The Odds and Ends as They Stand on 5/18/14

I've gotten some emails from some folks who want to know when the wedding is, or what our plans are.

All I can tell you is this:  we haven't really made any.  One possibility is eloping to Las Vegas and spending a few days there for a honeymoon, but we are leaning against that.  The other possibility, more likely, is a small private ceremony at my church.  Pastor has floated that as on option and I think that's where we're going to go.

Sheila doesn't want a big church wedding, and my first wedding was of that nature since that was more for my parents and friends than for anyone else, so I don't want on either.  This time, I figure on maybe twenty witnesses at the most.  Close friends, family, and that's it.

I'm guessing that my wedding night will be spent at my house, and then the next day we'll be on some highway somewhere.  We're thinking of Route 66, but we may drive up to Santa Fe first.  Or, maybe we'll do Vegas, then pick up 66 in Kingman and take that over to Flag (that's what we Zonies call Flagstaff).  (Zonies: people who live in Arizona).

* * * * * * *

Wedding plans have been somewhat hampered by waiting for my work situation to stabilize some.  It's taken some bizarre twists and turns over the past few weeks and it is threatening to get better.  I have returned to my old project, and I'm pleased as punch to be back; supporting a computer re-design.  I'm also helping out with some change packages.  That's all I will say at this time.

* * * * * * *

I need to post about some of my favorite eating places here in Tucson.  I have several; I  could do them all in one fell swoop but I think I will instead post reviews here and there. 

Yeah, I know, I need to post more on that "money series" I started, but I'm going through the house and re-arranging things.  Sheila and her kids will be living here.  What I have in mind for that will take some research, and what I ought to do is to start writing the essays in a Word document, and then when finished, post them here.

* * * * * * *

I've been doing a fair amount of reading lately.  I was introduced to Louis L'Amour a few months back and a friend of mine has been loaning me some paperbacks and I've been reading them.  What I've read so far has been of the Sackett series, coming to know the character of William Tell Sackett, and more recently, his cousin Logan Sackett.

I'm not one to watch westerns, nor have I ever read any until now, but I find myself enjoying them. 

I may have missed out on something for far too long, until now.

* * * * * * *

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat. 

It will make you into a better person.  And, it's good for the dog or cat too.

The First Day of Spring, 2014

I haven't posted in quite a while as to what's going on here on the personal front.  So what I'm going to do here is catch up on some things.  It's been an exhausting day today as part of an exhausting week, but tomorrow is my off Friday and this evening I don't have anything on the calendar.

* * * * * * *

Yes, I am still seeing Sheila.  We're seeing quite a bit of each other.  Things are going very well in that regard.

I'm hoping that later on this year we can see more of US 66, the Arizona portion between Kingman and Flagstaff, and during the spring.  It's challenging for both of us to get any extended time off.  I switched assignments at work effective January 2nd and we're on a very tight schedule.

* * * * * * *

Two weekends ago Bachman & Turner played in Glendale, at the Jobing.com Arena, the present home of the Phoenix Coyotes.  Sheila and I got to meet up with Fred Turner a few hours before the show.  I knew before last Christmas that we might be seeing them.  Fred told me in an email about there being rumors of an Arizona show, and when it became official I bought some tickets.

We ran into Fred and his wife Donna in that mall area north of the arena.  I had related to Sheila the story about how I had run into Fred on Fremont Street in Las Vegas several hours before their scheduled show, and within ten minutes it was happening all over again! 

I have been wanting Sheila to meet Fred for some time, and it happened!  Sheila was impressed with how down to earth Fred is, and me, even though I've now met him more times than I can remember, I still get giddy with excitement whenever it happens.

As for the show, they were preceded on stage by Trooper and Loverboy; both out of Canada.  It was "Canada Fest" and from audience response to questions by the lead singer of Trooper, 40% of the audience was Canadian.  He also gave a friendly shout out to us Americans.

