Get vs crush

It's 1am and I have to get up early in the AM for the first day of the summer camp I direct. What am I doing up so late? I can't do it now because of the time, but I really do want to write out the whole experience with the get. It was a profoundly significant day. So filled with meaning and ritual. Everyone who has to suffer through a divorce should have the gift or a day like that. It was the equivalent of a wedding day in reverse. Powerful. I really want to record more about it. But since it happened my emotional energy has been going instead into a distinctly different direction. I am developing some pretty serious feelings. Seriously giddy feelings actually. I maintain that I did/do not want to jump into anything, but we're doing exactly that! Oy! It's so hard not to. But relative to other people, I suppose we're taking it slowly. Second date was Wednesday. Third one was Friday night. Does a hike first thing Saturday morning count as forth then? He didn't sleep over, so technically it was a new date even if only give hours had passed since we'd seen each other last. Then he came by my office tonight. And we talk and mostly text multiple times a day. For probably at least an hour each day. I'm very attracted to him. I need to keep it under control. Or do I? He told his kids about me tonight!! That's huge!! I can't believe he did that. Especially since we both have agreed we didn't want to involve our kids until things got serious. How could this be happening so fast? We got divorced within 2 days of each other. I won't go so far as to say everything happens for a reason, which I've never believed, but it certainly gives me pause for thought. He's the invisible needle in the imaginary haystack I kept mentioning. Professional, intelligent, divorced Jewish father in MY little not so Jewish town. How is this even possible?

First post-marriage kisses feel like FIRST kisses

Second date last night. Eight hours. Nice, good man. First kisses for each of us since marriage. Sweet sweet kisses. Then we hugged and held each other close because it was a clearly a big deal for both of us. This is right after I told him that "I don't know what 'this' (the relationship) is, and that's ok with me, but it's definitely getting my feet a lot wetter than I anticipated, and I'm ok with the lack of definition so long as he tells me if he sits with anyone else on a porch for hours and hours in the middle of the night. :) He is welcome to do so, I just want to know where I stand. Reminds me of that old popular poem from high school or college, "a kiss is not a contract." I don't want a contract or relationship at this point. I just want to know where I stand. And then he said (among other things), "well would it be ok if I kissed you goodnight?" :)
Oh my!!
Really really don't want to rush in to anything. Feel like I already have more than I should have. But it's awfully hard not too when it feels so satisfying.

In other news, getting the get today. Then going to bury the ketubah, then mikveh, then special little blessing ceremony. Big big day.

Parenting is damn hard work

Extremely hard bedtime tonight. It seems when they "need" you the most is the same time when they can act the most frustrating. If only they could just calmly say, "mom, I'm feeling insecure right now and really needing some extra love from you," but uh, no. They throw their absolute worst at you making it so much harder to find your compassion and patience to give them what they really need. Ah, parenting.

First dates and live-in partners.

Next Thursday we'll have the "get" ceremony. Afterwards I think I'm going to go bury the ketubah somewhere in the forest and then have a mikveh and then maybe some kind of little ritual to bless my new life. I still get teary almost instantly when I think about the get and all of this.
What I won't be doing next Thursday is going on a second date. But I was invited on one!!!!! Went out last night on my first date. All started because I accidentally (truly, accidentally) hit "flirt" on this man on jDate. I guess it was just instinctual and reflexive. Couldn't help myself. Honestly didn't think it would really connect with him as I hadn't even subscribed yet. It was just on my phone in the Home Depot parking lot if I remember correctly. What else am I to do when a professional 42 year old Jewish vegetarian shows up in my email and he lives in MY TOWN!! There was no going back. I had already hit "flirt," and it didn't give me a second chance. No "confirm" or "are you really sure about this" button. So later that evening I was on the site, and he instant-messaged, asking if I wanted to chat, but of course I couldn't without subscribing, so after some debating, I plunked down my money and did just that. We messages quite a bit that night and the next and set a date to go hiking on Wednesday. It was lovely. A perfect first date post divorce. Exactly what the sensible responsible part of me wanted. Nice man. Cuter in person than photos. Sweet smile. Kind eyes. I liked his voice. Articulate. Conversation flowed easily. Hike was beautiful. NO sense of OMG I'm in love, which I didn't want to have. Just a pleasant time that I know was a mutual feeling. And we both are clear we're not looking to jump into a relationship with anyone. And then we've already messages each other several times since last night. As in again late last night and then this morning and this evening. NOT JUMPING INTO ANYTHING.

