What a night!

I got home at midnight last night, long past my bedtime.  I have a headache this morning from the tequila as I sit here with an extra large cup of coffee trying to process what exactly I experienced last night.

I booked a Time Left dinner where I was matched with six other people.  They sent us to a little nicer restaurant than usual so I had an excellent meal for $100.  To be fair that did include two glasses of wine and an appetizer in addition to my entree.  I still think about how cheap my ex-husband was (except as it related to his cars) every time I treat myself to a dinner like this.  He would have been horrified at a dinner with that kind of bill.  But I digress, it really is not relevant to my night.

We were an eclectic group at dinner that connected in a way that lead to an easy, familiar banter pretty early on in the evening.  Conversation flowed, sometimes as an entire group, sometimes in two separate simultaneous conversations.  Two and a half hours flew as if no time had passed.

Time Left then sets an after party location for all the Time Left dinners to get together and enjoy drinks.  I had not gone in the past because with dinners that start at 7, by the time we are done, I'm ready to go home.  Plus, I've never been in a group where others were headed there afterwards.  But this group was different.  So six of us walked the four blocks together to the designated venue to continue our conversation.

Although, I think everyone was at least in their 30s, I suspect that I was the oldest of those of us who continued on for drinks.

The conversation took an interesting turn after a round of shots.  We started analyzing each other.  It started with a question about who we thought was least credible perhaps even lying about the stories they told.  There was a man who was quite evasive about the stories he told and so his name came up pretty quickly.  

They asked me as an investigator how to tell if someone is telling the truth.  I talked about how I listen for the mundane details, the ones that aren't completely relevant.  Rehearsed stories lack those details, or in some cases any details at all.  As that man continued to be evasive in what he shared, I watched the lightbulb go on in another's head as he recognized exactly what I meant about details.

Then the analysis turned to me.  I had stayed too quiet earlier on - partly because it was hard to get a word in and partly because I was really enjoying observing.  One woman was quick to pick up on that.  I forget the words she used to describe me but she suggested not underestimating me and that I may not be quite what I seem.  They then joked that if we as a group were out and found ourselves in some sort of trouble, it would likely be me who lead them into that trouble.

I think there is talk of a bar crawl along the beltline one weekend coming up soon.  We exchanged some information plus have access to the chat in the app.  I would get together with this group again.

Recently, I've joked that I feel like I'm in the middle of a social experiment.  Maybe on an even broader sence then just these Time Left dinners but definitely in the more narrow scope of these dinners.  Last night took it to a different level where it felt like we were openly discussing the results of such an experiment.

A Whirlwind Day

My mind is a whirlwind.  What a day I had!  I'm really moved by how well this new job is going.  I marvel at the ease with which I'm integrating myself into these new teams and finding ways to contribute.

Today, I had my first progress review with my managers.  I felt a lot of curiosity going into this meeting because this would be the first time I have a manager that actually knows what I do and is highly skilled in the specific subject matter I work in.  I'm sure she is getting feedback from the people I directly work with but she has the knowledge to assess my work product herself.  

She shared that they are so happy to have me.  She went on to say she had seen one of my analyses and was really impressed.  Even knowing my skills and experience, I still caught her off-guard with the comprehensive work I did.  Most of my supervisors over the years have praised my work.  That's nothing unusual.  But it means so much more when it comes from someone who actually understands what I do and who spent time looking at my work product instead of just relying on others' assessments.

Before I tell you this next story, I want to preface this by saying I am laughing about it now and even in the moment had a little chuckle.  At 2:56 pm, one of my attorneys poked her head in my office and asked me if I could talk to the group about the analysis I had done a couple weeks prior.  For reference, this was a case I hadn't touched in about 10 days so it wasn't all that fresh on my mind.  

I told her "sure" and then asked whether we had a meeting scheduled.  She looked at me with a little bit of horror as she realized she hadn't added me to the meeting invitations.  The meeting was in 4 minutes at 3:00 pm.  So I quick pulled up my work to review it and then got logged into the call.  I stumbled as I talked.  I was not as prepared as I would like but I think I communicated what needed to be communicated.  And one of the agents on the call was very interested to hear more so we are going to meet tomorrow to discuss it further.

My day ended with another call on another case, this one I had advanced warning of, and then a discussion of what we needed to do next.  I chatted with one of my attorneys before I left to outline what I would focus on tomorrow and paused a moment and said, "I'm really busy!  And it's really good."  She acknowledged I was and encouraged me to tell her if at any point it got to be too much.  My supervisor had said the same thing earlier in the day.

They have been without this type of help for so long they are starved for someone to assist them on their cases and I'm eager to dig in.  And they are so conscious about not overwhelming me.

So my mind may be a whirlwind of cases, ideas, opinions, etc., but it is a stimulating whirlwind.  It's left me with a high.

And with that high, I feel ready to meet six more strangers at dinner tonight.

Comfortable in my own skin

I've noticed something over the past week.  It kind of surprised me at first.  I have a comfort level around people I never used to have.  And people respond so well to the sense of ease.

Although this has been a gradual change in me, I first noticed it on that long car ride with the federal agent last week.  The conversation was easy and the silences were comfortable.  And although, there was a slight awkwardness from him in the beginning (and maybe me too), it didn't take long before there was a familiarity in our interactions.

Then this evening, I stood on a bocce ball court and flowed easily between different conversations with my team members, others and the ref.  It was so easy and so enjoyable.

I suppose I have experienced the same thing at many of my dinners.  Maybe not quite as much as that first one which was a bit weird but the two that followed it were so easy.  Someone even gave me feedback at the second dinner that "You seemed comfortable in your own skin."

