Just Being Me For A While

I took a walk today down the bike trail to a little path down into the woods ending at two small benches facing a lily pad lake where Roberta and I sat and watched the sunset listening to the early autumn sounds about 6 years ago. Today it was warmer but not nearly hot and not nearly sunset, but otherwise, it is very much the same. I sat remembering how wary I was of starting a relationship for many reasons. I truly wanted to have Roberta as my friend and to be in her life. She was much more into being intimate, but we both knew at that point it would be very complicated until she was not a patient where I was working. She was always impatient and more into charging forward and working out the details as she went along.

I am not an overly cautious, conservative or prudish person. I spent most of my young life living from one strange adventure to next. I have always been shy and an introvert by nature, very cautious about intimacy. I do not like hurting people’s feelings or exposing myself to emotional trauma. I used to get quite lonely at times, but I was finally becoming comfortable living on my own. Plus the fact that three years before my ex-wife ended our 27-year marriage suddenly which drove me into a long depressed period that I was finally pulling myself out of leaving bits of my soul in the muck. It was as if I had been living in black and white for a couple of years and at that point, I was starting to see a little bit of color coming back at the edges. So I was taking it very slow and careful of both Roberta’s feelings and my own.

Today I was kind of retracing all that lightly and realizing I feel good about where I am right now for the first time in a while. I am so glad I got to know Roberta and live with her, and that experience is a big part of why I feel satisfied with most of my life, now that I have put some distance between the worst of the last few years and all the sickness and alienation of her family relationships, I feel as if I can begin building my life to fit me a little better. But who knows what will happen in the next 10 minutes let alone weeks or months from now? Right now I am feeling like I can relax and open up to being myself alone doing whatever I do with no pressure. It feels pretty good.