So while all that has been happening, other less pleasant things have unfolded. My EX (oh wow, gone is the STB part of it - and I know I'm supposed to call him my former husband or even better my children's father, but this is faster and easier) informed me Monday that he told the boys over the weeks that she would be moving in with them this month. That's right, get a divorce one month, have your "affair partner" girlfriend move in the next month!!! I'm not even hurting for me personally anymore. In fact not at all. I think she's a crazy fool. In many ways doing the same damn thing I did. Moving into his trashed run down shithole of a house and presumably going to help him fix it up. And to think that I said before we ever got married that I didn't want to have to raise a family in that house! That I didn't want to have just one bathroom that I had to walk downstairs from the loft to use in the middle of the night when I was pregnant. (I can remember saying that yet how odd, because how did I even realize that would be an issue when I was pregnant?) And here she is sharing that single falling-apart bathroom with my three boys, who pee all over the toilet and don't flush their poop!! Meanwhile, while looking for my new house that was one thing I was adamant about. There would be no sharing of bathrooms with my boys! Mama MUST have her own bathroom.
But I digress. The issue I'm feeling is how this affects my boys both in their short and long-term and how it affects my relationship with them. And most of my feelings are definitely coming from a fear-based place. I fear that they will grow up to be like their dad. I fear that my ex and his girlfriend's relationship will be successful in the long term and that that will mean that they really were meant to be together and that will somehow be a reflection of me. (I know this is irrational, but can't change the feeling.) I fear that their success will teach my boys the wrong lessons. I fear that I won't be able to compete as a parent because two of them are inherently going to do a better job than I can singly. I realize that's bullshit, and I'm an awesome mom, but I still feel that way. I fear that I'm going to have to be EXTRA protective of them as a result and it will take even longer for me to feel comfortable exploring a new relationship in front of them for fear of the impact on them. I fear that they will like her better than me and perhaps because she will be lovely and patient and charming or just a pushover (or they just won't push her in the same way as they do their mom) and I can't compete with that. And it's little consolation to be told that, "they'll understand in the end, they'll know what you did for them, they'll respect you more, etc." It just sucks.
Furthermore, she went with them on their trip to see his family in the Midwest. Not that he told me. And he was deliberately deceptive about it, picking the boys up from me at my uncle's house to go to the airport with her hiding out temporarily at her sister's house since she drove the two-hour trip to the airport with him and flew with him, but didn't show up to get the boys. 'Cause that would have been a little awkward. Not like it isn't going to be a little awkward when I see her when she is living at his house. But it's the deception that makes me so angry and that without actually asking the boys to keep it a secret from me, he put them in the uncomfortable position of having information that they felt uncomfortable sharing with me. Damn him. He's such an ass.
Ok. Better get some rest. Need to make challah in the morning and still be out the door with three boys packed for day camp by 8:45.

Giving and receiving

I've just picked back up Rabbi Irwin Kula's book Yearnings. Such a good book. This chapter was about giving and receiving. Summary: "Our yearning to give generously and receive gracefully is at the heart of our quest for intimacy."
This is one of my goals. To be good at both giving AND taking.
Watched Labor Day with Kate Winslet tonight. Good movie. But I'm left trying to get too much out if it. Over analyzing AGAIN.
No point in writing out all my thoughts on the matter at 2am. Sleep would be more valuable.