I've also been able to interact and get to know many of the people I work with.  I stepped onto the train platform this evening to see one of the defensive attorneys in my office.  We spent a few minutes chatting as we waited for our train.  The woman in the office next to me chat often.  One of the legal assistants and I stop by each other's offices occasionally.  Even the attorney I'm working most closely with and don't always agree with is easy to talk to.

None of this used to be easy.  I always felt so awkward, so I would say very little.  I was self-conscious and tried to hide.  

I used to actually get irritated when my ex-husband would strike up conversations with strangers.  The way he interacted with people made me feel even more awkward.  Was that because he actually acted weird with other people or because I worried he would act weird?  Maybe some of both depending on the interaction.  I remember a few times feeling like he overstepped boundaries with women when he jumped in to help, unasked and without giving them a chance to say yes or no.  And he didn't always pick up on social cues I was seeing.

I think I also didn't have the energy for people because it all went into him.

I think about that sometimes - the contrast with how incredibly uncomfortable I was talking to strangers with him and how completely at ease I am now that I'm on my own.

What was I like in Spain?  As a 20 year old young woman before I met my ex-husband.  Was there an ease to how I interacted with people there?  There had to have been to a certain extent.  My closest friends there were ones from Japan and Holland and Korea.  Our common language was Spanish.  We had to be comfortable with a lot of ambiguity to connect as we did.  There had to have been an ease to bridge the miscommunications and lack of language skills.  On several occasions I also joined bus tours and chatted with the locals.

So maybe this is me coming back to myself.

Whatever it is, it feels really nice to just exist comfortably in my own skin.

Resentment

I got to thinking about resentment and how it seems to play a different role in different people's lives.  It probably has a relationship to misery.  Except for one small stage in my 20s where I experienced some resentment towards my parents for things I didn't understand, I can't recall another time where resentment ever sat with me.

On the other hand, my ex-husband had let resentment towards me fester silently for close to two decades by the time we separated - resentment for things he had never told me, resentment for things that were not my fault, etc.  He bottled it all up.  And I doubt I was the only person he held resentment towards.

If I'm honest, I didn't do any better communicating about my needs with him.  When I learned I would not be heard and that anything I said would just lead to me soothing is ego, I stopped trying.  I went silent.  I shrunk myself.  Yet, resentment did not build in me.

The difference between him and me was entitlement.

He felt entitled to everything.  His needs were always central.  And he expected me to read his mind as to those needs.  I remember going back as far as our dating days how much it rubbed me wrong the way his whole family felt they were entitled.  That entitlement created expectations that people should cater to them and make room for them without any effort on their part.  And when people didn't, the bitterness was palpable, bitterness that often turned into resentment.

I felt entitled to nothing.  I had been disappointed enough in my life and let my sense of worth get whittled away in the process that I had just stopped expecting anything.  It's hard to hold onto resentment over something you don't believe you even deserve.

Today, I have such a clearer sense of my worth.  I still don't feel entitled.  It's on me to communicate my needs and find the spaces where those needs can be willingly met and I can willingly contribute to others' needs.  I have to do the work to get my needs met.  I don't expect them to just magically be met.

I was thinking about the connections I am making as I walked to the train station this morning.  One woman I would like to get to know a lot better has not responded to my text from several days ago proposing we get together again.  She admitted to being bad about texting so that might be the case here, but I acknowledged to myself this morning that she also just might not become one of my people.  And that's okay.

I don't want to force connections.  I want to stay honest about who I am so people can see me authentically.  And I feel confident I will find my people eventually.

So I hope that is leading me to a healthier balance of communicating my needs to avoid shrinking myself but not swinging to the other extreme of feeling entitled such that I left resentment build up.

An off day

I feel off today.  I somehow managed to get a painful kink in my neck as I stepped out of the shower.  I had a dull headache that stayed with me much of the day.  And I disagree with a task that is being asked of me at work (not that I expect to always agree with the decisions my colleagues make about the work we do together).  And as much as I don't usually mind the heat, it was 98*F today.

So when I got home, I laid down on the rug next to my bed.  I do that sometimes immediately upon returning home and then I eventually get up and go on with my evening.  As I type that, it seems a bit odd.  I wonder why I do this.  

Then I walked into my kitchen and opened the fridge to see what I might eat for dinner.  I couldn't convince myself to eat the leftover chicken and that was essentially the only option so I pulled out my phone, debated on Jason's Deli which is in my building and dismissed it.  What I really wanted was Cava.  It is a five block walk though.  Did I really want to go back out in this heat?  I decided I did so I put my sandals back on and started putting in my order on my phone as I walked out the door.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, I was warned it was going to be a while because they were working on a really large order.  I sat down and alternated between scrolling Threads and people watching.  About twenty minutes later, they were working on my order but had run out of one of the sauces so asked what I wanted instead.  Soon after that I had my order, was filling my drink, and walking out the door.

I enjoyed the walk back.  There is something about this place where every time I go out and walk the streets, I come back with a little more energy than when I started and feeling just a bit more grounded.

After eating my dinner at my beloved kitchen table, I settled in my oversized chair with that book I've been reading by David Brooks, How to Know a Person and read until my eyes started drooping.  And now here I am typing this before I go to bed early.

Just now, a friend from Birmingham texted me a lovely message as if she knew today was the day I needed a little extra love.

The day wasn't actually bad.  It was just a reminder to sometimes slow down and listen to what I need.  

Now, I can be ready for the busy week ahead of me.  Tomorrow I have double header bocce ball games.  Wednesday I scheduled a Time Left dinner.  Thursday I want to go to an Improv show to get me excited for the class I signed up for.  And who knows what the weekend will bring.

