mind vs. heart

that is IT! she is locked up and i am done.... all she does is whine and cry when i let her out and i am sick of hearing it... do you know what incessant crying does to someone's brain... it drives you to drastic measures and i have hit my limit. i have crusaded through the wilderness to find the one that she will accept. the one with the dark eyes no light eyes, no burly and strong or was it intelligently geeky.... wait now i'm even more confused... the hunt was great, the gathering easy but the presentation dreadful.

i gagged her so i can't hear her cries, i tied her up so no more shuffling and i locked the door stuffing towels under the door... so sick of that whiney heart wanting something that no matter where i search or who i bring her as a sacrifice to appease her, i just walk away dragging them by the hair with their big eyes looking up at me as if it's my fault that she dismissed them...

i am rational and yet she is emotional and no matter what she says to try to explain to me what she truly needs to make her happy, i bring her the willing participant who places himself at her feet asking but that she touches his cheek and she turns away pointing them and I to the door. THAT BITCH IS CRAZY! she doesn't really know what she wants, either that or she is back to watching romantic comedies, thinking there is some bit of fact in that drivel that kills my rational thoughts each and every time... what am i supposed to do to make her happy and how am i supposed to live when she is so unhappy... I GIVE UP!

~

and i sit here metaphorically gagged and bound in this little room with no windows and a locked door... what am i supposed to do? the one i first choose, tightened his laces and decided to walk in a different direction and no matter how tight i wanted to hold him back, she kept telling me to let him go. she said "if it is right he will return to me" but still his footsteps down my drive linger and are slowly filling with earth as the days add to months and soon to a year.

why can't i be content with the beautiful offerings that she brings me, each one complimentary but the feelings just aren't there... maybe the feelings are gone from everything... maybe if i decide to prick my finger nothing will come out... maybe i have been given the last opportunity at what i wanted and i choose wrong. maybe what was supposed to happen all those nights ago shouldn't have been stopped and what was left of me could have followed the others down the drain while she rose to the heavens.

i don't know what to tell her anymore, i know she worries, i know she cries hearing me in angst, in harm, thriving for touch, striving for love and wanting perfection... well not ideal godly type perfection - just he that is perfect for me. maybe i don't deserve perfection... maybe i only deserve to sit and hope that one day she will deliver my perfection to my doorstop and i will touch his face and he pulls me close to him and gives me that kiss that makes my stomach jump, my heart pump and my toes tingle... what am i supposed to do to make her happy and how am i supposed to live when she is so unhappy... I GIVE UP!

my new dating scene....

