Hood River, Oregon
Whooo, this is not an easy blog to write. The problem with blogging and putting my life up for public scrutiny is that when my life took an unexpected turn last week there was inevitably going to be a lot of curiosity about what was really going on. I, meanwhile, was trying to soothe wounded feelings and going public did not seem the right thing to do while the wounds were so fresh.
I am still struggling to find the best way to give just the right amount of information to satisfy curiosity, while not saying so much that I rub salt into possibly still-smarting wounds.
Here goes.
One of my faults (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this) is that I see what I want to see and believe what I want to believe. I tend to screen out what does not fit conveniently with my world view. I am working on becoming more objective, but I still make mistakes – especially when it comes to men.
So while my correspondence with Steve appeared to ME to be an exciting and fun correspondence with a future friend and collaborator, I can see in retrospect how my friendliness could have been misconstrued as a possible invitation to a deeper relationship. This is certainly how Steve saw it.
So we came into the relationship with two rather different sets of expectations. We both expected to be close friends and collaborators on adventure technology, but Steve thought we would make great partners on every level, while I was not looking for a boyfriend/girlfriend kind of relationship at all. I was perfectly happy with my single status. It kept life nice and simple, leaving me free to focus on my next ocean row.
Life has got a great sense of humour. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out…
I will give you the next episode in the story tomorrow.
[Photo: me in the Columbia Gorge last week, when life seemed less complicated]