Going beyond the superficial

I used to take people at face value. I believed the words they said, and didn’t look further towards their actions. I assumed they were presenting an honest version of themselves.  That's how I approach this world so I naively assumed everyone was like me.

I'm an observant person though, always have been.  So I think over time the cognitive dissonance of that naively held belief and what I was actually observing, got harder to explain away.  Then I took a job where I stepped into included investigative roles including participating in interviews of people that pushed against that naively held belief even more.

Then my ex-husband's masks fully fell as he casually discarded me.  I found that cognitive dissonance was too uncomfortable to ignore or excuse away.  So my perspective drastically shifted as I processed and healed to the point where those naive assumptions were exposed and chipped away at.

On Thursday, I went on a field trip with an FBI agent.  We spent probably close to four hours together in a car.  I will admit that I observed his driving far more than I ever would have before.  Driving is a behavior that can be concretely observed which says more about someone's nature than anything they communicate with words.  He showed some signs of impatience with other drivers (as we probably all do from time to time) but never anywhere near the extent where he got aggressive.  At no point did I feel unsafe like I so often did with my ex-husband.

What struck me most about our interactions was how comfortable the silences felt.  When we talked conversation flowed fairly easily but neither one of us felt the need to fill the silences when we didn't have anything to say.  It was refreshing as I did have a little bit of anxiety about going on a drive with a man I had only met in passing once.

Yesterday, my division had a retreat followed by a happy hour.  I've been with this office seven weeks now but still don't know so many of my colleagues' names because our floor is a bit spread out and I rarely make it down the other hall.  So I was really looking forward to better getting to know people and getting a better vibe on the division.  There was one thing that really surprised me - a huge divide between support staff and attorneys.

To clarify, I wasn't surprised that a divide existed.  There was a divide in my Birmingham office that initially did surprise me because it didn't really exist, at least that I experienced, in my Milwaukee office.  I remember talking about it with a fellow "northerner" colleague who had lived a lot of places.  In her experience, it seemed unique to the south.

What surprised me about the feel of this divide in my new office is that it seemed to strongly stem from the support staff themselves.  On repeated occasions throughout the day, we were encouraged to join the attorneys and each time the rest of the support staff chose not to.   

It left me feeling like I had to find a way to straddle both worlds.  I wanted to get to know the attorneys better because they are the ones I will actually be directly working with and some of the content of their sessions was more relevant to me.  But I didn't want to alienate myself from the support staff group I was technically part of.  Considering I ultimately only ended up spending one session with the support staff, I probably didn't succeed at that.  

I felt like I fit in with the attorneys better.  The same was generally true in my last office.  

What I have enjoyed most about this division so far which was strongly reflected in how the retreat played out was a strong emphasis on the mentorship and collaboration roles of management and a de-emphasis on control.  That's not to say my manager doesn't make the hard decisions and step up as a leader.  But she does so in a way that seems to center her staff instead of herself.  It's interesting when a manager actually takes action and behaves in a way that centers her staff, they don't need to use a lot of words to try communicate how they want to perceived.  The results seem to be a lot more respect and rapport than I saw in my last office.  My colleagues also seem to have simultaneously a lot more autonomy and a lot more support.

On another note, there is a youthful energy in this office, especially among the attorneys.  As I sat in a conference room with them all (and then later at a happy hour with a subset of them), especially as some discussions came up that started to give clues to some of their ages, I realized many of them are younger than me and those that are not aren't far off from my age.  With that youthful energy comes some noticeable differences - more idealism, more willingness to try cases, an openness to technology including AI, maybe even a bit more authenticity and openness about who they are.

As I sat through a presentation on AI where the use of AI was actually encouraged, I was a bit taken aback.  It was only a few months ago, that I sat in a conference room in Birmingham where the conversation among my old division strongly discouraged the use of AI and prohibited its use in most scenarios.

Anyway, the evening ended with a couple off-hand comments that were really nice to hear.  I guess I made such an impression on my new management that from my application and interview on that first posting last August, they had decided one of the investigator spots was mine.  And in just the seven weeks here, at least one attorney I work with has verbally recognized how good I am and what an asset I am.  People are already seeing me as an active member of their team.  

I came into an office that has high expectations of me and I am capable of generally meeting those high expectations.  What has always matter most to me in my career is that the work I do is meaningful and that the opportunities for growth and to excel are great.  This office might actually meet both of those.

And to tie everything back to my first few paragraphs, I'm not sure how much of all of this I would have paid attention to in the past.  My observations would have been more superficial and filtered through how I view the world.  I also wouldn't have participated like this at all which turned it into a two way street.  It's been a bit entertaining to watch people try to figure me out as they learn more and more about me.

I don't give myself enough credit for the first four decades of my life

Tomorrow my division at work has a retreat.  One of the attorneys I work with is collecting fun facts about my colleagues for some sort of getting to know you game.

I didn't have to think very hard before quite a list of fun facts about me starting flowing through my mind and surprisingly, very few of them are from the last two years.  That's not because I haven't done some amazing and interesting things in the last two years.  It's because in reality, my whole life is filled with interesting ways I have stepped out of my comfort zone and did some pretty cool things.

Here are the two I shared with my colleague:

• I marched in the 1999 London New Year's Day Parade.  (It was with my high school marching band.  I was one of the two color guard captains.)
• I swam with sharks in the Galapagos.  (They were reef sharks so not a real danger but it was so cool.  While others swam away, my reflex was to follow so I could get some good video of them.)