I realized that the one thing that I miss most from my relationship was having someone sleep next to me. Its weird the security that having someone next to you derive deep in your spirit and it has been a long time since I have had the constant comfort of someone lying next to me.
Lately I decided to join the dating world again, I placed an ad, I received emails and I found someone that has met my initial criteria as a “catch”. It’s a far different dating world for a woman in her 30s then when I was in my 20s. In my 20s I felt like milk that had just come from the cow’s teat. I had a long shelf life, was fresh and ready for another stage of my journey and could deal with more of a lackadaisical approach to dating. I dated older seemingly more mature men and I was proud of the catches that I found form the bay area dating pool.
Now in my 30s I feel like the discount milk, the stuff that is now 20% off because it’s going to spoil in a few days and will be dumped down the sink or forgotten about in the back of the fridge until chucks forms and the smell hits you in the face the second the refrigerator door opens. I am as close to spent milk as I can possibly be…. AND IT SUCKS.
Why is it that my ex, a man 8 years older than I starts (while we are still together) dating a woman 7 years my junior, decides to move to Vegas and keep her and discard me is living the life while my spoiled milk ass is having the hardest time trying to meet someone that I can just hang out on the couch with and sooner or later get more than a post coital hug and handshake.
I don’t think that I am aging badly; I have taken care of my face, kept it out of the sun and moisturized. I’ve been told I look young, that I’m gorgeous, down-to-earth and blah blah blah but still I have no idea what the best course of action could be. I can’t even figure out what men want these days. Is it sex? Does the girl need a shut mouth and a hot ass? Or are they really looking for more and are just as confused as I am that they keep quiet and go about their day placing ads for “casual encounters” and one night stands from women stumbling or crying as the bartender calls “last call”.
What happened in the last decade? Did dating change that much with the addition of email and cell phones? Are we all screwed to replace real people with fleshy battery operated machinery and non-committal relationships?
Talking to a girlfriend the other day, we realized that we mutually knew someone. She had contacted someone for something casual while I had wanted something heading towards long-term. Being that she and I are very different which I will not go into here, we realized a weird situation. If he really wanted what he discussed with her, would he have been lying to me and in reverse if he was being truthful with me was she going to be a passing persuasion? Which then I get confused all over again… and rightfully so.
People have a tendency to hide who they really are and I’m sorry I just put it all out there. For me there are no rules of dating, just rules of self-respect, trust and truth. I’m not going to fake what I am and I hope you don’t either but if you do the entire process is nothing but a waste of time. I HATE WASTING MY TIME… truthfully I am sure that we all hate wasting our time. It all just makes me want to scream. Fake picture, fake people…. Shit I should invent a portable lie detector to sell to those that can’t seem to seem to decipher standard communication triggers. Even better I should write a book that helps girls better interpret the “he’s just not that into you” crap.
Fuck the movie here is the short of it and the book written by a comedian (YES IT WAS)…men are simple, if you ask them what they are looking for them they will tell you and if you realize that “stiff dick has no conscience” then there is a man. A man that loves you will do anything for you and hopefully you for him but if at any time he makes standard excuses for not spending time with you and makes you feel like less of a person then you MUST run away screaming as he has moved on. And if you did the same you are not better than the guy that did it to you.
Let just call it the vicious cycle of dating… the girl falls for the 1st boy in high school, gives him her virginity and he repays her by breaking her heart. (This is more than likely the reverse) from that broken heart the girl gets upset and treats the next couple of men in her life, men that probably really want to be with her, love her and take care of her like crap… then she breaks his heart and he gets upsets and uses the next girl and the cycle continues on until no one trusts each other anymore. Women bitch about men and vice versa, and worse both of us have become discount milk.
30s the new 20 I hear, you’re only as old as you feel they say… well I say that regardless what medical science has done to make us live longer, my body is aging and the year of birth on my driver’s license hasn’t change so regardless I am the age I am and I am not getting any younger. My metabolism has changed, my menstrual cycle has shortened and I can’t eat the foods I love anymore without having to keep antacids in my medicine drawer. And the older I get the smarter I am supposed to be but really the more cynical that I have become and all I realize is that I seemed to have hit the twilight dating zone, ready for the coloring to change to black and white and some strange voice come looming out of the darkness.
Earlier this year I thought I had a good thing, but those cards were stacked against me and while I still keep in touch with him I have to pull away for my own good from that dynamite filled situation. Back to dating again I’m sitting on the boat with my fishing reel in hand, throwing back the undesirable fish and taking a closer look at the ones that seem the right size. Finding the right fish is such a hard thing and right now I have a couple that I’m taking a closer look at.
When I was in my 20s I was looking for a guy that had a decent outlook on life and a nice car, I know superficial but it worked for me and getting free goodies was always fun. Now I won’t talk a drink from someone that I’m not interested in spending more time with and I won’t give a 2nd date to someone that I don’t feel a spark with. Sparks are important but I’m debating if they are even needed anymore.
Regardless the short of the situation is that I’m confused and no matter how many friends I talk to or how many decisions I make I’m still only getting more confused not less. Am I the only one? I know that answer but I think that is the only answer that I know in regards to this new dating scene. The new dating scene… plan and simple THIS SUCKS.

The New Dance

I think I figured it out, this new dance that I am trying to dance. It’s not like the first dance that I danced, the one that I kept my eyes closed so tight and pulled him so close to me hoping that he would never push me away.

But the truth is that they all push you away, they all open their eyes and stop in the middle of the song to walk away from their dance partner. Some are kind enough to wait until the end of the song, thank their partner for the dance and gently walk off the dance floor. Others step on their partners toes, blame their partner for not knowing the steps or plain walk away in the middle of the song. Either way the partner left on the dance floor reacts in many different ways.

