In closing I would like to say...

To all my wonderful readers (aka my personal friends):

With the sleep apnea diagnosis and my use of the CPAP machine, I no longer consider myself disabled. I've retrained my body to be able to walk on a treadmill and drive, I'm back to being able to read for school every day, and I've just landed two freelance jobs.

Because of all these other commitments, I'm going to step down from this blog for the foreseeable future. I leave you with the following fun facts:

1) I have plans to meet with Middle Eastern "S" on Sunday -- a 26-year-old recent immigrant student looking for a road trip buddy,

2) I've been emailing back and forth with Pacific Islander "R" -- a hard-working painter, musician, writer who is recovering from war injuries,

3) And I'm planning to ask my white massage therapist "C," who will be biking from Alaska to Argentina, if he wants to join me for tango lessons (with my new and improved, functional body!).

I end this blog with some questions answered. I now know that men chomp at the bit to devirginize a woman no matter how old she is. I know, through my roommate's successful relationship that blossomed through OkCupid, that sometimes men just aren't very photogenic and if there's any inkling that they might look better in person than on the computer screen, I should give them a chance. Lastly, I learned that right when you think your health won't improve... Bam!... you get an answer.

So, lovely readers, don't give up on yourself and don't give up on love. Laugh at those first dates that don't work out, don't try to change an elusive man, and it's okay to cry over things that don't work out, as long as you dry your tears and get back up, fighting.

Hold on a Minute

Today I had a date with M. Yesterday we spent hours rehashing Friday's conversation, and he realized I don't think he's the crazy nut job he was afraid I thought him to be. Or maybe we are both nutty together? Though when I sat across from him today at the quaint coffee shop down the street, he stated, regarding both of our "things that cannot be talked about": "I'm realizing that I can move on from those hurtful things. They don't have to define me. Good things can be in my future. In both our futures." Well, maybe that's not what he said word for word, but you get the idea.

We held hands as we walked back to his car, and I both wanted to squeeze tighter and let go and run the other way. We kissed next to his car and I both wanted to kiss longer and, well, run the other way. It helps me understand my roommate who just got a boyfriend from her own OkCupid connection. She has similar self-quenched desires of fear-induced "flight" from something not bad but very, very good. There are those you date who make you feel uncomfortable because they aren't right for you, and there are those you make you comfortable because you never get below the surface. Then there are those you make you uncomfortable because they see the real you, and that's a scary but wonderful thing, when the real you is appreciated and accepted exactly as it is. M's acceptance even includes my sleep apnea, my lack of a job, and my welfare status -- all things that scared me most about dating with a disability. "Things things happen," he says. "I'm sure you'll be back on your feet in no time."

This thing with M might be a totally healthy relationship. Or it might, despite friends' reassurances to the contrary, be a totally unhealthy relationship. Or it might not be a relationship at all. But he gets me. The real me. And I get the real him too. Our things that cannot be talked about can be talked about with each other... Not just talked about, but understood. I don't want to jump ahead of myself and say this date was anything more than what it was -- two individuals coming together for a nice afternoon of conversation and connection. I'm trying not to look too far into the future these days but appreciate each moment for what it is. Today was a good moment, and he's already asked for another. I said yes, and with him or with someone else, I know there will be even more.

Stepping Back to Move Forward

My love life, or lack thereof, has taken a back seat for the past month and has been replaced by literary and career pursuits: an online writing class offered by a NY Times bestselling memoirist, an inquiry into the possibility of substitute teaching, and developing a web-based side business with my roommate. All because my sleep apnea diagnosis and sleep mask have taken away a lot of my exhaustion (finally!).

While my love life has taken a back seat, thinking about relationships has not, as my weekly blogs have been replaced by weekly therapy sessions in which I enter the room with a veneer of poise and always wind up crying and wishing I hadn't worn mascara. Then by the time I leave I feel fabulous, like someone was able to break through my tough facade and see the true me. My therapist is skilled enough to really get at the heart of my feelings and beliefs about myself and others, to validate wrongs done to me and make me not afraid to look at them head on, and her background in English Literature allows her to use words understood only by fellow Lits, like the indefinable "personal agency."