Some other fun facts that ran through my mind

• I studied abroad in Spain and instead of hanging out with all the Americans which would have been far easier, I hung out with the non-American students and formed friendships with people from Japan, Korea, Holland, etc.
• I had my first beer as an 18 year old with my Pastor on a mission trip in El Salvador where at times I was asked to use my basic high school Spanish to help interpret and communicate.
• I have gone solo camping on more than one occasion.
• I did the Polar Bear Plunge in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on a day when the ice they had to cut through in the lake was more than a foot thick.
• Since college, I have picked up and moved cities, essentially starting over, five times including to four different states.

So really the last two years of Improv, African dance, wandering the streets of NYC, exploring Bermuda, moving to a new city completely on my own, getting to know strangers through groups like Time Left or last night's book club, etc. are right in line with who I've always been.  There is no reason I should feel surprised at what I can do.  Maybe my marriage just exhausted me so much and put such a dent in my confidence that I couldn't see myself clearly.  Now that I can, I'm unstoppable.

So what's next on my list?  Edinburgh?  Some more Improv?  The possibilities are endless.

I've let go of the negativity

This evening, I sat in the second floor dining room of a cute Mediterranean restaurant that overlooked a quaint side street.  A cat lounged in an arched window of a red brick building across the way.  Colorful specks of light danced through my vision from the art hanging above the sidewalk.  I brought my journal along to further reflect on my Birmingham goodbye.

I was trying to figure out what specifically felt so radically different from the woman I was in Birmingham just a little over six weeks ago.  That is when it came to me.  When I left Birmingham that Saturday morning after my last day of work in that office, I left behind the last bits of negativity.

My marriage had been heavily clouded with my ex-husband's negativity.  Despite all my efforts to find stolen moments,  it was a heavy burden.

Then the separation two years ago lifted that burden from my shoulders.  It felt incredibly freeing.  But with it came clarity and I started to see other people differently.  I started to feel the negativity from a friend I thought I had been close to and I realized how much a cloud hovered over my work.

I think I got better at not holding other people's negativity but it still surrounded me.  I sought out colleagues who didn't dwell in it and sought the positive but it still affected us all, it still affects them.

I remember joking in those last weeks that I would drive away and look in my rearview mirror to see Birmingham in flames behind me.  Obviously not in a literal sense.  I had just reached a point where I realized how toxic so much of my environment had become.

Everything here in Atlanta just feels so positive.

I realize it isn't realistic to assume it is always going to stay that way.  But I hope that I learned a thing or two about cultivating the right relationships that add, not subtract from my joy.

I went to a book club this evening.  The group was diverse.  The conversation was intriguing.  It felt like a meaningful space to be in that I think may add to my life here.

Life is so much better now that I let go of the negativity.  May that inspiration guide me to hang onto the positive.

Vulnerability

Two years ago today, I made a decision to share my struggles with my Facebook friends.  I remember sitting on my therapy bench, going through my friend list first and removing my ex-husband's brother (the only one left from his side), and then taking a deep breath before I composed what was a really vulnerable post.

Although, I had shared the news of the separation with a couple of people really close to me, I feel like this marked the beginning of my healing out loud which I think was one of the healthiest choices I made.  

Facebook reminds me of this post each year.  I wrote about my reaction to it last year in this post.  I appreciate being able to read the words from that moment, read my reaction to it after a year of healing, and now today being able to experience my reaction to it after two years of healing.  

In that moment two years ago, I was in the middle of my church's sermon series about meltdowns which perfectly described how I perceived my life.  Last year, I was in awe of my strength.  This year, I see how my vulnerability led to deeper connections and deeper conversations that helped me grow in unimaginable ways.   Yet with each evolution, tears still form in my eyes.

I have come so, so far.

I bought flowers at the grocery store yesterday, a bouquet that includes daisies, my favorite flower.  As I reflect on this all, my gaze keeps being drawn to them in the vase where I set them on the end table next to me.  They are perfect for a celebration of how far I've come.

Healing so hard, I became weird again

My Instagram feed yesterday evening showed me a reel from someone I don't know who was dancing in the surf on the beach, pure joy on her face and it was captioned, "Healing so hard, I became weird again."  That's what I did.

It didn't mean weird in a negative way.  It's this freeing strong sense of self embracing our uniqueness.  It is the most liberating thing in the world.

I think my Dad admires me for it.  We were talking on Sunday and he mentioned how he had read something about how men shouldn't wear short socks and that long socks are currently in.  Surprisingly, he made a comment that made me think he actually cared what others thought and was trying to free himself from those thoughts.  I've always seen my parents as people who didn't seem bothered by society's pressures.  They were always so good about encouraging me to be me from a young age.  But I guess they are just as human as I am.

I made some comment that I still struggle with that too.  He laughed out loud in disbelief and said what about not shaving?  He then went on to tell me he told his hairdresser (someone who did cut my hair a couple of times many years ago so may remember me) that I had "gone European" and stopped shaving like it was something to be proud of.

I didn't have a response to that as it was such a clear example of going against society's expectations to embrace my uniqueness.  It's also the most visible sign of getting my weird back.  I always smile when I look in the mirror wearing a cute knee length dress, like the Hawaiian Hilo Hattie one I wore Saturday evening, as I admire the contrast between the dark hairs on my legs that society sees as masculine with the beautiful feminine of the dress.

I love being me, weirdness and all.

It's done, a chapter fully closed.

The last piece of my Birmingham chapter is complete.  

