If This Were an Anti-Anxiety Potion, I'd Be Fine

I'm a better flyer these days. It helped immensely to have my therapist point out to me that it didn't seem that I suffered from a true phobia of flying. Repressed anger and grief,she told me, and I saw how much better I felt after I screamed and cried and told Mr.Ex everything I had to tell him in her company. I killed him a couple of times, too. "It doesn't mean you are actually going to do it for real, but do it here," she'd say, "or all of those bottled up emotions will hurt you."

So I try now to think of healthy things I can do for myself while I fly. Communicating is the best thing. When there's Internet, I don't feel alone. I can email and blog and hang out on Facebook. Without the Internet, it's harder. I try to concentrate on a book or a podcast,but if I'm a little nervous, it's hard to focus.

I'm in the air right now and I'm doing well despite the choppy air, because I feel connected to those of you who read this blog. So, thanks for being there.

The man who loves me always asks how it went for me up in the air. When I told him about the first flight I took without a sip of gin, and that it felt okay, that I was able to use my cognitive powers to soothe myself like my therapist said I would, he told me he liked knowing that there was this new version of me that Mr. Ex would never know.
I like that too.

Broken

The coffee date with bachelor #1 turned into dinner and a walk in Old Town.  It was fun.  A very nice man.  We share some common interests.  He's not pompous and didn't talk about himself for hours.  I went for connection....but not for fabricating something out of nothing.  I paid attention to what he was saying, doing; what I was thinking, what I was feeling, what I was doing.  The evening wasn't a bust.  But there was no bolt of lightening, not even a little buzz of electricity, really.  So much of love is just out there in that invisible surge, the gesture, the sound of a voice, the way you feel when your knees accidentally touch on a bus ride. That's online dating's missing piece.

When a friend I made in Greece and I were discussing love, he told me he was broken.  I said that at this stage of life, if we're not still married, we're all broken.  Hopefully, not beyond repair.