My last dance partner walked out in the middle of the song. Course I didn’t like the song that was playing and was having a problem dancing to it anymore but I was still determined to try to dance the entire song. That is what you do when you say “yes” to the dance; you dance until the song stops. Even if the song isn’t one you like, not every song played on any jukebox is one that you may like but you have patience that a song you like will come on soon. “Soon” you say to yourself, calming yourself down and counting to ten “soon”.

It has been now eighteen months since that dance ended and when my partner walked away from me on the dance floor. After that half dance I admit falling to the floor for some months and the music sounding like a bunch of Charlie Brown’s teachers’ voices in a debate. The muffled noises of the feet of other happy couples dancing around me while I sat on the floor sobbing, trying to catch my breath. The whole thing sucked, truthfully sucked. I knew the song was bad, the rhythm was wrong and that I wasn’t closing my eyes nearly as tight as years before, I knew but I would have thanked my partner for the dance. I would have never let their hands go and just walked away from them. Regardless you just don’t do that to a partner, you don’t.

You would think that getting back on the dance floor would be the first step but really it’s the last. The first step is standing up and being able to walk off the dance floor. This step takes a lot more time than one would think as instinct is really to drag oneself off the dance floor. Dragging does nothing but snags your clothes and hurt your hands so you really need to be able to stand up and walk off. With a walk off you keep a little bit of self dignity which is needed or you will never be able to look yourself in the eyes in a mirror. So standing and walking off the dance floor is key.

The second step is reorganizing yourself which metaphorically means a lot of time in the bathroom. My bathroom was really just one with a big mirror. A mirror that I could look in and try to see myself again, the real me not the one that I had become learning a dance I didn’t want to dance. To a point during the dance I felt like a vampire when it came to my mirror in the bathroom. I was invisible to myself and when you are invisible to yourself how can you look yourself in the eyes. When you look in the mirror you have to know that you look good, psych yourself up, tell yourself all the things you need to hear to be able to fix your face, adjust your clothes and walk out of the bathroom. I think personally this stage is the most personal, the longest and the one most needed. If you can’t look yourself in the mirror, you aren’t happy with who you are.

Third step is walking out the door, as most ‘ladies’ room have couches and nice décor, it can feel like home. But it is not home and while it may feel comfortable the last thing you want to do is consider your bathroom your new home. So opening the door, and getting the hell out of there is a step.

Now you have to make your way back to the dance floor, also known as step four. Step four is different for all; some of us hold walls up, some take a seat at the bar and allow for a little liquid courage and some find a comfortable chair and try to get their moves back in some type of order. Regardless the place you set yourself on the dance floor, the point is that you are there and ready to find a worthy dance partner.

Just like any dance you have all type asks you to dance. You chit chat for a bit, decide whether or not to hit the dance floor and actually dance or say ‘thanks’ for the punch and resume your position. Sometimes you dance one song, sometimes you don’t. It’s all up to you, the song playing and the potential partner extending their hand to you.

I think I met mine, I think… In a weird turn of events I have met someone that I wrote about. Yes while I was sitting, I was doodling my wants for a dance partner from the guys that came by to chit chat. Each one a potential dance partner, but somehow it didn’t work out the way I wanted. Maybe it was me, maybe it was them but regardless not of them men that I wanted to dance with. My napkin was filled with little wants, little hopes and little dreams for a future dance partner and with each potential partner that was a ‘not’ a little more doodling got added to my napkin.

My new potential dance partner is someone that I really want to pull close, follow his lead and close my eyes tight, but I am scared. The last time I wasn’t scared to get on the dance floor, if anything I was optimistic of how many dances were to come and how I would get better and better dancing with him. This time the dance floor scares me so much. Instead of walking on the dance floor hand in hand and placing my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes and letting him lead me across the dance floor…. Instead I walk hand in hand with him and keep my hand on his shoulder, his eyes in my glaze and occasionally look at the floor to make sure that the steps are correct.

It’s not that first dance but it will never be that first dance again because of what the last partner did and I hate that. It was my last partner that ruined me for my next and while you should never compare one partner to the next, it is understandable that we all do. We ALL do. Depending on how we got hurt, or how we hurt, we compare. To quote a friend “we compare or else how do we know when we have better”. This statement I totally understand being an optimist and praying that the ‘best is yet to come’ which only keeps me from crying myself to sleep on some nights…..some nights. But the realist in me has met many more horrible people than I have good, even been on the horrible end myself, I said I was a realist, not a liar!

