Being With Someone Alone

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Happy to announce I have met someone in my life that I've started to develop feelings for. Terrified to announce that I have met someone in my life that I've started to develop feelings for. 

The good news is that I feel over the edge with excitement. I try to hold back from checking the messages on my phone every time it dings thinking it might be him checking in. Patterns of mine rise to the surface like fat on water, like this is the chemical reaction I can just expect given the ingredients I'm working with. The let down when its not him leading to doubt and neurotic inner dialogue. I know it sounds dramatic, it FEELS dramatic. These are the things a co-dependent feels in the beginning. I hate that word "Co-dependent". By all appearances I am independent. I've been alone a good deal of my adult life. Leaving home at 17, renting my own apartment downtown Salt Lake City at 20 and now raising kids completely by myself including financially and every which way. And perhaps that alone time makes my relations burst. When I suddenly latch onto some poor schmuck my seams are coming apart and I data dump on them telling them everything about myself as quickly as possible. I know that this hopeful attachment leads nowhere good, however the more I feed into it...the better it feels.

I have to ask myself "What am I going to do different this time?" Expect different results from doing the same thing...I know that doesn't work. I need to change things now, twerk them a little bit. The better it feels now, the worse it feels later somehow.

I watched "Eat, Pray, Love" recently, a movie I love that was directed by Ryan Murphy (of American Horror Story fame) and this woman talks of the same dilemma. I couldn't help but acknowledge that even by disappearing into her story I was relieving myself of the obsession with things that are not even in my present. I've been reading about co-dependency and becoming familiar with the algorythms of my behavior. Even the act of engaging with myself over these habits keeps me in the present which is key. I'm not putting him before my own needs in those moments. I'm not agrandizing what he is and putting him on a pedestal. I'm not reliving the moments we've shared in the past which seems to add (or stockpile) value and meaning every time I do it. 

Another thing I have chosen to do is limit the time we hang out. I've noticed that the days after we hang out I'm not very productive. This has led me to limit our time together to weekends. You know the truth about it is that it's not romantic or fun to regulate oneself, the whirlwinds are the high roller coaster rides, but I know that my roller coaster rides end bad. Real bad. So I'm trying something different and calculated. So far I'm not experiencing the extreme worry of losing him or of it not working out so that's an improvement on my well-being.