Different Avenues

I am learning as I get older, much older, that there maybe one than one way to skin a cat.  Ok, what the heck do I mean by that?  Well for much of my life, I have been and probably will continue to be very rigid in my thinking.  I would actively say "it's black or white", "the proof is in the pudding", and "facts don't lie.  facts are truths".  For the most part I still do believe this.  But there is also a saying  "the devil is in the details", which I have begun to say more and more.  Because what this really means is that all the good and some of the bad stuff is hiding in between the facts.  All of the little details in life, make us who we are.  So when I say, "there is more than one way to skin a cat", I mean that sometimes we have to look at different perspectives, ideas, avenues if you will to understand something.  We have to be willing to step outside the lines and see all of the different shades of grey, black and white.  Why is it that when we shop for clothes, we want variety?  But when we shop for people, places, food, things, and even love, we want the same thing that we have had in the past.  Why?  Because we are comfortable there.  It's like that college sweatshirt that we will not get rid of simply because there is something about it that makes us feel like home, safe and secure.  I believe we have to have these things or these people in our lives to remind us of where we have been, where we are presently and where we are going.  But this entry isn't about "thanksgiving".  This entry is about stepping outside of our comfort zone to find out and confirm the most amazing gift that God has given us as humans, free will.  If we exercise our free will, and trust and believe that God is leading us, step outside that box, we grow.  We grow in all different directions.  We stretch to find the light.  And this is what God has intended for us.  There are some people in my life that I naturally gravitate toward.  Some are very much like the college sweatshirt, but I do have a couple who are very different than me and challenge me in a good, healthy way that I just can't get enough of.  They are like the food to my beautiful roses, while the others are like the water.  The water is constantly there, but the food comes periodically.  So in my life, right now, I'm trying to balance the distribution because I need both.  I never thought in a million years that I would be involved in or have the opportunities to be apart of the things that are in my life right now.  I had a dream.  I believed and I received.  So as uncomfortable it has been to stretch and grow outside of my box, and how I've literally had to learn "different ways to skin a cat", I can honestly say, it's been worth it!

Do the Work

Lately, actually very recently, I have become frustrated with some people in my life.  Some close friends, some colleagues, some family and of course some people that I haven't even met.  I haven't been able to put my finger on it as to what exactly it is that they are doing to annoy me, but trust me the annoyance is there nevertheless.  Beginning this summer I went through this..."thing".  A metamorphosis if you will.  Some of these awakenings were amazing and experiences I will never forget.  Some of it was very, very painful, and stressful and exhausting.  It was as if I was happy one minute and sad and frustrated the next.  I was all over the place.  Seriously, as if I was exercising the demons once and for all.  Well, I do believe that was the case.  But the same frustration I have felt the past few months or so, I have felt this past week.  It's back!  I didn't understand it until today.  I didn't get it until I was running today, and then again when I was in yoga class I was reminded of my epiphany on a deeper level.  My company just went through a down sizing.  Literally last week I had to stay home one day from work and wait for a phone call to tell me whether or not I was still employed.  I told you I was in a cut-throat business!  Well, I was one of the lucky ones this time.  I was saved.  Today we had the pleasure of meeting our new teams and managers beginning in January.  I have worked and met with all of my future team members and my new manager.  When I was asked today what I wanted in a team member, I instinctively responded without hesitation, that I wanted someone who would do what's right for the business, loyal and trustworthy.  Then it dawned on me as to why I have been irritated this past week.  One reason is because, as I looked around the room, I noticed that my own partner of almost two years was so quick to flip the switch and blend into the new team and district.  I noticed that yesterday at a meeting we had with our current partners. She has already cashed in and her loyalty was no longer to me, and not even to our manager who has helped us grow beyond our imagination.  Her loyalty was and is to herself.  And I noticed that in each of my new partners, and some existing.  What a let down.  These are the people who do just enough to get by but will allow someone else to do the work while they reap the rewards. This is hot button for me.  Not only in business, but in my personal life too.  There have been people in my life who have been happy to sit back and enjoy the ride, while I do all of the emotional, spiritual and mental work in the relationship.  They are the life suckers.  They literally will suck the life out of you if you allow them.  They have their own issues they need to work on but in someway, if they can get you to be their friend, lover, confidant, partner, etc. that in itself does the work for them.  Why?  Because they live off the fantasy that is in their own minds while you are dealing with reality.  And when you try to get some work out of them....it is a battle.  So why do we or I hang on to these people that exhaust us of our resources?  Why do we allow them to still be in our lives if all they do is create havoc?  I don't know the answer, but at least now I know the problem and I know the perpetrators.  So, now I can do the work of getting back to my life and allowing them to get back to theirs.

