Instead...

Not too long ago, women depended on their mates for survival, and this dictated certain relationship dynamics (which happened to support the socioeconomic and religious status quo). But the world has changed, and so have our needs within relationships. Many women are looking for someone who gets us. Whose lifestyle, personality, values, goals, intellect, humor and physical stamina are compatible and complementary to our own. Alone, we’ve learned, evolved, cultivated self-awareness, raised children, realized dreams, traveled, built careers. Often, an open, loving, solid and noncompetitive man fits that bill.

I need a man strong enough to handle me, to love me.

Many men grew up with mixed messages of the in-your-face feminism of the late 60’s and 70’s: Traditional values said a man must provide, while modern society suggested that any sign of masculine energy – inherent male qualities like strength, aggressiveness, assertiveness – was bad. The result? Some men don’t know how to be men, suppressing their instincts and becoming either controlling and dominant, or submissive and repressed. Instead of taking the time to get to know who I really am and without the expectation that every coupling has to conform to specific societal ideas of what is “good for us”, because often it’s not.

Take away all of that and the pressure disappears. Instead? Fun. Trust. Hot sex. Laughter. Adventure. Energy. Mental, emotional and physical stimulation. And with the right one, something deeper and more meaningful. Best of all is the mutual acceptance, ease and respect that come with enjoying people for who they are being open to true human connection in whatever form it happens to take.

I Don't Know Why

I don't know why we're here. I don't know why we yawn.
Why we fall in love. Why we cry when we're happy, and sad.
I don't know why things fall apart. I don't know why we
can't just say what's really on our mind. I don't know
why we live in a society that values money and status
above goodness and kindness. I don't know who I'll be
when I grow up. I don't know if I'll ever get married,
again. I don't know if that Supermodel is really happy
or if she goes into a bathroom in Fiji and cries on the
tiles about her pitiful life. I don't know anything
and most days I file into the world and do my earthly
duties and well, that can't be all there is.

But if it IS all there is, I guess I better make the
most of it.

Life Path #5....

The Life Path 5 suggests that you entered this plane with a highly progressive mindset, with the attitude and skills to make the world a better place. The key word for your Life Path is freedom. In the pursuit of freedom, you are naturally versatile, adventurous, and advanced in your thinking. You are one of those people who is always striving to find answers to the many questions that life poses. The byword for the positive Life Path 5 is constant change and improvement. You want to be totally unrestrained, as this is the number most often associated with the productive use of freedom.

You may be one of the most compassionate of people as the 5 is surely the most freedom-loving and compassionate Life Path. Your love of freedom extends to humanity at large, and concern for your fellow man, his freedom and his welfare, may be foremost in your mind. A great Life Path 5 American President, Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and ended slavery in America. As the ultimate progressive thinker type, your potential in government, the law, and other positions of authority is unlimited.

You are a good communicator, and you know how to motivate people around you. This may be your strongest and most valuable trait. Because of this skill, and your amazing wit, you are a truly natural born salesman. This ability to sell and motivate extends to any sort of physical product all the way through to whatever ideas or concepts you may embrace.

You abhor routine and boring work, and you are not very good at staying with everyday tasks that must be finished on time. On the average, the number 5 personality is rather happy-go-lucky; living for today, and not worrying too much about tomorrow. It is also important for you to find a job that provides thought-provoking tasks rather than routine and redundant responsibilities. You do best dealing with people, but the important thing is that you have the flexibility to express yourself at all times. You have an innate ability to think through complex matters and analyze them quickly, but then be off to something new.

A love of adventure may dominate your life. This may take the form of mental or physical manifestation, but in either case, you thrill to the chance for exploration and blazing new trails. Surely you belong to a group considered the most worldly and traveled. Clearly you are not one to pass up a good venture. You have quite a lot of the risk-taker in your makeup. If you aren't putting your money at stake, you are surely open to a wide variety of risks in your everyday life. Taking the conservative approach is just not in your nature.

In romance, you hate to be tied down and restricted. This doesn't necessarily mean that you are unfaithful or promiscuous, but it does mean that a good partner for you needs to understand your nature. A relationship based on jealousy and having tight reigns is not going to work at all for you. A partner who understands your need to be free and trusted will find you trustworthy, even if you aren't constantly available and totally dutiful. It is important for you to mix with people of a like mind, and to try to avoid those that are too serious and demanding.

If you are living on the negative side of the Life Path 5, you are apt to be multitalented, but suffering from some lack of direction, and there is confusion surrounding your ambition. Restless, discontent, and impulsive, you may bounce from one job to the next without accomplishing much at all. A negative Life Path 5 can become very irresponsible in tasks and decisions concerning the home and business life. The total pursuit of sensation and adventure can result in your becoming self-indulgent and totally unaware of the feelings of those around you.

