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The Power Of My Voice (or Even More Closure)

Posted on April 24, 2019 | Comments Off on The Power Of My Voice (or Even More Closure)

A month ago, I wrote about how almost every month I learn something new about myself through my adventures in dating. And of course, I’ve learned another thing recently. And it is actually something I learned through the same guy I was writing about before. He is someone I was seeing on and off for a while but he is now engaged. He has continued to message me saying how he was confused and wanted to talk. While I felt like I had the closure I needed, I also couldn’t deny him the same. I know I don’t owe anything to anyone, but I can’t help it.

When we saw each other, he panicked and freaked out. He said he wanted to leave and while I didn’t want to hold him hostage I also didn’t want to lose this chance. I don’t plan on seeing him again because I have moved on and don’t care what he does with his life. He is the one who is still confused. It’s unfortunate since he is the one getting married soon, but I can’t control what he wants to do with his life. If he feels like he needs or wants to get married but is still confused about it, that’s on him. And I wanted to finally have the talk in person that we have been avoiding for a while.

He didn’t do much talking, but I did. Most of the things I said to him were things I have said to him over text. It was mainly about how he hurt me and how I have had to move on. I mentioned how I couldn’t forget what he did and how he was a coward in failing to be honest to me. I wasn’t trying to be mean or harsh, just truthful in what I felt and thought. I know it wasn’t nice and he didn’t like hearing what I had to say, but if he wasn’t going to talk about what he wanted to talk about I was going to talk about what I wanted to say.

He eventually left without saying much more than that he was sorry and that he couldn’t talk. He left very shook up by what I was saying and it surprised me to see that. I wasn’t saying things he didn’t know already. But I realized that every time he heard that from me in the past it was over text. Since he previously knew me as sweet and gentle (how I normally am in real life), maybe he was reading those messages from me with that same vibe. But hearing me say it and how strong I was being probably made him realize I wasn’t kidding before. Hearing the words come out of me most likely hit him in a different way than he had experienced before.

So much of our communication these days is over text. Not just with dating, but with work and personal stuff too. Even with my day job, I get more customers using our online chat system than phone calls. Texts are so much easier to do sometimes and they allow people to multi-task. But it also can lead to confusion since there is a lack of tone over text. While I feel like missing the tone usually leads to a text sounding worse than it really is, in this case with this guy it seems like it made it seem better. My feelings and thoughts were probably not taken seriously because my tone was missing. At least now I know that he knows exactly what I meant and if he is still confused that is completely on him. I cannot force him to be clear in what he wants, all I can do is make sure that I make myself clear. And that’s what I did.

Since meeting up with that guy, I have been more aware of when I send a text instead of calling or saying something in person. I know that not everyone likes to talk on the phone, but I can at least make an effort if I feel like something would be better over the phone. And some people will answer or will text if they can’t talk asking if they can call back later. I’m being extra cautious about what I text to someone and am going that extra step to call when I’m not totally sure if my tone would come across. It might be a silly thing, but realizing how little someone understood what I meant over text has made me so aware of making sure that it doesn’t happen again. It’s not about things as seriously as they were with this guy, but I’m still glad when I feel like someone knows what I’m saying and what I feel about it.

Obviously I will still do a ton of texting since that is much easier than calling and a lot of things can be said over text with no issues. But realizing the power of my voice with this one guy made me realize that I don’t appreciate that power enough and I should use it more often.

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Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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Yet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control)

Posted on November 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Yet Another Life Lesson From Dating (or Finding Power When Not In Control)

I don’t know why I’m learning so many life lessons from dating. Maybe it’s because that’s the main thing in my life that hasn’t been a part of it for as long so I’m discovering new things all the time. Maybe it’s because that’s the place I’m out of my comfort zone the most and that is pushing me to change and set my standards. Or maybe it’s just random and doesn’t mean anything. Whatever it is, I just keep learning more as I date. I am ready to find someone amazing and not keep learning from dating, but that’s not what seems to be in the cards for me right now.