This guy is different; we seem so alike even in the ‘scared’ department. We have both been hurt and while mine was a long-term heartbreak – his was more a couple of heartbreakers. Either way our first dance is with hands on shoulders and waists, looking into each other’s eyes. Trying to figure out the next move or if we are still scared and want to run off the dance floor. The problem is that I can’t hear the music with him, the music is so quiet that I hear more of my heartbeat and his breathing during our dance. Our pulses are quick and our smiles are bright and we can’t take our eyes off of each other, which I don’t think either of us can figure out. We watch each other, both being kind, both being graceful, both not wanting to leave the dance floor but weary of the slow dance with the heads on shoulders and the eyes closed.

Right now I am okay dancing with him, letting him feel my hands on his shoulders and retaining his gaze. Smiling at him and watching his smile match his eyes back at me. Knowing certain things about him I have never felt more safe, more cared about and more respected but on the other end I worry about leaving the dance floor. I don’t want to leave the dance floor; I want to pull him close, put my head on his shoulder and whisper dreams of the next dance in his ear without him losing his steps and stepping on my toes or dropping my hands and walking away.

I guess since this dance isn’t as idealistic as the first dance I am allowed to be scared, I am allowed to feel a bit of anxiety as each dance slows to the end, but then so can he. At least I have a partner that wants to dance, at least I have a partner that understands my anxiety and at least I am back on the dance floor. Now to get to the point of closing my eyes tight, wrapping my arms around his neck and placing my head on his shoulder. I think we can get there, I hope we can get there and I want to get there but for now this dance is nice, better than my first dance ever could have been and the blue eyes that I gaze into are my safety. The light I see in those eyes gives me hope, allows me to trust and makes me feel cared for more than I have in a very, very long time….. and so we dance. The next song will come and together we will talk it through whether we decide to dance or we decide to leave the floor, my only hope is that we do it together…

Certain realizations coming to light

Here I am, laying on the couch alone, watching a movie that I haven’t seen in years. A movie, that really makes no difference the title or the actors but the scene, that caused me to blubber more than I have in a long, long time. The movie has a scene where the husband is in a coma from a stroke and his wife is sitting and touching his hand. She grabs his hand and places it to her face in a familiar touch that shows her love from him. Even though she moves his hand and smiles because it is possibly the last time.

Recently I realized that I was coming to the end of something. The end of something, that took not a year of my life but ten years of my life. I am now 33 years old and I gave up a decade to someone and walked out of it worse for wear and to a point more broken than I was at 19. At 19 I had someone lie to me and cause my body and mental health serious harm. A person that I totally blocked out what he looked like, what he smelled like and even him name. To a point I don’t remember much about my 19 year old accident but my 24 years old mistake, I will never forget this man.

I realize that he has made me worse for wear because I don’t trust. I mean I trust a bit, I trust that someone isn’t gonna lie to me, but apparently if I answered that way on a personality test that would make me gullible. Well, tell me something that I don’t know. People have always known I was gullible, fuck it, I don’t really care. To a point fool me once, etc., etc., etc… blah blah de blah blah!! I can’t change that, I trust what people say. If I didn’t the negativity would take over my mind and make me like my mother. And while I love my mother I don’t wanna be like her. Queen of the Negative but then when you are the only Sagittarius (Dreamer/Optimist) in the family encompassed by Virgos, Scorpios and Capricorns, well you’re fucked, FUCKED I tell you!

But I try to keep my head up, I always have. My family is my family but my friends are worth more to me, especially my brother. Never knew that I would have someone that I connected with so well. And this isn’t a connection that is bombarded by any of that silly LOVE stuff. That silly LOVE stuff confuses more than anything but regardless is the topic that I will get back to in this blog after I finish this tangent. My brother has no blood connection to me, but the mental connection that we have is freaky. We think alike, we calm each other down, we are each other’s cheerleader when we need and more often than not each other’s shrink. Regardless I will be holding this man’s hand when we are in our last breathes because as his children have adopted me, I consider him blood.