Bachman & Turner ended up closing the festival.  It was a shorter set than I would have liked, but they were more improvisational than I had ever seen.  Randy Bachman extended most of his solos with extra measures......even his "drumstick" solo was a little longer and not quite to script, for lack of a better expression.

There weren't any songs from their 2010 CD, but they did play "Shakin' All Over"......I don't think they've done that one live since 1986.  They did not indicate that any new material was coming out, but I can tell you what I know here.

A 40th anniversary of their Not Fragile album is being released later this month.  It will be a two CD set and will have some live/rehearsal material.  It is also public knowledge that Fred would very much love to do a new album, but logistically it's difficult since he's in Winnipeg (and Tampa during the winter) while the rest are in B.C..  Randy's also got a lot of side projects going on with a radio show on CBC as well his "Every Song Tells a Story"concert series that he does without Fred. 

As for the new album, there's some chatter that Randy would love to do a new one, concentrating on blues, and Fred could contribute beyond measure to something like that.....not only as a vocalist (he's got the right vocals for it) but also in songwriting.

I can only hope, as a nearly 40 year fan, that they are taking good care of themselves, and that the Good Lord will bless them with many more years.  It's hard to believe that both of them are now 70 and are still rocking.  It's likely that 40 years ago neither one of them thought they'd be playing together in 2014.

 

* * * * * * *

I got my first 2014 coin in my change this morning, a Lincoln cent.  Tucson usually doesn't get the new coins as quickly as other locations.  Mine came in change from a purchase at the Quik Trip on Broadway and Camino Seco.  Just a few days ago they were handing out shiny 2013 cents.

The guy behind the counter told me that they've been getting brand new rolls from their armored car carrier (Brinks?) so it sounds as if the 2013 supply is near its end.

 

* * * * * *

This may be an early bedtime tonight for me, so I'll sign now. 

Weekends are great.  Especially the long ones.

There's a New Lady in my Life......

I can now make this public.

I am in a committed relationship with an extremely attractive brunette named Sheila.  Our first meeting was for lunch, and usually first meetings for lunch last an hour or so.  We were there for five hours talking, discovering that we have a *lot* of shared interests.  Also trying to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor when I first saw her was a good sign.

Our second date was to have been a day trip to Bisbee, but it instead ended up being a weeknight dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

We didn't do the day trip to Bisbee.  We instead visited at my house from the morning until she had to leave at night, only leaving the premises to get lunch at a restaurant I'll have to tell you about sometime.  She was also over here the next day, for most of it.

She's a more private person than I am, so out of respect for her privacy I will not post a picture of her (unless she approves but again, she's a private person), nor can I disclose how it was we came to meet until she says I can.  It wasn't eHarmony; I gave up on them for good last November.

I may have met her at a country & western dance lesson, or it may have been a cooking class at a community college.  Was it an encounter at Safeway  in the express line where we started talking and couldn't stop?  It wasn't work as that I don't date co-workers so that's all I will say.

We are going to give this a go and see where we go from here.  For starters I want a good honest relationship and I have every reason to believe that that is what I am going to get.

Starting Over, Again

Lynette and I returned to Arizona on Friday the 9th without complication. I wish I could say that this was a good trip, but it wasn't. Some issues with our relationship were brought to the surface, and to be honest there were some signs that not all was well even before we went on the trip.

Our relationship is over, and it's time for me to be starting over.....again. As I am typing this, I am realizing more and more that ending this is the right thing to do. For one, I am suffering from a sense of relief. I'm not crawling into a corner for three days to cry my soul out like I did the last time I went thru something like this even though there were a few times that I wanted to propose to her (and it was hard not to). And now that it is obvious that there is no possibility of proposing, I hold no malice to her whatsoever. I regard her as a special lady and I always will. I think I'm a better person because of her, and I'm grateful for the experience. But it's now time to move on.

My First Date with Lynette! or, Does eHarmony really work?

I can now make this public.