Every so often, I feel like guys from my past come back into my life for some reason. These always happen in groups so when one guy from my past comes back into my life, I know it’s just a matter of time before another one comes along. And that has happened in the past week for me. One guy is just someone I lost contact with and it was nice to reconnect with him. Our communication was always through the app and when my account got banned I lost my conversation with him. So when we rematched and were able to start talking again, it was nice. Hopefully I’ll get to see him again soon and see if we still have fun.

The other guy is a guy that I didn’t have as nice of an ending with. I’m not going to go into specifics with it because it doesn’t matter, but we ended on a bad note and I figured I would never hear from him again nor did I want to. But he reached out to me, we talked a bit, and I don’t have as many negative feelings toward him. But he is seeing someone else right now and I am not going to be the other woman or someone he sees on the side. I understand that when you date someone, if you haven’t said you were exclusive that you should assume you aren’t the only person they are seeing. But if you have an understanding that you are exclusive with someone, seeing someone else is cheating.

I told him that I am not willing to be a secret or someone he cheats with. If he wants to go out with me again, then the person he is seeing now needs to know that they aren’t exclusive. My understanding is that she believes that they are, so he would need to have a real conversation about how he wants to be able to see other people. I don’t necessarily want to be with someone who is serious with someone else, even if they have an open relationship. But if he wants to try seeing me again to see if we could be together again, the only way to do that is if all parties involved know that they aren’t exclusive.

I let him know this and told him it is his choice. If he wants to see me again, he knows what I require. If he doesn’t want to have to have that talk, then he and I won’t see each other again. If he doesn’t want to have the talk but still wants to see me, it’s too bad. I’m not willing to do that. I guess it’s kind of an ultimatum, but I really didn’t see it that way. I saw it as setting my standards and letting him decide what he wants to do.

I was sharing this story with a friend of mine after I told this guy what options he had, and I was having a bit of a tough time explaining why I felt so powerful in what I did. I have no clue what the next step will be as the guy has to make the next choice. But I feel completely in control and have no regrets. My friend and I were talking around the idea and I was just trying to find the words to express what I was feeling.

The idea of “the ball is in his court” kept coming to my mind, but that didn’t seem right. That makes it feel like he has the power and the choice of what is next and that was not how I felt. So I came up with the idea of “the ball is in his court, but I was the one who served it to him there”. That felt perfect to me. Yes, he has the choice in what he wants to do next. But I am the one who presented the choices to him and there is no other option than those. If he doesn’t want to pick one, then we won’t see each other and that is fine with me. I am not going to go against my standards and I feel very secure and comfortable in that idea.

So many things were so clear to me once I came up with that idea. Even when I am not the one deciding the next step, that doesn’t mean I have to be powerless or helpless. I have ways to find power even in situations that I don’t completely control. After that idea was said out loud to my friend, a huge weight felt like it was lifted off of me. I don’t care as much about what this guy will decide next anymore. While it would be nice to see him again and see what we could be, I don’t want to see him if it isn’t in a situation I’m comfortable with.

I don’t know how I can apply this new mindset to other things in my life, but I want to figure it out. I know that rethinking when I have power and control is important and can be used in so many other situations I find myself in. I guess I just have to naturally let those situations find me and remember this idea so I can apply it in the moment.

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A Powerful Workout Week (or Feeling Amazing Again)

Posted on November 14, 2016 | Comments Off on A Powerful Workout Week (or Feeling Amazing Again)

After such a successful 5K race, I had a feeling this week of workouts would be great. And I was right! This past week, I felt stronger, more powerful, and more like an athlete than I have in a long time. I scheduled myself for a 4 workout week and I’m glad I did that. I need to get back into the groove of a 4th workout and this was a great week to do it since I was still feeling amazing from the race.

