I wouldn't date me. FACT.

I wouldn't date me right now.

I mean, I just. straight. up. would. not. (hi, you're welcome- this is what we call a disclaimer....don't say I didn't tell you so.)

To tell you that I think it's a "bad idea" is a little bit like saying, "throwing your hair dryer into a bathtub full of innocent children merrily playing with rubber duckies is a bad idea...." Bad idea doesn't even come close, let's try something more like; terrible, no good, tragic, just go stab yourself in the eye with a pool cue, idea. I suppose people would also call this self-sabotage- I'm an unfortunate case study into the minds of the recently heartbroken.

Somewhere between my schizophrenic emotions and convincing people that I'm "undateable" I've managed to rack up more than one perfectly dateable, solid, great guy who thinks he can change my mind. And you know what, selfishly, I'll let him try... I'll let him try because I don't think I'm a total lost cause. I'll let him try because I believe in romance and love and connection and that whole "soulmate" thing. I'll let him (them) try because I believe amazing magical things can happen over plates of gnocchi and perfectly picked produce. I'll let him try because he knows that he's "trying..." that I've got many a trap door to walk through.

I'll let them try because I think more than often than not people surprise you and more than anything, we surprise ourselves. One moment we're clinging to the threads of what was and then "what was" is replaced by what is, and what IS, is series of small differences that weave themselves in fragments to start; a strand here, an anecdote there.... he starts understanding the subtext of the way you say a certain word, you start making plans a week out...a month out...strand by strand. I'll let them try because I want to look upon someone adoringly, I want to make room in my life for more than a party of one. I'll let them try....

..and with every effort, I'll messy it a bit. I'll pick at the edges that are peeling until the entire thing needs a new coat of paint. I'll take something pure, blank, and I'll scribble daisies, eyeballs and crooked hearts in blue ink on it. I'll push them away, I'll make excuses- I'll throw another date into the mix, because it'll make it easier for me to walk away from one or the other and feign interest, in place of dealing with how I really feel. Which is a whole lot of nothing. Emotions, off. A rusty, heavy, valve I used my withering biceps to turn off.

I'm a girl who doesn't have the ability to make the distinction between someone "right" and someone right now. I'm a hurt person running the risk of hurting other people....and that's the cycle as it goes....

I had "right." I found the pockets I wanted to put my hands in, the musk on the neck collar that I wanted to smell every day. I was comfortable with the rhythm of him....and when one sweet boy says, "Chels, are you afraid if by dating me you close the door on him?" the answer is YES. Yes, I want my door, my heart, the glow of my porch light with a warm body on the inside to be there....with a Welcome mat, that says, "Let's try this again."

I know, it makes my stomach churn too.

It's everything from inconvenient, to disconcerting...to futile. Completely and utterly, futile.

It's part of why the last two weeks have been nearly impossible for me to sit down and WRITE. To communicate....to consider the hearts of the people I'm involved with and also be honest. Not just to them, but to myself. Lying to yourself is surprisingly easy until you sit down at a blank screen and your words are sharp, pushy and deafening. Turns out blogging, when some of the relationships, people and situations are public isn't ideal. Shocker.

So what do I do with that? WHAT. DO. I. WE/US/THEM. DO WITH ALL OF THAT?

The only decisions to be made are the ones right in front of me, I'm completely nearsighted. You take a trip to San Francisco, then you go to Vancouver...you have dinner with someone new, you spend a night at home by yourself watching Basquiat wishing you were given the green light to be fucking crazy because you were a painter. You consider taking up painting. You carve pumpkins with your girlfriends and get a little fatter over fried mac and cheese squares at midnight. Then you try not to drunk text and you wake up in the morning, "wee! didn't drunk text!" and then you try not to sober text, when you see something that only he would understand via text. You consider giving up texting period.

You continue. You date. You marinate. You take one step forward and 9,000 steps backwards. Then you do a fucking skip and a hop, (perhaps a cartwheel even) forward again. You let him make you laugh, then you let him say, "I'll go to war for your heart..." and you revel in that, because the one that was "right" didn't say that. And probably never will. SO, you let people adore you, because as much as you don't think you're worth adoring, all of that ish is fictitious. (Yeah, Fergie said it.) FACT.

