Bright days beacon me, raising their arms to greet me each morning, celebrating this life I'm so lucky to lead.

The holly, with her berries and thorns, reminds me that the season is celebratory, but not without danger. My tender heart is vulnerable

and missteps lurk at every turn

but snapdragon that I am, despite the bitter cold, the freezing winds and frigid frosts, continue to attempt a blossom

or two or ten

The cheery holiday colors take any melancholy thoughts and make them bow to the bigger picture of warmth and family and love.

The door to my heart is open, green with the glory of new growth, bedecked with partridges and pears...hopeful.

Enlightenment

Is there a more important decision we make than with whom we spend our time?

Am I a cold, calculating bitch if I choose to spend my time with gentlemen for whom I feel no passion, only genuine liking and appreciation?

Is it ok to allow a man to buy one's dinner if lustful thoughts of another creep into one's head?

How can we tell if someone has long term potential other than waiting long term?

Can boring ever be remedied?

How long can one cultivate a friendship with the opposite sex before one is obligated to show one's breasts?

For how long can I simply enjoy without making a decision?

For what purpose has the universe sent to me four gentlemen with first names beginning with the letter J?

The Fishpond in December

Today at meeting, we shared our thoughts about the stresses of Christmas. This year, I feel zero holiday stress. I know what I'm doing for my friends, have purchased most of what I need for the boys. I shared that I have to shop only for the electronic part of my gifts for my boys, and that for my friends, I give them something from my kitchen, something from my garden and something from my heart. This year, I have only to buy the baskets to present them in.

I read more of Book 2 of Conversations with God. This stuck with me...Enjoy everything...need nothing.

I love alliteration.

Enjoy everything.
Need nothing.

I'm working at it. Working hard at it.

Kid Conversations

Molly, my Mercedes, has been at the beauty shop this week. I had rear ended a Jeep a few weeks ago, when I was fussing over making dinner for Fabulous Guy for the first time. I fussed so much about being worried about something happening to mar the event that I...well, it's obvious what I did. Anyway, she had a few other scrapes and scratches and I told my neighbor to make her beautiful. Which he did. I'm planning on keeping her for a long time.

This morning, as I was driving Kevin and his buddy to school, as I do every morning, I was cooing to my beautiful car.

"Ooh, Molly, you are such a pretty girl. I'm so glad to have you home. I missed you while you were gone."

"Mom, I can't say something like that. I'm a guy." Kevin responded. "Ooh, baby, yeah, you purr like a kitten."

I looked at him, slightly aghast.

"That's what a guy says, just so you know." He answered to me.

I laughed.

Actually, now that he mentions it, yeah, I've heard those words before.

Relationships According to God

As I've been saying for the past several posts, I'm reading Conversations With God, an uncommon dialogue, by Neale Donald Walsch. I finished Book 1 and started Book 2 while riding Larry the Elliptical yesterday morning. The gist of the book is that our mission on earth is to discover Who We Are, not based on what everyone tells us to be, but based on what we experience, based on our own reflections of what drives us. He also pushes home that the two primary emotions we feel is love and fear, fear being the opposite of love. Every other emotion stems from these two.

He devotes a chapter to relationships, noting that Expectation kills relationships, and that the key to a successful relationship is to replace obligation with opportunity; ie to view the other never as someone to whom you are obligated, but always as someone with whom you have the opportunity to grow. I was struck by this particular passage as it relates to relationships:

Neale: Maybe I keep hoping You'll come up with a different answer. You take a lot of the romance out of it when I ask You about relationships. What's wrong with falling head over heels in love without having to think about it?

God: Nothing. Fall in love with as many people as you like that way. But if you're going to form a lifelong relationship with them, you may want to add a little thought.

On the other hand, if you enjoy going through relationships like water--or worse yet, staying in one because you think you "have to", then living a life of quiet desperation--if you enjoy repeating these patterns from your past, keep right on doing what you've been doing.

Neale: Okay, okay. I get it. Boy, You're relentless, aren't you?

God: That's the problem with truth. The truth is relentless. It won't leave you alone. It keeps creeping up on you from every side, showing you what's really so. That can be annoying.

Neale: Okay. So I want to find the tools for a long-term relationship--and you say entering into relationships purposefully is one of them.