Settling

What does it mean to settle?  Does it mean to concede to an idea, a concept, a thought, a person?  Does it mean happiness?  Does it mean peace?  Does it mean completeness?  What does settling mean?  A lot of people settle for things, people, jobs, money, anything so that they don't disappoint themselves any further from being denied what they really wanted.  Or they settle because they are afraid of getting exactly what they wanted.  Scared that their dreams may finally come true.  Scared that the fantasy is real.  We as humans are very complicated aren't we?  We strive our whole lives to live our version of our fantasy for our life.  That is the struggle and strife we face everyday.  We fight and have the drama in our lives because we simply do not know any better.  And when we get a glimpse of our fantasy finally coming true, we run.  We run in the opposite direction because that would mean that we were right.  We were faithful and our prayers have been answered.  We have to believe in miracles at that point and there is no turning back from that.  Unless, we deny it.  Unless, we turn away from it.  Unless, we run.  But there are some of us who choose not to run.  There are some of us who want to believe in the little miracles that have been created.  There are some of us who refuse to settle.  Who still believe in the dream.  Who still think that everything they could have ever wished for will arrive.  Who pray for this every single day and refuse to stop believing that God, the universe or whoever cannot hear our prayer.  I find myself stuck between the two camps, the runners and the believers.  When I am having a good day, spiritually, I am a believer.  But, when I am shown that my dream may just be a dream,  I run.  Sometimes you cannot deny the writing on the wall.  Sometimes you have to just accept it and keep going.  But what if you are still unsure of what the writing on the wall says?  Is this denial or is this acceptance?  So as far as settling, I guess I would say that I have chosen to settle for  a day, a weekend, a week.  But, I refuse to settle for the rest of my life.  I refuse to accept mediocre or watered down dreams and try to metamorphosis them into my own.  I refuse to give up.  I refuse to let myself or my heart down. Because here's the thing, when you settle for something that is less than what you wanted, you are happy for a while but that doesn't last a lifetime.  You will always know that you chose to bail out on yourself and what you truly wanted.  You gave up.  I choose not to give up.  I choose to believe.  I choose faith.  "If God leads you to it, he will lead you through it."

Reciprocate

I recently got this pillow cover at one of my most favorite stores that says "Too much of a good thing can truly be wonderful".  I question that.  Can it?  Too much of the wrong foods can make your health deteriorate and put on the pounds.  Too much shopping can lead to an addition... Hello, I am a shopaholic.  Too much foreplay can make you angry...trust me...I've been there.  So I wonder if too much of a good thing can be truly wonderful?  The only thing I can think of that would make this quote accurate is love.  Too much love is never really a bad thing.  Too much love is usually a great thing, unless it is the forbidden love that will only hurt the one person that is doing the loving.  The unrequited love.  In the movie "The Holiday", Kate Winslet's character does a great job of describing the victim of unrequited love.  She also does an amazing job with her monologues one in particular when she describes how she felt loving someone who will not, and cannot, love her back.  She says that she knows what it feels like to be the most insignificant person in someone's life.  I too have shared her sentiment.  I know what that feels like.  And lately, I have felt it more and more.  When I left a man of seven years, I swore to myself that I would never let that happen to myself ever again.  Then it happened.  Right after my divorce to the man that I thought I was going to marry and have children with and a happily ever after.  I remember being so angry with myself that I could get so caught up in someone else that I forgot to do some fact finding.  Does he love me the way that I love him and will he reciprocate my love?  If you have to question it, do you not already know the answer?  I also, a couple years after that, was at a party with some friends and of course a fortune teller was there to entertain us.  She said to me, " you will never be in a relationship again where your love is not returned the same way that you love."  Well, I want my money back....because it happened again.  Recently.  So now I feel so, damaged.  I can't get it right.  I am the common denominator here and that should tell me that I am the problem.  I am the one making all of these mistakes.  As the match maker would say, " your picker is off!".  Yes, you could say that again.  I willing love men who will not, and cannot love me back.  I just don't know what else to do at this point.  I think I'll take some advice from some friends and just "stopping looking so hard".  I didn't realize I was.  I'm just gonna stop trying to find that love that I want and hopefully one day it will just show up.