I just wrapped up my first date with Lynette, who I met over eHarmony. We went thru the "guided communication" steps, sending each other prewritten questions, then those we wrote ourselves, then open communication thru their system.

It quickly went to private email, and then to the phone. The "buildup" to this was phenomenal. It was scary. And I hadn't been this nervous on a first date for years. I mean years! It was like being 16 all over again.

In a situation like this, that is the "buildup", well it seemed that no matter how you sliced it we were compatible. She didn't waste any time into getting this into an honest and open dialog. From the anonymity of the keyboard I opened up. And I kept wondering, is it going to be different this time?

Those were legitimate questions. In October of 2005 I was in some great dialog with this Linda in Scottsdale who I met via Match.com. She practically promised me the moon. We went out on a date, and it was like a scene from some Stephen King novel. I'm thinking, this is weird, I've been led down some long winding road to get to a dead end, and why did I let this happen?

Then in early 2006 there was this Sheri from Dewey, Arizona, also from Match. She got a little brazen in our first phone call and I loved it. I ran down the battery in my cordless phone talking to her. She said all the things I wanted to hear. I could hardly wait to meet.

However, I got suspicious on that one. I ran a check of the online court records and learned that she had several convictions for passing bad checks. She was also the target of several civil actions from those bad checks. And, she was still technically married since her divorce action showed up and the decree didn't look like it was going to be final anytime soon. She quickly got an email from me stating that I had panicked, wasn't ready, and asked that she not contact me further.

That wasn't a lie. I was not ready for someone like her! And there was a sense of panic as that I was on the brink of arranging a meeting for that one.

In early 2007, and again from Match, there was Mary from El Paso, or "Little Miss El Paso" as my friend Cheryl called her. The emails were getting on the steamy side. I was about to commit to a trip to El Paso to meet her. Then she asked me if there was such a thing as "love at first sight" via computer. I related to her that I wasn't sure that there was such a thing, that instead I would have to meet the person. I also offhandedly remarked what my friends would think about my going to El Paso to meet someone.

Well, Little Miss El Paso really lit into me on that one. I got this angry tirade from her about pulling back, and that it didn't matter what my friends thought, we were going to meet and it was going to happen with us.

What Little Miss El Paso doesn't know is just how highly I think of my friends. Nobody, but nobody criticizes my friends! Nobody! I happen to think that my closest friends are all better people than I am, each and every one of them. The way I see it, is that my friends are very important to me, and I just won't stand for anyone criticizing them.

Anyway, with those three examples, I found myself down that road again. That road that you're not sure if the bridge was out the last time has the bridge in it now. Where the advertising looks promising, the scenery is fantastic.......but will the bridge that's up ahead be there when you need to cross it?

This time the bridge was there. I found out that Lynette and I had way more in common than I could possibly have imagined. We found oursevles as instant soulmates! And so, after a first date that will be cherished as a prized memory for the rest of my life, we immediately agreed on a mutually exclusive relationship.

This is better than anything I have ever experienced. I am quite pleased to be making this public!

We agreed on how things would be, how we would resolve conflicts, things we would like to do this year, and places we would go. There are some initial challenges with scheduling as that she is a nurse and I am an engineer. She lives in Queen Creek and I live in Tucson. But we'll work around these things.

It really feels good to be "off the market". It really does.

Trying Again with the Online Dating Thing

I don't like to admit it. I mean, I really don't like to admit it. I don't like to admit that I have in the past, used online dating services and have started using them now. Like a lot of things that emerge, it has some plusses and it has some minusses but there are some days when it's hard to tell which one of those is ahead.

I first tried the online dating thing back in 2002 sometime. That was match.com. I think what inspired that was a friend and co-worker having some success in meeting dateable women, and I thought what the hey, I'll give this a try too. I signed up for match.com for three months, and at the end I couldn't wait for the subscription to expire. I was finding that participating in local singles events and going to the Sunday Singles dances (which we haven't had now for years) was plenty of fun and was enabling me to meet women.