It was early when I pulled into the parking garage of my old apartment, around 7:30 a.m.  The place felt empty, unfamiliar, and a bit cold.  With a hard deadline this time, I got straight to work cleaning.  As I assessed all the little things that needed to be done (like cleaning the track for the sliding doors, the baseboards, the tops of the fridge and cabinets, etc. in addition to the normal bathroom, kitchen, and floor cleaning, I knew it would take some time even in a small 500 square foot studio.

At one point while I was cleaning the kitchen, the clear, loud song of a Carolina Wren filled my ears.  I paused.  I caught sight of her in the tree just feet from my window.  Then tears started to roll down my cheeks.  She had come to say goodbye.  

I reminisced of all the early mornings (just before sunrise) and late evenings (just after sunset) we had spent together in the first six or more months after the separation.  She singing her song from somewhere hidden in the trees as I slowly created new routines and started to rebuild.  She was with me in my lowest moments.  She was the reminder that the sun always returns even after the darkest night.

She then sang from a tree a bit further away before fading off into the distance.  I then finished my cleaning, swept and mopped the floors, and headed out to find lunch while the floors dried.  I walked through Railroad Park and headed into the business district to a food court not far from where I used to work.  

I got stuck on the realization of how little shade exists in Railroad Park.  It was something I had never noticed when I lived here.  And although the streets were familiar, my existence on them felt very unfamiliar. I felt like a completely different person that didn't belong there anymore.  Can significant change happen in as short a time as six weeks?

I stopped in at my favorite poke place to enjoy one last bowl and then I retraced my steps back to my old apartment where I did one last walk through, took some photos and videos, and carried the last of my belongings out to my car which I unplugged and moved outside the gated area.  I stopped in the office to turn in my keys.

I was a bit emotional as I removed them from my key ring so I shared a bit of my story and how much this apartment had meant to me with the woman in the office.  There was understanding in her eyes.  Anytime I have a vulnerable moment like this, even if what I share is short on details, I am reminded of how common the experience of being human is.  We have more in common with everyone we interact with than we often realize.

Then I walked out of that apartment complex for the very last time, got in my car and plugged my hotel address into the navigation.  As I drove to the Embassy Suites in the suburbs, I realized how little of Birmingham I had explored in the seven years I lived there.  Downtown had been a bit of a bubble for me.

I met two friends for dinner out in the suburbs closer to where they live.  The conversation felt different than previous ones had.  These friends played such an incredible role in my last chapter.  But as happens with a new start, they don't get a meaningful role in my next chapter.  We are now observers in each others' respective separate lives.  I hope a couple of them transcend time and stick around but I know the reality that many were really just meant for my last chapter and will eventually fade away.

Then this morning after breakfast at the hotel, I drove off and watched Birmingham disappear in the rearview mirror.  I feel like I left as a tourist.  It is no longer home.  I can't go back.  It has become a fond memory and a city to maybe occasionally visit (if I can even find a break in the busy schedule I've put together here in Atlanta).

Goodbye Birmingham.

Further reflections about the dinner last night

I've had a good night's sleep.  My emotions have settled.  My brain has done some processing.  And I'm really glad I went to that dinner last night.  Glad enough that I booked another dinner for tomorrow night.

I learned some really important things about myself.

I see people with more clarity now.  This is important to recognize because it will help me feel more confident that I can trust my intuition.  One of my biggest worries after feeling so duped and manipulated by my ex-husband was that I would fall for something like it again.  And I realize I still could, nothing is foolproof.  But last night I saw right through all the charisma and performance straight to the bullshit of one of the men who sat at my table.  So maybe I have let go of a naive perspective to be able to see people as they are better instead of how I hope them to be.

I have the skills to tap into the comfort and familiarity of myself when everything else feels out of place.  When I wrote last night, I struggled to put into words what I was feeling.  It was a surreal walk home as I tried to make sense of my evening in the unfamiliarity of darkness in this neighborhood I'm still getting to know.  There is something about darkness that adds emotion and maybe uncertainty.  But I stayed very present with myself even as the world around me was a bit obscured.  

And then when I pushed aside the obnoxious man I definitely didn't like and the one who only was engaged when he was talking about himself, I remembered the one who talked about his year abroad and the woman sitting next to him from a small country in east Africa who had a bucket list full of dreams.  I remembered the way the two of them lit up when I found a chance to join in a broader conversation of how the rest of the world perceives Americans, to talk about my experience studying in abroad in Spain.

Both of them have left impressions of me in the app.  They were the two I left my own impressions of once I was back home for the night.

So maybe I'm learning to cut through the noise to focus in on the authentic, interesting world around me.

A moment of loneliness

The lights were bright.  The buildings stood tall.  A coolness settled over my damp, humid skin.  My feet knew their way home.  I didn't even bother to look at street signs or count blocks.  Yet the streets felt so foreign.  This might have been my first moment of loneliness here in Atlanta.

I paused in a courtyard, sat down on a bench, and felt my mind spinning a million miles away.  I stared off into nothing, not really seeing the people that passed by.  Until I was startled by a roach that had climbed up next to me.

I stood indecisively.  I wasn't sure I was ready to go home but I couldn't stay here.  I contemplated walking into one of the restaurants and taking a seat at the bar.  I could turn in least three directions to restaurants I had visited before that felt familiar and walk into any one of them.  But I didn't.  I pointed my feet towards the exit of the courtyard and continued my walk home.

I had dinner with seven strangers tonight.  One was an extra.  I thought it would only be six of us which probably would have been just right.  The app revealed it would actually be seven. Eight made it two too many.

It was a strange dynamic.  The men dominated yet one had the gall to tell me not to be a wallflower and jump right in without taking a pause himself.  I didn't like him.  He told a story portraying himself as a victim when I doubt he was actually the victim.  He brought up politics to dismiss others.  He liked to hear himself talk.