Monday’s workout was a power run/row day. I was feeling a bit odd on Monday because before my workout was when I had my appointment with the surgeon and found out I had a tumor. But I didn’t let that odd feeling stop me. If anything, I kept thinking that if I could do my 5K as quickly as I could with this tumor inside of me, then anything is possible! For the run part of the run/row, I stuck with my run 1 minute/walk 1 minute for the longer segments which were .3 miles. Anything that was .15 miles or under was run in full (usually I could do those in 2 minutes or under). The rows were all sprints of either 300 or 150 meters, so I was moving back and forth between the rower and treadmill quite a bit.

For the floor work that day, we had a bunch of short blocks. Each of the blocks only had 2 things in it so I was feeling tired a bit quicker than usual. But I think that was more a mental thing than a physical thing. For those short floor blocks, we had things like squats and lunges plus some upper body stuff. My legs were feeling a bit shaky after the run/row, but nothing too bad and I felt like I was doing my workout exactly how I wanted to do it.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day. We did have a couple of 3 minute push pace segments, and I stuck with my 1 minute run/1 minute walk plan. I do need to start figuring out what my plan with my run/walk training will be. I’m not sure if I want to increase the run time or decrease the walk time. I might have to play around with it a bit to figure out what will work best for me. Even though we had some long push paces, we also had some normal length all outs. And for some of those all outs, I was able to go 6 mph which is very fast for me but doable if I don’t do it too much.

We had a decent amount of row work to do that day as well. One block included a 600 meter row. I was able to get it done in under 3 minutes so I was pretty happy. We also had a 3 minute row challenge and that was a bit tougher because I pushed myself too much at the beginning and was feeling some burnout before we got 2 minutes in. Besides the row work, the floor was focused on arm work. We had a lot of work on the straps and then had some ab work in between which almost felt like a break from the strap work.

Friday was another power run/row day. This time, for the run segments I did 90 seconds of running and 1 minute of walking. It was tough to run for 90 seconds at a time since I’m so used to 1 minute, but it was good to push myself. It also makes the run segments go by faster when I run longer (or faster) so I use that as motivation. All the row segments were either 250 meter rows or a 1 minute sprint. Again, like on Monday, I did a lot of switching back and forth between the treadmill and the rower.

On the floor, we had some arm and squat work where we used weights and I was using the 20 pound ones. And we had a lot of plank work and I was able to hold my planks longer and with better form than I have in a really long time. The entire floor time, I felt more powerful than I had in a while and was really happy with how things were working for me that day. For some reason, the workout just came together really well and it flowed really nicely. It was a feeling I don’t know if I’ve ever had before and it was a really nice confidence boost.

My final workout of the week was on Saturday. I thought about going on the bike for that workout, but I decided to just keep going and doing the treadmill again. It ended up being a workout that had endurance, strength, and power and we were switching between the treadmill and the floor between each block. For the treadmill, for most of the time I stuck with running 1 minute and walking 1 minute. I was able to keep this up for the endurance block and for when we had longer segments on the power block. But for the power block, a lot of stuff was 30 seconds at a time so I just ran the full thing. For the strength block, I stuck with walking the entire time since it was hills. I did some higher inclines, but since it was at the end of the workout I wasn’t as powerful as I was earlier in the workout.

For the floor work, we had a nice mix of stuff. For the endurance floor work, we had some arm work where I could use 20 pound weights plus lunges where I was using 2 15 pound weights. During the power block, we did timed lunges, mountain climbers, and plank work. And during the strength block there was some lower and upper body strap work followed by leg lifts while in a plank (which aren’t easy for my hips but it’s getting better).

I’ve got a relatively normal workout week coming up this week, but the next week will be Thanksgiving week so things will be a bit mixed up for me. But I will be going to my Thanksgiving morning workout in La Jolla with my family and I’m so excited about it! Plus, this year for the Thanksgiving workout there will be 7 of us going! I’ve got to train really hard this week so I’m in the best shape possible for my workout with my family (my dad is already talking about how he will be kicking my butt in the workout)!

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