absence

You should see my draft folder. Or the scraps of paper throughout my purse. Or the notebook in which I'm attempting to keep a running to-do list. For, in all, you'd find writing - and good, insightful writing at that. Somehow, it just doesn't make it to this here blog. I'm sorry for that. The truth is, if I take things back to the origins of this blog - to dating, the quest for love and figuring out all things related to the heart - well, I have more to write about now than ever. This might sound silly, but I literally have guys (o.k., graceful woman, perhaps I should call them MEN) coming out of my ears. From a long-term friend who still holds out hope, to a more casual friend whose hints about me being the "perfect woman" are getting more and more frequent, to the Frenchman and of course the more local beau (currently avoiding me following the Frenchman's visit), to a friend in Kenya who flirts over gmail about my impending move to Nairobi, and the new arrival of the most charming (but younger!) man I've ever met - I'm having trouble making sense of it all.

So you'd think I would be writing about it, for this is where all the emotion and angst of such things usually spills forth. Perhaps it's that nothing about all of this feels 'so-called' anymore, it all seems very, very real. The opportunities, the attention - the possibilities for heart ache (and not just my own), the variety! And more than that, the change in my perspective as more and more of my friends couple up - in good, healthy couplings at that, and I start to see how important it is to make good choices in who you "settle" down with (ha!). Still, If the universe is telling me anything amidst all this attention, I'd have to say it is to look at things in any way but in terms of settling, but to instead take advantage of the opportunity to get to know people and evaluate how I react to certain attention, with whom do I feel most at ease, most myself? Who is inspiring? Who is intimidating? To who (whom?) can I return the same level of affection being offered? It is hard to look at people and relationships for such pure educational gain - but given my impending departure for far off lands, settling down with anyone right now makes little to no sense (though no, that doesn't mean I'm counting anyone out!).

So I'll keep meandering through, enjoying the flattery of various suitors, and hopefully coming up with something to share while I attempt to not be so hard on myself for allowing the attention. I do have a sense that it's all a part of the journey that ends with me and my heart being ready to ultimately take that leap and focus on one person that I will invite into my life and the path I'm on. I know deep down this is what I want, but I kid you not in recent years there have been moments when it has been the most terrifying of prospects. I think I'm gradually growing out of that commitment phobia, but I suppose it never hurts to go out with a bang (and let's not take that out of context, shall we?).

working on it

“Don’t just be an aging female … become a real woman!” - Maya Angelou

READ. DISCUSS.

I know many of you will have thoughts on this. I am anxious to hear what they are. I promise I'll weigh in too - just still processing and trying to form a coherent opinion...

things come together

The girls and I had some champagne tonight, and I'm currently experiencing the rush of inspiration a few glasses of bubbly so often produce. But, more importantly, I'm not fighting the urge to self-censor. I'm going to write the self-truth I've stumbled upon (champagne or no), and leave the post up even when I've awoken to a glorious day and realized that once again, I've left myself ultra vulnerable on an only semi-private blog.

So it all boils down to this: I got my heart broken once, and I haven't trusted myself since.

Of course it's more complicated than this - but the fundamental truth is that once I understood what it meant to offer up my heart and have someone be willing to say, "no, I don't think that this is the heart for me," I fundamentally stopped trusting whether I could do the same.

How so? Well, at that point I'd decided that two absolutely wonderful guys were not for me. Guys who had treated me with nothing but total devotion - and not pushovers either. Individuals, devoted friends, loving sons, inspiring people - at some point in each of their lives they'd decided that I was the girl for them. And at some point in mine, I'd decided that they were not the ones for me.

It's not that it was easy - I remember the anguish of knowing I was hurting someone who I'd so loved, who had been by my side and with whom I'd shared such joys. But even in that pain, I found something within to trust - I could make the decision and work through the angst because I knew what was right.

Then the tables turned.

I fell, head over heels, and knew that he was the one. I knew with every ounce of my physical being as I threw out old rules for purity and decided, at 21, that I was ready to marry a man who intended to devote his life to ministry. I knew beyond the impressions of friends and family, beyond any question of "are we the right fit?" or what his past said about who he was today. I just knew.

