I last posted almost a decade ago, when I was pregnant with my son (but did not appear to mention it). The blog title is a nod to a Led Zeppelin song, if you didn’t catch it.
I have a daughter becoming bat mitzvah in December, and a son two years younger.
I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD (that one existed before the blog) and autism.
My relationship life is the strangest it’s maybe ever been.
Texting guy and I are still friends.
Music&lyrics and I are still married for now. And we get along well these days, as coparents. But we haven’t been in a romantic relationship in a long time to the extent we ever were. And I didn’t think I needed romance, but then some pretty serious turbulence happened in my life, and the thing that was making me feel like a “CUAO” (to use Rules-speak) was ripped away from me.
And then something weird happened, I got back in touch with someone I hadn’t spoken to in over 25 years, someone I referenced at least once in this blog, stumbled into a powerful connection almost accidentally (but not really accidentally). Shortly after I realized I was getting swept away in feelings for this other person, I ended up telling music&lyrics that he (music&lyrics) has never felt that I’m special and I need to feel special and I didn’t think I was cut out for traditional marriage but didn’t want to blow up our family, but that I needed that in my life and was talking to exes, and … I’m foggy about the couple of conversations we had but it involved discussion of dating apps and exes and seemed to be received fine, with no pushback. He said “I think you’re extraordinary but I don’t *feel* it,” which is something that has been a shadow over our relationship since the beginning, which caused much anxiety and woe in me over the years, but not something that could have realistically been addressed when our kids were small.
It’s been interesting to reread my blog after this happened to me. To notice the things that stuck with me from this time in my life and the things that didn’t. To revisit my self-perception then and compare it to now. To think about the way autism might have been impacting my decisions and perceptions. To look at things I’ve said to my new/old connection - who started out as a 1998 summer fling - about what I thought about myself, my relationships, and him in particular and the ways in which this blog reinforces what I recalled and have told him in response to his recollection of me… and the ways in which this blog throws cold water on that. We’ve been talking about 2010 as a pivot point when he and I could have reconnected, and I told him that would have worked; I was single then. And I mentioned I was doing a dating blog then. I probably shouldn’t have done that; he wanted to see it and I was like, uh not ready for that.
So then I immediately rushed to read everything I wrote here, in view of the (electrifying) conversations I’ve been having with him. I didn’t write about him much but what I did write implies that I knew or intuited that he had had deeper feelings for me at some point. But by 2025 I had forgotten this; the way this relationship had gotten written in my brain is something non serious and that fizzled naturally because neither of us had super strong feelings. Also it seems that by 2010 I had totally forgotten how brazenly I had told him back then of my feelings for him. Apparently I confronted him with a “guess who I like” game where the punchline was “you.”
Wow! That sure wasn’t Rules-y! And he never would have pursued me otherwise. While it’s far from clear what to conclude about anything right now, this guy and I have been talking almost 2 months now and it feels like genuine chemistry and connection (as opposed to limerence, a REALLY useful new word I can’t believe I just learned!). The factors that render it potentially nonviable are all circumstantial. And if I’m honest, they were circumstantial at the time, too, which is something to think about - I was going off to college; he wasn’t Jewish.
For purposes of this blog though, I am now calling BS on the rules … mostly. This person thought about me over the years in the way the Rules describe that you want a guy to think about you… after our original relationship only happened because I straight up pursued him.
I think the Rules are a chemical hack made necessary because true chemistry is SO rare and yet our culture has romanticized it so ubiquitously as to make us all feel worthless if we don’t have it with our partner. In reality I still believe that many, maybe most, people never get to experience natural chemistry (acknowledging there is a spectrum) so if you care about being partnered, you’ll have to do something to compensate, or settle on a non traditional partnership.
One of the most shocking things from reviewing this blog again was seeing myself saying that I wanted kids but I wasn’t willing to settle for them because I wanted the right romantic partner. Then as soon as I stopped blogging, laser focusing on kids is exactly what I did. Wanting kids within the next couple of years, with or without a partner, is what ultimately drove my decisions in 2011-2012 that led me to end up with music&lyrics. So what was I thinking saying otherwise here? Well, I think this spot in my life was uniquely skewed on “the Ex,” which is someone I think I had stayed with too long only because of my phase of life and desire for children. It was important that I challenge that at the time, though I may have meant it temporarily to keep myself single for those six months of my waning fertility from 29.5-30 (I am now almost 45!)
Ten years gone from this blog. 26 years gone from an extremely brief relationship of revitalized significance. Living in the gray.