Consider The Source

I have a good heart and a good life.
I feel a joy that I can't even explain
when I think about the life I have actively
participated in creating.

For the people who know nothing about my
life and base their opinions on hearsay and
flimsy details, come to me. Talk to me. And,
consider the source of your information.
Everything comes through someone's filter.

I am a strong, intelligent, resilient, loving,
optimistic, joyous person with more to give
then you'll ever know. Do not underestimate me.

My life is mine. And it's better than I
ever imagined. I have forged friendships
that reach out like a lighthouse in the
darkest night.

So get off my ass. Fix your own life before
you try to tell me what you
think is wrong with mine.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Autobiography

An autobiography about me in 5 short chapters:

I.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V.
I walk down another street.

The "About Me" section

Copied from the About Me section of Facebook:

Favorite Quotations:

Well done is better than well said - Benjamin Franklin

About Me:

I like to keep people guessing; I can be quite contradictory at times but never overstepping my boundaries/morals. I have sick intuition; I should have been a shrink. Preconceived notions are just that. I'm way too analytical.

I love wine (think fish bowl size glasses), hair, make up, enlightening books for the soul, God, warm weather, stilettos, CONTACT sports, and swanky lounges - not in that particular order...I laugh at the theory of evolution, piqued by fashion and in love with love. Will never settle...not this chick.

I wear my heart on my sleeve and I am never what people initially think.

Do No Harm

The haunting past:
I used to buy Steven King books and assorted novels about science fiction until noticing that my ex-husband was an honest-to-God alien. Now I buy psychology books to figure out where I came from ‘cuz surely I don’t belong on planet Earth where infidelity, betrayal, abuse, neglect, hatred, vengeance, malice, disregard, poverty, oppression, patriarchy and political fakes are considered to be ‘normal’; and honesty, generosity, fidelity, loyalty, compassion, forgiveness, kindness, religious principles, hope, faith, and integrity are considered to be abnormal flaws requiring modification because otherwise, you won’t fit into society. Well, there are days when if what it takes to fit in to our society is to whittle away at character traits it takes a lifetime to create, then let this misfit remain abnormal. But please don’t call me a narcissist because it reminds me how much work I need to do to educate my accusers about the difference between self-respect and a narcissistic pathology.

Which is why we feel like such dupes when we’re told the reason we were targeted by a narcissist is because we display the attributes our culture taught us were valuable and worthy of effort. When a person has always taken pride in being generous for example, the first reaction I had at least, was to stop being generous.

Like the typical betrayed victim, I flipped a 180 and began attacking myself for being too kind, too generous, too accepting, too forgiving which is only true if you are committed to someone who is mean, stingy, critical, unforgiving, un-accepting and did I mention self-centered? At the time, I could not see that I was rejecting my true self by denigrating every human value formerly held near and dear to my heart. My main concern was protecting myself from further harm because instinctually, I knew this was a fight for my soul’s survival. If that meant reading books that blamed me for being ‘nice’, then that’s what I did. For awhile. Until I felt safe enough in my own skin to start reclaiming character traits formed over a lifetime of moral choices. Moral meaning ‘alleviating the pain of others’ through conscious awareness of my impact and trying, oh so very hard: to do no harm.

I decided eventually that reclaiming Nice was valuable because it IS a part of who I am. A character trait modeled after very nice Aunts who woulda given anybody the shirts off their backs. Those very good-hearted relatives served as role models to lead me out of self-rejection because I wanted to be like them and not like the commercialized nasty people revered on reality TV. Those screaming, yelling, tough-mouthed bullies don’t have friends, I’m sure. They have adversaries and people they hold at arm’s lengths because if they don’t, they’ll stab each other in the back to get a higher rating from frightened people who think bullies are awesome.

I like people who are so NICE they cry when you cry and laugh when you laugh and care about the fact that your cake failed the night before. So what do nice people do when you tell them your sob story? They make you a cake and bring it over the next night and it’s kinda sloppy and it’s sunken in the middle because they know the last thing a woman needs after a failure is a perfect cake on her doorstep.

Fast forward to today's thinking:

Reclaim yourself. Be proud of the attributes you worked hard to develop. Refine your characteristics that mark the best of human nature and continually strive to see through the narcissistic accusation that anything that is “worthy and of good report” is a character flaw or a mistake. Do not reject all that is good and beautiful about yourself simply because someone tried to destroy that which they could not create for themselves.

It is not goodness that ruins relationships. It’s narcissism.