Dating relationships haven't been discussed in my therapy sessions as it's not the focus of why I'm there. However, what I have gleaned from my sessions in regards to dating is that I am drawn to the wrong men. I've known this for quite awhile, but it is a hard habit to break, and I wonder how we successfully break it. It's pretty common knowledge that as women we are attracted to men like our fathers, in both positive and negative ways. The positive attributes that both my father and men I'm attracted to possess, is intelligence and determination. The negative aspect, however, keeps the relationship from actually forming in the first place, and that is the knowledge that I am attracted to me who don't want a relationship. My father would worship me from afar, praising me to friends, family, and pretty much anyone who would listen. But when I actually saw him he wouldn't know what to say, and we'd go days, months, and sometimes years in between visits. I've been addicted to the last season of Mad Men which finally came out on DVD, and I'm noticing incredible similarities between the patriarch, Don Draper, and my father. Don says, when speaking of the children he has with his newly ex-wife: "When I don't see them I miss them. Then when I do see them I don't know what to do or say, and I am relieved when I drop them back home. Then I miss them all over again." My father felt the exact same way.

My father isn't even why I'm in therapy. But something that my therapist has made me realize is that while I miss him, I show no emotion. I can talk about all our exceptionally good times, and all our heart-wrenchingly bad times, and I do it all with a straight face, and just a little bit of a smile. Maybe once I'm able to break through this wall of supposed strength and nonchalance, I can actually cry for my father and subsequently stop crying over romantic love interests who are just as elusive as he was. Maybe this is how we reprogram ourselves to fall for men who will make good companions when our fathers weren't very good fathers. And maybe the memoir I'm writing about the two of us will help me get there.

I'm also reading a good book on the subject: Dr. Seth's Love Prescription: Overcome Relationship Repetition Syndrome and Find the Love You Deserve.

2011 Catch-up

I purposefully write my blogs as entries in a developing story. Because of that, if you've missed one or two posts, I'm sure you feel reluctant to jump back in without reading everything in order, which takes time. Because of this, I've decided to do a catch-up post of the developments of the past two months, as there have been quite a few.

At the New Year I decided to take a break from dating, and was promptly contacted by a guy one of my readers calls Captain SmartyPants on my defunct Match.com profile that hadn't been active since the middle of last year. He was perfect on paper but not in person, and another Match contact I call S was intriguing until after he showed a jealous side before we had even met. The same exact weekend I hung out with my year-long friend D and had a hang-out session turned date, and have returned to the hangout stage as his impulsive kiss came as a shock to even himself.

Health-wise I finally received a diagnosis of sleep apnea which has put me on a CPAP machine to keep me from waking up every six minutes. Turns out what I thought was deep sleep was not really deep at all. Just as they say patients need to be their own advocates, I'm the one who suggested seeing a sleep doctor, and I'm very glad I did.

As the year goes on I continue to fight for social security benefits -- the next step being an administrative hearing which my lawyers are in the process of setting up. I'm also fighting for my disability insurance to pay for my CPAP machine, since even though they don't cover durable medical equipment, the sleep apnea is what is (at least partially) causing me to need their insurance in the first place. From my point of view, if they pay for the machine and I can get better, get off the insurance, and then they won't have to pay anything. The insurance alone was a struggle to keep this year as my GP stated in my mid-year review that I could work. Thankfully my neurologist has come around and declared that this is not true, stating sleep apnea and ataxia as the reasons for incapacity.

Lastly, I've started seeing a therapist as my mom has disclosed some events from my past that need working through. This therapy -- which I get at an alarmingly low sliding scale rate -- is changing my views not so much about the world around me, but about myself. What I thought were weaknesses are coming out as strengths, and so I enter this new year with a firmer self-awareness and appreciation of my personhood.

All of the happenings of this year make the current focus of this blog that of loving ourselves just as we are, appreciating what makes us uniquely us, and knowing that fighting for what we need and want is -- while a continuous struggle -- something that pays off and keeps us on the road to wellness.

