Dating after cancer and surgery.

I’m thinking about this one today.
I wrote this two weeks ago.

And of course so much has changed since I wrote, but I felt it may be appropriate to post here if anyone finds it a contribution.

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The past month or so that I have thrown myself into the dating world, I had some valuable awarenesses.

I was challenging myself to drop my barriers, throw a bit of caution to the wind (not so wise it turns out), and to meet many and all types of people including ones I had previously been in conclusion about and blocked out as possibilities.

Well, on some levels, it’s been a hellish five weeks.
Yes the odd person has shown up that can be a friend and I am so grateful for that.

However, having to state boundaries over and over and having them crossed, bulldozed and broken by a small handful of men, desperate to get to the golden vagina, beat the others in the race, has led to me being in fighting stance.

This came to a head when jaded, and ‘over it’, I led into a new conversation with statements that held a lot of conclusion and a shit tonne of anger.

This man, who had written a lovely ‘hello’ note coped the whole range of my anger, rage, fed up-ness, and he happened to be a massively sensitive guy.

He also was unafraid to tell it as he saw it, right back at me in no uncertain terms. Our inner children were out in full wounded force.

Pushing people away, being aggressively upfront, holding people at arms length in case they attempt to break through my clearly stated boundaries was a reactive result from the rough treatment of one or two men who were not listening to what I was clearly stating.
They were, to say the least, invasive, rough, and insensitive.

It has bought up old wounds, and I found myself going into all my past trauma’s.

(And in a deeper conversation with this lovely and sensitive guy, he acknowledged it had also bought up his.)

I notice as part of this ‘story’ I have became grumpy and rude and in this reactiveness, had begun throwing it back into men’s faces.

It was not at all how I wished to be behaving by a long shot.
Of course, it is not every mans fault.

For me trying to navigate dating pathways of being a woman of my age, who’s become interested (after 11 years of mucking around), in actually finding a deeply satisfying, and in all ways congruent, long term relationship, has unexpectedly put me at the cliff face.

The interaction with that guy pointed out to me through having boundaries crossed, I have jumped into past trauma patterns.

And I’m friggen angry.

Over the past year of dating, one did match me physically, mentally, in a business sense, and in the day to day similarities that would indicate an ease with a live in situation.

Yet, he didn’t see the value of what it might mean to choose that together we didn’t have time to get to know each other before little hiccups happened, and he didn’t choose to go on that journey, not with me.
This is of course his choice.

But I’m so pissed about it.

How did someone show up that felt so right on 90% of levels, and not choose me back?

How did I get it so wrong I yell at the universe?

I wasn’t supposed to end up having to look at everything that is wrong with me, and where I can’t get it right in finding a partner, I yell and rage.

Anger at the universe for bringing me someone that was the closest I have ever got (in this lifetime), to finding someone that fitted so well, that I could finally be in allowance of dropping each and every excuse, procrastination, and barrier, and finally, after all this time, saying yes to the whole messy, glorious amazing lot of a deep and congruent relationship…..

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Then I hear someone ask, where is the beauty of you today?
~~~

What?

How in this triggered trauma pattern, can I see the beauty of me?

I’m antsy, erratic and my brain is all over the place, I’m having trouble being settled, I’m starting to choose the wrong foods.
In running trauma release body processes, seeing my acupuncturist , I can’t find a way out of it, I can’t seem to shift this complex ptsd reactiveness. I can almost say it is running me.

I go back to my eight year old self having her boundaries crossed and recognise a rage so deep, that as an adult who thought I’d processed it and was doing ok, was still in there hiding all along.

It came out.

And, I cannot hear any compliment nor even remotely receive anything nice in this state.

I find myself having such a guarded sense of self in this, (and we all know what that means.. …..like attracts like…….)

No-one would be able to come remotely close when I am like this.

This dating thing has become a horror movie of the wrong sort of allowance.

Allowance for being bombarded with men’s and women’s opinions, needs, desires, and agendas, and yes, also their projections, pains, and hurts too.

I seem to have lost my resilience to remain removed from them, stop them infiltrating and to not take them on.

Meeting people in order to activate  the same relationship ask from last year has more than run its course.
I know that it’s time for something new, I am searching for it.
I will accept nothing less than the match I am looking for.
I am totally open to finding an even more congruent partner.
100% congruent.

I have re-asked.
And it’s time to just let it unfold.

The long weeks of having all and every trauma thrown in my face though.

This has seemed to be the hardest to deal with, and, so soon after cancer, and surgery.
In fact,  one could argue that the start of the stress and trauma really happened with the cancer diagnosis, and the resulting surgery.
I was fighting the fight of my life.

That absolute loneliness during the two months of recovery has informed the decisions I made about lovers and partners and dating.

It informed my future thoughts, just from the sheer nature of that fight for my life.

It threw me in the deep end of ‘looking’ to find someone super fast, and sooner than the universe could organise it.

So, after really over doing it during my recovery phase, I’m now taking a much needed time out, pulling the cotton wool out and wrapping it around, choosing to step back, dive into me, heal, re-commit to my authentic self, connect with my feminine divinity and my diet and supplements,  and let the hunt for someone to fill that gap I noticed while in recovery, go.

Not responding to messages, shutting down the dating app.
Visiting healers, Network Chiropractor, Masseuse.
Nourishing me.

Observing once again how past trauma can rear up and affect me, catch me off guard, and crop up in varied ways and remind me of what I need to do to choose the new way of being me.

I step off the merry go round,  jump back to my chosen and congruent ways to heal, find and embrace the nourishing support structures that I know work, come back to the start of recovery again, but different.

I let it go.

I’m in allowance of finding a new big ask the moment it comes to my awareness of what else is possible from this past year of awarenesses. Whether soon or later, it is no problem.

Lightness, joy, care and authenticity are ready to go from a fresh new perspective.

I’m happy once again in my own skin.