Sometime around early 2004, I decided to give match.com another try. What happened then was that I wasn't impressed with the "selection" that the singles groups had. Oh, there was never any problem meeting women. The problem was meeting dateworthy women. Let's face it. There are a lot weirdos out there, and yes, we have them on my side too.

In the second half of 2004, match.com was actually starting to "work". I dated this one lady named Jennifer for about 2 1/2 months. I liked her, but not to the point of wanting to get serious with her. Then Kathleen came along after I told Jennifer we weren't going to make it, and my sense then was that "hey, this can actually work!". Two months later Kathleen ended it because of medical issues (hers), and it was back online again. Match.com didn't seem to "work" for the rest of the year though it did introduce me to Dyanna in 2006. I always liked Dyanna and thought she was quite the babe, but for some reason we couldn't seem to have an intimate conversation.

Now I'm back on the market, and I'm using eHarmony now. I have heard this come highly recommended by a friend and co-worker, and after going through their lengthy battery of questions I was initially impressed. Some of that shine may be wearing off, but then again maybe it's also the process of getting used to how it works. The jury is still out on this one, but here's what I've learned so far.

One, for some reason eHarmony likes to crash the browser. I know that I haven't got the latest and greatest Internet Explorer version installed, but I'm not going to use IE8 until we're using IE8 at work. Even if I were to be using IE8, some of your super slick websites may ferret out some glitches with the browser. Regardless, it's a bit frustrating trying to review your matches when the browser keeps crashing.

Two, eHarmony does real good at finding you matches some 500 miles away from you. OK, maybe their matching criteria is so strict that I've already managed to exhaust the Tucson-area matches in two days. I'm getting a lot of matches from southern California, and I'm "closing" them as that I'm not sure the distance thing will work in the first place. Yeah, I like to get in the truck and visit San Diego from time to time....there's some interesting rock formations near the Imperial County line and San Diego is a neat city. I considered relocating there about twenty years ago. But I think that's out as far as driving to meet someone goes. I don't even like to go to Phoenix to meet someone, but at least I can get to Phoenix and back in the same day.

Three: I'm now going to say something good about eHarmony: I get the sense that they really want to see their customers succeed in finding a match. I wrote in a question about whether or not it was possible to talk to a "live" person rather than email, and within 24 hours they got back to me on that one. Yes, it is possible, there's an 800 number available 24/7. And they're responsive in another way. A lady in Capistrano Beach that I turned down wrote in to them to ask them if I would reconsider....and a customer service rep advised me of that. If I want to re-open the match, let him know and they'll take care of that.

Four: Something else good to say about eHarmony: their screening process weeds out the scammers. I've been contacted by Nigerian scammers on Match and on another site. Although they are taken care of quickly by Match, the scammers won't have the patience to wade through the questionnaires that eHarmony throws at you. eHarmony also offers an identity verification service that's "free" with their higher-priced package (which I've signed up for). No scammer would go in that far.

Five: eHarmony also has some other bells and whistles that I haven't yet taken the time to explore, such a s a secure two-way anonymous phone call setup. You can talk to your match without having your phone number revealed to that match. Since I've got some cellphone minutes to burn I might do that if I am talking to someone outside of Tucson (big "if"). I haven't had any problems though with women misusing my phone number.

It is way too early to rule on whether or not signing up on eHarmony was the right thing to do. All I can tell you is that I don't have buyer's remorse on it yet. But I also don't know if I'm going to continue if no match is found when my term expires.

I just wish that there were more "eligible" (by their standards) women in Tucson to choose from.

* * * * * * *

Kerry Livgren, who got a mention in my last post is recovering from a stroke. From what I can tell his family is encouraged by his progress thus far. There is no way to contact him, (he's got a lot of irons in the fire anyway), but I hope that he'll be making some more music. I have some of his post-Kansas CDs and I recommend them. I should get some of his other CDs.