God: Yes. Be sure you and your mate agree on purpose.

If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity, not an obligation--an opportunity for growth, for full Self expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you ever had about you and for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls--if you take that vow instead of the vows you've been taking--the relationship has begun on a very good note. It's gotten off on the right foot. That's a very good beginning.

Neale: Still, it's no guarantee of success.

God: If you want guarantees in life, then you don't want life. You want rehearsals for a script that's already been written.

Life by its nature cannot have guarantees, or its whole purpose is thwarted.

Neale: Okay. Got it. So now I've got my relationship off to this "very good start." Now how do I keep it going?

God: Know and understand that there will be challenges and difficult times.

Don't try to avoid them. Welcome them. Gratefully. See them as gifts from God; glorious opportunities to do what you came into the relationship--and life--to do.

Try very hard not to see your partner as the enemy, or the opposition, during these times.

In fact, seek to see no one, and nothing, as the enemy--or even the problem. Cultivate the technique of seeing all problems as opportunities. Opportunities to ...

Neale: ...I know, I know--"be, and decide, Who You Really Are."

God: Right! You're getting it! You are getting it!

Neale: Sounds like a pretty dull life to me.

God: Then you are setting your sights too low. Broaden the scope of your horizons. Extend the depth of your vision. See more in you than you think there is to be seen. See more in your partner, too.

You will never disserve your relationship--nor anyone--by seeing more in another than they are showing you. For there is more there. Much more. It is only their fear that stops them from showing you. If others notice that you see them as more, they will feel safe to show you what you obviously already see.

Neale: People tend to live up to your expectations of them.

God: Something like that. I don't like the word "expectations" here. Expectations ruin relationships. Let's say that people tend to see in themselves what we see in them. The grander our vision, the grander their willingness to access and display the part of them we have shown them.

Isn't that how all truly blessed relationships work? Isn't that part of the healing process--the process by which we give people permission to "let go" of every false thought they've ever had about themselves?

Isn't that what I am doing here, in this book, for you?

Neale: Yes

God: And that is the work of God. The work of the soul is to wake yourself up. The work of God is to wake everybody else up.

Neale: We do this by seeing others as Who They Really Are--by reminding them of Who They Are.

God: This you can do in two ways--by reminding them of Who They Are (very difficult, because they will not believe you), and by remembering Who You Are (much easier, because you do not need their belief, only your own). Demonstrating this constantly ultimately reminds others of Who They Are, for they will see themselves in you.

This passage resonated with me. I've probably read it ten times, and read it out loud to Sunshine Gal, who read it to her boyfriend.

It has had an effect on me. I find myself looking at people, especially potential partners, in a new way. I ask myself, "with whom do I think could most fully help me to be Who I Really Am? And who could I most fully help be Who He Really Is?"

It's funny how physical appearance drops to such a low importance on that totem pole...and how much kindness and compassion rises to the top.

He talks about how the most important person in a relationship is not the other, but you, yourself, because as long as you are not making yourself happy in a relationship, as long as you are not being true to Who You Really Are, it is almost impossible to help the other person to be happy. He goes on and on about the importance of Self interest, Self centeredness....but you read between the lines, at least for me, knowing what I already know about myself, and something became very clear. I couldn't be happy in a relationship if my partner wasn't happy...so to make my partner happy, makes me happy. A viscious circle. A delightfully viscious circle.

Is that an oxymoron?

Nonetheless, I want that circle. I want the relationship based on bringing about one's fullest potential one's highest self, mine and my partner's.

Although a generous dose of good old fashioned lust is nice, too.

Scarlett O'Hara

Dating in middle age is such a mixed blessing. I enjoy meeting new people, enjoy the process of getting to know someone, learning, listening, paying attention, finding the ways that fit, perusing the ways that don't, contemplating their impact. As I mentioned earlier, I joined Yahoo Personals for a month, and as a result of that $30, I met six new people, reconnected with one I'd met a few years ago, and still have one with whom I'm corresponding, but haven't yet met. Of those seven people I met in person, I'm being actively pursued by two of them, and the one I haven't yet met. Last week, the two in active pursuit brought me flowers. I saw both of them again this past weekend.

