sewing some oats is bad, quite the contrary.  Take this time to learn about the opposite sex (or same sex if that's what you're into).  Really learn about them, go out on dates, pay attention to what the dates are like, pay attention to what people are saying beneath the words.  My personal adventures taught me that (and this *is* a generalization, but one that has proven to be true for more than just myself) men have a tendency of telling you everything you need to know about them, in a macro fashion, within the first hour.  Even when presenting their best possible face, look beyond the words; a lot of the time, what they spend a lot of time saying that they are not, turns out to be what they in fact are.  It's the side they'd prefer to hide.  One guy I went on a date with spent a great deal of time talking about how he was so pro-woman, he was a feminist and that this was so absolutely true because he even took women's studies in University and was part of a lesbian wedding.  That should have made me believe him right?  "Oh, you were in a lesbian wedding?  Wow, you ARE a feminist!"  But after a little more exposure to him, he wound up being one of the most misogynistic men I've ever gone out with, but in a very insidious, hidden way that gives me the willies to this day.


Anyway, all that to say, date, explore, learn.  Do it in an expansive way rather than in a "trying to fill a void" way.  


My last piece of advice is this, there will be a day when it doesn't hurt anymore, when you realize how awesome *you* are and in that realization, you become ready to share yourself, your whole self, in a very real and honest way, with another person.  It might be a little scary, but not as scary as the prospect used to be.  This process may be fast, it may be slow, but it takes place.  For everyone.  The more you allow yourself to move through it, the faster it will be.  Therapy can speed things up, self awareness and self care is necessary.  When you come out of a relationship that you believed that you would be in for the rest of your life, where the betrayal cut so deep, it's so important to realize that you are the most important piece to truly preserve.  The cuts aren't as deep as you thought and you have the strength to be free of that useless burden.


I promise.