Chess

This YOW has really been a Year for Me. I am well pleased with it thus far. My DH and I had an awful marriage. I tried and I tried for five years to make it work. It never worked it got worse, even though I got better. It was like this constant weight weighing me down, I felt like all my spiritual energy was constantly going to the marriage. This year I have learned to fly, I never flew with my husband. This year I'm soaring. Even though to outward eyes this is a straining and difficult time I am having a excellent year. I have realized that I sing and write songs and play guitar. I have realized how much love I can receive and give from and to my friends. I have realized the support of the Baha'i Community around me. I have realized the depth of my male friendships. I have gotten to know communication patterns.
It is still a little scary, being alone. The scary part, or the part I am still working on is managing myself and my own emotions and thoughts and setting boundaries for myself. It will get easier in time.
As for Boy, I realize that firstly, any evaluation of his feeling towards me or mine towards him is vastly premature. A YOW cannot present an accurate representation of a potential romantic dynamic. Secondly, I realize that he may not be interested in exploring what it is between us. I am. He may not be. And that has very little to do with me, actually, it's more to do with where he is at and his willingness to take risks and be in a relationship, what his current priorities are. I am in a different place, I am willing to take risks and be in a relationship.
I am relationship oriented. The thing that I need to look out for is putting too much of my emotion into the relationship before it calls for it. It has to be mutual, like a chess game. White makes a move, then black, then white, then black. It can't be just white or just black making 90% of the moves, which is what it was like with my husband and what it sort of had been like with Boy, even though there's nothing really going on.