Hope is a tenacious warrior - lessons from dating

I learned a few things about dating via apps by taking a 'masterclass'. This seems to be the new trendy word to replace workshop or seminar. The things in the class make sense, so much so that I have the material to go back and review it. In a fit of hope and to practice what I had just learned, I set up a profile on a dating app. I met with some people, natural filtering happened, my confidence rocketed and my friends circle has expanded. Met someone, things progressed but then came to a screeching halt. No, you won't get the details other than this person was kind and mature enough to cut it off before we got hurt more than we would if we kept going.

Hope retreated to lick her wounds. I watched as my thoughts and emotions went through the windstorm after the end of a connection. My therapist would be (mostly) proud of me. That entire bottle of wine that first night to dull the shock and other feelings is not therapist-approved, but it and my two gal pals got me through that first night. The second day I'm still watching my emotions and reasoning through them. I found ways to congratulate myself for putting myself out there in the dating scene with some class. I mindfully acknowledged the hurt and my childhood conditioning-based reactions, then chose healthier ways to address the hurt. I saw how some of my patterns of relating led to a relationship that was developing too fast.

Hope listened to me natter on for a day about being incapable of connecting. She and her cohorts sent me two long-time friends whom I've not connected with in a while - Love Notes from the Universe. She and her cohorts also dropped an impromptu invite from a friend to share dinner and watch some dark documentaries. Nothing like hearing about trust being broken and ending in trauma or murder to put a relationship ending into perspective!

Hope is tenaciously looking forward and outward with me. I wonder if Hope will ever tone down her enthusiasm for better experiences. She is single-minded and driven, but she is the friend who busts into my life, throws back the curtains, and says "Let's Go! There's so much to experience!"

The author generated this image in part with GPT-3, OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model. Upon generating draft imagery, the author reviewed, edited, and revised the image to their own liking and takes ultimate responsibility for the content of this publication.