Dear Diary,

I'm writing here so I don't gush to my polite, tolerant, beautiful friends who let me air out thousands of details constantly.

I'm writing here because the time I get to spend with the boy is often dominated by his talkative roommate.  In fact, it's usually dominated by him.  I enjoy hanging out with all of them, but our private time tends to be more intimate and less about casual conversation.  We are gradually growing closer, but I haven't had any deep conversations with him in a fairly long time.

Diary, I think I'm doing it.  At least, my deliberately trying to hang back and let details sort themselves out seems to be a sensible strategy.  It's getting more peaceful.  I feel lighter and more cheerful.

Also, as per the sage advice of dating columnists, I'm not writing off other options.  There are still a few other gentlemen with whom I'm corresponding, but I'm not so invested in any of them...they seem to express enough interest to continue contacting me, and I'm interested enough to have conversation, so this is a helpful way not to fixate or obsess on anyone.

But the boy knows I'm enamored.  I've told him.

And I'm not sorry that I did.  I trust him.  He's kind, he's caring, and he's protective.  He's so damn humble.  He's gentle with me.

In fact, I've told this boy how highly I think of him on many occasions, but I don't want to gush at him out of context.  I don't want to over-say it, so it feels less honest and undeserved to him.  We agreed last night that we are very fond of each other.  He called me a "kick-ass lady," and then, "really killer," which is so terribly endearing.  Then he rephrased it as, "seriously, I wouldn't spend this kind of time with you if I didn't really think that."  I told him I knew, and that I am picky too.

He's not a perfect man, but he's a good man.  I love his smile.  I love how he holds me.  I love how he treats his friends, and how he talks about them, and how he takes care of his shit like a grown up.

With some trepidation I asked if he would spend Valentine's Day with me, and he laughed a little and agreed that he'd plan for that.  I don't want to hang expectations on him, because I like that we're evolving very slowly in a positive direction...but I want to secure this boy's company that night :)

Diary, I also think he's proud to spend time with me.  I think he might appreciate having his friends see him being treated well by a woman they approve of.  I know his friends approve of me :)  He deserves to have someone beef up his ego a little bit--he has the least amount of ego of literally any guy I've ever dated.

I like him.  I've liked him a lot since the first time we met, but now I know quite a bit more about him.  I'm learning things about him every day.  Almost every interaction with him has been great; even the times he canceled on me last-minute, he was extremely upfront about the circumstances and not simpering.  I told him it was fine, but that the ball was in his court...and he understood and made things right eventually.  I've never felt mishandled by him.

It seems, Diary, as if this were the type of guy who would go to great lengths in my favor to avoid hurting me, if at some point one of us stopped feeling the connection.  I just think he's that stand-up of a guy.  Even so, I hope we know each other for a long time.  I like being included in his friendly gatherings and outings.  It's easy to be around him.

Anyway, thanks Diary.  It's lots of fun to have a crush.  I just need to avoid fueling it at work!

Wait for it...

I recall very distinctly a time in my life (probably the majority of my life) where I always felt like I was holding my breath for things to fall into place.  I was waiting for a functional relationship, and the education/experience/qualifications I'd been pushing for forever so that I could eventually get the job I was passionate about.  I was reserving my appreciation for my body for when I'd finally shed the hundred pounds of hideous fat and revealed my perfect physique beneath.  I had decided that once those things had been accomplished, that I could finally relax, be kind to myself, and feel genuinely happy.

Instead of really pushing for those things with hope in my heart, I saw my relationship going nowhere, my career efforts seemed impossibly uphill, and I was still wrapped in my fat shell.  I felt robbed of youth and beauty and any financial stability after earning my degree.  My boyfriend was actively avoiding me, even though we lived together.  I saw him maybe twice a week.  I worked a stressful job with coworkers all content to save their griping for on the clock, so the environment was thick with negativity.  I volunteered for field assistanceships frequently, but felt like it was blind groping for an opportunity that I wasn't sure I'd recognize.