My brother is the reason that my dumb ass is still alive. You may laugh and chuckle but truthfully with the SHIT that I dealt with last year and the year before, I am really surprised that I am here. When I was feeling as down in the dirt as I was there was two people that picked me back up. My brother was physically there, taking me out, inviting me along and making me laugh so hard that my sides hurt for days. I couldn’t thank him enough and will be there for him for the rest of our lives. The other was a sister that I still haven’t met, a woman of great strength and unsurpassed wisdom, an old soul. I miss her and really should give her a call soon for I have slacked on my friend duties with her.

Now back to the main reason for this blog. I sit watching this scene, the last in the movie. Explaining the great love between the man and this woman that he has loved since the moment that he saw her and I began to think. Is love at first site still possible at my age? Not that I am in old age, but I am not young either. My ideals have grown and matured in some ways but have been dwarfed in others. Love is a very foreign thing to me. It has been a while since I asked someone to spend the night and see me in all my *cough cough* natural beauty in the morning. It has been longer since I actually cared to do things for someone that weren’t in a bit selfishly motivated. But truthfully I am just absolutely completely scared of the whole thing.

Not that I need to describe love as anything fanciful. I mean it was so much more that when I was young, ideal to a point. But now with the things I have learned and the things that have learned me, love is well….. I don’t know how to describe it. To a point love is like money, when you have it you don’t fully appreciate it – thinking that it will always be there and when you don’t have it - it’s all you think about. Like a lot of other things I am playing on the love teeter-totter. When I decide to go up and perhaps try to think about a person or a relationship or a maybe situation and then its comes back down and I shake my head at the whole stupid silly fanciful goofy funny LOVE thing.

The teeter-totter sucks! Plain and simple, I don’t like playing the game with others let alone with myself. My mind is in a contact ebb and flow with the funny LOVE stuff. I keep asking questions of myself: Am I ready? Has it been long enough? Will I find another like the last? What do I want from a relationship? When is the right timeline? Is there a timeline? What are the rules? Are there rules? Isn’t it better to be myself or am I supposed to follow the rules? And those are just a few of the questions I am asking myself, worse so are the ones that I think about when I actually am getting to know someone….

When you can’t figure yourself out and then you try to get to know someone else the questions get worse, so so much worse. I don’t even want to go through them but the basics are how one shows themselves off. We all try to portray ourselves in the best light. We tell people what we feel comfortable with. I am not yet divorced, technically haven’t even filed but I am close. Stupid state and county guidelines are the only thing holding me back right now. I explain who I am as who I want to be… height, hair color, eye color, style, likes and dislikes, body shape etc, etc, etc.

You get from the other person what they want to tell you. The problem is when the story doesn’t match up or worse when you see the whole thing like a murder mystery. I think personally it is my conspiracy driven over thinking mind. But then I was lied to for the past decade by more people than I can count on my fingers and my toes. Yup, definitely sucks to be me, but truthfully I am getting over it. Gotta just count your blessings that you have what’s left of your mind and can recoup to a mild version of your former self. Hopefully a better version from the worse version that I was but it’s all a process of time and re-evaluation.

And in the re-evaluation process I realize that I really want someone to protect and be protected by, I want that partner, the one that we can make special little gestures to that only you and he know. The one that comes up behind you and before they touch you, you know its them because of their smell, step and sense. I think I may have found one, but more scared than not I tread lightly. I slowly try to interrupt the signs that he gives me and that I give him but the connection is undeniable.

I admit that I look at each situation with a much more defining eye than when I was younger. When I was younger most of us had little baggage, enough to carry on the plane of love; simple, small and very well organized. Nowadays a decade or so later, we can barely carry our baggage with a car let alone a truck. We size people up and figure out if what they are showing is what we like or not, what we can deal with or not and what we can see in our lives for the short, medium and possibly long haul. Each one of us has certain attractions, certain requirements, certain wants and needs, and certain “hell no” circumstances. We have no time to smell the roses let alone truly get to know someone. We do everything online so much so that if it takes more than a second to load a page we are bitching at our keyboards and computer screens.

