2: Dating

The move to start dating was based on a realization that I had been grieving the loss off the marriage for over a year overtly, and much longer than that emotionally, and that I had come to a place where I needed to do something other than just hide at home feeling abandoned. Instead of letting myself feel like a victim, I wanted to turn that energy towards the scary task of reaching out and being vulnerable to new connections. I've been described as a "hot mess", and I agree that I'm definitely in a complicated space. But I think the balance leans much more towards "hot" than "mess", and I certainly feel emotionally available. Perhaps a little too emotionally available for my own good.

This is clearly a work in progress, and I feel like it needs to be chopped up into separate chapters. The real-time sharing of these stories transformed my usual work "breakfast club" into what became "motherfucking story time". The first batch of these were suggested to be turned into a podcast.

I hope they get less hilarious and tragic.

Spoiler alert: they did.