Missed anniversaries.

In an effort to gather thoughts and experiences so that I would have blog fodder (I'm assuming my fellow blogettes (AHEM) are doing the same...) I completely missed the one year anniversary of PWM.

Oh how far we've come. Or at least how far I've come.

In a little over a month, I will be celebrating the anniversary of my first (of only two) online dates. Before that, as you know, my dating prospects had been brought to me by family, friends and my place of work. The internet did not bode any better, but I stuck it out through six long months of membership.

In this past year, perhaps among the most eventful of my life, so much has transpired. I signed up for online dating, despite my extreme vehemence to do so. I exchanged emails and winks and flirty banter with strangers. I went on two dates and accepted the fact that email personalities and real life ones are often drastically different. I mastered the art of e-flirting. I helped coordinate awesome sounding dates that never came to be and accepted that, sometimes, people just fall off the face of the earth. And that's okay.

I started a dating blog, which isn't as anonymous as I first anticipated it to be. I defended myself against commenters who knew not me nor my situation but still felt the need to comment on my life. I re-entered the real life dating world, albeit with a former participant. I dated. I learned to let people in. I learned how to deal when those who were let in decided they wanted out. And how to accept them back into my life.

I learned how to communicate better, with friends and beaus. I learned how to sit back and enjoy things for what they were. I tried to learn how to not overanalyze and not try to extract meaning from every word and deed. I learned that it is very easy to convince yourself you are in a good and healthy relationship but it takes actually being in one to grasp the fact that, all those other times, you were deluding yourself.

I learned when it was appropriate to share the goings on in my love life and when it was better to keep things to myself. I learned that true friends love you no matter what and will support you through most of your tribulations but oftentimes have a harder time forgiving and forgetting than you do--but that, eventually, they will come around.

I learned and fully understand that relationships take work--a lot of it--and those who say they don't or they shouldn't are fooling themselves. But I also learned that the work you put in, when it pays off, is worth all the trouble and heartache it took you to get to that point.

Happy belated anniversary, PWM.