Cowboy take me...out to the ballgame?

On the way home from Houston today, I was belting out some Dixie Chicks, when B decided he'd sing along too.  It ended up being an eclectic mix of "Cowboy Take Me Away" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."  I'm not sure how it worked, but it totally did...probably because a super-cute 6 year-old was behind it.  Also, he doesn't know any of the words to any Dixie Chicks song.  He DOES, however, know the words to LMFAO songs, and I'm not fast enough to skip them on my ipod before he catches the familiar tunes.  I know, I could just delete them, but what would be the fun in that?

This weekend, I did a lot of driving...so I did a lot of talking.  With B in the backseat watching a movie, I had my ipod to keep me company, but it just wasn't cutting it, so I called a friend who might know me better than I know myself, and gained perspective about myself.  Who knew?  What did I learn, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you...

I've noticed, over the past few years in particular, that I've gotten to where I'm a lot harder to crack.  I still meltdown (pretty spectacularly), but it takes a lot longer to get me there.  At first, I thought maybe it was because I'd grown up a little bit, and learned how to not sweat some of the small stuff, but I thought wrong.  My heart broke...a  long time ago, in fact, and I did a pretty good job of piecing it back together, or so I thought.  When I became single again in 2010, I was hurt, but I did a pretty decent job of bouncing back.  I realized it didn't bother me as much as I had expected it would, and I guess I thought my heart was well on its way to being whole again.  I was wrong.

My heart hasn't been whole in a long time, and even when I'm at my best, it's pieced together, so fragile that one little piece is ready to shatter at any given moment.  My heart isn't just in pieces because of love lost/found/given/taken, etc.  It's in pieces because I didn't know how to put it back together.  Now I do.  My darling friend pointed out that, when I notice my heart is hurting, I tend to go back...not forward.  I revert back to the person I loved first/best/the most/etc., and that's not what I need to do.  What's in the past should stay there, even if it could one day be my future, but as there's never any guarantee in life, I need to put one foot in front of the other, and do everything I can to not look back.

I get that.  I don't like it, but I get it.  And I don't know what it was about this weekend, but it clicked.  Everyone has their "person."  You know, "the one" you should've told how you felt, would've dated if given the opportunity, could've forgiven and given a second chance if given the opportunity, or more.  I know I have one...and when things get rough or I feel like I'm all alone, I think of him.  I love him dearly, and it's one piece of my past that I desperately cling to.  I'm not sure why, aside from the fact that it's comfortable.  He's safe.  And while we never managed to be on the same page in our lives, he's always been in the back of my mind.  Does anyone else have someone like that?  I find it hard to believe that it's only me...

So now, my heart is working on healing itself, and I'm working on moving forward, not backward.  I can keep doing what I'm doing, but in doing so, I'm closing myself off to opportunities that could be better than I've imagined.  Even though I have a clear idea in my head of what I want in life, a partner, my family, there could just be something out there that's better than my most brilliant idea...but I have to take a chance, and that part is the hardest part for me.  Where I am now, what I do now, is safe.  I know what will (or won't) come from it.  Is it hard?  Yes.  Does it leave me wanting more?  Every single day...but, you know what?  It's comfortable.  It's safe.  As strong as I appear to be, as stubborn as I come across, as determined as I feel...I'm just as fragile and broken as the next person, and in desperate need of a comfort zone extension.

Aubs