Category Archives: 11:11

Time to be real with myself

Posted in 11:11, Alfred Hitchcock, Australia, Cary Grant, Dating with Dignity, Ingrid Bergman, Love, Marni Battista, Notorious by
RKO RADIO PICTURES SUSPENSE: Cary Grant plays a spy in love with a woman (Ingrid Bergman) who he assigns to seduce a Nazi in Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. / handout
 Okay, a lil re-cap where we left off since its been a while ~
He’s in Australia for another week.
I’m in Los Angeles, struggling with trying to be strong & not go full-on into  heartbroken mode…I want to hold true to the love I know I have for him, but how long does one do that without looking foolish? Really?

When I saw this picture from the film “Notorious”, it immediately grabbed me. I could feel this deep love they had for each other & yet there’s a sense of longing, of wishing their obligations weren’t pulling them apart. 
Neither wanting to let go, but knowing it must happen.
His close embrace soaking up her essence, hoping to remember her softness, her scent.
Her quiet resolve to the situation, letting these last few minutes be precious…its moments like these to me that is love, not the showy bits but the quiet connection bits!
(I really must go watch this movie now!)

Ok, back to us..
So we started to communicate a lil more via email after our 11:11 re-connect. Slowly.
A short email here. A polite response there…
I think we were both kind of feeling each other out, neither sure where the other stood & afraid to state it ourselves…

During his time away, I began to dip my toe back into the online dating pool, purely to test the water ~ was it warm & inviting? chilly? leaves floating in it?
I did a bit of updating to my profile, added a pic on a day I was feeling particularly pretty 😉 Did a lil “shopping”…but no one was catching my eye.
Now I know it was way too early to seriously consider power dating again, but I needed to gut-check myself & see if it peeked my interest at all ~ it didn’t! 

Realizing my heart was still invested with him, I made the decision to let him know.
Our emails were okay. He was always saying nice things. They just missed that connection I knew we had. They were safe.
 Seeing his name in my inbox, I would get a rush of excitement to read it, only to feel “eh” after reading it…why?
What was at the root?
ME!

After reading back through our emails from that week, I knew my sterile, simply worded responses were creating what was being mirrored right back to me! 
Here I go ~ playing it safe AGAIN!! 
Goddammit all this work on myself & I’m repeating old patterns!!! UGHHHHH!!!
Why would he respond with the loving words I longed to here if I was giving him “hi. how are you?”…oh I can be so silly & stubborn!

I decided it was time to crawl out from behind my walls, expose my feelings, be raw, be naked, be free.
Okay, well baby steps…I climbed out on the limb via email (while I knew he was on a 15+ hours flight back)

I told him how much I had been missing him, how I had been holding back & why. I bared myself & it felt good!
My heart raced as I hit send, but I felt a calmness too, I guess I knew even if his response wasn’t what I hoped to hear, at least I said what I felt, I mean ACTUALLY said it, I’ve NEVER done that!

I woke the next morning to the sound of a text.
He just landed & got my “wonderful” email – (I took that as a good sign). 
Jet-lagged, he was off to bed. 
I was off to work, with a smile on my face. I had a good feeling. 

** I must give a shout out of thanks to Ms. Marni Battista, my dating/life coach, who without her I’d just keep on repeating my same old sh*t – thanks for holding up the mirror & making me take responsibility for the life i WANT to live!!

Only time will tell…

Posted in 11/11/11, 11:11, Australia, Love by
Well the day arrived for him to board the plane to Australia, we hadn’t seen each other in a couple of days, but were hoping to meet up for lunch before his flight.

I’d had the best of intentions on following thru with it when I got ready that morning. I put on the skirt I wore on our first date, topped it with an electric blue sweater that brought out my eyes, spritzed on the perfume he had given me on one of our “Thurs-iversaries” (totally schmoopie, I know & I loved it!). I was ready to send him off looking fantastic.
I had figured that was the best image to leave him with, a strong independent woman full of the qualities he had seen in me & fell in love with, at least I still wanted to believe that.

If only I had felt that fantastic inside though. As I finished up my morning meeting & waited to figure out where we were gonna meet up, I began to doubt, doubt myself, my judgement, the situation – was I crazy to see him off?
Yes, of course I was! Only then was I just realizing it.
Actually it took the uncontrollable tears in the parking lot to clue me in.

I was so torn ~ I desperately wanted to see him, and run from him.
I kept trying to picture what we could possibly talk about over lunch knowing he was boarding a plane to see another woman.
Do we talk about it? What more would there be to say?
Do we ignore that lil “detail” & chat about the weather?
He sounded excited to see me in his texts as we tried to finalize our plans, which really made me want to go, but I had to honor my feelings. If there was going to be one lesson I was going to learn through this, it was going to be listening to, identifying & processing my emotions as they were happening (not a process I’m well versed in)
Besides, the sweater’s effect would only draw attention to my now red tear-stained eyes.
Not the send off I was hoping for…

We didn’t meet up. I wished him safe travels & that was it.
I didn’t ask him how long he’d be gone, I didn’t want to know. 
I knew myself well enough that if I knew I’d only watch the calendar for that day to arrive, then watch my phone or my email for any sign of hope, & I did NOT want to become THAT GIRL!! Oh no no!
Instead, I threw myself into hyper-drive & got busy with friends, my business & accepting all work that came my way, it was actually great to re-connect with my life again.

Of course, it wasn’t easy at all. I thought about him a lot. Friends kept asking how we were doing (really smart idea to blog about one’s relationship – what was I thinking? 😉 ). I always said “oh we’re gooood”, not wanting to go into it really with everyone.
I kinda feared what people would think of me & my approach to the situation, which sounds odd since I was completely comfortable with my decision, but I didn’t want to have to get defensive or made to feel like I wasn’t taking a stand for myself.
I truly felt then & I still feel the same now, that letting him go to explore some feelings that would’ve otherwise festered into regret or resentment, was the right thing to do.
I wasn’t taking it personally, I don’t think he was being a “dawg”, I think life was unfolding from events that were put into place before I even entered the picture.

I knew from all the various men I’ve met over the years, that this one had a good soul, a kind heart & wasn’t your average guy. He was special & he was worth risking my heart on that chance he may find some happiness with me.

~

So even though I didn’t know his exact return date, I rationalized a week or less was too soon since it was so far away. I kinda figured the 2 week mark would be when he’d return, but that was just my theory. We hadn’t communicated at all since he left – why, really?

Its funny how as more time passes, the less your mind focuses focuses focuses & just deals with the present and what’s going on that moment. It was getting easier as the days went by. 
Of course my mind kept creating all these fantastic scenarios for him & he was having the time of his life ~ I tried to keep those thoughts to a minimum…tried…

On Friday, rushing to get out the door to get to work on time, I spaced on the time, was in my car, finishing my make-up (don’t judge) & I heard a text chime in. I looked down, it was from HIM!

My heart skipped a beat! My hands got a lil shaky. I grabbed for my phone (again, don’t judge, I was at least at a red light)
It read “Make a wish!!. Make sure its a big one!!!”


OH YOU CAN BET I WISHED BIG!!!


I was so touched he remembered & knew that 11:11 on 11/11/11 was a magical moment for me :)))
I would have completely missed it had he not texted.


Turned out he was still down under, I learned in an email shortly after, but he had been waiting all week to send that text…I hoped that was a good sign that I was in his thoughts 😉


My guess-timate was off, he was there for another week…okay girl, stay focused on the life at hand…this week will fly by…