But less than a year later he labeled me an unknown, made the choice I'd made in years past to walk away, to separate, to pursue the possibilities beyond the person that had been so utterly and completely devoted to him. He decided and trusted himself to walk away.

How did his trust break my own? Why is it that all these years later I agonize over the possibility of any relationship ending - even the most casual? I am so afraid of letting go of the right thing, of not recognizing the person for me even when they're right under my nose. I know it's because I don't want to inflict that hurt any more. I learned what it felt like, the earth shattering recognition that I might not be enough. Why would I possibly pass that on to someone unless there was absolutely no other way?

I can't stand that it could be laziness, or simple doubt, or greed that would make me inflict that kind of pain, or make that judgement call.

Still - is anything worth giving up trust in oneself? It seems such a crying shame that at this stage in my life, I cant bring this basic quality along as I test the waters and tell myself I'm open to what is meant to be.

on being human

Over and over, I have tried and failed
after which I took a step back
Smacked myself around with enlightenment
Gained some wisdom
And was lonely in it

People say I am hard on myself
and I am
Because I think somehow I should be above it
Should be better at being in it
Should know myself more by now

Every once in awhile I have a moment
where I let myself be human
And it's not quite as lonely
even though I'm in the dark

5 days in Foley

So far the perks of having a darling French boyfriend have not yet included romantic strolls through the renowned city de l'amour. Nope, next stop for us is not Paris, but Foley. Alabama. That's right, the Southern Coast. A veritable dream for a Cali girl like myself...

I suppose I should withhold judgement until I go, perhaps I'm just starting to be swayed by the look of worry on every ones face when they have to ask me where I will be seeing Richard next, and Foley is my response. I don't think anyone has anything against the South, per se, but there does seem to be some concern regarding visiting the South in the summer. Or, as my mom pointed out, in the middle of hurricane season.

It won't be the first time I plan a trip to a weather-challenged local - I spent the fall of 2002 in Costa Rica during the four rainiest months of the year. That said, there were few, if any, hurricane warnings while I was there.

While we're living it up in Foley (I should explain - Richard will be there for work, I will be there for Richard, but working from the hotel for the week), we hope to find a theater showing Julie Delpy's new movie, "2 Days in Paris." I admit, I'm a bit nervous - both to see a movie that shoves the challenges of a cross cultural (and in our case, cross-continental) relationship in our face, as well as to partake in the reality of said movie later this year when my non-French speaking ass makes her way to Paris.

Wish me luck, dear readers, that I make it through the hurricanes, through the movie and eventually onto a plane that is headed to France to discover for myself what it's like to be in love in such a city. Until then, I'll think of you while I'm toasting my more immediate love reunion in the deep South:

"Enjoy sighting and photographing the many species of native wildlife. With an estuary nearby, you may spot a flycatcher, a hummingbird, a plover, or butterflies such as the Gulf Fritillary, Monarch, or Spicebush Swallowtail. This area earns its title as the “Golf” Coast with more than a dozen professionally designed golf courses." Ah...Foley.

saying goodbye

When everything is going right, when the hopes and dreams you have sent out into the world are starting to form into bits and pieces of true matter - this is when you realize how far behind in the whole process your heart can be. Or perhaps finding a place on a scale of life, what was and what will be, is the wrong way to look at it. Perhaps the so-called pieces of our hearts don't follow any sort of time line at all. Perhaps they cling to a time, to a place, to a person and no matter how much we advance or evolve in other areas they stay among the sediments to mark a moment in time which left to our own devices we might choose to leave behind. But there they are, in the flesh, saying sorry and taking a stand for a time when hopes and dreams were just that - mere images of a life you hoped someday to live.

