I know, I know, two full days without blogging – pigs must be flying right about now 😉 Here’s my reason – CBE stayed at my place through this morning vs. last night, so I figured rather than half-blog about it while he was over, I’d let it “ruminate” and do one big ole blog post today.

So, here goes – overall, it was a very fabulous weekend, but there were a few things that made me go “hmm” and got me thinking, so I’m breaking this post up into a few sections. First, my favorite moments from the weekend:

  • Falling asleep on the couch on Saturday, laying flat against his chest, and waking up a half hour later, with his arms around me, and one of my cats perched on my back (with his dogs on the floor – she wasn’t even scared, that was huge!). It was a moment.
  • Meeting for drinks with my sister and bro-in-law after dinner in Boston on Friday night. The conversation flowed, it wasn’t awkward, and it was fun, and nice to have him meet them. Meant a lot, and I’ve asked my sister to share her “review” of him for a later post, stay tuned!
  • Trader Joe’s and such on Saturday. It was a lazy start to the morning, but with a yummy start of eggs, toast  with almond butter and strawberries (and coffee, of course), and we went to Trader Joe’s and got some good finds for dinner, and did a few other errands together, including picking up one of my fave bottles of wine and sampling a few at the wine tasting they were doing at the liquor store (hey, why not, right?!)
  • Dinner at Davios. It was fun to get a little bit dressed up, head into the city and have a delicious dinner for Restaurant Week. Nice and leisurely, three courses, delicious haddock, good company, and a fun evening overall.
  • Watching CBE wash my trash can. Yep, he washed it. It was dirty, but it’s a trash can so I’ve never done much about it. He took it out, washed it inside and out, and well, it was just a little gesture that was sweet for some reason. Oh, and he cleaned off my patio of leaves and moved my mattress that I’ve been delaying dragging to the dumpster since oh, September, when I moved.
  • Just being. Spending such a chunk of time together was just nice to do, you really get to know someone a lot more when you have so much time to do stuff, talk, etc.

So, those were the highlights of the weekend – we were active, took the dogs for walks, hung out, watched some movies, and made two delicious dinners (Saturday and Sunday) together. We had some wine, we laughed, we talked, we enjoyed the time together.

However, as we were talking on Sunday afternoon, the conversation turned towards some things he’s been learning from “The Secret” – things he’s been working on in himself for a few years. Being positive, staying positive, surrounding with positive people. Sounds all good, right? And it is, it really is refreshing to see and hear that from him since I strive for that too, and have been looking for someone that shares that same viewpoint.

But then, as we were talking about the walk we’d taken with the dogs (it was really windy and pretty chilly by the water), he said he enjoyed it, but didn’t think I did, and that I wanted to rush home, and he felt a little bit uncomfortable.

This was a surprise to me, because I didn’t think I was rushing, and was a little puzzled.

He said he got the sense I wasn’t enjoying it, since I kept saying I was cold, and it was windy etc. And yeah, I did say those things, but at the same time, it was a gorgeous day, blue skies, sparkling waters, and that I was enjoying. He felt that to him, that was complaining, but to me, that’s not so much complaining but just stating that it’s cold and windy. I felt he was misinterpreting me a little bit and jumping to conclusions that I’m not as positive, and complain a bit.

Sure, I complain, sometimes, everyone does. To me, it’s not as black and white as either you are positive or you are negative…yes, there are people that are negative and that can be a poison, but I think there is a middle ground, where you let out the frustration and then pull yourself out of it – that’s the difference between being negative and being a generally happy person.

I fall into the second category and think you have to allow yourself to feel the annoyance or frustration, so long as you are able to get past it.

But for him, he tries to surround himself with positive people, those that have good outlooks on life (which, he agreed, I do), and that by doing that, he tends to be alone a lot, because he doesn’t associate with people that are overly negative. I got a little bit frustrated because I thought he was trying to say I wasn’t positive, and he wasn’t, truly, he was more pointing out that instead of automatically saying “it’s cold out,” why not say, “it’s a beautiful sunny day.”

And he’s right, in a way. But for me, that’s still a shift in mindset – that I thought I’d gotten to, but that I really haven’t fully gotten to yet. And on the flip side, I think he can open his mind a little bit to see that it isn’t black and white, and you can be happy, but still complain from time to time. As long as you pull yourself out of it. It’s still a work in progress for me…but that’s what life is about, learning, and doing, and progressing.

Which brings me to the subject of this blog post – do something that scares you every day – it was inscribed on a Lululemon bag sitting in my kitchen that CBE read aloud, and he said “I love that.”

As do I.

And it occurred to me that I don’t fully do something that scares me every day, even though I do try to – in many ways – at work, by doing Kick, by dating a man that stretches me out of my comfort zone. But at the same time, it’s so easy for me to fall back into what’s comfortable – routine, sitting back and not challenging myself to think better, more positive, always optimistic, sticking to the status quo.

So, that’s what CBE got me thinking about…and I’m going to blog more on this topic this week as well.

And, while it was a wonderful weekend, a part of me came out of this weekend realizing that while on one hand, I really like CBE…a lot…the other part of me still enjoys my independence and growth I’ve made being on my own. And that doesn’t mean that I feel differently in a bad way towards CBE, it just means that I am feeling myself pull back ever so slilghtly, because I feel I have a lot of learning, growing and challenging to do on my own before I’m fully ready to launch into a full-on relationship.