80 people a day?

That's how many times this journal has been opened since I was last here on Friday. I wonder what they all thought.  I wonder if they were able to navigate all the way back.  I wonder if they even wanted to.

Well, here's what's going on.  I have reconnected with M.  Though at least for the moment we are not "dating" in the classical sense, we are seeing a lot of each other.  Or maybe we are dating but without commitment, which I think, is as it should be.

I have issues.  She is young and hot and aggressive and wants my devotion.  I have 11 years on her and I think it makes a difference.  I know that there are couples that get along in spite of this disparity.  My step-mother is 20 years younger than my father.  (And I can see that he is a big baby, and she takes care of him and all he can do is whine that he doesn't get enough love and attention.)

I am grateful to have him as an example.  I learned from watching the steps that you cannot come between a woman and her children if they are not also your children.  Unless maybe if you have helped raise them from an early age. The children will always come first.  Not keeping this completely in mind may have contributed to losing V...  but at least I was forewarned.  So my advice to anyone dating a woman with children is to butt the hell out of her discipline and guidance of the kids. Grin and bear it to be with her.  If I could go back, this is one of the mistakes I would try hard to fix.  I wasn't bossy, but sometimes I did opine....

I have other concerns, too.  She is still young, fertile.  Me, menopause is lurking.  Her libido is wild, whereas mine is stimuli-based. (TMI, I know.) Mine could change, drastically.  AND beyond that, even though she is bright and amazingly forthright and asks the most probing questions, AND even though she has packed more living than most into 28 years, I still think that there is a lot of growing in the gap between us.  She deserves someone she can grow more with yet.  Someone a little more willing to move away if she needs to for her career. Someone a little more anxious to support any potential children.

I have told her we need to see other people.  I am trusting that if we really should be together, we will be.  Meanwhile, I need to see if there isn't a woman out there that I connect with on the psycho-spirituallevel.  I am looking for someone who feels like home.  I think she is out there yet.

I managed to scare away a local woman, P, because I was so upset about dumping M that I just went on-and-on.  Damn.  I am sure that the woman I put off me is a very nice woman, too. (Closer to my age and only just up in the next county are only some of her attractive features.  Nuts!)

There is another woman in the county below who I said Hello to because I couldn't resist after seeing her face.  Now she is kind of flirty and I like that.

And there is another woman in an experimental phase looking for someone to help her out and though that is not my modus operandi, momento mori.  She doesn't want a partner... just a date.

Am I supposed to stick with someone who turns me on and drives me wild but is now gun-shy and with whom I haven't truly connected?   I know that some wonderful relationships come from people who didn't start out loving each other.  I also know that a lot of relationships that started out in glory ended in hellfire.  Damned either way.

I look to my parents who were completely devoted to each other and proved it.  I also think of the example of an elderly couple I once lived next door to.  They would sit outside at night, and talk.  After some 50+ years, they were best buds and never ran out of things to say, respected each other's ideas.  They lived simply and loved each other every minute.  That beats 24K gold anyday.