Sorry everyone for this long hiatus. My muse did take a cruise around the world and life has been busy. I’ve been struggling with relationship ending, parenthood and health concerns. I have to take a BIG exam to get my final license and I am going to try to use getting to write as my reward for studying. Thanks to all who have stuck by me and I hope I will become a more consistent “poster”. I am on medical leave for the next week, so I will try to get a few postings done.
Meeting ExpectationsPart 74
Quote:
“I am not ready to have sex.” Tara exclaimed and burst into tears.
Ok Rosenberg, take a deep breath and try to focus so you can come up with a “good” comment. She seems really upset, our head is still buzzing from the reaction to the “we’ve got to talk” and our mouth is going on auto pilot…don’t go on instinct, think what is the appropriate thing to say, what is she expecting me to say? Does she think I want to have sex right now? Does she think this is a deal breaker? Why is she so upset? Did I do or say something that made her feel like I was pressuring her to have sex? She’s the one who started this kissing…Did I do something rude? I think I kept my hands ‘in an appropriate place?’ Shit,. Is she done? She asked me not to say anything until she was done? Should I ask if she is done? Is it obvious she is done? She stopped talking… Willow looked at Tara expectantly.
“Ok.”
“What do you mean ‘ok’”
Willow shrugged her shoulders. She knew that a lot could be weighing on what she said.
“Ok, if you are not ready to have sex, then we won’t have sex. I wouldn’t want to do it until you were ready. We won’t do anything until we are both ready….Did it seem I was pressuring you?”
“No…”
“You don’t sound sure of yourself? I was pressuring you, wasn’t I? I am sorry. “
Tara moved toward Willow again. “You were not pressuring me at all. If anyone was pressuring me it was me. This is all so confusing…”
“How can you be pressuring yourself?” asked Willow.
Tara blushed, “Do I really have to spell that out?”
Immediately it hit Willow. She was not the only one who probably had an active imagination about what would happen when they saw each other again. “Oh….” She winced, “sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about? I know often your mouth works faster than your brain.”
“I wish” Willow blurted out. Willow’s mind flew into a thought that was totally inappropriate for the situation
Get your head out of the gutter “Huh?” asked Tara and then her brain caught up as well. She began to laugh. “Ok, so maybe the first order of business is admitting that we’ve both had a lot of spare time to think about what it would be like to see each other.”
“Yup.”
“But reality is different than fantasy…”
“Yup.”
“So you have any idea how to bridge the two?”
“Nope. You?”
“Nope.”
“Well, what would we have done if I didn’t live with Joyce? But you had found me?”
“I guess depending on where you lived, I would have tried to figure out a way to see you.”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about that.”
“Then I guess I would have come to visit you or had you come here to visit”
“What if you found out that we lived near each other?”
“I guess I would have asked you to meet me for coffee or something.”
“So you would have asked me out on a date?”
“I guess.”
“That’s how I would have figured it too. I probably would have wanted to get to know you again.”
“Sort of starting from scratch?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“I guess we can try to do that…” said Willow, but inside she was thinking that it would be like taking steps backward instead of forward.
“That would be weird now. It would be like taking steps backward instead of forward.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
There was silence again.
“Maybe it would help if we both agreed where we are?” said Tara.
“We are in your apartment...oh, not literally. Ok. Where do you feel like we are?”
“Shit this communication thing is hard.”
“Uh huh. “ Willow bit her lip and tried to think about some of the lessons she had had in treatment. She remembered an activity in which she’d had to do with a roommate to come up with agreements about the room rules.
It’s worth a shot “I know it might sound stupid, but we could each write down some things that we want or some rules or parameters that we want and then we could trade them. Makes it easier than saying them…but we have to react honestly to what the other person writes and try to not get upset….”
“I think I could do that… How about we both do that tonight and tomorrow, we can talk about it.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Willow looked at her watch, “well, I said I’d be home for dinner with Joyce. So I guess I’d better get going.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“Can’t wait.”
“Me either.” Willow hugged Tara good bye and went down the stairs.