First Dates!

Well, I have begun dating for the third time, and it's not like riding a bike!

EARLY 1960'S:
I remember when I was a teenager and had my first date.  I was so curious about the wonder of it all.  (I should add young and thin and unwrinkled too!)  It was fun and exciting.  I spent days wondering what to wear.  The "date" day arrived and butterflies filled my stomach.  Waiting for the doorbell to ring, I wondered how my mother and father would act.  Were they going to embarrass me?  Yes, I survived all that and much more.  WOW, the lessons I learned.  My father had always told me to call if I ever felt I was in a bad situation.  He said he would come and get me where ever I was.  I did that one time.  At a party, it appeared I was the only one not drinking beer.  I found the phone in the home (pre-cell phone) and called Dad.  He came right away, and I never had a date with that young man again.  Dad thanked me for calling him.  I'll never forget that.  

MID 1970'S:
After a failed marriage (not sure exactly what failed but it's safe to say "it" did), I was the mother of two precious little girls.  I was working several part-time jobs and loved them all.  I began to receive invitations from MEN to go out to dinner or a movie or dancing.  I found it interesting that some men seemed to think a divorced woman's morals might have been left behind with the marriage contract.  Oh how I loved to disappoint them.  There were a few wonderful gentlemen who's company I certainly enjoyed.  HC Baker was one of them, and we all know how that ended!

LATE 2013:
I am blessed with wonderful friends both female and male.  And I enjoy being with all of them in casual and elegant situations.  But there's something about being asked to dinner by one man knowing it will be just the two of you that made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up!!!!!  OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!!  And those feelings are compounded 1000 times when this is a man (one of those wonderful gentlemen from years ago) you haven't seen in over 35 years!  I did spend the "morning of" searching the web for a diet guaranteed to relieve me of 50 pounds in one day!  You'd think with all the diets out there, one could have filled my request!  To no avail!  So off I went.  I told the gentleman I would meet him as opposed to him picking me up.  I wanted to have some kind of control since everything else about me was so out of control!  He hadn't changed one bit (dammit!) and I knew him immediately.  There was an embrace and a kiss on my cheek!  I had forgotten what it felt like to have a man's arms around me.  The dinner was delicious, the conversation entertaining, and the evening was delightful.  I survived and now my next date will not be a "first date"!  Be still my heart!

Put your arms around someone you love right now.  xxoo