Mistakes

Some philosophers have said that there are no such things as "mistakes".  Things that happen, are meant to happen, and things that are not meant to happen, simply do not.  I wrestle with this idea.  I have made a lot of mistakes in my own opinion.  But I do have to say that each mistake has lead me to different place in my life that I never thought possible.  Some good and some bad.  Someone once told me that the good has to out weigh the bad.  The man that I fell in love with and stayed in love with the idea of loving him told me this.  Did our bad out weigh our good?  Is this why we didn't make it?  Or was it because of choices, mistakes made by both of us?  I have no idea.  But tonight I face a mistake that I have wrestled with since 2010.  Depending on my mood, my "status", my little world, my decision on this topic wavers.  Did I choose to take a step back or a step forward?  And where has it gotten me?  Professionally, it has gotten me far, for now.  But personally, I still long for my love. And that is my problem.  I took a chance in 2010 that changed my destiny forever.  I left yet another man that I knew loved me, or at least the idea of me to find something else or someone else.  And here I sit. Still waiting.  I do know this, I would rather be waiting here alone, feeling lonely and lost, than sitting here with the wrong person feeling the exact same way.  Trust me. I've been there and it is miserable and no way to live.  How can I have the ability to see other people in my life so clearly and for some reason I cannot see my way out of this.  The only thing I know to do that would be successful is to flee.  To leave.  Like I did before.  When I knew that he wouldn't commit to me, I left.  When I had lost all hope of there ever being more, I left.  I just left.  That was how I saved what was left of me and my heart.  Here I am again.  Faced with the same dilemma.  Only this time it's not so easy.  How can we fall in love so easily when we know that there is the biggest chance in the world that it's not gonna work.  There have been people here who have called me the "ice queen".  People have said, "She is the job and the job is her.  She is as hard as a rock.  No one can penetrate that core." That couldn't be farther from the truth.  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  I have a hopeful heart and a longing soul.  When I fall, I fall hard and fast.  I am loyal and loving.  And all I want in return, is that.  Love, loyalty, trust, commitment.  So tonight I am missing the days when I care freely loved this man, or the idea of him and it was o.k. to do so.  I miss the days when love was easy and fun.  I miss the days where I wasn't known as the "ice queen".  So my little prayer that I will send up to the heavens tonight is this...Please God give me peace.  Please God do not let this be another set back or mistake.  Please God help me to make sense of all of this.  And please God....if you are feeling gracious...answer my unspoken prayer.  Amen.

The Truth About Love

Have you missed me?  I like to think that I'm writing to dear friends who have missed hearing from me.  I know, it's silly but it is comforting to me.  I have missed you.  I have been traveling for my day job and have had no time to write, and really I haven't been inspired to write, until today.  Where I am in the world the weather is changing.  It's fall.  Fall represents a season of change and I for one can literally feel it in the air.  I feel it in my own life.  I am changing and it is so very good and so very big and I just can't control it, as hard as I have tried.  As I'm writing this I'm watching the fountain spilling over into the pond and as the water moves, steam escapes from it.  It is like it has been contained for so long that when it spills out, there is so much heat and energy that it releases the effects of that energy which is the steam.  It is so beautiful.  It reminds me of how I am feeling today and how I have been feeling lately.  It's difficult to articulate so I will start with a book.  This summer I engaged myself in reading a series of a book that ultimately turned out to be a love story.  As I was reading these books I was reminded of love, and the truth about love.  I can identify that feeling the characters in the book shared because I too have experienced that.  I was much younger than I am now and it was my first experience in love.  I remember how I felt and how different it was than any other love I had ever had in my life up until then or even after the relationship ended.  I became so involved with these books that it literally effected every part of my life.  I even wrote several entries in my blog about the art of a woman "coming alive".  Not only do I stand behind every single one of those entries, but I am so grateful and in awe of the experience.  It helped me to let go and move beyond somethings and people that I had been holding onto that really needed to disappear from my life.  So, as I am reading the books, I am reminded of the truth about love.  I am reminded of what love really is.  I am also reminded that I only felt that way once, perhaps two times in my life. And when I did, it truly was a magical thing.  It was as if all the stars had aligned for that perfect moment of when the two of us met.  The butterflies in your belly every single time when you see each other.  The not wanting to be the first person to hang up the phone or end the conversation.  The ultimate and pure joy of the first kiss, touch, intimacy.  And the intimacy that is created and shared in the most simplest of ways as in a look you give each other across the room, a gentle hand grasp when no one is looking or by a special language that is spoken between the two of you verbal or non-verbal that is only yours and yours alone.  And most of all, your biggest fear in life becoming and remaining of the thought or chance that you could loose each other.  That all of this happiness, completeness and fulfillment could end at any moment.  You become scared to death that you will loose this person forever.  That is love.  That is the truth about love.  I think that in life, we all build up walls.  Either because we have found love and lost it and therefore in order of getting hurt again, we create our own version of what love is.  For some, love is how a couple looks on paper.  For example, great jobs/careers, they both make great money, they love similar things, they have lots in common and if anyone would look at their relationship from afar they would think to themselves "Wow, they are so great together. They've got it all."  But behind closed doors it is very different.  They have to work at their connection.  Their intimacy is off.  Their communication is non existent until they are with others and then the show begins.  How do I know this?  Because I was in a relationship just like this.  I knew something was wrong but chose to ignore it until I realized that the rest of my life could be like this unless I changed something immediately.  I have struggled with that decision but I knew it was the right one.  I knew that I couldn't possibly be the woman that he wanted because he was not the man I wanted.  I couldn't put my finger on it until I read these books and that helped to re-comfirm every decision I've ever made about any relationship since my first one.  My first love, the first man and one of the two I felt that true love for, taught me one essential thing that I didn't remember until lately which was, that is what love is suppose to feel like.  That is what life is all about, love.  That love, is worth fighting for.  That is why when you feel that love, you do come alive.  It's your souls cry being answered.  It is Godly and right.  And that is what I have fought to get back in my life.  I will not settle for "paper love".  And no one should.  So, as one of my business clients told me to "take a chance".  I did, and found everything.  I found the love.

