I’ve taken the first initial steps towards my options choice: sent a couple of key emails. I’m at peace with this choice. It’s nice to move forward with a choice and just live my life.
Today we got the weird guy out the door, and then I met a girl friend for lunch. It was delightful. I’ve missed having a traditional lunch (er breakfast) plans set up.  At the end of lunch the lost friend called, so I met up with him and went for a walk. It was nice, normal, casual.  The girl friend I was with knows the whole story. She commented that my voice changes when I talk to the lost friend. I get quiet. Hesitant. Like I have no backbone.  And she’s right. I am quiet and hesitant and I can see many reasons for that. Both our voices change because both of us are unsure. I have trouble believing that he cares about me at all, that if I do or say anything I may be seen in a negative light, though he’s trying really hard to show me that he does, on some level, care.  But that makes me fearful and distrustful because it’s scary to make myself vulnerable and it’s scary to trust his friendship again when he crossed lines badly and, I believe, used me.  Yet, the reality is, I’m not leaving this city. I’m going to be here for at a minimum of 26 more months, for sure, so that means that unless I decide to cut dancing out of my life, so that he’s out of my life, I believe I have to learn to trust.
Recently, what I’ve realized more concretely is that hurt and pain that I’ve been feeling lately with regards to the lost friend are somewhat incidental (at least on one level, certain things aren’t incidental). I would really love to find a distraction to keep my mind off of the past situation and what I lost. The pain I’m feeling is being focused on the lost friend situation because it’s tender and recent, not because it is the core issue, the real issue is something more central to my identity.  There’s much more going on in my world. Bigger things — core issues — that I now realize I need to work through (recently I’ve begun to better understand what these are and how they are affecting me). How I’m responding to this lost friend situation is a result of other things going on in my world. I realize this quite clearly. In order to be a more whole and healthy woman, I believe it’s these bigger things that I need to deal with. So, as a result, I’m going back to my counselor. I don’t really have the money for it. Things are tight as they are, but I realize that I can’t afford not to go.
So today’s been less relaxing than I would like, but it’s generally been a good day. Plans are in motion. The first steps are in place. I hope things are ironed out by the end of this week so I can make more specific plans. What a relief.