Another had absolutely no interest in participating in any part of the conversation where he couldn't be the focus.  He had only two modes - dominate or disappear looking annoyed.

The conversations were superficial.  Very few questions were asked.  There was a lack of curiosity.  

There were two women on the other side of the table I would have liked to talk to but I couldn't really hear them.  They were too far away.

I left feeling disconnected and disappointed so I wandered the streets a bit aimlessly as I had a moment where I wondered how I got here.

I forget how long it takes to form strong connections.  I'm impatient.  But if I'm honest with myself, the last two years in Birmingham wasn't quite long enough to get connections to where I wanted them.  So why did I think I would be further along in just over six weeks in Atlanta?

I'll book another one - another dinner, maybe a Saturday coffee.  The one thing that stuck with me was a comment from someone who has done more than 30 of these dinners.  He said he meets new people with each one.  With different people every time, the dynamics will also be different.

And I have to remind myself that my first weeks here have been pretty darn impressive - the walking group including our lunch afterwards one Saturday, dinner with a new friend, captain of a bocce ball team, finding a book club that I will finally get to meet with next week, all the places I have explored on my own, and now dinner tonight.

How to Know a Person

A colleague lent me the book, How to Know a Person by David Brooks.  It's about how to see others deeply and be deeply seen by others.  She lent it to me because it includes questions she thought might be good for my walking group but in reality, I'm finding the whole concept of the book really intriguing including the author's backstory.  

Towards the beginning is a chapter of the stumbling blocks.  There are certain mindsets that get in the way of our ability to form deeper connections.  So this is the chapter on what not to do, I suppose.

Some of them are really obvious like egotism or the noise of anxiety in our heads.  Others I hadn't truly considered but several really resonate with me.

One of them is Naive Realism.  This describes the innocent way I used to look at the world believing others saw the same reality I did.  This is what initially made it so hard to understand how my ex-husband could be as cruel as he was.  

It was also what made me excuse so many of his behaviors over the years as I kept trying to see him through my lens.  I would never do some of the things he did so struggled to believe someone else would do those things.  The version I hung onto of him for so long was the version that smoothed away all those behaviors of his I couldn't explain or understand.  I probably never truly saw him because I didn't want to.  I was afraid that unless I smoothed the edges, I wouldn't like him.  And I was right in that fear.  As he was, without any willingness to put in the work on himself, I wouldn't have liked him or stayed with him, if I truly saw him.

And then when it all ended, I still struggled to reconcile that version I had created of him with the man who could so carelessly toss me aside and who didn't even care what happened to me.

The other way not to see a person that has really stood out to me and been a topic of discussion this week is the Static Mindset.  This is when we hold onto an image we formed in our minds of a person from the past despite their evolution.   That initial image we formed may even have been accurate at one point but it no longer matches the person in front of us.  You can't have a deep relationship in the present if you are holding onto who they were in the past.

I remember how frustrated I felt in the arguments we had that last summer that he didn't even seem to know who I was.  He was reacting to who he perceived me to have been almost two decades earlier.  He couldn't see me as I was in that present moment.  That was one of the most painful parts of the breakup.  I have never felt so unseen.  He was rejecting a person that didn't even exist anymore.

As I type that it is sitting so heavy with me.  Sometimes as I write these blogs, I don't know what is going to come out and what is going to hit me hard.  I process by writing.  

I have felt unseen so many times in my life going back to my earliest childhood memories.  But my ex-husband's perception of me as he discarded me was the worst by far.  I don't know if I fully realized that until now.

My question to the walking group this weekend was "Can you be your authentic self and still fit in?"  It's relevant to this blog post because my focus has shifted to finding places where I can be authentic and be seen and to let go of the places where I don't fit in.  My emotions as I process those feelings of being unseen are from the past, not the present.

I feel some grief that I let my own naivety get in the way of fully seeing him and making better choices.  And I feel some grief at spending more than two decades of my life with a man whose ego kept him stuck on a prior, likely imagined, version of me that never allowed him to really see me.  But I also feel so much joy at the connections I have been making since the separation where I am finally starting to feel seen.

Even my relationship with my parents has evolved in a way where I feel far more seen than I ever have.

The quiet of the morning

It's still dark out.  The city is quiet.  An overnight rain has washed everything anew.

My body almost immediately adjusted to the new time zone upon moving.  Within a day or two, I was naturally waking up between 5 and 6 AM in the new time zone, just as I had in the old time zone.  But I'm not quite used to how dark it still is at that time.  It reminds me of winter mornings.  I suppose the clouds of this morning will just make that darkness seem to last longer.

With the bill before Congress to stay in day light savings time year round, I listen to people arguing about the pros and cons and realize they don't understand how much of a difference it makes if you are on the west side of a time zone vs the east side, a difference that is even further amplified (especially in the winter) the further north you live.

Every morning when I get dressed, I put on the copper colored ring with the etching of the sun rising over the mountains.  As my days and evenings fill up with activity and energy, it reminds me of the power of quiet mornings like this, maybe especially in these moments before the sun lights up the sky.

The birds slept in later this morning, maybe because of the rain, but they are out now with their early morning songs.  

I'm almost done with my first cup of coffee.  Next I'll make breakfast as I figure out a plan for the day.  There was a patch of beautiful flowers with goldfinches hanging around that I walked by yesterday that I think I want to walk back to with my camera.  And it would be good to grocery shop before the afternoon heat takes over.  I think I need a break from visiting churches.

Captain of a Bocce Ball Team

I signed up as a free agent for the Atlanta Bocce Ball League for the late summer season.  I haven't played bocce ball in years but I thought it would be fun and a great way to meet people.  The seasons starts this coming Tuesday.

