Connecting

I'm not a dater and never really been one. In the past, I would somehow manage to make a connection with a guy but it would be accidental. My relationships have all been non-conventional. I can't say that I prefer them that way. They were with some amazing men. I wouldn't trade any of them for any other guy. Hell, I am still in love with the men I fell in love with and don't apologize for saying so.

Now, I'm in a phase of actually trying to 'date' This is a completely new concept. It actually is fucking with me. I don't know what to do with it. Talking to and seeing more than one guy at a time? Not me. My nerves are on edge because I feel like I'm cheating. Isn't it a form of cheating?

I know how to connect with people. I've spent my lifetime connecting with people through jobs and my empathic way of lending a shoulder. I know how to be there for some one. I've been a good...no, a great friend to those who need one. Moving around as a military brat can be a daunting task. You either have a personality that adapts quickly and you thrive or you wither from the constant moving and suffer from loneliness. I thrived. I know how to be vivacious. I can make friends fast and they are true friendships. I was a manager that solved problems with employees and customers . I excelled...excel...in customer service and employee relations, damn it.

However, I don't know how to put myself in that vulnerable state to allow someone to love and attend to me. To know me enough to say, "you mean something to me." I don't trust enough that I am worth that. I never learned that.

I love. A lot. I reach out from this place, with such joy at...such beauty at what I see in this world. At people I am surrounded by. At men I want to love forever. At men I do love forever. With people, family, friends that I want to sit in a room and just want to laugh and talk and spend the moment forever enjoying each second with.

Maybe it's too possessive. I can admit that. Because it seems so, I pull away for fear of it being....scary to the other. I fear...it's too much. It's too overwhelming. That I am overwhelming. That I am never enough or good enough or just...well, damaged.

So, I never fully connect. And I feel lost and separated. I long. I know that in the normal world without mental illness and family dysfunction like I have in my world, there is already apprehension in trying to find that mate, that partner to soldier on with. It's normal to be scared that you'll be alone in your senior years without the love of your life. I hate that I've magnified these fears ten fold.

I dread the moment I have to reveal to my potential that I'm ill. Will he stick around. Probably not. Doesn't happen. I tend to not let it happen.

I'll be forty-one in November.

I'm single.

Never been married.

I've loved great men.

They are great men. They love other women who are great women.