* * * * * * *

My cousin Kathy is visiting her brother Todd up in Phoenix. She and her husband came down to Tucson on Friday along with Todd's family, Amber and Annette. We hiked Sabino Canyon after sundown, and we were down in Tombstone for most of yesterday. Coming back, there was a really nasty storm that included hail. We had supper at the TTT truck stop off I-10 in Tucson before they headed back to Phoenix.

This was the first time that I really had time to "visit" with Dan. He's a good guy; the kind of guy you would want with you if you were to go out deer hunting. At one point in Tombstone yesterday him, Todd and I were solving the world's problems while the women were shopping.

After the previous weekend, their visit was therapeutic. I needed it.

Three Days Later

I think I'm nearing the end of the grieving/mourning process of the breakup. I am about to consume my second meal of the day, which when consumed will be twice the amount of food that I ate yesterday. And although I broke down again today, it was only twice (maybe three times) and it wasn't as intense. I have no fear now of repeating the "dark days" that stretched from March 2005 to September 2005. I'm not saying that I'm going to enjoy the next few weeks. What I'm saying is that I'm not fearing them like I thought I would. Having a great network of great friends is a big help, and tonight I'm going to acknowledge the help, prayers, and counsel of Franz. I also want to acknowledge my pastor; I just got done meeting with him about fifteen minutes ago. It really helped to talk it all out to him.

The rebuilding has started, and the task doesn't seem as Herculanean as I thought it would be. A dear friend named Barb has been thru something similar, and so has another dear friend named Elizabeth. I think the three of us will get together and go out dancing before too long. We'll be good at watching each other's backs. I don't know if I'll get involved again with the local singles groups, but I'll keep tabs on what they're up to in case there's an event that I want to join them in. I also figure that I'll be busy with what I consider to be my interesting hobbies, one of which now appears to be this blog.

When I started this blog, I really wasn't intending to use this as a dumping ground for my personal problems. I instead wanted it to be a collection of commentaries and insights spanning a wide variety of subjects. Maybe I'd really like to be a newspaper columnist; I have admired some of the writings of Mike Royko (who is no longer with us) and dang near all of the writings of Dr. Thomas Sowell. I have no pretense of ever becoming as well-known as Dr. Sowell, but I'd like to think that in my own way my readers will find my postings to be as fascinating as I find Dr. Sowell's.

I think now that this drama that's consumed me these past few days is over. Or at least I hope it is. As I said yesterday, I hold no malice toward Kathleen. I do have an issue with the way in which she did this, but it's really best to start the process of moving on.

Life is good. In spite of the pain that we encounter, life is still good. I think the pain is something that goes on to make us strong people. It ain't fun, but when we're thru a situation we can look back at it and realize that it strengthened us.

I just hope that it's a while before I have to be strengthened in this manner.

That's all for this evening.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat. The dog or the cat that you pet will like it, and it will make you a better person.

Two Days Later

I was able to sleep for several hours last night and I have resumed eating. The appetite is slowly returning and I'm not eating much, but at least I'm eating.

I have been in email contact with an angel of mercy that I will only identify as "Tobi's Mom". She offered her "ear", and I've been bending it. She's been a big help through all of this. She's now aware of this blog, and I want to thank her here.

I have emotionally lost it about six times today. The breakdowns at noon were very intense, as I mourned the loss of the 2005 Kathleen. The present version of Kathleen is a wonderful woman in spite of my issues with her, but I didn't have the same type of love for her as I did before. It wouldn't have been fair to her to have proceeded to marriage. I would have done so out of "obligation" rather than out of love.

I knew that it was different, and I waited for that initial excitement that I had in 2005 to return. It was exciting when we re-established contact, but when I saw her for the first time in three years it was something of a letdown. I remember us kissing when we were in Old Town Scottsdale, and I couldn't even believe that that was happening. It took me a good three weeks to accept the fact that she was back because it seemed like it was beyond comprehension.