I'm Ready

Tonight, I'm feeling sexy.  Did I just say that?  Yes, I did.  I feel sexy. At this very moment, sitting here in candle light, in one of my favorite night gowns that is black, strappy and soft, listening to Sade. It's funny because miraculously I haven't even begun to get into the wine yet and this feeling is all natural.  Ha!  I had a great workout at the gym and then I came home and ran myself a very hot bubble bath.  OOOHHH.... I have forgotten how great a long hot bath could feel.  Tonight it felt even more special as I emerged myself into the steamy, hot water and just let it caress me.  I needed that.  The bath gave me some nurturing that I have been desperately longing for.  It's been a long time since I have been in a serious, committed relationship.  I have been playing around since my divorce and I have to say, I had never done that before in my life and it was great!  I discovered somethings about myself through all of the playing but also through all of the time that I have been alone.  I learned that I'm pretty awesome to hang out with.  I learned that I am an amazing lover, sexually and intimately.  And to that point, I am a very intimate person.  When you are let into my little world, you are in until you're not.  I am loyal to a fault but I have learned that I must ultimately be the most loyal and true to myself.  I have learned what kind of man I want, and what kind of man I do not want.  I have recently learned this week that my past little boy toys that have always gave me my instant gratification and release, no longer can cool my fire.  I have evolved past them.  My thirst can no longer be quenched with meaningless sex or "relationships".  It's like junk food...it will fill you up for the time being but after wards you just feel like crap, like junk.  So with this little awakening this week, I immediately was frustrated because I needed release!  Then it occurred to me that I no longer want the junk food.  I want the real thing.  I'm ready for love.  I'm ready to feel sexy for my man again.  I'm ready to take the risk, the leap, the jump.  This is why I feel sexy tonight.  I'm not pretending anymore to be sexy, I just know that I am and have embodied it.  It is apart of me now, and I love it.  Every woman should feel this way...the coming aliveness of being a woman.  God, it's intoxicating.  So, as I sit here, alone, in my beautiful home that wishes me "good morning" everyday and "good night" every evening, I feel complete knowing that my heart, body, mind and soul is ready for my love.  I'm ready for the man who dares to take this journey with me.  I had written in one of my blogs that I wonder if people can see when a woman comes back to life and if so can they see me coming alive?  This past weekend and today I got my proof.  After a trying day yesterday and an emotionally tough week, I pulled myself back up to the high that I have been on all summer by putting on one of my new favorite dresses, my hair in tendrils and sprayed myself with my most sexiest fragrance and out into the world I went.  I was walking into an office building and literally had an group of business men stop their discussion and determined traveling to hold open the door for me, greet me and then when all of the cordials had been exchanged, one of them said, "God you're beautiful.  Absolutely exquisite.  It's so nice to see a woman take care of herself."  Of course I gleamed up at him and rewarded him with the biggest smile I could manage without looking goofy and told him thank you.  And I thought to myself, yes, this is exactly what being a woman should feel like.  For another proof, this past weekend at my dad's house, my stepmother and father were gloating all over me saying how great I looked.  That I looked happy.  And then my stepmother said something to me that I will treasure always.  She said, " you know your ex-husband, and all those other boys that you dated are really going to look back at their life with you, if they haven't already, and really regret loosing you.  You are an amazing woman.  They could have had an incredible life with you and an incredible love if they only would have grown up and not have been so afraid."  I couldn't agree with her more.  They say that we attract what we put out.  So for me, here's to growing up and not playing anymore games.  Here's to letting go of fear and embracing what life throws me.  Here's to keeping this feeling alive and thriving and sharing it with everyone I come in contact because this is life, real love and life.  No faking it, living it.  And that is why I'm ready.  And that is very, very, sexy.