Wondering what it's all about...

My journey continues to evolve and I continue to be fairly astounded by how I seem to imagine/wish for/visualize...things into existence. Whatever you want to call it...it is interesting, cool, amazing, and a little intimidating as I have realized that we really can manifest just about any life situation we want if we don't get too specific. I mean, I can't seem to visualize Jeff Bridges or Javier Bardem into my life...but the experiences I want, adventures I want, freedom I crave, family I need...all seem to have come into existence in my life, and considering my upbringing,that feels especially spectacular to me...

So it has me thinking, wondering even...can I bring the love I want into my life? You know...the right kind...the good kind...the healthy kind...the reciprocal kind...the honest kind...the faithful kind, the "kind" kind....plus passion and understanding and shared learning with a dash of forgiveness every once in a while? Are you reading this and saying DREAM ON M!? Yeah, well maybe...but gosh I really hope it isn't just a pipe dream.

I have to believe and hope that the life I've lived and the lessons I have learned along with the losses I've experienced have prepared me and made me ready to receive and find the right kind of love. I think so many people settle for what they have or what they think everyone else expects of them and I can speak with some experience here... I don't want to settle ever again. I fully understand this may mean I am in for a lot of heartbreak, disappointment or aloneness.

That is the interesting and actually great and freeing thing. I am willing, nay, insistent upon living out my life sans relationship if it means the wrong kind. But I still have the belief in the right kind...

And with regard to my inability to make the right choices in some earlier relationships? I would like to believe and daresay I do believe that I have done some decent evolving and can imagine a future where I am in a happy and healthy relationship sustained by love and intimacy and mutual trust and if fights are necessary, then fighting the right way.

Since my divorce, I've been up and down the entire spectrum of emotions and back many times. And though I've formed no relationships of any tenure, I have foraged around a little to see what is out there and learned a few important things.

First....if it doesn't sing, I'm out. An old friend (thank you Mr. Miller) tried to teach me this long ago but though I saw the wisdom in the lesson, I didn't heed it. Not always. Not as I should have. I've gotten caught up for decades literally in trying to do what others expected of me instead of doing what I needed and wanted. And that lack of untrueness to myself led to three, count them THREE marriages didn't work out. You know what the common denominator in those marriages was? Me. Yes, me. I know...you have already figured this out and were wondering if I had figured it out.

I had. I did. I knew. I know. So what I had to do with that was come to terms with it, understand it, figure out where the mistakes were made and forgive myself. And I did. And I do. I made some unwise decisions. They weren't bad men, just not right for me. I chose people in situations where we felt that marriage must be the next step. I think that I have figured out some of why. This may come as no surprise to some of you and may frighten others ...but, basically I am a deep and intense person. And my own biological family examples weren't exemplary and so I've tried to recreate what I didn't grow up with.

Typical? Textbook? Probably...but it makes sense and the big epiphany is that I don't feel that need anymore. To choose what others expect of me. I finally feel like I am living the life I imagined myself living when I was just a teenager and young college student....and that sends me into many different metaphysical and wistful, dreamy places of hope.

And the real beauty of it all, this whole scenario? It isn't far fetched. It isn't impossible. It isn't sitting waiting for me on then corner, but it is very real and very possible and is what I want. And I'm so delighted to discover that I am not jaded after all this and I do still believe. Yay me!

So my foray into dating since the divorce has taken me to Raleigh, to kuwait (not for romance and none explored nor found there, except the over the Internet kind...), then to Arkansas...to the Hamptons to Ft. Lauderdale, locally and back.

The outcome? Let's see, one friendship that is best as a friendship but growing and that is nice, really... Another an intellectual dance that played itself out exactly as expected and reality made someone with closer proximity a more attractive prospect for him, making him not right for me...yet another, a scenario of two friends who really liked each other before and who now face awkward family situations because we should have stayed friends. And never were more than that. So i believe that will evolve properly in the years to come to the less awkward friend state. Another was an interesting guy who doesn't work and lives on a sailboat and while charming and very intelligent is misogynistic and bigoted. No deal. I like to think he was sent by the universe to test my "put up with bullshit" factor and I learned that my gut gave me the answers, I heard them, I listened, I gave a second chance in the spirit of everyone deserves that second chance...I was able to recognize that my gut was right and it was OK to walk away. Without guilt. That was a nice breakthrough. Very.

This is important, because in the past, I have not felt that. I mean, I have stuck around with people because I didn't want to let them down, or fail or disappoint, etc even to my own detriment. As a new friend recently described his own split from a spouse "I got tired of twisting and contorting myself into different shapes to try to be what they wanted". That's a rough paraphrase, but it sums it up nicely.

So, now, I'm not interested in what other people think...only in what I and my love interest, whomever that turns out to be...want, need, desire, decide.

And I want, need, desire love, of course. And Passion, trust, transparency, respect, conversation, intellectual exchange and attraction, excitement and positivity about the world and people, patience for each other...with each other...the ability to forgive and communicate. These are all primary.

I've also learned a few lessons and hard truths about myself over the years....I only have a few real deal breakers or things I can't get past. (I mean besides the serial killer or rapist instinct, ritual sacrifices, animal cruelty...etc. ) ... Those deal breakers for me are dishonesty or hiding things, smoking, misogyny, bigotry, general bad disposition...you know, because these things to me are a choice and you either know that or don't and subscribe to it or don't and it matters. (I don't mind the occasional cigar, just not cigarettes. Yuck.)

Now, first, let me clarify...I don't want to know everything about ANYONE...especially past stuff. But in the here and now...I want what he tells me to be true and real. I don't want him to feel the need to deliberately hide or say anything untrue. That doesn't mean I need to know if he is fantasizing about Kim Basinger when we make love...hell, I may be fantasizing about her too, I just mean I don't want him to tell me something out loud that isn't true or
to fabricate an experience. I mean what I say and I do what I say I'll do. I want someone who will do the same. That's all.

I am exactly who I say I am and that probably makes me intolerant of anyone who feels the need to be inauthentic. Life's too short for that shit. Be who you are...love yourself...accept yourself and trust me to love and appreciate you for you.

So with all this said, I am wide open to the new experience of finding a healthy love. The kind that other couples are a little envious of and who wonder what our secret is. I want to embarrass ourselves with a passionate kiss on the spur of the moment when moved regardless of where we are. To wake up feeling loved, desired, alive, aware, you know...to wake up with things to say, love to make and a sickening in love-ness with the world because I'm in love with him.

Pipe dream? Dear me, I certainly hope not. And I think it's quite possible. I think I've said it before, but "welcome amor...I've been thinking about you a lot lately.". There's a lot of fun in store for us. Come sit with me, walk with me, talk with me, grow with me and make love and friendship and memories. Let's be a force. Not intimidating, but a force for good.