Chris has two kids that are somewhat close in age to mine. His daughter is 8 and his son is nearly 6 (and is also a kindergartener-going-on-first-grader like Catie). Since he has the kids half the time, we decided a while back that if we wanted to try to spend any substantial amount of time together, eventually our kids were going to have to meet.

The thing is, neither of us wanted it to be some formal introduction of, “….and this is Mommy’s boyfriend,” or anything like that. We figured the best way to handle it was to keep it as low key as possible.

So, a few weeks ago, we met up at a McDonald’s PlayPlace. We sat at tables next to each other, and just chatted casually while the kids played. The idea was that if they wanted to play together, great, but there were also other kids there for them to play with and nobody would feel pressured. And it actually worked out REALLY well, everyone seemed to hit it off.

Since then, we’ve gone on a few other outings together with the kids. We’ve met up at playgrounds and gone to a local street carnival, that kind of thing. Chris and I have (so far) made a point of not having any physical contact with each other when the kids are around (no hugging, kissing, holding hands, etc.). For a while there, I wasn’t sure that the kids had any idea that we were dating, or if they thought we were just friends.

That has changed, recently: I accidentally referred to him as my boyfriend while talking to someone else when Catie was within earshot, but I don’t know if that word really means anything to her yet. On Chris’s end, his 8 year-old daughter has been asking questions about me that indicate she knows that I’m his girlfriend. But fortunately, all of the kids seem to be ok with it.

Last weekend, we decided at the last minute to meet up at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, but unfortunately we got there at 4:30 p.m., not realizing that the museum closes at 5 p.m. (Oops?) So instead we went for some Goodberry’s frozen custard.

While we were having ice cream, the kids whined that they wanted to go play somewhere else. Chris noticed a Chick-Fil-A next door, and while I have tried for the past year or so to boycott them due to their anti-LGBT views… well. It was over 80 degrees outside and they had an indoor, climate-controlled play area. So, yeah, we went to Chick-Fil-A. (Apparently my morals are for sale when the price is air-conditioning.) They played for about two hours and had a blast.

Lucy is a little too young to join in with the older kids when they play, so she decided that the best game was to keep going in and out of the play area. Since we were at the table right next to the door, it meant that Chris had to keep jumping up to open the door for her. Lucy would come up to the door of the play area and lean on it until Chris opened it for her, then she’d run over to me, give me a kiss, then run back to the door and look over her shoulder at Chris until he opened the door for her to go back into the play area. I told him he could stop, he didn’t have to play along with her little game, but he was a good sport about it.

One of the times she came out, instead of running over to give me a kiss, she ran up to him and raised her arms up in the air, the universal toddler sign language for “pick me up!” He picked her up, and she hugged him and buried her face in his neck for a couple of minutes. Then she wriggled back down to the floor and got back to her game of running in and out of the play area. But it was such a sweet little moment, I wish I’d taken a picture.

I did get a picture of this a couple of weeks ago, though.

All four kids on a tire swing, and all four of them were yelling for Chris to push them higher and faster. That was a pretty great moment right there, too.

I made Chris promise a long time ago that he’ll never ask me to marry him, so it’s not like we’re going to have any kind of Brady Bunch thing happening here. But I have to admit, I do love that our kids seem to enjoy each other and all get along really well. It’s a pretty fun dynamic to watch as it evolves.

Man, two posts about my brain chemistry and I go and turn into one of those confessional type bloggers who pours their entire private life on the Internet. Watch out, here I go again.

VERY IMPORTANT WARNING: If you are part of my immediate or extended family, you will most likely want to skip this post. I’m about to say some things about myself that are definitely less than flattering.

So, when The Guy and I broke up, I was… not very nice about it. I didn’t handle it well, and I said a lot of very mean things about him (mostly on Twitter). I was hurt and angry. But there’s been a pretty major shift in the last couple of days, and I’m starting to recognize some of my own shortcomings.

Way back in March 2012, when The Guy and I first started dating, it was the beginning of what I can only refer to as my “Post-Divorce Slut Phase.” I’m not sugarcoating it, that’s what it was, really. I’m not particularly proud of my behavior, but I’ll own it. (And, well, ok, I admit that it was a lot of fun.) I think that my ego and my self-esteem had been so damaged by the end of my marriage, that I actively sought out positive reinforcement from other men. Lots of them. As in, I’d have to sit down and write out a list and think really hard to even try to remember exactly how many guys I slept with last year.

(See why I said my relatives should skip this post?)

I will say, because I feel like I need to, that the girls were never exposed to any of my behavior. The things I did only occurred when they were with a baby-sitter or Dave or my parents or whoever. And I’ve thought about how odd it might be for them when they’re older, if they find this blog and read this particular entry. All I can hope is that they’ll be old enough to understand.

So, The Guy? He knew that I was dating – and sleeping with – a lot of other guys at the same time that I was dating/sleeping with him. And he was ok with that. He had separated from his ex right around the same time that Dave and I split, so he wasn’t ready to jump into a serious relationship, just like I wasn’t.

(Random aside: I should have blogged a lot of this stuff as it happened last year. I probably could’ve gotten a major sponsorship from a condom company.)

But there was this weird chemical attraction that he and I had to each other. With other guys, I’d go out with/have sex with them a couple of times and then drop them like a hot potato for some reason or other. But I always came back to him. He just “got me,” in a way that nobody else I dated really seemed to get me.

At some point last fall, I decided that I was done with all of the other guys, and I only wanted to be with him. I realized that I had fallen in love with him – HARD – and that was that.

The problem was, while I was slutting it up all over town, he had been dating one other person besides me. So, basically, I was asking him to dump this other person and only focus on me. And when he hesitated, I interpreted that to mean that he didn’t really want me that much, and I ended it.

