MATTERS OF THE HEART AND OTHER FAIRYTALES AND QUANDARIES

Often times little girls are misdirected into believing love is supposed to be some once upon a time fairytale just waiting to happen.  They read about love, dream about love and expect love to happen just as it's written. So what happens when those little girls get disillusioned and suffer from a broken heart? Some of them learn how to cope with real life while others become maniacal bitches who nag, manipulate and feel like they have to beg a man for his attention. They become willing to do anything just to be loved.  Yes, sometimes their lives become a scene right out of the movie, Fatal Attraction and when confronted with reality, they get insulted that anyone might think their behavior is erratic, illogical and just down right mean or insane at times. A snake has more warmth than a spurned woman and its bite is a lot less venomous. Doesn't the old saying go something like, "hell has no fury like a woman's scorn?"

What happened the first time you had mind-blowing sex with someone and they never called again? Hopefully, everyone is saying to themselves, "I don't have an answer to that question because I've never had a one night stand."  Hopefully, each one of you has had mind-blowing sex followed by years of unadulterated bliss with the same person or you haven't suffered the slings and arrows of unrequited love. Unfortunately, for some of us that doesn't happen.  Unfortunately, some of us have mind blowing sex and if anything follows at best, it might be a mind-blowing abusive relationship. Yep! Some of us allow ourselves to believe that we can conquer or fix anything and everything and each time we allow ourselves to remain oblivious to the writing on the wall, we get repeatedly hurt  Being blinded by false love only gives the green light for more abuse to occur.  Sure, we're afraid to walk away because we have a fear of the unknown. Because of that fear we allow our self-worth to be so badly beaten down that sometimes it becomes non-existent.  For the lucky ones when enough abuse occurs, our survival instinct finally kicks in and we get the hell out of Dodge quickly with our suitcase and what's left of our dignity in hand! But a crucial lesson we all have to learn is not to piss and moan continually about the Neanderthal we live with unless we're ready to stand up and do something about our situation.  Until we have the strength to help ourselves, we really can't expect people to support our decisions and to give us the empathy we need. Before then it's just another sad soap opera playing out and we are the drama queen extraordinaires.

Yep, I've been through it myself...looked down the barrel of a loaded gun more than once. Been tied up for a sessions of sexual fun and games only to end up having my breast used as an ashtray. The scar makes me shake my head and wonder what the hell I was thinking then...obviously I wasn't thinking and didn't have much self-respect or self-worth.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly with the expectation of a different result. Well, quite a long time ago I decided to get off that roller coaster ride and walk on flat ground again.  It was then I decided that the insanity I was living really wasn't appealing and I deserved a better life even if that better life meant being alone and as I always say being alone is a much better place to be than being with the wrong person...and a much safer place! Finding the courage to admit that and then actually removing myself from the game long enough for me to reevaluate my priorities and needs wasn't easy to do, but I did it because I knew I was long overdue for a change.  The insanity, the drama, the turmoil and the negativity had to stop!  Now, after 9 long years of being out of the relationship/dating game, I'm slowly getting to know someone again that I knew when I was a young girl before all the madness began.  Time will tell what happens, but until then at least now I know what I do and don't want and need and I have the courage to walk away if I see any red flags.  The hardest thing for me right now isn't telling myself that I'm worthy of getting to know.  It's believing it!

Repost from June 24, 2014

UPDATE: Here it is January 9, 2023, I'm still floating free in the cosmos amongst the other galactic matter...

A LIFE WITHOUT WHITE PICKET FENCES

They say hindsight is 20/20, but I have to admit I often wonder who "they" are and why aren't "they" out actively trying to educate dumb asses like me.  "They" seem to be the ones that always jump in first to tell me "I told you so"  whenever I make a huge boo-boo even when "they" never really gave me any warnings in the first place. I can't say that my mother telling me things like "it's as easy to love a rich man as it is a poor man" are the lessons in love I needed as a young girl.  What I needed most was to be told I was beautiful, intelligent and capable to doing anything I wanted to do. 