I logged in late last week to see if I had been placed on a team and whether the schedule had been released yet.  You can imagine my surprise to see my name listed as the captain of our team.  So I'm now studying the league rules and trying to figure out what my responsibilities are as a Captain.  I probably should reach out to my team to make sure all that signed up truly are coming.

And when my colleague expressed interest in playing, I switched gears into recruiting.  There are four people on our team which is the minimum.  For any specific game, we can't play with less than 2 (3 in the tournament) but it wouldn't hurt to have an extra or two for weeks when people can't make it.

I've gone through a range of emotions since I first learned I was designated captain.  At first it felt really intimidating.  Just signing up for the league felt like a stretch for me.  I don't even know how good I am because of how long it has been and with how little seriousness I took it the few times I played.  

As I replay the memories in my mind, I realize it was actually my ex-husband who had more interest.  (I chuckle at this realization.). We had a set of balls at one point.  I wonder if he took it in the divorce or if we had already donated it during a previous purge.  I remember taking it camping with my family.  I often sat by the fire and chatted with my Dad or others while the kids played with my ex-husband and/or my Mom.

Then I started thinking about all the ways I am expanding myself and how successful everything has been this far.  I'm even seriously trying to fit in another Improv class.  And I just signed up for Time Left and am scheduled for dinner next Wednesday with five strangers at a restaurant I'll learn about the morning of.  If I can do all these others things, I can definitely handle being captain for a social league. So I got this and it's going to be fun!

An evening scooter ride

Last night, around 8:15 p.m., I felt restless, so I put on my sandals and pulled out my scooter from the closet where I had stashed it the day before after bringing it back from Birmingham.  In front of my complex, there is a bike lane separated from traffic by barriers that runs parallel to the sidewalk.  It didn't look too overrun with electric scooters so I entered it, picked up my feet and propelled myself forward.

It was downhill as I headed east and so I really picked up speed.  Oh, how I flew with the wind in my hair and the colors of the sunset streaking the sky!  The initial downhill was enough to propel me up the rolling uphill section that came next.  Then I reached the beltline.

I headed north and kept going until my legs got tired and the sky had turned dark.  The trail was active as I passed and was passed by walkers, dog owners, children, bikers, and electric scooters.  I received a number of smiles from people which I assume were because here I was a grown woman on a kick scooter.  The only other kick scooter I saw all night was a girl about 8 years old.

When I reached a point where it seemed to end after I had gone through a pretty cool tunnel under I-85, I stopped to see where I was and estimated I was between 3 and 4 miles from home.  I recalled how much of that ride had been downhill so expected the return would be a workout so I turned around.  I reflected on the fact that not once had I needed to cross or enter traffic!  I now live somewhere that I can go this far on protected bike lanes and paths.

As I retraced my route, I would get occasional glimpses of the skyline, lit up for the night.  It took my breath away.

There was a stretch of that last half mile where the hill was a bit steep and so I walked to rest my tired muscles.  By the time I walked in the door of my apartment, I was drenched in sweat and exhausted but I felt so alive.  It was so good to get back out on my scooter.  Maybe I'm not quite ready to retire it.

It's a long story

Only a few of questions into dinner with a brand new potential friend last Tuesday night, I was asked how I got to Birmingham (after learning I am originally from the midwest).  My response was "it's a long story" and we easily moved on to other topics although later I did circle back with a little more information.

The question brought up the same hesitations I have felt every time I've been asked "Why Atlanta?"  I don't know why I hadn't anticipated these questions and thought about what I wanted people to know.

For the last two years, my healing from the divorce became part of the fabric of my relationships.  The separation and divorce was still so fresh there was no way to separate it from me.  All my friends in Birmingham watched all of that in real time.  Even acquaintances walked pieces of that story with me.

Now, two years later, it isn't central to my life anymore.  One of the benefits of this move was to help further decentralize it as I start completely fresh.  Not that I'll claim to be fully healed but it's time and I feel ready for this next phase.

And honestly, I'm tired of being admired for how I overcame something so incredibly shitty.   I want to shift the focus to who I am, not what I have overcome.  So I have been struggling a bit to find the words that still feel authentic but facilitate that shift.

My supervisor approached me on Friday.  The woman I had dinner with on Tuesday is friends with her and connected with her about our dinner.  I don't know all of what was shared between them about me but my supervisor seemed most interested in all the activities I was getting involved in here in Atlanta.  So maybe I found the right balance on Tuesday night of focusing on the here and now and who I am without completely ignoring how I got here.

And my answer about "Why Atlanta?' continues to evolve.  Some of my earliest responses focused on the promotion and the bigger city.  Other times I kept it more vague that there were a lot of reasons.  And then last weekend, I responded to someone with a simple statement of needing a new start.  They had specifically asked about a job so I clarified that there also was a job but that it was really about a new start.  And it felt like the most authentic answer.

This morning I'm going back to the ELCA Lutheran Church I visited last weekend.  After church today they have a fish fry and fellowship opportunity that will give me a chance to sit down and talk to congregation members.  I'm sure these same questions will come up and I might hesitate at times on how to answer as I continue to evolve and figure out what feels most authentic.  But I think what I need to do is just keep getting out there.  The people who are meant to truly connect with me won't care what words I use and all the rest of the people I talk to will be good practice as I figure out this next chapter.

A trip to Birmingham

I drove to Birmingham and back today.  It was the first time I did this trip in reverse.  It was weird heading west in the morning with the sun behind me instead of watching it rise in front of me.  And I was unsure of what to expect of my feelings.  I was returning to a place that had once been my home, my landing space to heal and process after the abrupt end to my marriage.  But it was no longer my home.