They always come in threes

Things are going well with Captain SmartyPants, as a friend of mine approvingly calls him. Email led to a phone conversation which led to a date request which has led to texting until the date arrives. Captain SmartyPants is, from what I can tell, one of the best guys I have met in awhile. He's extremely smart, extremely cute, and extremely respectful and caring. A very hard combination to come by. I breathe a sigh of relief and my lips curl up in a perpetual smile when I think of him, especially after 2011's initial letdown with the dental student with a tooth fetish who wouldn't meet me until I sent him pictures of the inside of my mouth (I didn't), the Latin Lover who wanted to chat via webcam to compliment me on parts of my body and who said he wanted to sleep with me (not a way to get me to like you), the dreadlocked landlord who called me a prude for not being comfortable with his texts about my kissable lips, and the guy on IM who didn't tell me he is in the country for two weeks and MARRIED until half an hour into the conversation.

While I have strong feelings for Captain SmartyPants, I'm following the dating rules by not putting all my eggs in one basket, especially before meeting the basket in person. Therefore I spend tomorrow with "is he a friend or something more D", and I'm corresponding with someone else who contacted me on Match who I haven't thought of an appropriate nickname for yet.

The only problem with dating three men at once is that while it goes along with 21st century conventions, it goes against my sick body's need for long periods of doing nothing and seeing no one. And if I push myself too hard, my body will crash and all three prospects will come crashing down as well. Right now I could really use those relaxation techniques that my counselor wants to show me, and I could really use not having had three doctors' appointments and one therapist appointment in the past week. Tomorrow will mark my 5th day in a row in Seattle, an hour away from where I live, and while I am excited about marching with D in protest of police brutality, I'm hoping my legs will keep up with my desires. He, caring guy that he is, hopes the same.

This week, while busy, has been a breakthrough week in many ways. I spent another night at the sleep clinic and got fitted for my sleep apnea mask, and my sleep doctor was almost astounded to see how well my levels were with the apparatus. The next day (today) I saw my neurologist who filled out the work incapacity forms for state disability without blinking an eye, and his diagnosis of ataxia, along with the sleep apnea, is the first time he has used that word in front me, having claimed before that I did not have ataxia but somatization.

Sick me took a five hour long nap on the couch today, and I woke up in a panic at one point, dreaming I had received an email from Captain SmartyPants entitled "Regarding sickness and health," that I just knew was a rejection of my medical condition just like K had rejected it and me a year ago. But so far "sleep apnea" has not scared him off, and what he sees instead of a sick person is someone who is studying something fascinating, is a passionate English instructor, and has a "lovely voice." I always knew someone would be able to see the real me under all those medical appointments and slow days (and under my kissable lips and big butt and boobs), and I can't wait to be embraced by Captain SmartyPants' big physicist cape and meet the man behind the magnanimity.

Thinking of dating multiple people or already doing so? Here's a great article to help you along:

Dating Around Online

Sleepless in Seattle

In the fourth episode of the first season of How I Met Your Mother, Ted Mosby reviews his past relationships in search of a lost gem. Just like I love this shirt I used to overlook, he says, perhaps I've overlooked the right woman just because she came to me at the wrong time. I won't tell you how that story ends, except to say that no, she was not in fact Ted's lost gem. All the things he didn't like about her came back to the surface, probably even stronger than they had before. She was not a bad girl, just not a girl he wanted to commit to.

That's the way I felt about the Space Needle, and the way the Space Needle felt about me. Our first relationship was great, and we both got what we wanted. I got a paycheck, and they got a dedicated employee. The Space Needle came to me at just the right time -- in between a marriage and my admission to a 4-year university, and when we parted ways it was with both confidence in the future and thankfulness of what we had been able to give each other. One of my close friends came out of that job, as did an architectural reminder of the beginning of my life in that city.

