Happy birthday, dear blog...

One year ago today, this little blog was born. It was actually conceived about one year prior to that, with a classic note to self that I have yet to post, and think I will probably finally get that one out to the Internet next week for the one-year birthday of my blog going public. Confused yet?

At the time, I really thought this was a fleeting whim, something akin to journaling--which I always have a habit of letting fall by the wayside. But, surprisingly, I've stayed rather consistent (as FCA groans, okay, so I may have had one or two weeks, one being last week, where I have gone radio silent, but two out of 52 ain't so bad).

There are lots of angles I could take here, I could reflect on the year I've had--talk about cool if not completely random things happening, like this, this, this, and this. Or I could do a best of... oooh, maybe I will, but I'll save that for a time when I'm really hurting for content.

The angle I want to take on this one relates directly back to that first post. Interestingly enough, I still have my Camry-flattened Cladaugh in my jewelry dish in the bathroom and just the other day I was looking at it, thinking about where my head was one year ago and where it is today. And I think all of you are ready for an update on New Friend.

To recap, last year Cladaugh, or my love life, was mutilated in a freak hit-and run-accident in the office parking garage. Me equals distraught. Last month, I started hanging out with New Friend--was there life after the incident with the Camry in the garage. I was beginning to think, "Yes!" and then New Friend gave me a wonderful birthday present, the news that he was dating other people. Just what I asked for! How did he know that's what I wanted?

While I had suspected early on that maybe he had been out on a date or two with other people, it was really only the psycho gremlin inside my brain that was working on convincing me this was the case. Determined not to believe her crazy talk, I tried to remain confident that he was only dating me, let's just say I made some assumptions based upon where we were and previous relationship history. In my mind we had reached a point where we were exclusive, so this definitely caught me off guard.

I spent the better part of the week trying my best to silence my overactive and over imaginative gremlin. Some days were better than others. Mostly, I spent the week feeling like a victim, and becoming the bitter, single, woman who was devastated that her Cladaugh--and along with it any hopes of love, eternal wedded bliss, because it's all sunshine and roses, right--had just been symbolically annihilated. Much time was wasted on wondering about what was going on in New Friend's brain, and just who is this girl he's apparently dating. All this torturous daydreaming finally wore me down and made me realize that I had yielded my half of the power in this relationship to him and this "other" girl.

New Friend and I continued to hang out, because I really do like him--like him differently than any other Friends that have stood in his shoes previously--we just hung out in a different way. With gremlins like mine in the head, it was impossible to ignore that elephant in the room. But once I gave it a little more thought, I came to a great and powerful realization. One that is actually quite simple, I asked for what I needed (okay, and then in turn I made sure he knew what he was missing out on, that he really knew). As it turns out, that simple act can make you feel confident and amazing, and can make your New Friend like you even more (and an innocent little ninth-grade make out session helps a little bit there too). Just by defining my parameters (this is definitely material for an upcoming post), I completely turned the situation around and all but evicted my gremlins, or at least sent them off to a time-share in Greenland.

And, as more time has elapsed, things are becoming more clear. New Friend is only dating me (although, don't tell him I said that, he's free to think he's "dating other people" or at least has that option). This is the result of a self-defense mechanism for commitment reluctance, hey, I've got it too so I can relate. And I'm pretty certain New Friend is really into me--more than his phobia will allow him to admit. So he gets to work on that and I get to work on my patience. Apparently, it's a virtue--who knew?!

Now, as I work on my virtuosity, it is with the air and confidence that my love life may have suffered some injuries in last year's accident, it's healed and is in a better place now. One where I may even learn patience.