Becoming Brave

After I got my tattoo and stopped caring what others thought, I noticed an immediate change in my attitude. I was happier than I’d been in a long time. I emailed Ann at some point and said that while I was happy with my life in general, it’s still not cool that I hadn’t really been on any dates! So she suggested I join Match. My exact quote was this “I HAVE considered joining Match, but I’m terrified of it (why? I just never thought I’d meet someone I’d marry that way.)” Seems about right…I was scared.

After talking it over with the girls at work (one of whom met her fiancé on there), I got brave and joined. Let the fun begin. There are ALL sorts of people on that website! I was actually really surprised at how many people I was talking to and that most of them seemed normal and pretty cute as well. Within a week, I had four dates lined up. For the record, I was going out of town on Wednesday morning because it was Thanksgiving week, so these dates were pretty crammed in.

Date Number One was a 34 year old, divorced sports sponsorship salesman. He was tall, dark & handsome…just what I like. We met for coffee in my neighborhood on Saturday morning. The conversation was effortless and we had a lot in common! He’d lived in Nashville for some time (with his ex-wife) and had moved all over the country for his job. Overall, he was so sweet and we had a great time talking and laughing.  We made plans to hang out again once we were back in town from the holiday.

Later that afternoon, I had Date Number Two (yes, like Charlotte from S&tC). Date Number Two was one that I was really excited about. He was also tall (I love tall guys), and had lighter features than the first guy. He was a 32 year old ex-marine who had also been divorced. We had been emailing back and forth and for whatever reason, he was super into me. I was still pretty skeptical of it all, so I kept my distance. We met up for coffee downtown and had plans to go ice skating. Unfortunately, everyone else in the city decided that was a good idea as well. We ended up walking around Millennium Park and going to dinner downtown. I’m not sure how we ended up at the place we did, but the waitresses were wearing less than Ho0ters girls. I spent the next two hours listening to him talk about how drunk he got the weekend before and how the people at the bar know him. Great. Chalk that one up to experience. He continued to ask me out and I continued to dodge him.

On Monday, I met up with Date Number Three after work. The restaurant we were supposed to go to was closed, so we ended up at a bar down the street. He was 28 and worked in finance. Really smart guy with great taste in music, but oh.my.gosh…I couldn’t wait to get out of there! For whatever reason, the whole night was just really awkward. It was clear to both of us that we weren’t clicking, so we just left it at that. Never heard from him again. No big loss.

At that point, Date Number Four was supposed to be in Indianapolis once I got home. But I got an email last minute on Match that simply said “Hi, I’m Mike.”

…to be continued…

A Long Time Coming

So, I haven’t updated my blog since November. I’m fully aware of this. Sometimes, life just gets too busy and things fall by the wayside. However, this time, it was intentional.

My funk after Ann’s wedding kind of shocked me. I didn’t snap out of it for almost a week. I finally pulled myself up and realized that I needed to start living my life instead of writing about wanting to live my life. Does that make any sense?

I decided to really live my life the way I want to…not the way I felt everyone else wanted me to. So, I started going out more…even if I was by myself. The weather here kind of sucks during the winter, but I still managed to hang out with friends in my neighborhood. I got to see my older cousin and his girlfriend more and even started doing Hot Yoga.

Eventually, got enough confidence to finally do this:


Kind of looks weird, but that's my left wrist...

Ann went with me (b/c she’s awesome) on a Saturday night to get it done. To say that I love it is a gross understatement. Every time I look at it, I’m reminded how fortunate I am…and that I’m meant to live this life to the fullest. I can’t worry about how everyone will react to the decisions I make. For someone with oldest child syndrome who has always worried about what other people thought or how they would react (from parents, to cousins, to random strangers), this is a huge deal.

At some point though, I think everyone has to accept that they are who they are…flaws and all. I’m not perfect by any means. I make mistakes all the time. But, I always learn from my mistakes and make the next try better. I cannot live in fear that someone is going to judge me or that I’m not doing something perfectly. What kind of life is that? It’s not one.

I read a great quote from Donald Miller that said “Fear is a manipulative emotion that tricks us into leading a boring life.” This was the jolt that shook me out of my funk for good.  Yes, I still have days where I'm a little off or I'm too much into my own thoughts and worried about what everyone thinks or says about me.  But this is not their life.  It's mine...and I'm going to live it!

So, that’s the beginning of the story. There is SO much more that has happened in the past three months that I cannot wait to share!!