Waiting.  Waiting for things to change, to get better.  I was miserable.  Nothing was going anywhere.  I found myself laying in bed, praying for death to release me.  I would mentally inventory the embarrassing details my family would learn posthumously, but mostly I didn't care.  I was terribly alone, I hated myself, I hated my relationship, I hated my job, I couldn't see any possible way out.

After a near-death experience (and I'm not exaggerating) with a panic-induced asthma attack, I found myself actually regretting that I hadn't just died.  That I was so close, and to have missed the opportunity.  It was time for therapy.

My job offered an employee assistance program with free therapy sessions, so I got started with Barbara.  She catalyzed major changes in my life.  I took it seriously, and I embraced those changes, even though the process was often slow and painful.  I tried to see the storm for what it was: temporary.

In the months that followed, I started Pilates four hours a week, and lost 15 lbs by the spring.  I broke up with my boyfriend.  I moved out of the apartment we shared.  I started a summer internship hiking all day every day.  I lost 20 more pounds.  I returned to my parents' house, pounded the pavement hard looking for a job, and was suddenly looking at my passport and visa to move to Korea to teach English.

Within a year of starting therapy, I had changed everything.  I got on a plane and moved to the other side of the planet.  I lost more weight.  I started training in tae kwon do.  I made better friends.  I traveled Asia.

I've stopped waiting, as much, and it's so exciting to reflect on what happened after my lowest point in 2007.  But it's 2014.  That tale ended in 2010.  I'm in Arizona, still feeling some urge for a change.  I'm so much happier, at least in longer stretches, and I take charge over the things I want to change.  I'm much more spiritually at peace, and I practice mindfulness more and more.  I have a wonderful social life in Tucson, with friends I love and trust.  I have a job that is so much more positive.  My students are loving and peaceful and I think we're all grateful to be together.  I have a much healthier relationship with my mother.

The financial stability isn't there yet.  The weight is a work in progress.

I'm sure when I reflect on this time in a few years, I will cite how transformative it was, too.  How I was ever-growing and how all the time I was merely on that path to the next thing.  I believe that.

At some Point in Space

I bought two mice.  The day after Bill broke up with me, actually.  On my way home from a movie I saw with my AP Biology students.

I wanted presence in my house.  I wanted something warm, something that responds.

So I came home with two tiny girls: Cinnamon and Nutmeg.  I call them the Spice Girls, though really I just say their sweet little names to them.  I set up their little colorful plastic cage, got them all cozy and fed, and they made themselves at home.

They sure do run in that wheel a lot.  I figured I should give them a little wheel to run around the house.  At first, I could only convince Nutmeg to climb into my hand, so I could get her in the ball.  She seemed to get the hang of it right away.

Cinnamon was much more reluctant.  She's actually pretty hesitant to get into my hand ever, but we're working on the trust thing.  Eventually, actually last Tuesday (Christmas Eve), I got her and had her try it out.  She went all over the house, bumping into my feet as I baked pumpkin pies to bring up to Phoenix.  And then...I stopped getting bumped.  And then I saw the empty ball.  No mouse to be found.

I had a schedule, sadly, and I figured she'd be fine for a few days around the house.  I hoped I'd find her as soon as I came home, and on Sunday afternoon I came home with my ears peeled.  I didn't locate her until the evening, in my closet, but she's FAST!  I left the top open on the cage a little each day, I'm not sure why...but I thought I spotted something like a mouse climbing up the outside of the cage...but when I took a closer look, nothing. So I kept looking.  It's been two days, and I've tried drawing her out with food and into my little metal trap.  No luck :(

Now it's New Year's Eve.  The food I put out last night wasn't there anymore.  I went to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu this morning, and came home.  Nutmeg was cozy and adorable inside a sock I'd placed in the loft tower, and as I talked to her, whaddaya know!  There's Cinnamon inside the cage.  I suppose it makes sense; they're best friends and this was Cinnamon's safe place with plenty of food and water and bedding.  The apartment is too rough a terrain for a little baby mouse.

