Introducing...

So last week I promised you all that should the occasion call for it, I would introduce the new guy properly. There’s a part of me that says, “it’s too soon.” There’s an even bigger part of me that is deafened by the sheer volume of my parents sitting at their breakfast table saying, “Oh….here we go again.” (Hey Mom! Hey Dad! Stop talking about me!)

That said, I pride myself on being an honest blogger who holds nothing back. My goal in this whole “spreading my thoughts to the ends of the internet” experience is to be real about my life after divorce. If it never helps another living soul, maybe it will enable me to make sense of my new life as it unfolds around me. So far, so good.

In the interest of being real and holding nothing back, I think it’s safe to say that, “Here we go again.” The new guy, for the time being…granted who knows how the hell long that will be….is staying put. We have bonded over similar divorce experiences, single parenthood, and the desire to do it differently the next time around.

Enter new thought.

I never expected dating after divorce to be so damn difficult. In fact, I was kind of hoping it would be fun. Finally, I could just go out and have a good time. I could forget that my marriage was pure crap 90% of the time and go in search of something that WASN’T pure crap 90% of the time. I could experience all of the things that I never got a chance to. And I have…for the most part. But I’ve also realized that once you sift through the gritty sands of divorce, the fun of dating dries up along with the ink on the dissolution papers. Once you’ve taken off your wedding ring and contemplated whether throwing it in the garbage is an appropriate course of action, everything that follows, good, bad, and ugly, is forever DIFFERENT. (By the way, the “What Did You Do With Your Wedding Ring” story is pretty funny. Remind me to tell you later.)

It’s not that dating has been bad. It really hasn’t. I’ve met some wonderful people who I hope to call friends for a good long while. I really have no regrets. Well…ok….ONE regret…but you know the drill….lesson learned, moving on. Anyway, as I was saying, dating hasn’t been all that bad. It’s the emotional baggage that I carry around with me now that is difficult. Things always either get way too serious way too fast, or they drag out and make me end up feeling like some flavor of loser that only divorced people can truly understand. It’s the “Seriously, I must be completely defective” syndrome. And as if that weren’t enough, regardless of which ride you’re on, it’s a roller coaster that leaves you nauseated. I chalk it all up to the dreaded fear of “What if I never find THE ONE, What if he is THE ONE, What if he is THE ONE and it ends…again.” It’s yet another scar of divorce that no one warned me about…the fear of a new beginning being, inevitably, another ending. Ick.

So anyway, I’ll be the first person to admit that my dating life has been a tad on the unpredictable side. But at least I’m being honest…it’s pretty much the best I can do at this point. And the new guy seems to understand where I’m coming from with a lot of that. He also fought very hard for his marriage and experienced a lot of the same disappointments that I did. If nothing else, he seems to GET IT.

So since he has become a daily point of contact in my life, I figure he has earned a spot in the Grace Gets Greater blogdom. Who knows what, if anything, will come of this, but for now, he’s someone that I’m enjoying time with and getting to know better. So everyone, I’d like for you to meet “The Handy Man,” or HM. In a very short amount of time, I’ve learned that HM is a jack of all trades. He does electrical and plumbing work, can fix anything that goes wrong on a car, plays the stock market, and has recently taken up his old hobby of bull riding. (Thankfully, he dresses like a preppy mall boy instead of a bull rider. Close call.)

I’m still working hard on LETTING IT BE. If I learned anything from my previous dating experiences it’s that time is definitely my friend. But let’s face it…LETTING IT BE is a whole lot nicer when there’s someone else in the room.

And for the time being, that someone just happens to be quite handy.