When you wake up in the morning

When you wake up in the morning, you never know what the day is going to hold. Some days start out good and end bad. Some start out bad and end good. And some are a rollercoaster of everything in between. I spend WAAAYY too much time by myself - too much time sitting and thinking, analyzing, working on what I've got going on in my head. Today I'm wearing my favorite T-shirt: "The voices aren't real, but they have some good ideas".

I wrote this a few days ago, and since I'm not willing to sit and write something new today - here's what we've got.

Some days, I wish I could be normal. Not normal, like boring normal - but normal in the sense of like other people. Of course, this is usually about sometihngn like having normal sized feet, or going to bed at a "normal time". Especially the bedtime part, because here I sit writing at 1:30 am and I have to get up at 7. Can you say cranky, boys and girls? I'm NOT a morning person.

I meant entirely to sit in front of the TV and watch some movie on the independent film channel about a prostitute whose phone gets run over by a car, but instead I got sucked into the computer where I offered advice to not one, not two, but three different guys, and participated in one guy's fantasy.

What a bizarre night.

You know that saying "those who can't do, teach"? Well, that applies to me - at least in the sense of relationships.

I've never been much good at them. I tend to be very literal, almost always the dumper, and believe it or not, far too tolerant of being used. It's hard for me to take my perspective about relationship dynamics into my own situations.

I'm the survivor of a 14 year marriage. I guess you could say that it failed, since we're not together anymore - but I grew a TON during the marriage and especially after the divorce. The divorce was one of the most liberating things I've done in my life and even though things have been hard in other ways since then, I don't regret it for a second. I learned that I HAD to follow my intuition about everything that I did. It only took me about 13 years to figure that out. The rest is just time and drama.

Prior to, and since my marriage, my longest relationship was about 4 months. I don't have a whole lot of patience with people and learn fairly quickly that it's not going to work. I've dated some guys that were an ego boost for me. You know those guys that I'm talking about? Much younger, good looking, the guy who was very educated, the adventurer. You know? those guys that make you seem adventurous or provocative or dangerous.. or stupid. Most of them were flings that somehow turned into short term relationships and I realized that I didn't have any business with them. I was into guys that were into me, until I realized that I really wasn't into them. That's when we split up.

I thought I fell in love once. It was an adventurer with amazing energy and all kinds of tales to tell. We had great chemistry and great conversation and well, great other things. But we lacked something really important - that respect that each of us wanted something different from the other. All of those good things that we had paled in comparison to needing to go different directions with our lives. It took me a long time to get over my relationship with him - lots of pain, lots of heartache, and a few demons over my bed.

But having been in so many on/off relationships and being ever the one that lends her shoulder, I guess I've somehow come up with Andrea's canon of relationships. Not just that, but having watched enough people crumble because of them, I figured out what the root of all death in relationships is.. it's fear.

That may sound pretty basic. Isn't fear the root of destruction for everything? Greed? Power? Jealousy? Absolutely. But it makes us do weird things. It'll keep us from getting into and getting out of situations that we want to be in or don't have any business being in in the first place. In the beginning of relationships, most people are so afraid of showing who they really are, that they spend all this time creating fronts and playing games - who am I today? Is it candy and flowers or wanton sex goddess? (Oh wait, this doesn't apply to me.) Nobody wants to show their fat pictures, or tell that you watch Disney channel when your kids aren't there, or that you pick your nose in the shower. You want to put your best 'face' forward. But it's not your face at all. Every once in a while, you find the odd-ball that actually is willing to show who they are, but no one will believe them because they just assume that everybody actually is playing games.

I spend more time talking to people about fear than anything else. They only think we're talking about love. They're afraid they'll never find someone. They'll afraid their partner will leave. They're afraid they won't be able to have a child or that they won't know what to do if they do have one. The list goes on and on. People cling so tightly to what they think they want, and they claim to do it all in the name of love.

In this society, we seem to operate from a place of LACK. This is what I don't have. This is what I want. I WANT. I'm wanton. We're all so afraid of losing, missing, needing, wanting, doing without, that we've completely incapacitated ourselves at what we're really looking for.. oh wait.. looking? maybe that's another one.

I quit looking. "They" (whomever "they" are), say that once you quit looking, you'll find. I don't know that to be true - but I'm not all that worried about it. I suck at relationships. I'm an opinionated, yet very open woman. I'm strong. I don't always play well with others. I'm ruled by fear too.

I never thought I'd fall in love. I was married for 14 years to a man that I didn't love. 14 years!! in a loveless relationship. I don't believe he loved me either. We were 2 stupid kids that got married, had kids, and  woke up one day (well I woke up) and said.. "I deserve better, and so do you". And so I moved on (not quite so easy grasshoppah). I fell in love (at least I thought), and I was devastated when I couldn't sustain it. I could sustain the emotion, but not when it wasn't reciprocated long term. It just killed me.

But all of that has ruled my life.. these past experiences. I can look at everybody else's situation, learn from them, learn from mine even. But when it comes down to it, I'm not there. I'm not in the place of wanting to extend myself to someone else. How can I give my whole Self to someone else and not get lost in it? How can I give my Body, Mind, and Spirit to another - spending day and night with them, sharing everything with them? Nothing remains my own. How can I put up with someone else in my space? I can't even put up with myself in my space. How can I TRUST someone else? Hey, person, unknown person, whomever you are.. I'm giving you untold access to me - everything.. you game for it? Who is willing to say yes and NOT abuse that power?

I can't answer these questions. Part of me feels like I can "wait and see" if someone foots the bill to meet all of my "needs". But the reality is that I don't need anything. I'm stand alone. I come fully equipped with a brain (far too big for my head), a mostly functioning body, enough Energy to power a Universe.. what else could I possibly want? And I think that's part of the battle within myself. Why should I open myself up to someone else?

Of course there's some of the obvious reasons.. like going to bed alone every night; not having anyone to tell my crazy stories to, or better yet have them share the experiences with me; eating alone. You know, that kind of thing. The kind of things that make us want.