More than a toe in-dichotomies

From dictionary.com
di·chot·o·my    /daɪˈkɒtəmi/ Show Spelled[dahy-kot-uh-mee] Show IPA –noun, plural -mies.
1.
division into two parts, kinds, etc.; subdivision into halves or pairs.
2.
division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups: a dichotomy between thought and action.

I am reaching out to DATE now. Frankly I have not dated really since college! I sort of "fell into" the relationships I've had in the past 40 years. Dating is a really frightening yet compelling concept.
I am the kind of person that goes into any situation with a pot load of "what ifs". I really look at what results and consequences of what I'm doing could be. And I tend strongly to the optimistic yet have a pretty good dose of healthy scepticism.
I look at the almost 28 years that JD and I had to get used to, adapt to, each others faults and foibles and ways of doing things then I add my year of "doing it my way", realize that if this potential with R and maybe with C works out that I'll have to do it all over again. It is attractive and yet repelling at the same time.
Well do I realize I have habits and such that could be seriously irritating. Some of them irritated JD to no end! And the same will be true of any new man in my life. Will we be able to overcome?
One thing is my life schedule, or lack thereof. I get up when I want (or when the puppy demands!), go to bed at whatever hour, dress or don't dress, go or don't go where ever, eat, read, cook or don't cook, work or don't work, clean or don't clean all on my own impulse now with no other major input. This cannot remain the same if I'm in a committed relationship.
Even my feelings about myself are a dichotomy. I recognize that I am warm, giving, loving, tender, funny, thoughtful, not too unattractive for my age, generally healthy, interested, talented and somewhat skilled and very outgoing. At the same time I can be selfish, lazy at times, not a good housekeeper, very bad at keeping a regular schedule, moany and groany when my back hurts, somewhat impaired from doing a lot of things because of prior injuries, opinionated, sometimes over-talkative, sometimes withdrawn into myself and often think I'm getting ugly. I am a living, breathing dichotomy.
I know that if the sparks fly when we meet next month-only about three weeks from now, I will have to face the fact that I will have to leave the home JD and I made together and I've been making mine for a year now. I love my home. And yet, and yet... I have loved places before and still been very happy in the next. THANK goodness neither R nor C live in town.
I am accepting no more flirts on the senior dating site. One super good possible mate and one I don't feel I know as well yet are on the horizon. I do not want to even think about dealing with more than that right now. In fact I really didn't want to like C since R is so funny, understanding and so far seems to be a really good match. Odd that I've always thought I liked tall men but have never loved one. I seem to fall in love with the ones closer to my own height which is not considerable at all.
With R I think we could be as active as we feel like with no daily requirement of high amounts of expended energy. There are times when I want and need to be very active but I hate being required to be very active. It quits being fun.
After only a few days of emails and lots of pictures I feel I'm beginning to know him. We'll talk on the phone today and see if that comfort remains. Then we'll meet in mid-Dec and see if it holds in person. I have a strange premonition I've met "the one". Trying hard to hold on to my objectivity and not hope too much.
If anyone had told me five years ago that I would lose JD and be ready for a new relationship in just over a year I'd have told them they were out of their minds. I miss JD and all he was and wasn't. We had developed something I though I'd live with all my days. But that wasn't to be.
I KNOW that a new relationship will be different. None are alike in toto. There will be things that weren't 100% with JD that will be there. There will be things that were wonderful with JD that won't be there. It will be new. We will have to really work together to make it grow. At least we have that experience behind us-and R far more than C. I think C may be looking for more than a woman can give, in his emotions if not in his heart and mind.
Regardless of what the music says none of us truly "completes" another. We have to each be complete and complement one another. You make yourselves into a new "whole" that is larger than either of you alone.
I have decided that I will keep my home either as a place for the kids to stay while they make their own more habitable or as a vacation place "home away from home". I do not plan to remarry either because I want to keep my income as a survivor. I never again want to live on anyone else's dime. I earned my survivor benefits by keeping JD alive that additional 17 years! And my own SS benefits are so pitiful because many of my "working" years were spent taking care of someone else instead of earning money. I'm not complaining about that. Would not do it differently if I could!
So being in limbo I cannot make firm decisions but I CAN make conditional decisions and I'm doing it. But it is a lot frightening and very exciting. New beginnings always are...