Closing a Chapter

The weekend was very relaxing and restful as my family gathered from Grace’s Baptism. It was wonderful to have families from all sides come together as Grace was baptized with not 2 but 6 Godparents - a set each from my mom, dad and her father’s sides so that she is tied to each part of the family and doesn’t have the disjointed family experience that many children of divorce have. The day was a happy occasion as we all gathered to celebrate the pure joy of Grace.

Leading up and following the restful weekend...well, that is not quite as relaxing.  Last week I ended up hanging out with the Twinkie at the end of a drunk filled night. As we walked through the city, we saw some young guys getting out of a porche and he inquired ‘why isn’t a girl like you dating a guy like that? why aren’t you dating some great guy’. As we arrived at the park bench, the tears started forming. How could I possibly answer that question?  My initial reaction is that they don’t want to date me, then I remember I’ve met quite a few of ‘them’ and I didn’t want to date them. So all I can manage to sputter out is ‘it’s not that simple’ followed by ‘you didn’t even want to hang out with me!’  There. I put it out there.  The thing that has been bothering me, no, hurting me, for the past few months.

The Twinkie responded and said that he thinks I’m an awesome girl (cue more tears) and that I’m the whole package and a million guys would kill to date me (direct quote. again, cue more tears) but he didn’t feel that if we got together, he would be able to take care of me financially and that it would be difficult for him.  Which I do understand. And the fact is, I knew I didn’t want to be with him either. But it took until that very moment where he spelled it out for me, to finally believe ‘it’s him, not me’.  Sometimes I think the universe put him in my path because of his ability to articulate a situation and honesty to admit what is really going on.Whereas no one I’ve been with in the past is able to admit any shortcomings of their own, always projecting on to me to bring me down a few notches to their level, The Twinkie has repeatedly told me that this was about him and where he is in his life, not about me and followed with many lovely compliments that he had no reason to share except that he believes them to be true.

It was a very touching moment.  I did finally hold him accountable for his poor treatment when we did hang out and he owned up to that. But he said how much he cares about me (as friends, of course) and we had a long talk on confidence. The one thing I still struggle with.  Why I lack confidence and don’t believe there is a single guy out there for me and why he believes there are a ‘million’ just waiting for the chance.  It’s given me a lot to think about...why I still don’t feel completely confident in myself, though when I look back I can see that it has built up over the past year from rubble to a stronger sense of self.  Also, he advised that I need to protect myself. Which is great advice. I spend all of my time thinking about what the other person is thinking and lose focus on what works for me.  So the question is: what works for me??