So yesterday I received an text from Shakespeare asking if “hey I haven’t heard from you in a while are still on for tomorrow?” Really??? Are we on for tomorrow’s show, where I introduce you to a friend of mine after not fearing from you all week following a brief TEXT exchange 2 days after our date. NO, we are NOT on for tomorrow, Asshole!! Of course, I didn’t respond with such honesty.. No… I chickened out and erased many of the original reactive responses ending up with.. “Sorry. No phone yesterday. No, I hadn’t heard from you all week so I made other plans.”

NOW, why did I have to lie about the phone? Well, the truth??  It made me sound better (or appear as if it sounded better) for not responding quicker since that was today and not within the “appropriate time-frame” for text etiquette. Why the struggle? Why care so much about what others think about me? I wish I didn’t feel so sensitive about it or could let go of the expectation or need to feel perfectly well-liked. I’M WORKING ON IT!!! the need to be more genuine and honest for me in my life!1 It’s not the way I’ve lived the last 37 years though the change is necessaary for me to live a more authentic truth. HIS response was “The phone works both ways, C-I’m confused with what happened with us?” ” NOW of course, placing the blame of the contact on me is NOt going to put me in a good place to start.

With my heart racing, anger building.. I take a breath and erase the first 5 notes I begin to text. I end up with… “When you have some time give a call and we can discuss as I’m sure there’s some confusion on both sides”. Breathe! An hour and a half later, I get a call from him, which I missed as I was out and about doing my thing. I called him back while I sat getting a free Mani after stumbling into heaven set for me only 4 days before my bday.. yea! Now I know full well that he is at work and from our last conversation, I found out that he doesn’t enjoy talking on the phone especially while AT work, which I can understand so after getting his VM since he has no reception in the office, I’ve decided to wait until he’s done before I try again. NOW this buys me some time, of course.. AND sitting in Bryant Park during coffee-happy-hour, sitting with a friend to hold ourselves accountable and actually do work, together, seems to be doing the job. It’s practicing the philosophy that I learned or am adopting into my routine is that of NEXT!

A healer-type person I see (energy chiropractor, dealing with energies and the central nervous system NSA and SRI-more on that another time) bestowed wisdom upon me which I have passed along to many following myself more times than not, right now, even though the “change” is sometimes a guttural struggle. She said to me, “think of dating as if you were clothes shopping. when you go to the store and walk up to the dress rack or the shirt/blouse rack you stand in front of it and with one hand you physically move along through the selections… ‘Next, Next, Next!’ If I gained 10 lbs, if I lost 5 lbs, if the buttons were different, the hem length, the color.. Next, Next, Next… If it was less money, a different color, the material was softer, too light, to heavy, Next, Next.. if I got it altered, if I altered myself, Next, NEXT, NEXT!!! NOW, think of it as if you had 30 minutes to get into the store, find the rack, try it on, pay and get on the road… You don’t have time to get it altered, alter yourself, change the color, price, collar or waste time contemplating whether it will fit better when you get it home, right? You move on! Most of the time you don’t think back on it in a day or two and if you do, maybe it’s still there and maybe not but for THIS event “your life” it has to fit for you in the moment, today! As IS! and if not… then… NEXT~! Move on and find one that does! NOW, this philosophy works it terms of dating, not as a superficial tool because nothing is going to be perfect but it has to work now, as is, for who you are, I am, we are and if not… no hard feelings, really. Nothing taken personally. It just doesn’t work, right now! Move on, NEXT!! I feel like I’m getting it more and more each time I move past, refuse to dwell or wonder what I’ve done or could have done, or why they didn’t or I didn’t feel the fit. Change is as easy as we allow it to be and in this moment.. I am looking to change myself to find a more relaxed, calm, happy me. For me and with me.