But before I went out with these two, I spent some time with Fabulous Guy. Perhaps that was a mistake, because for days after I see him, I have trouble pushing the thoughts of our time together out of my mind. This time, pushing those thoughts away was particularly difficult.

Let it not be said, however, that I am anything less than a woman of great determination. Where there's a will, there's a way.

My Saturday night date picked me up at my house, bringing with him three roses, because it was our third date. He lives half an hour away from me, and we were going back to his part of town for dinner and to watch the Lebanon Christmas Parade of horse drawn carriages. He insisted on coming to pick me up, though, not concerned about the extra bother to him.

The parade was magical. He brought an extra coat in case I got cold, and he took me out for dinner before hand. We got there just in time and watched all 140 carriages parade past. After the parade, we stopped at UDF because I said I wanted hot chocolate after being outside in the cold. We watched Gone With the Wind in his home theatre, snuggled up under a blanket together.

He put his arm around me, but made no other move to touch me. I was fine with that, struggling as I was to keep memories of the previous evening ensconced safely in the back of my mind. He drove me home just after midnight, kissing me chastely on the lips at my door.

I hadn't seen Gone With the Wind for several years. One of my boys had bought it for me for Christmas a few years prior, but the DVD was still in its shrink wrap. I loved watching it again, had forgotten so much, and realized as I watched it, how much tragedy happened concurrently for Scarlett at the end....losing her baby, losing Bonnie, losing Melanie, realizing that Ashley had never been hers to lose, and then losing Rhett just as she realized how much he really meant to her.

I've never had much sympathy for Scarlett. Although her motives were sometimes for the good of the whole, she so often just trampled over people to extend her own will. I've always identified more with Melanie, her kindness and compassion to everyone, although most people would probably pooh pooh that because I am strong, mentally and physically.

Sunday, just as I was debating going to meeting, my phone rang and the other man still in the queu called, asking if I wanted to get together. I made the split second decision to go Christmas shopping at the outlet malls, and he was my very delightful companion. I drove up to his house, coming within inches of hitting a deer as she ran terror filled across I71. It's funny, my first thought as my heart was racing was to call Fabulous Guy for comfort. But, I decided I didn't need comfort, that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades and I was fine.

My Sunday date toted all my packages around for me as we waltzed through the stores. We laughed and joked and enjoyed the people watching. I bought him a bag of kettle corn for his pack mule efforts. Afterwards, we went back to his house, which sits on three acres in the middle of a corn field. He had a pre-lit Christmas tree and one box of glass balls. We put the balls on his tree so that he could see that he needed more. He asked my advice on how to make his room more festive for when his daughter comes to visit at Christmas. We sat on the couch, under a blanket, and watched football for an hour or so. He held my hand. That was all.

He did kiss me goodbye, standing next to my car.

I drove home, contemplating my weekend, the attentions I had received from all three. I felt a bit like Scarlett O'Hara although I'd be hard pressed to call Fabulous Guy a suitor. I'm not sure what to call him. I smiled at the different kinds of attention I'd gotten from these three very different men. I find something unique to like about each of them. I wondered at how much I was enjoying being courted, wondered if I'd have to give up my NOW membership card if I ever admitted that....or admitted to liking a few other things I've learned about myself these past couple months.

I wondered if I had a moral dilemma to these men with whom I am choosing to spend some of my weekend time. I've decided that both relationships are so new that I have no obligation to tell them about Fabulous Guy, that I have no obligation to disclose to anyone the captivity of my heart, mostly because I don't even know myself. I am entertaining these men, much as Scarlett entertained her beaus. They feel good, just having the privilege of being with charming Betty.

I'm reading Conversations with God. I'm almost done with the first book, and bought the next two today. More tomorrow on that subject, especially as it relates to relationships.

Men Who Bring Me Flowers

I've been lucky, as of late, to be the recipient of flowers from two different gentlemen. Both men seem to be a bit smitten with me, think that I am pretty, and enjoy my company. Neither men have made any attempt to kiss me. I am undecided about the leanings of my heart with both of these men, and would like to kiss them, just to see if there's any chemistry. Short of grabbing a handful of their shirts, pulling them close and planting one on them myself, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do.

I asked Fabulous Guy for advice...