And that was that.

Fast-forward a few months. We haven’t talked since right after Christmas, and I saw that he clicked on my online dating profile. I saw that picture of his face and I burst into tears. I wasn’t expecting that – either seeing him or my reaction.

I tried to ignore it. Then, a few days later, I saw he clicked on it again.

I messaged him and said, “I’m genuinely curious: are you trying to torture me or yourself?”

That opened the floodgates. He told me he missed me, he still loves me, he called me Sweetie…

Then he said something to me that kind of struck a chord: I never once flat-out told him that I wanted a monogamous relationship.

I mean, I thought I did. I implied it. But I never actually said the words out loud.

And it brought home something that I learned during my divorce: I really and truly suck when it comes to communicating my needs in a relationship.

So. Huh. Whaddya know. Apparently that is not exclusive to the dynamic between Dave and me, it’s just how I am when I’m dating someone.

Basically, his version of the story is that I dropped a few hints, he didn’t immediately pick up on it, and when he couldn’t read my mind, I bolted.

I told this to a friend of mine, and his response was, “Wait. You’ve been miserable and in pain all this time, and it turns out it was self-inflicted?” And, yeah. It would seem that way, at least partially.

We’ve been talking and texting pretty much constantly over the past couple of days. We’ve agreed to meet for lunch – in a public place, no chance of any funny business happening – and sit down and really talk about what each of our needs/wants/expectations are, and see if there’s a chance we could work things out.

(I’m planning to write my stuff down in advance, since, you know, see above re: not being able to say that kind of thing out loud.)

Because lord help me, I do still love him. And I have missed him so, so much.

I don’t know where this is going. I guess I just have to wait and see. And I have to start forcing myself to work a lot harder on what I tell my kindergartner all the time: use your words.

Wish me luck, y’all. I think I’m going to need it.

I keep thinking about things I should write about, and typically I use this blog as a way to sort of write out what’s going on in my head, because it helps me process things if I can put them into words. But lately, there’s only one subject that keeps coming to mind.

The Guy.

I don’t even know where to start with this.

We’ve been seeing each other since March. For a long time, he was just one of a few different guys that I was dating. He was seeing other people too. We both got separated around the same time last year, so neither of us was ready to jump into any serious relationship “thing” right away.

But we sort of kept gravitating back to each other. He’s sweet and kind and smart and funny and geeky and all of those traits that attract me. He brought me flowers on Mother’s Day. He texts me every day without fail (typically many times a day). I can be nerdy or goofy or sarcastic or whatever, and he “gets” me. His kids are a little older than mine (they’re 8 and 5), but they’re close enough that he has a pretty good idea of what my life is like.

He calls me Sweetie.

A couple of months ago, I said something to my mom about how I really liked him. She started getting upset, telling me that I shouldn’t be getting serious about anyone yet, what about the kids, yadda yadda…

Then she said, “I mean, go ahead and have your fun, just don’t fall in love with the guy.”

*blink… blink-blink*

After taking a minute to process that, I said, “Uhhh… Mom? Did you just tell me to go get laid?”

She said, “I can’t believe I said that. Forget that. And don’t you dare blog about it!”

(Sorry, Mom! It was too funny to leave it. I laughed for days about that one.)

[For the record, as far as my mom’s concerns about the kids: he’s met Lucy a couple of times, because she’s so young that I don’t worry about her questioning who this person is or what my connection is to him or how he fits into our lives. He met Catie once for about ten seconds, when he came to the door to pick me up and the girls were with a sitter. He was introduced as “Mommy’s friend,” I didn’t hug or kiss him or even touch him in front of her, and she was so distracted by having the baby-sitter there that I think he barely registered on her radar.]

Anyway, as for me “going and having my fun”… that part? With him? Uh. Well. I try to keep my blog relatively safe in case any family members happen to read it, so let’s just leave it at HOLY FREAKING OMG WOW YOU GUYS.

Ahem. So. Yeah.

I don’t know exactly what it was that triggered it, but it’s starting to sink in that he has become much more than just a guy I’m casually dating. I really, genuinely care about him a lot. This was not supposed to happen, I was not supposed to like somebody this much so soon, but there it is.

And the weird part, is that realizing this – realizing how deep my feelings are for him (and no, I’m not saying the L-word because I just can’t bring myself to go quite there yet) – brought up a whole mess of fears and anxieties that I didn’t even know I had. I was suddenly crying constantly. Which is particularly noteworthy since I normally have a hard time crying. But here I am, closing myself in the bathroom after the kids are asleep so they don’t hear me, and sobbing my eyes out.

I try so hard to live my life with this constant attitude of “no, it’s cool, I’ve got this.” I hate the idea of feeling like a victim. I don’t want to be whiny or needy. So I try to give off this illusion of super competence. Truthfully, I am absolutely terrified of getting hurt again.

And on Monday, when I texted him and said that I was feeling stupidly weepy and emotional? Rather than run for the hills, he texted me back immediately and asked if he could take me to lunch so I could talk. He held my hand across the table while I talked and tried not to cry again.

(I hate crying in public. I find it mortifying. I’d rather fall down, or have a wardrobe malfunction, or accidentally fart or God, just ANYTHING, but don’t make me cry in front of strangers. That’s one level of humiliation I can’t handle.)

After lunch, he walked me to my car and he hugged me and petted my hair for about 5 minutes in the parking lot.

And afterward, I felt so much calmer. I’m not crying anymore. I think I’m almost (dare I say it) happy?

I don’t know what to make of this, y’all. This was so not part of the plan. But I think it’s good.