Is it possible to fall in love in Covidity?

It's August. That period of Covidious isolation appears to have lifted. 

Earlier today, I was sitting in my bedroom listening to music and crying. I could have been 16 or 21, fresh in the wake of my ego getting bruised, my heart getting a little bashed.  I looked up at my vision board at photo I took of some graffiti, I think from a bathroom stall, probably in 2017, back when electricity sang through my veins and Post-Natal depression clung to my skin, to my muscle.  The photo says 'The trick is to keep breathing.' 

 It feels a bit like that Old 97s song...what is the line? Oh, yes. Cue 1997, 13 hour drives home from Ole Miss to do laundry. 'The Streets of Where I'm From,' indeed. 

'I've been had/well at least that's how it looks

And it's not funny like on TV/

And it's not smart like it is in books.'

or maybe these lines are more important:  

I recall, when I was twenty-three/

Wondering how anyone could fall in love with me/

But now I'm old, hell, I'm well past twenty-five/

And I can't seem to fall in love no matter how I try

Except that people have and do love me and fall in love with me. I know that. And I know this isn't the end of anything any more than it was the beginning. Because, you know. I KNOW things. It's kind of my job. And if I don't know 'em, I'll damn well figure it out. 

One the one hand, I am so proud of myself. Look at me! I stated my needs! I self-advocated! I took stock of the warning signs and I decided to exit stage left.  Not only that, I liberated myself from over a four-year hiatus of sexual chastity to discover that yes, I am still sexually attractive, yes I am still actively sexually and yes, I am still pretty amazing at sex.  These are all GOOD things, right? These are healthy. But I think I still hope the person on the side of the coin is pretty great and was worth my time.  That he is just going through his own life woes and and heartache. I don't know that I want the phone to ring to talk it out. I think I just want a clear explanation with the same intensity of the early courtship to tell me where the disconnect came about. Was it all just circumstance? Would there have been space for a more slowly paced 'more?' 

'You must get all sorts darkening your digital doorstep.' Should that have been a warning? It felt like flirtation, not like a shot across the bowels.  'I remember your profile being full of detail for those who cared to read. A masterclass.' 

In the early moments of  the romance I wonder that I didn't to consider what was happening. Actually, that is disingenuous. I did consider what was happening and then I quickly slipped on a pair of rose coloured glasses and stared out the window when I should have been compiling cataloguing descriptions. I doodled flowers and hearts on scraps of paper, enamoured with the idea of being the object of someone's attentions. I wrote witty messages and took sexy photos on days when my kids weren't home. I wrote some pretty fantastic erotica. I giggled when I received a message. I flirted with anyone who would make eye contact because I was both giving and receiving desire. 

In return, I got subtle suggestions that something might come of 'playing in this space.' There was just enough of a future, just enough mention of flights of fancy regarding name changes to make the overly conditioned part of myself think 'Oh, good. I won't be a slut, then.' Because, actually, what the majority of my inner board wanted was to be the empowered slut.  Can I do that with kids, be slutty? Am I allowed? What are the rules? I remember actively panicking at one stage, thinking 'Moms at the school gates had only just started talking to me again. I am so tired of being a pariah! What will happen if they they think I am a ho?'  That one lone dissenter, she packs a mean sucker punch.  Guess what? Aside from that lone voice, I don't give a feather of a duck's ass. But that one voice, she is vicious at times. And so flipping prudish.  And where was she when I needed to be kept safe? Not where she should have been, that's for damn sure. 

Where does the conditioning come from: the ego? the serial monogamist? the commitphiliac? The trifecta: the part of me that really enjoyed being part of a team, even when I was the team misfit? I liked the ins and outs of being married. Will it surprise anyone who knows me that I quite like the methodology involved in laundry?  

Is it as simply put that - on the other hand, the person I thought I liked did not ask me to hang around when I raised my concerns. In fact, I'm not sure he hadn't been trying to ghost me and I just wouldn't take the hint. But I'm a rookie and maybe it was entertaining to play with a rookie who has such a way with words?  I mean, we all know that I'm pretty much the 2nd violin section from _The Composer is Dead_. I am great fun at parties. 

As things progressed in this 'casual' thing- or didn't progress - I began to question why I was focusing on this  relationship so much. I mean, it wasn't a relationship. There was very little balance, a lot of taking direction. The dictate was there is in the beginning in the words 'I think you want to play; I'll lead.' But then, there would be...silence. Obviously, these things don't exist in vacuum, except they very much do. But I was candid about being tenderhearted and a bit gun-shy. Skittish even. It took a lot of courage for me to mentally enter the space and to engage. I wasn't sure of myself. I suppose on one level, I knew I would have to put myself out there. Is that why this whole online world we inhabit is so insidious? We never really know who is one the other end of the connection.

What is it about a global pandemic that would shift a cautious person's boundaries - romantically speaking - to allow someone to slip across the castle gates? Is it loneliness? Boredom? Sexual frustration? Curiosity? All of the above? Does it matter? Because it happened and it escalated very quickly which is weird because time did not appear to move quickly during June and yet...it did move and then it stalled and then it got weirdly quiet. Of course, this individual has their own life. They are in a state of transition. They have kids, an entire world that existed before they got bored one afternoon and decided to tell me they had cancelled their dating profile subscription. I remember thinking that was strange, a bit presumptuous but also flattering.  Is it flattering? Is it some sort of online dating game? If it is, I don't think I want to play.  

Overall, I suppose that the moments of epiphany when I recognised parallels with the relationships with my father and past partners: they really only reach out when the need/want something, they aren't really listening to the details I'm giving them. Add to that the vagueness or absence of disclosure of the ins and outs of life, the glue that forges our connections with other humans, the refusal to answer questions about their life...I guess the sting is in the fact that were just in different situations and that I liked him. I liked his smile and the way he smelled. I liked the way he saw me in the brief moments he saw me. And those are things I haven't had in my life for a long while. 

So what does a lady do next? Cry for a spell, laugh with her friends, take a bath, cry some more. Write it out. Cry some more. Light some candles. Rage bake. Sleep. Try again? I'm building a new garden wall, after all. Or maybe I'll just stick with that horse in the country.