Would you date "you?"

The part where I address the "NEW BOY" and "the old one."

Sometimes you're just like, "Look fucker, get out of my head...."

...and then (because most of the time our minds are stubborn and relentless whores), the sound of his voice saying, "I love you a million times a million" plays again, like a record scratch, "a million times a million...a million times a million...." and you get pissed that you know enough about math to know that his "million" didn't exactly add up at the end of the equation.

All of a sudden, another shot is taken at you, and again you're a fallen-fucking-warrior princess, trying to hastily sew up the reopening of your heart seams.

Just as you're moving forward, on the heels of this amazing weekend, with someone who swooped in much like a real-life White Knight, identified your gaping wounds and crafted the perfect amount of attention, patience, encouragement and affection to apply a healing remedy to the parts that were especially aching.... your ex-Love emails you, a day after he leaves and the sentence, "I miss the sound you always make when it's cold outside," hits you like a fucking missile attack, because I don't even know that I make a sound and because I've decided he's forgotten me, as far as I'm concerned I'd decided he'd forgotten our life together existed at all, and because he still knows me the best. The only way someone will learn those little things, will learn "me in details", is through time and years and chilly nights when I make "that sound," through experience, rough patches, and smooth sailing.

All of a sudden, you're forced to reexamine your heart (fan-fucking-tastic)- because the holes there are apparent. You look at your White Knight, the one who said, "The man who wants the life of a king will snatch you up and never regret a second he spends earning your trust and love," and who has patiently let me be as transparent as GLASS about where I'm at and you have to say, "I adore you. I want to see where this goes...and is going...but I'm terrified of being called someones girl, I'm terrified of being hurt, I'm terrified of moving forward." And because he's amazing he lets you cry about your Ex-Love, he lets you freak out and he successfully fills my mind with better things to think about, to be excited about....he gives me perspective and baskets full of smiles....he stimulates my mind and has me curled over in stomach pains from laughter. He's what the doctor ordered....and I hate when I still have to say, honestly to myself and to him...

I've only got 50% ....my heart has a limp. The capacity for me to FEEL is maxed out. And he gets it....he says, "Babe, I know what I signed on for. It's gonna hurt for awhile....and I'm in no hurry."

Right? I know, he's a real-live-man. A mature, super-human, extraordinary man.

So when my Ex- Love says, "I can tell you all this because, I know we're past it now..." again, the cards sit comfortably in his hands (and I'm angry at myself for hurting over it), the hands that are clicking "SEND" on a loaded gun, because he doesn't realize the severity of how that actually affects me, the hands that are now empty of me, while still unknowingly holding a chunk of my most important parts, the hands that are gripping onto other women, pressing up against bar stools and finding themselves curled through strangers belt loops, looking at them like he once looked at me....but they're not me, they're looked on with false admiration, prey to a selfish conquest. And he knows that.

The decision to be "past it" has now been made by him and if being past something, means reading the email that sits in your inbox like a 8,000 lb Elephant (actually, maybe that's a really small elephant...how much do elephants weigh?) and feeling like you've now backtracked a thousand steps in reverse down memory lane, then maybe that's what "past it" feels like. Maybe "past it" still guts me.

"DON'T TALK ABOUT HIM ANYMORE ON YOUR BLOG, CHELS" my adorable, Bob Dylan-obsessed, male coworker tells me, "You show him your hand that way." Well, I'm not holding any Aces, dear.

My cards are on the table. I'm trying, I'm moving forward, one foot in front of the other, but I would be lying to myself to say that there aren't parts of me that still can't let go of him. As foolish as it may sound and as embarrassing it is to admit.

I'm trying. I'm unlearning him and open to learning someone else. I'm excavating bits of him with sharp tools and examination. I'm being the best version of brave that I can be when you're only at half-capacity and I'm "bravely" opening my heart, standing proudly like glass, transparent and keen for rock-throwing, I'm aware of where I'm at. Of what I can and cannot give and what I'm ready for. I know that I'm hurting still and that despite the circumstances, I'm doing one hell of a good job embracing the newness. So fuck yea, go me.

How do you "move forward?"