Valley Falls

I'm spending the night in Valley Falls tonight at Susan's house. Susan is the most gracious host I can imagine. She met me outside, cooked a lovely dinner, and we've had a very nice evening chatting. Tomorrow we will go to tea in Hiawatha and I'll get to meet Cynthia, who I've talked with for years on journaling lists, but have never met.

I'm not very far from my old bf's place. It's kind of odd to be in "his teritory" but it's just one of those things. I can't swear off a whole section of the state because someone I once loved lives here. He has moved on to someone else and I'm sure I will too eventually. I'm just not back to being completely me yet and therefore it's not time for another relationship yet.

Every relationship requires some compromise and after one ends you have to have time to get back to being "you" again or you start a new one in a bad way. So much happened in my life over the time Nathan and I were together that it is going to take me awhile yet to get back to "normal" for me. I have realized recently that I haven't been normal since my mom died. It's only in the last few weeks, as the fog has lifted because of any number of things, that I've seen that.

Life moves in cycles and sometimes I'm just caught in the wake, and that's how I've been for awhile. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting on the crest of the wave again. That will be a pleasant change.

I'm sure no one in my world, other than Nathan, has had any idea of how weirded out I've been. I put on a very good front to the world. But I let my guard down with him and it was obviously too much for the relationship to handle. He didn't have the life experience to handle death of a parent and all that that entailed. It's not his fault. He gave it a valiant try. I expected too much of him and I have apologized for that. It's not my fault that losing my mother brought out tons of associated childhood issues I hadn't dealt with, but it is my fault for sharing those. We live and learn. That's a lesson I've been taught more than once - maybe I'll finally learn it this time - there are things that NO one wants to share with you. They're too ugly, too raw, too personal and too intense. It's a pity I haven't learned that lesson previously, but so it goes.

I'm entering a new phase now, feeling better than I have in a long time. So, it's just as well I face being in this area, where I've been only with him, and move past that. In the last few weeks I've done two similar things so this must be the season of closure for me.

That's always followed by a season of new beginnings. It all just takes time.

But for tonight I'm going to go out and look at the stars for a bit, think over some things, put pen to paper for awhile, and look forward to tea tomorrow.