Stuff.....

I've not been writing for a while. I guess I was in break mode? Nothing too big to write about. It was a largely uneventful week in my personal life. Work was crazy as two co-workers were both on vacation.

I did hit 60 days binge free last week. That was good news.

Mother's Day was alright. DD and I went to my mother's house for breakfast. Unfortunately DD was sick. She has asthma which was triggered by allergies. She was coughing so hard, even after 3 breathing treatments, that I had to take her to the ER later in the day. All is well and she's on steroids again. While at my mothers, DD is the distraction so that I don't have to interact with my mother all that much. I'm a little on "auto-pilot"" mode with her right now. I guess I'm more wrapped up in father issues at the moment. I was in another room yesterday when DD tripped and fell. My mother makes such a big deal out of it and it really annoys DD. I don't know why my mother can't understand this. I mean, I do....but still. I've told her this so many times. DD gets irate when my mother acknowledges an injury in her fawning, over-sympathetic way. The more DD gets angry, the more my mother tries to pacify her which only exacerbates the situation. I know this is about my mother being in a trance where she can't see what's right in front of her. My DD ended up shutting herself in the guest room at my mother's house til I got involved. I reminded my mother again that this is not the way to handle DD when she gets hurt. My mother quickly scurried into the kitchen. Blech.

I got her a pretty "vanilla" Mother's Day card. Pleasant, not mushy. Not sentimental. Just nice. Still it makes her cry. Double blech. Next year, remind me to stick to humorous cards only. I can't deal.

Okay....here is my issue dujour. Be forewarned that it's possibly a little TMI and part of the story is sex related:
I had a date on Friday. I met someone, "K", for lunch. He drove down here, about an hour drive, to take me out. I haven't seen him since October. And I've done that basically on purpose. Read beginning of the story here. After I made that post back in October, I did see him and I did sleep with him. I was going through this sortof....hmm, phase? It's so funny as I look back on that old post now. It's screaming at me of the vulnerability issues I've connected to and blogged about of late. I was all but saying it in that post but seemed lacking the final piece to make the connection. My fear of vulnerability was so paralyzing that I think I'd convinced myself that I was alright with casual dating, casual sex, just having a good time, no expectations, no strings. In fact, I'm not "alright" with that. Yet I am still frighteningly comfortable with it in an old, familiar, dissociative, masked kind of way. I didn't regret the night we spent together but it did bring to light the realization that these actions no longer fit me. But the new, healthy behaviors don't really fit me yet either. I feel like I've outgrown one "outfit" while I'm waiting for the tailor to make me a new one and I'm standing here naked in the meantime!!

Sadly, I don't think I've made much progress at all which is so entirely disheartening. I figured lunch was safe. No pressure, right? Just a one hour lunch in the middle of a workday. *sigh* He's so darn cute. And has this whole southern gentleman thing going. He was very focused on me, full of compliments. Not over the top, though. It's been so long since I've been on a date. I forget how nice it feels to have all that admiration from someone. Well, things started out lovely and then the flirtation crept in and then the innuendo followed which led to some reminiscing about the night we spent together. When we got back in his car, well......we nearly pounced on each other and started kissing. That was all I wanted. It was not all he wanted. He would have never known it was not all I wanted. Because I didn't say so. Well, that's not entirely true. He asked me to do something and I said I didn't want to. He asked me again and I did it even though I knew I really didn't want to. That was a turning point where I tuned out "the tailor" and decided to throw my old duds back on because it was just easier, more comfortable. I'll spare the details. But I returned to work in "old me" mode. Thinking that was "fun", it was silly, it was all fine and dandy. Because it's easier for me to think that than to admit that I just said "NO" to this guy twice and still allowed him to coerce me into going along with what he wanted.

Well, it's not fine and dandy. I gave in out of obligation. Out of the feeling that I had no right to stand my ground. Because...why? Because I've slept with him before? Because I give him mixed signals? Because he came all the way down here and bought me lunch? Because I'd rather be seen as the "good time girl" than some prudish, serious stick-in-the-mud? Nevermind what it does to my head & heart? Because it's really STILL, after all this damn time and counseling, STILL stuck in my head that I don't have the right to say no and to claim my body as my own? That I'm not allowed to protect myself when I feel uncomfortable? That my desires are not as important as someone else's? And do you see how I take the responsibility for this back onto myself? I can't bring myself to blame him for his actions or for not listening to me because I didn't act according to how I felt. It's my own fault.

After I let some of that sink in and admit that I'd done something foolish, I started to ponder the situation. What should I do? How do I feel about him? Do I owe him any sort of explanation? I know I don't want to go the casual sex route again. So I start thinking...do I find out if he's interested in more from me and go from there? Again....not thinking of my own feeling on the subject before I'm trying to figure out his. How about....DO *I* want more from him? Well, on the one hand, this....on the other hand, that.....but then there's this....and don't forget that. Etc, etc, etc. You know the bottom line is that he is not the kind of guy I should be with. If after knowing him for almost 3 years, having been on several dates, having slept with him.....if after all that, I'm still not sure about him? I want to type in here something about his coercing me, not listening to me say no, etc.....but I just can't. I just can't say something that puts the blame of it on him because I feel wholly responsible. Dear God, I'm a rapist's dream-come-true.

All I can think about right now is the movie Chicken Little and the character Runt of the Litter (above). There is this scene where he's listening to 2 other characters debating and each time one of them says something, he agrees with their point and then he says "I'm a gutless flip-flopper!!" That's what my brain feels like on this subject. Why does something so perfectly obvious have to become so flipping complicated once it's sent to the circus I call my brain??

Would it be wrong to create a post label called "I'm an Idiot"? Because that is surely where this belongs.