At the ripe old age of 58 I had an epiphany the other day.  I've spent my whole live thinking I actually preferred 'bad boys" to the nice guys of the world.  I thought living dangerously and on the edge chasing after men with commitment issues and little respect or regard for any female was what got and kept my juices flowing.  Yes, I've questioned my preferences many times and have wondered why I've always equated nice guys as being boring.  My choices throughout life have deeply frustrated me because none of them have led to lasting happiness or a stable relationship.  So at 58, after being totally celibate and without any sort of relationship with a man for 9 years I've come to a rather startling conclusion.  I've always joking told people that sex causes brain damage.  Okay, maybe it wasn't totally a joke because it seems when two people throw sex into a relationship all clarity and common sense leaps out the window...or at least it does in my case.  Nine years ago I finally had enough of the rollercoaster ride and put myself in time out. 

When the light bulb finally turned on, it made the situation look entirely different to me.  I never really connected the dots so I could look at a complete picture.  Now, looking back I can say that my twisted view of what intimate relationships should be like and the kind of man in which I could enjoy lasting happiness with makes total sense to me.  I've spent my entire life chasing after anything and everything that would validate my powerful sense of not being worthy of love and happiness.  It's was always easy for me to believe I didn't deserve a good life and finding people willing and able to prove that point was always a very easy thing to do.  Many people might wonder why anyone would feel unworthy of love and happiness or why anyone would spend a lifetime doing anything that resembles a dog chasing its tail.  It's a complicated issue that dates back as far as I can remember.  For me, maybe it would have been more evident and easier to see if my "break" happened later in life.  For me, that destructive feeling was incorporated into my being at a very young age.  It's just the way it was.  It's just who I grew up being. It's not something I ever questioned because I grew up with the attitude "if the people who love me will hurt me then what's the rest of the world going to do to me?"  With that attitude it's easy to see why I always felt like I was continually swimming upstream against the current. 

I grew up with little self worth.  I held all my pain very close and rarely showed it to anyone.  When I did, it was just a glimpse.  I grew up with no expectations of the future or visions of that house with a white picket fence.  I grew up feeling that fleeting mind blowing sex was a good trade off for a stable life with someone who loved me.  I never knew anyone could have both, so I stuck with the bad boys who seemed more than happy to scratch my insatiable itch. I grew up numbing my pain with drugs and thinking promiscuity was okay. Many times I would say, 'it's a hard job and someone has to do it."  It's sad that I cared so little for myself, but what's sadder is that I believed no one else cared what happened to me either. The giving of myself to another person never held the same value to me as it did to others.  I didn't feel anything about me was really worth anyone's time or effort, so for me, intimacy was a twisted maze in which I became deliriously lost.  

I know now nice guys aren't boring.  Nice guys are just that and being nice isn't the kiss of death everyone always claimed it was.  The problem is that at 58 I'm way behind the curve and I don't know if I'm really interested in jumping back in the pond in search of the right frog to kiss.  I'm definitely not afraid of making mistakes because I've spent a lifetime being well-acquainted with doing just that.  I can't say exactly what the problem is...maybe just fear of the unknown or maybe it's as simple as I've run out of steam.  I can say this...I am open to the possibilities if one ever presents itself to me, but I doubt I'll ever actively go out looking for love.   Being alone isn't the worst thing in life and it's much easier to deal with than always being with the wrong person in a relationship filled with nothing, but fruitless drama. 

TIME-OUT CONFESSIONS

A loving and very concerned cousin told me that I needed to get a "herring choker." A what?  A downeaster, a lumberjack, a fisherman...a good old Mainiac!  You know he might have a point...I have been in self-imposed "time out" what seems like forever.  Why?  Well, I have impaired judgment when it comes to men.  I like the badboys!  No, I don't want to fix them...I want them to stay just as they are and there lies the problem.  Badboys and relationships don't go together very well.  Nice = boring in my mind!  Okay, I know that thinking is wrong so that's why I'm in "time-out."  Naughty me!  I need time to sort through the error of my ways and fix my thinking regarding men and my preferences.

Gratitude statement: Thank God for time-out because it keeps me out of trouble!