Anyway, there were three intense sessions of emotional wailing today. There were funereal moans, plenty of them, to go along with the tears. My beloved Kathleen of 2005 was finally parted with today, and it had been a long time in coming.

The Kathleen of today is someone who I hold no malice toward. I felt two days ago that she could have forgiven my latest verbal screw-up, and shouldn't have punished me by hanging up the phone last Wednesday night. That made me angry that she did that. It wasn't the first time that she misinterpreted me.

So do I now want her to give me another chance? I don't think I want her to now.

I can't say that I look forward now to this new status quo. I hate loneliness. Oh, the cats are very good company; they're great guys. They've been a big help today. But I sit at home this Saturday evening, alone in my thoughts.

Hindsight's 20/20. If I knew one year ago what I know now, I would have told Kathleen after one month that we weren't going to make it. That concern was there. Yet if I had done that, I might have beaten myself up for not giving it the old college try. There were some good times that followed; I was really glad to have her with me on the Christmas road trip. I really enjoyed introducing her to friends and family. She was one of the few girls that I could take home to Mom and Dad.

I think tonight I'll see if I can catch that program on CBC Radio One. I could play some tunes here at home, but I don't want to associate those with this breakup. So I'll catch some that I don't have in my library.

I could also watch a Hawaii Five-O episode on DVD.

To the Kathleen of 2005: I will always love you. To quote a Bachman-Turner Overdrive song, "Thank you for the feeling".

To the Kathleen of today: I'm very sorry that it didn't work out.

I think the healing has begun.

One Day Later

I was only able to get two hours sleep last night. I'm not sure if I'm in the grief or the anger stage. I read some Psalms from the Bible and felt peace. Then several hours later I'm wondering what I should do next.

This is not the worst thing that's ever happened to me. In October of 1998, I lost a marriage and a job within 24 hours of each other. That took almost two years to get over, and recovery was helped by a relocation to Arizona. I'm still grateful to living here.

I really wish Kathleen would give me another chance, but even if I did get that chance would it be wise to take it? We broke up once before, in March 2005. That was much harder. We had only dated for two months and we were madly in love. Then she got a cancer diagnosis, and broke things off. There were some warning signs. I was offered an "out" twice, maybe three times. I didn't take it. I was smitten with her, and walking six feet off the ground. Then on a Thursday I get a phone call saying it's over. I was in a funk for six months after that. It was nine months before I even had a date where I enjoyed being out on one.

Over the years, I never stopped loving Kathleen. I even had a dream where we got to meet once again....and she got away from me. I did date some good women though. I thought there was potential with Dyanna, but the special connection never did emerge.

Anyway, last year I was on a mini vacation in San Diego county. It was July, on a Saturday, and I'm looking at the ruins of an old structure near the Imperial County line. And I was alone, I had no one to enjoy that with. And I thought of Kathleen. I looked up to the sky and said "Kathleen, wherever you are, I still love you."

On Monday we accidentally discovered each other through an online dating site. I saw her profile. I wasn't sure it was her. She had really aged. But I wrote her, not sure if it was really her. It was her, and she replied. She had been thinking about me too. We talked on the phone. It wasn't cancer that she had. It was lupus. And she nearly died twice during the interim. And she was now back in my life.

Then the next Saturday, we met for the first time in over three years. She had lost three inches of height due to multiple surgeries to repair broken bones sustained in multiple falls. She looked as if she had aged 15 years, due to a lot of "steroid weight" as she called it, falling off. She reminded me of that Vina character in the old Star Trek episode with Captain Pike, where Captain Pike finally sees Vina as she really is. But it was the love of my life who was in front of me. We kissed, and minutes later we were driving up Sunland Gin Road on the way to I-10 on our first date in years, her hand on my thigh. It felt great.