When I arrived it felt like time had stood still.  Four full weeks had passed and nothing had changed despite the fact that I felt like a different person.  I paused at the EV charger parking spots to find them all full, only one car actually plugged in, one full unit off, likely from a blown circuit because someone didn't adjust the volts when they plugged in.  As I made my way up to the fifth level of the parking garage, I passed the pile of ashes in the parking spots blocked with caution tape from the cars that had burned six weeks ago.  

A train passed on the tracks as I parked.  Believe it or not, I had actually forgotten about the trains.

I made my way to my old apartment and unlocked the door.  The chaos of my last moments before heading off to Atlanta to start my new chapter met my eyes as I took it all in.  I didn't know where to start so I set my stuff down and walked back out the door, locking it behind me.

I made my way to Railroad Park.  I wondered if the people I passed every day had noticed my absence.  Then I came across that older man I had met in the last couple months before I left.  He had his camera and was focused on an adult Green Heron.  He was surprised to see me knowing I had moved.  We chatted for a bit and then went our separate ways.  I made a loop, hoping to spot one of the juvenile Green Herons.   I listened to the call of a Killdeer and wondered if it had successfully nested and raised any young this year.  They are such strange birds in the way they lay their eggs in the middle of activity - on a pathway, in the middle of a grassy field where children play, etc.

Eventually, I found my way back to my apartment.  I had work to do even if I didn't have the motivation.  So I started filling baskets and boxes, putting them on my cart and taking them out to my car, load by load.    With almost all my stuff out aside from cleaning supplies, I was losing motivation so I opened the fridge and freezer and found a couple items I could salvage before throwing the rest in a garbage bag and hauling it down to the trash chute.  

I searched my phone for lunch ideas.  Was there anywhere I would really miss that I wanted to savor one last time?  And then I thought of Wasabi Juan's which happens to be a block from the downtown superchargers where I could charge my car up while I ate.  I had yet to find a restaurant in Midtown that serves sushi burritos and had my doubts I would find one so I saw this as my last chance.

Then when my car finished charging and my sushi burrito had been eaten, I watched Birmingham in the rearview mirror as I headed east.  And now I have more stuff to find space for in my new apartment.  I'm sick of unpacking and I'm dreading the last trip back to Birmingham to clean and turn in the keys.

Karma

Something prompted me to look at my ex-husband's IG account today.  It's been six months or more since I've clicked on his profile so I'm not sure what prompted me today.  Maybe it was a nudge from karma to remind me how important it is to treat people right and do the work on yourself to try and make yourself right with the world.

They celebrated the one year anniversary of their first date.  Less relevant to this post, that clarified the timing of their relationship for me.  She posted on the Facebook group before she met him in person for the first time, which is common when people meet someone online.  They had their first date on the 4th of July.  (Oh, that brings back memories of our first 4th of July together - one of our very earliest dates, but I won't go down that tangent.). And before that week ended, she was already sleeping over at his apartment.

Maybe I'm judgmental, but in today's dating world and the risks to women, I can't imagine ever going to a man's apartment in the first week of meeting him.  And if I had teenage daughters at home depending on me to come home, I would be even more cautious.  So to me this just screams desperation and a lack of judgment.  

But that's not really what I want to talk about.  In the caption of his reel on IG, he shared some updates from the past year.  He shared that he suffered from shingles last year.  And then he shared that on their anniversary, he got a stomach bug that left him so dehydrated that he passed out and the paramedics had to be called.  That sounds like serious shit for someone only in their 40s.

When I got divorced, my health problems went away.  My chronic pain disappeared.  My digestion issues disappeared.  My body stopped holding onto weight.  And eventually after healing and moving on, my sleep has gotten better than it ever was before.  Every aspect of my life, including my health, improved exponentially.

When he got divorced, he visibly aged, got shingles, passed out from dehydration requiring medical intervention, and maybe more.

And when I looked at this post that was about their anniversary, he had a pained look on his face.  It was a familiar look that I didn't notice when we were married but I now see in so many of the photos that come up as memories.  He doesn't look happier.  He looks just as miserable as he always was.  And now that I've been gone for almost two years, he can't even blame me for his misery, although maybe he is still trying to.

How do I feel?  I think that is the most important question tonight.  Part of me thinks I should feel vindicated.  After all the pain he put me through, all the harm he caused, I feel like I should feel vindicated.  But I don't.  I don't need to be right.  I still wish we could have parted amicably and honestly.

The empathetic side of me thinks I should feel sad.  I've heard shingles is so incredibly painful.  And with multiple health episodes like this it probably indicates his new girlfriend is in for some caregiving in the future, caregiving that will be unlikely to ever be reciprocated.  But I don't even feel sad for them.  They are both adults who have freely made the decisions that have lead them to where they are now.

What I do really feel?  I view this just as information to process.  It's a mostly neutral feeling.  There's a curiosity about it all and why it happens and whether my ex realized chasing happiness doesn't diminish internal misery.  

And can I admit that there is just a little bit of relief.  I wonder if resentment would have built up quickly had I needed to step into a caregiver role this quickly after so many decades lacking reciprocity.  Maybe that means it is better someone without a history steps into that role.

And now that I'm done processing, I am going to play Tik Tok by Kesha over my bluetooth speaker.  The song plays in my head every day as soon as I step off the train to walk the last five blocks to my home.  I find myself dancing home.  I don't know what it is about this song but I'm starting to think subconsciously something is telling me I should make it my theme song of this new chapter.