Life has become so fast paced that we even meet people online. We can have whole conversations with someone in another country and never meet them but we can’t venture out our front doors to meet someone that we wanna have an actual relationship. I know why I do it, online I have control, mild but still control. I found the newest one online or technically he found me. My worry is his own heart, his own mind and his own readiness. After one year of reconfiguring myself after my break-up with my husband and kicking his dumb ass out of my heart let alone my house. I know that will all of the experiences that I went through last year that I ready to actually focus on finding that one, being ready for that one, or as ready as I can be now. I am ready, the question is “is he”?

What is REALLY the next step now?

It’s that “ut oh” feeling that just sucks. The “what the hell did I do” and “can I fix it” that starts swimming through my head. I don’t care what anyone else says but I feel like a little kid. I feel like my hand has just been spanked and somehow that makes me feel scared and stupid all at the same time.

It was different when I was younger. I admit that. The whole thing was different and it seemed so much easier. To a point I had nothing to lose when I was younger. I had NOTHING to lose because I had so much to gain from any situation. But now after one try and monumental failure in my book, I feel like perhaps it isn’t worth the try. Not because the end result it isn’t worth it but because perhaps I am not ready to try.

My monumental failure wasn’t my fault. When you truly don’t know the person you committed yourself to and they do nothing but lie to you, how exactly do you do the right thing? You do the thing you THINK is right based on what you heard them say. And yes I said what “you heard” them say. Life is all about our interpretation of another person’s words. That is what makes the game ‘telephone’ so funny when we are kids but the same is true. I heard him/her say this and the more you repeat it the more it gets distorted. The more warped it becomes and the more emotional some, yes SOME of us get through the entire situation.

I realized this after I had a conversation with my ex the other day. I have realized I have grown past my last relationship. As much as it has damaged me in certain areas of trust and future outlook, I have grown past it. I made a bad decision by pursuing him in a relationship. I made a bad choice for my first husband in more ways than one. I looked at him as forever and he never returned that look. But then I don’t start a relationship saying to myself that this relationship is going to be (fill in the blank). That this relationship is going to last (so long) or will be a (this type of) relationship or that I will (or will not) get bored. I just don’t and if you are a person that does, sorry but SHAME ON YOU.

When I was searching for my partner in life that is exactly what I wanted. I wanted someone that saw me for who I am and wanted me for just that. My attributes and my faults is what make up me. To change or alter any one of them and I lose who I am. And truthfully that is what happened with my last relationship. Looking back, it has been just under two years since I stop wearing my wedding ring. I stopped wearing it because I felt my relationship was over. I cried and I tried to discuss what I was feeling with my spouse, but like every other situation where I was sad or depressed he walked away from me. That created a change to my list.

My list is pretty simple. I don’t care about what someone looks like, how much money someone makes or what they do. Don’t get me wrong, a mild change to any of these can create a more than mild change in your life but truthfully I was looking for a foundation to grow on. A foundation to build on and I needed a sturdy one more than a glamorous house on a shitty foundation. Blame my step-father in construction for the building/house analogies.

My list started out with things like smarts, attraction, wit, sense of humor, outlook on life, family dynamic, sexual attraction and wants in a partner. I realized that certain things were more important than others. I used to ask a guy three questions when I met them at a bar and yes most of them got met at a bar. I would ask three funny questions to them but for me they described a man’s own drive. It was what they did, what they drove and where they lived. You would be surprised what these three things tell about a person.

At the time, I lived on my own with roommates, I worked a decent job and owned a car that got me from point A to point B. I expected that of someone that I dated. I expected that if they were a certain age that they could drive to a date or a weekend away. I expected that they could pay their bills because I paid mine. I expected that they were old enough to not live with their parents any longer. Basically that they were in the process of becoming an adult and life is just that a process. We all partied when we were younger, we all drank a little too much, didn’t remember what we did the night before or woke up somewhere we didn’t remember getting to. We all have and if you haven’t well then you haven’t truly lived and you will be upset with yourself when you are old and gray.

You would think I was happier with the guy that said he owned his place; drove an expensive car and had a fabulous job but actually that scared me. I was nowhere near ready for a man like that when I was in the fundamental stages of becoming me, truly figuring out what I wanted and what I needed for my life to be happy. The guys that I was attracted to were the ones that lived on their own with roommates and drove a decent car and had a decent job.

