I had good run of working around the clock including the weekends. Conservatively, I put in seventy hours a week for more than a month. There was a time in my life that I would melt down before I would scale back. I am different today. As work began to calm down there were a couple of opportunities to take on more; instead, I declined the additional work, and i stuck to my plans to have a girl’s weekend in Fredericksburg. I had some much needed down time.
Then this week, when my client work ended, I took a breather a couple of afternoons, including right now. I will be back at it times ten on Monday, and I will be excited about work, but this week I needed some down time. I feel as if I have learned in life when to press the pedal, and I have learned when to hit the brakes.
With free time always comes, free thinking time. It has been too long since I sat down to write. There is so much to write about. Brainy Bird is now fourteen and he is 5’10”, so he is taller in eight than most of the guys that I grew up with are as adults. Little Chirp is as charming as ever. He is growing into an industrious, thoughtful little man. Work is amazing. On the most stressful of days, I drive home thinking, “I love my career.”
Still single….Ha! No, this does not bring me down. It does not make me doubt myself. It is a great state of being. I get to spend my time focusing on my children and my career, and I get to be there for my friends. I also get time to just be me.
A couple of Saturdays ago, I spent the evening drinking wine with a great, happily marriage couple. They both were divorced with children for a long time before they met each other. I think of them as Guardians of our hood. They are always looking out for their neighbors, hosting their neighbors and brining everyone together. They are truly amazing people. The gentleman guarding of the neighborhood did not like the no dating approach. He shared with me stories from his childhood with divorced parents and his own stories.
I took to heart that he was willing to share his stories and that he cares about my boys and me. The lady guardian of the neighborhood is the same way. I agreed to “think about dating again.” I should agree to think and not do more often.
The last thing that was said that Saturday night about dating was that I am in a perfect situation because I can take my time and figure out what I want. That is very true, so in my free time this week, I gave it some thought. What do I want? Well, I want for nothing. I love my life exactly as it is right now. I am alive in the moment day in and day out in a beautiful way.
What would make me date someone? The answer is boringly simple. Courtship, remember back in the day? A gentleman asked a lady for a date without a thousand text messages? He got the door, he focused his attention on her, there was no cell phone on the table, he wasn’t dating multiple girls at once….
For me, it is really that simple.