But then again...

So I reached out in a couple of very scary ways lately.

I reached out to the Filmmaker to try and see if we can be friends. He insisted he wanted to remain friends even as we were ending our relationship (with a small r) but I wasn't sure that I could. I've taken some time, talked to the therapist at the cancer resource center, who helped me see what was just relationship stuff and what was cancer stuff. I've done some deep thinking and a lot of crying. And I finally accepted that I want to try to keep him in my life. I miss his company, I miss his presence, I miss his cute face.

So I very carefully crafted an email, let it sit for a few days, decided I wasn't ready and wouldn't send it and then found myself sending it.

Guess I was ready.

I didn't expect a response. That's been the lesson in my life. When I reach out, they don't reach back. They vanish into the mist.

But he reached back. Simply. Quietly. Mainly said, okay. We haven't planned t get together yet but at least he reached back. I'm trying not to write scenarios. I'm trying to just let it be and see where it goes.

And...

I had planned to write a blog about this heart being closed. It was going to be poignant and deep and emotional. It was going to be about how much I learned from my time with the Filmmaker, more glorious praise about him getting me through treatment and how he showed me what I really want. And it was going to end with something beautiful and powerful and that would make me - and maybe you - cry.

It was going to be all about how this was the end. I wasn't going to reach out to anyone ever again. I wasn't going to allow my heart to be exposed again because it's too hard and it's been bashed enough and... you know the rest.

And then...

I met this guy.

Okay, not in caps I MET THIS GUY!!!!

Just - I met this guy. At Thanksgiving at friend's place. Friend of a friend. 

Didn't notice him at first but by the end of the evening, we were deep in geek discussion about comic books and Doctor Who and all those things that I find so attractive in men. Oh, and he's handsome in a scruffy sort of way. And Australian.

At the end of the evening, he offered to drive me home as I don't have a working car right now. I said yes, despite the fact that Patty was going to drive me. She even kept her mouth shut because she could see we had hit it off. But the mutual friend spoke up and said I had a ride already. Well, in the confusion of packing up and leaving and being awkward, we didn't exchange numbers.

And I did what we all do - I stalked him on Facebook. And liked what I saw.

But, as  I said a few paragraphs ago, I wasn't going to reach out. I'm not looking for something new. A teeny part of me is still hoping for a rom-com ending with the Filmmaker, though there's no way on earth that's going to happen. But I'm not ready to reach out to someone new, put myself out there again, so soon after losing the Filmmaker. There's no way.

I just sent the Australian a Facebook message, today's version of passing a note in class.

Don't expect a response. After all, I'm an overweight, bald, emotionally busted cancer patient. Maybe I should use that for an OKCupid profile. Slightly damaged cancer survivor with several decades of abuse in her past, shaved head, no eyebrows. Oh, and a left boob with a lovely scar across it from cancer surgery. Stampede... away.

But I guess I was ready.

Ready to put something out  there with no agenda, no expectation, nothing except following an instinct that said, what the hell, why not? I didn't have an answer.

So...

Why not?

Yikes.