Guys that were like me and guys that were in the same process that I was. I wanted similarities, things to talk about, things in common but things that were different. I didn’t want them to be exactly like me, I wanted a different outlook on life, a different way to deal with conflicts and a different way to spend time. Then if it worked in time they met the parents. It’s scary how few ever met or spent time with either my parents or family. I think to this day there have only been enough to count on one hand. It’s because my family is the last step in the process and they are the ones that want me most happy.

My friends are the over critical ones, they will rip up and down a new person in my life. My friends know more about my relationship or lack thereof with my ex. My friends are my protectors and know who I am and what I may be overlooking with a potential partner. They are also the ones that I confide in to make sure I don’t screw up. Go too far and hurt someone or worse put myself in harm’s way. My best friends are more like siblings and they know who they are. They truly want me happy and will protect me through thick and thin after what I let myself go through in the past. We have all laughed and cried together, we have talked about what could, may and will happen. Some have been friends for decades and some are relatively new to my life but the care I feel for them is equal to the care they feel for me and I am blessed to have them in my life.

I love my parents but they gave my hand to a man whose concern was not to protect me. My ex’s concern was always himself, to protect himself and to do what he wanted. I know this because even his friends have said that they were “sorry”. They are sorry that they didn’t know what was going on, couldn’t help more, even to a point of sorry for the introduction in the first place. I appreciate their apologies but it wasn’t their fault. Each of them wanted my happiness and to them I seemed happy. I myself thought I was happy, I thought it was going to work out, I thought we would be together until the end of our lives… this was and is not the case.

Because of this last relationship, I am protecting myself as well as trying to get myself back. For this I have added to my list and have gotten more protective of my heart, not less. I have made the decision that I prefer to be alone and happy than give everything to someone that isn’t willing to give anything to me. And although my trust will be given in waves of varying heights, I will give it. I will put myself out there and try to find someone right for me. My list has expanded to include the following:
• Never give more than is being given to you, this may take longer to figure out than you realize but don’t NOT give of yourself to someone either.
• Never be jealous, it is insecurity in disguise.
• Never say something that requires an instant apology.
• Never walk away from someone you love that is hurting. Even if you don’t know what to say to them to bring them back out of their sadness, walking away shows lack of care.
• Always show care.
• Always look someone in the eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul and by not looking you may miss something that you need to know or feel from them.
• Always give what you want given in return. If you don’t show someone what you want, how will they know you want it.
• Never take the first step with someone you aren’t willing to walk a mile with.
• Never get instantly mad, it will cause more harm than good. Take a moment, count to ten and don’t come out with your boxing gloves on, it will just lead to bruises and other pains.
• Always listen to both sides of the story, if you are open to the whole story your relationship will be better in the short and the long run.
• Be protective, be caring and be willing to try, if you aren’t you shouldn’t be dating, in a relationship or otherwise.
• Don’t close your eyes to any possibility. Closing your eyes does just that both physically and metaphorically.
• Ask questions and don’t interpret someone as you may be wrong of their intentions.
• Take care with another’s hearts it is no less important than your own.
• Accept a person for who they are, what they have and where they are going with their life. People are not clay and it is not our job to mold them into something that we want.
• Look for the good things in the relationship, keeping positive is not stupid but looking for the negative will bring just that into it.

I realized through all of the hurt that my last relationship caused to myself, my heart, my family, my friends and my soul that without that I wouldn’t be where I am. As much as it will not get any better, that it is over and that I have not been deterred in the process but that my eyes are more open to the possibility of finding a right person for me. To find someone that will take my hand in theirs with gentle care and in the long run do the same with my heart.

Yes, I am scared but I am not hiding anymore, for I will not gain anything from hiding. Yes, I will put my true self out there. Yes, I will not play games. Yes, I will be me for I like me and if someone doesn’t like me then they don’t deserve me. As much as I have used this quote in the past, it is from a woman that lived her life and even with her sad death is still idolized for her smile. “I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes. I'm out of control and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.” — Marilyn Monroe. Regardless I now know I am ready.