But her appearance was something of a disappointment. I had struggled with that. She had aged, I hadn't (very much anyway) and I felt that I was being tested. Did I really love her to the extent that I would take her back looking like a much older woman? I took her back, and thought that if I gave it time it wouldn't be an issue. I know that her new collection of wrinkles bothered her but I never commented on them. On some days they weren't so bad. On other days I was asking myself what I was getting into.

Other issues were her smoking, and her lack of discipline when it came to money. I don't personally care if someone has a cigarette habit but it was something of an annoyance that would emerge from time to time. The money issue was the other. She was on disability, and also on Social Security. The amount was enough for any reasonable steward of finances to live on. But, she was always running out. One instance was a $400 toy for one of her granddaughters.....does a toy really have to cost $400? I was being asked to chip in for half of that last Christmas, and I didn't like it. I've also had to loan money for plumbing and pool repairs, money that she might have had if she had learned to save. I also spent quite a bit on that trip last month, but I figured that I was showing off a future wife so I didn't ask for any help.

There were some other compatibility issues of a personal nature. We had a lot of discussions on marriage and how things "should be". At first I thought we would get along great. Then I'm finding out that some other things would cause some issues. Her daughter wasn't the greatest in making relationship decisions. I almost broke it off last September out of a concern that I would be spending my retirement savings on babies who were popped out by all of the losers she would hook up with. And that brought up a concern.....how did she really raise her daughter? Some parents do well and still have offspring who disappoint them, so would it have been fair for me to jump to that kind of conclusion?

And I'll confess, I almost broke things off last April (or maybe it was May) due to Kathleen's lack of financial discipline. My ex was talented at maxing out credit cards. Kathleen's credit rating is at the low end. She's had to take out "payday" loans before to make ends meet. She did finally get the last one paid off a couple of months ago, but I was not comfortable in accompanying her to those places when she had to make a payment. That was cause of great concern.

So, even though I feel as if she should give me another chance, would things work out if I took it? We could work out some things with relationship counseling. I would be for all that, as that even if we still could not have a relationship after such counseling then maybe I wouldn't be as upset about things as I am now.

Another question is, is should I even be upset at all? Did this breakup happen because God has it in mind to protect me from something down the road that I can't handle? I sometimes think that Kathleen's only got five years on the planet left. I was preparing for the possibility of a short marriage to her. Could I have handled that? Could I have handled watching her physical condition prematurely deteriorate? Early on in our resumption of the relationship last year I had a panic attack about this, but got over it. Hell, do I even know if I'm going to be around five years from now?

I do realize that I was depressed about the way things appeared to be going with this last month. Maybe we shouldn't have gone on that trip.

Should I even be upset at all? Clearly I was in love with one person in 2005 and that same person in 2009 wasn't really the same person.

I am grateful that I got another chance of this. I think maybe I stayed in it since I felt I owed it to God for giving us that chance.

(in case you were wondering, Kathleen doesn't know about this blog, and won't.)

Breaking Up

Kathleen and I have broken up. Even though I wondered if one was coming, I am stunned by the reality that it actually happened. There were some compatibility issues, even though we were very close in some other respects. I had offered to go to counseling, but she wouldn't hear of it. Her reason was that only married people go to counseling.......which although married people do go to counseling, I don't personally think that there's anything wrong with a boyfriend and girlfriend going to counseling.

To be honest, in the last two months, I had the sense that I was going through the motions. Some of that had emerged while we were on our trip. I wasn't sure though if this was a temporary phase or not, but at this point I'm not sure that it would be worth the effort to attempt a reconciliation.

So, relationship-wise, one chapter has ended, and the next will soon be written. I know that I will have to get back out there, like the cowboy who gets thrown off the horse will have to get back on.

However, if the cowboy hurts from his fall, he may wait a few days before he rides again. In a situation like mine, I may wait a few weeks, or maybe a few months. There are a lot of game-players out there, and I really don't look forward in having to weed them out again.

I do hope though that the next one will be "the one".