Intimacy......

This weekend found me exploring more intimacy in this chapter with my new friend, just the right amount for the place I am......and it has been a barrier for me since all of this began.....inviting any physical intimacy into my life......at all.....and I suppose until it happens to somebody.....or until they are me.....it would be hard to understand.....but I shared a life with my ex for 20 years.....and I shared myself for as long with him......so the idea of sharing any parts of my physically with anybody......has not been on the table....and it was a choice I will never regret.....and continues to be....I knew that I would know when the time came to begin opening myself up again....and spending time with a man again this weekend, in ways that I haven't.....hand holding....cuddling watching a movie....etc....was lovely.....I have to say, I had forgotten about so much of it and what had been in my life before.....and without kissing and telling lol:) It was the perfect amount as this all unfolds....and I am a unique person when it comes to all of this....holding physical intimacy....any of it to a higher standard than anybody I know.....in terms of giving it away at all....and it is the way I have always been.......a serial monogamist....on repeat......spending decades of my life with the same men......faithful to a fault....and modern dating.......is well.....modern dating.....so an old fashioned girl living in a modern dating world is challenging.....but my new friend gets it.....I am proud of myself too.....for being brave....and breaking through stuff that has been holding me back....it is not easy...not easy.....when you spend your life building a life with somebody for so long.....thinking that that person will be the only person you share your body and deepest things with......and then they yank the rug out.....well.....it feels scary and overwhelming to put yourself out there with strange men again.....people you know nothing about.....if I learned anything from my ex, and clearly it was a lot;-) the biggest lesson is that you can never really know anybody.....and well......that is scary.....people turn on you, give up on you, betray you, lie to you, use you.....list goes on......but living jaded.....doesn't work either.....and I won't allow what has happened to me in my life to keep me stuck and jaded....depriving myself of my needs....and waiting for the other shoe to drop.....or living skeptical of people.....I just won't.......so as I proceed with caution......I am also forcing myself to open up and let some of my walls down......and for now it feels good....it may change and as I have said....that is OK too....I am here for this experience wherever it leads or doesn't....taking from it more lessons and things I am supposed to learn, because I deeply believe that that is what living, real living is all about:) Happy Monday:)