There's something missing here - some insight I feel at the tip of my fingers but can't find. I guess sometimes you just have to say goodbye, and accept that you'll never really understand how this piece of yourself works at all.

a tisket a tangent

I recently discovered the joys of my favorite programs posted online in full episode form. You see we have a t.v. to watch movies on but no cable or even local channels, and while this ultimately means I rarely watch t.v. - sometimes I just need my fix. Plus, I have a very small room, and a whole lot of stuff, and having never been the neatest person in the world this often results in many nights spent "cleaning my room," which can only be done with a good friend sitting on my bed to keep me company as I tidy up around them, or some sort of show on that helps me pass the time while I attempt to fit a houseful of treasures into one closet, one dresser and about three inches of under-the-bed space.

Lately I've been watching Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters because they are all available on abc.com. I think I'm up to date on all of them (like I said, I'm MESSY) and it never ceases to surprise me how most episodes bring me to tears by the end (well at least Grey's Anatomy and Brothers and Sisters - Desperate Housewives is much more mindless fun). While I do think both are good shows, neither are very realistic in the scheme of things - their characters are overly wordy and get to make out with unbelievably good looking people far too frequently. But there's something about how they have been portraying love and family that gets to me.

In addition to cementing my place in the cheese ball hall of fame, I find this surprising because part of the whole 'taking time for myself' kick I've been on for the past year and a half has been about getting into the mindset of being o.k. on my own. What I realize is that I've been translating this to meaning I should be satisfied to be alone - perhaps it's a defense mechanism to prepare for the 'what if Mr. Right never shows up?' scenario I think all women who are single and closer to 30 than 20 are shamelessly playing over in their head as they go about their happy and healthy independent lives. I'm subconsciously trying to convince myself that I shouldn't need anyone else to share struggles or even victories with - which, of course, is entirely contradictory to how every fiber of my being is made. Sometimes all it takes is a sappy scene in a t.v. show to remind me how ridiculous it is to try and talk myself around this fact.

The plain truth is, everything I do - everything that excites me, everything that inspires or offends or terrifies me - I want to share it with someone. What I'm not sure of right now is how significant it is that that person is a lover, versus a best friend, or a brother or sister or a mom or a dad. It's been so long since I've had a "boyfriend" that I struggle to remember what it was like to have him be my first point of contact for any of these things. I'm not sure if it would even feel natural to transfer what I've spread out amongst all my nearest and dearest (not to mention the blogosphere) back into one person. And again, I'm simplifying - that's not what a relationship is - dumping all of you onto one person and expecting an immediate return on investment. But having your "one" does mean that you have someone upon which to focus at least in part all those things you have to share.

As I go about my day to day life and pat myself on the back for enjoying it all as much as I am while doing the single thing, it pops up now and then just how much it will mean to me when I find my one, someday. What that means, I haven't quite figured out, but I think I'm starting to understand why it's so important to me.

stages

I started this blog to chronicle my first real foray into dating after earning the label of "serial monogamist" at much too young an age. Now, with about 18 months of single time to my credit, I have lost track of where I'm at in all of this. For a long time I was aware of the stages you go through coming out of a long term relationship. From the grief, the disbelief, the looking for distractions, the rebounding, the self-doubt, the rehashing of every little thing to make sure that there wasn't something you could have done to make it better. Then the freedom starts to set in, but it's a slow process as you detach yourself from the dysfunction, from the patterns that you had fallen into and now see for what they were - protection mechanisms, scape goats. So you find yourself in the stage of unlearning such things, of looking at life and situations and relationships with a fresh eye, a new perspective. As I went through these stages I was always somewhat aware of where I was at - why I was doing what I was doing. I tried to give myself free reign to simply be, to explore things and to allow myself to think/feel/dream in ways I had stopped doing with a dysfunctional relationship at the helm of my life.

At this point I think I've made it through the stages associated with recovering from a break up. Trouble is, I don't really know where that leaves me. Does that mean I'm 100% ready for whatever comes my way? I know I have claimed (or at least alluded to) this in recent posts, but when the situation presents itself, how do I know I won't drag all the baggage I think I've stored away (or unpacked, if you will) out and onto the table with someone new? How to catch myself from making the same mistakes - and how do I know when I'm really ready, and perhaps more importantly, when the situation is right?