Honestly, I'm shocked that I found her, and that she took herself home!  Wonderful way to end the year.

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This year....in reflection.  It's been the best year of my life, I figure.  Ups and downs.  Lots of lessons.

I've had my resolve challenged.  I've had to employ newly learned lessons and seek tranquility and spiritual growth while feeling strained and doubtful.  The world has continued to turn and many problems have sorted themselves out, as long as I believed it.  Why am I still so doubtful?

I've certainly grown in some aspects tremendously.  I've had the chance to love some of the most profoundly beautiful people.  I've been very loved by all of them.  My mother and I developed a much stronger friendship.  I've bonded deeply with my students, last year's and this.

I've worked my ass off at work and in school.  There were probably lots of things I could have done that I blew off, but I made an effort not to break myself down.  I spent all of this past quarter sick with bronchitis and a sinus infection, but this is when my current kids and I really fell in love.

I got to work in a biochemistry lab and I laughed every day.  I rode my bike for miles in the summertime, and I got a good tan!

That summer job paid for my trip to Southeast Asia!!!  I went to Thailand, visited Malaysia, and had layovers in Taiwan.  I questioned what I learned about myself out there; I questioned why I was unsatisfied and what it was that I might really be needing.

I have many kinds of love in my life, but I realized I really want romantic love.  Crazy, delirious love.

I think this year has been about grooming me to be that carefree, infatuated lover whose fuse is longer and whose adoration is genuine and pure.  I've realized that I can be that person, up to a point, where fear causes my panicked guards to heave massive fences around my warm, welcoming courtyard.  I'm quite flighty when it comes to romantic love.

Hence, my countless romantic encounters this year.

I dug myself a tiny bit further out of debt, though you'd never know it from the bill collectors' incessant phone calls.  I'd say I chiseled about $1500 of what I owed this time last year.  Goddamned slow going, this process.

I've been a heartbreaker, and jeez it's a tough business.  I mean, I'd like to be the object of affection and attention without hurting people's feelings!  I may have encouraged a couple of them, unfortunately, and in one case it worked out fine and in the other the guy had a meltdown.  There's no predicting that, and it certainly wasn't about me.

I've gained and lost weight but overall, I feel good in my curves.  I always see it as a work in progress, as a way to stay excited about movement and a reason to try different things.

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There was someone, at some point in this past year, who I met in person (the first in ages) who was really charming and attentive.  We got lunch together, and drinks, and went to an Insect Festival for our first date.  Things moved very slowly.  Things seemed to pause often.  My personal work on growth and self-compassion were still the utmost priority.

Then Bill came around, expressed interest, and I dove into that so blindly and excitedly that we both burned out in a few weeks.  It had no potential.  We weren't right together.  And this first someone, whom I'd spent more time with, whose friends I'd met, flowed more slowly, like an underground stream.

A stream that stayed steady.

There's this thing about listening.  Standing quietly in the desert and letting the rustling leaves and the birdsongs and the sunlight say what they will.  It's a patient thing.  You let yourself accept whatever the world wants to tell you.  It won't do to step foot into such a world and decide what it knows, where it's going, what it all means.  It won't do in any world.

This year, 2014, is the year of my Goddess.  This is the year of my peace, of my connection, of my new growth.  I've spent two years pruning away dead and dying branches; clearing out the unnecessary so that my spirit can be light and shine brightly.  Love resonates better in a heart that is intact.  My pieces have all been reassembled.

And now, with this same someone, who holds me tightly, cares how I feel, tends to me thoughtfully, I find myself slowing down.  Breathing it in.  Letting this moment be now.  Needing less from tomorrow.  I'm learning patience.  I'm allowing love.  I'm letting fear repel off me like droplets of water on well-oiled feathers.  Because now.

I realize that two years of healing have been necessary to bring me here.  I would have nothing, or perhaps far less, to keep for myself to steady my ground, had I found these circumstances too early.  I rejoice in the perfection of Universal timing.  My heart is full and joyful.  I'm grateful for the moment's Peace.