Ruined?

While most of you that will read this are family and close friends, and it will be in your nature to disagree with what I write next, I just have somethings I need to get off my chest.

Sunday, when I went to Ward Prayer, I was successful in hugging several people. Girls don't seem to pose as much of a problem as guys. But I did in fact hug four guys. Why is this important? Well, for the normal person, it really wouldn't be, but as side from two of the three dates that I have been on in the past three years which ended in the obligatory hug goodnight, I have not hugged much of anyone except for family. So for me, this is a landmark. The truly sad thing is that I never used to be this way before getting married.

At dinner tonight with friends, I made a comment that I was not concerned with teasing because I was tough. This comment was made to guy friends of mine, who promptly replied that I was. This conversation, coupled with my unusual count of hugs and the fact that on the 29th of this month, it will mark the third anniversary of my officially being divorced, I had to stop to ponder...Is there a possibility that I have been ruined to the point that there is no going back?

Clearly, nothing will get me back to the girl that I was before and granted not all this hard exterior developed from my marriage, but I am not sure that I will ever get back that flirty-girly way that is so attractive to the opposite sex. Truth me told, at the current moment in my life, I don't have a whole lot of use for a guy (aside from the lovey stuff).  I open my own door, put my own furniture together, open my own bottles...I just don't do the damsel in distress very good anymore.

So why am I so tough? I have to ask myself. At this point there isn't really a whole lot someone could say to me or about me that I would really take harm to (or not that they would see), but that is because I have become so tough. I have had more fights and more tough times than most of the people around me would ever guess at. I have had to rebuild what confidence I have from scratch. I have had to face a parent, look him in the eye, and tell him I want nothing more to do with them, because they are toxic for my own personal well being. I have given up everything I had and once loved to follow the path I knew I should be on and to hopefully believe that one day I would meet someone who didn't treat me like I could do no right. Someone who didn't make me feel like I was a horrible person and extremely overweight, because he himself was so underweight. Granted most of these sound like excuses, but in reality they are the battles I have had to fight on the outside and inside to get to the level of sanity I have reached at this point. Each was a very necessary step to take.

So if I made all those changes, why haven't I made more progress? And the answer, I believe as I examine it more, is that I no longer have the vulnerable allure that most girls, now mostly younger than I, have and flaunt which causes some guys to feel the need to protect them. Being the bigger girl out of most, both in size and height, and having once been expected to pull as much weight as the man of the house, I don't have that "protect me" thing going on anymore. Oh sure, I have tried to learn how to do it again. Learn how to shamelessly flirt in the most annoying ways, which I cannot understand for the life WHY guys like it, but it sounds so fake coming out of me, that I can't keep it up. The games that were a pain when I was younger, are still a pain now, only more difficult due to age and experience.

I don't really have a point, just miscellaneous ponderings as I approach my auspicious anniversary. 

It has been six years since I have really lived the singles life. Sure experience has taught me more of what I am looking for: someone who wants to grow up and move on with life, who will hold my hand and show me some form of affection, who will not make me feel like goliath, who can attend the temple with me and has his own testimony, who will support the family so that we can have a family...just to name a few. But have the experiences I have had and the effects they have had on me ruined me to the point as to make me unsuitable?

Possibly...

So what do I do with the rest of the inside that no one else sees?