So when I went through my period of remission, the Space Needle is unsurprisingly what came to my mind. Just like Ted's ex-girlfriend, I wanted to rekindle my relationship with it with the expectation that it would give me what it did before. And at first, it did. My supervisor was still there, seven years later (and had been for 34 years), and she welcomed me with open arms. She spoke of coworkers we had both known -- women who had passed through the system on their way to achieving higher education. I'm so proud of my girls, she said, You guys are all so smart.

I was happy to be back until I stepped back into the uniform room. Sure, the job had been great back then, when I was young and getting on my feet. But the smell of the room brought back memories both good and bad, and I felt like I had stepped back in time. Current uniform employees proudly introduced me to our clients -- current Space Needle employees -- and while it felt good to be so appreciated, I couldn't also help but feel a little bit like a failure that I had returned to this entry-level job after seven years of schooling. Not all of it was bad though, and most of it was good. It felt good to get up in the morning, take a shower, and take the bus to work. It felt good to leave work and traipse about the city as a wage earner. It felt good to have a reason for an ipod, a backpack, and a coin purse for bus fare. But unfortunately the Space Needle wanted what I couldn't give it. It wanted double shifts and frequent early mornings, and the ability to walk an hour each way to and from the bus. The double shifts and early mornings weren't part of the job description, and despite my best effort my body shut down and I lost the job. But, just like Ted realized that his ex wasn't right for him the second time around, I realized that the Space Needle was not right for me. I have frequently set my bar too low in the jobs I'll take -- jobs that don't coincide with my education and experience. I looked to the Space Needle at my lowest and most lonely point, but the universe knows there is something better for me out there.

Four days after losing my job at the Needle, which I worked for a total of two days, my sleep study revealed that I do in fact have sleep apnea. I wake myself up 10 times an hour due to shallow breathing, and the test showed that I got 70 minutes of deep sleep in the 8 hours I slept at the center. This knowledge should help me get to where I need to go, which is a) a state of normal functioning with a CPAP machine, or b) a diagnosis enabling me to receive social security if the CPAP machine doesn't help enough. Just how bad my particular case of sleep apnea turns out to be and just how much it is contributing to my symptoms remains to be seen, but I go forward with the hope that I will once again wake up on an early (or late) morning and make the commute to a job in the city that I love. The Space Needle and I may have broken up, but the right working relationship is out there somewhere.

As Days Go By

So 2010 has come to a close, and with it my first year of dating after returning home from grad school. I casually dated more this year than I ever have before, rejecting men with much more alacrity than in previous years and taking my own rejections in better stride. After variations of time spent with O, J, K, and A -- and after random emails, IMs and texts with other men -- 2010 ends with about an equal number of rejectees and rejecters. New Years Eve found me on my couch with my roommate, sipping cheap wine and watching pigs synchronize dance in Nanny McPhee. I exited 2010 even more single than I entered it, and I was okay with that.

This past year has also been a busy one of progress and stagnation as I've gotten state disability and lost some of its benefits due to the bad economy, seen new doctors and had diagnoses presented and questioned by both them and myself, been denied social security and submitted an appeal, and put my name on the subsidized housing list with calls each month to keep it there. The year starts off with a bang as I see a sleep doctor to investigate the possibility of sleep apnea one day, and see my movement disorder specialist to challenge somatization the next, and lastly to see my general practitioner about the possibility of chronic fatigue syndrome one week after that.

I'm deciding to do things a bit differently in 2011. Aside from Okcupid I'm closing all my online dating profiles. Part of this is due to economics, but a larger part is due to the fact that I want to take a break this year and see what comes to me instead of searching for it. This blog will continue, if not with actual dates, at least with more insights and investigations into the dating world. I'll also most likely keep comparing real world experience to what I see on the TV screen, as I spend a lot of my time analyzing visual media no matter what my state of mental functioning. Before Nanny McPhee, my roommate and I sat down with Eat, Pray, Love, and until the end of the movie (which I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it yet) it seemed like the perfect way to end one year and start another. In 2011 I will Eat good food, Pray to the universe for wisdom, and Love myself unconditionally. In 2011, in whatever form, I will let love find me.