Live and Let Love

So I have been saying for quite sometime that I'm going to write a bit more on the subject of love.

Someone asked awhile ago, what happened to the tiger lady? The one who was all roar and no purr or cuddles or kittens. Just stripes and teeth and lots of bite....

Well, she's in there. But she's taming down a bit. I promise.

Over this extended singledom that I have been facing, encountering and dealing with, I can say with absolute verifiability, I have learned a lot.

I need to be open to what the world presents to me and stop searching. The world will find a way to present him to me.

I cannot hold men to whatever standards I imagine in my head, it is not a bad thing to have standards, but be open with them. What things are absolute essentials and which can I be more open and flexible to? Being that I am sometimes forgetful however, it is not always good to completely set aside some of those awful and terrible things I have seen and encountered myself. Standards are there for a reason. But I would like to think that I'm much smarter now. I'm much more straightforward and honest now and I will call out bullshit when I see it. I also won't hang around for intolerable actions. Never again.

I have made Man List 1.0 and Man List 2.0, and guess what? No surprise, I'm still single. Have I met men that fit the bill?

Yes and no. Mostly no. And I feel I have put a lot of consideration into my preferences. But then the men that fit, are too nice (and yes there is such a thing) or too boring (indeed) or just not quite meshable with the she who is me. Apparently I'm a very dynamic character....in a good way, but indeed I am. (I have discovered- and why is it always news to me). I have found a few men that do fit everything that I want and they are indeed everything that I want but it is always complicated. Always. Not quite always, sometimes the Universe is kind and will just plop a man like that into my life and we fall madly in love with each other. Usually though, the timing isn't right or there are complications

I felt months ago that I was bitter and jaded and twisted and incapable of loving or of being loved. Not undeserving, but just unlikely.

I was wrong.

I am completely and totally capable of loving and falling in love. I have fallen head over heels. I have become smitten. Enamored. Obsessed. I know what it is like to meet someone who is absolutely amazing and think about him constantly and get flutters and nervous when I'm around him.

I know. I've been doing it all along.

I just haven't done it to anyone who has reciprocated.

I  know what it is like to have love or feelings that don't pan out. I have been pursued by a number of men I have no interest in or pursued by men I am interested in until some dealbreaker enters the picture. I have pined and been pined for. I have been cast aside in favor of others. Blatantly ignored and avoided. I have turned down fine opportunities. I have been rejected.

I have been learning a lot about myself not only as a person but as what I am capable of.

I think of all of my past hurts and mostly kind of in a comical way. Because of the suppression I faced I was not able to come to sound conclusions about things. I was in love with men who did not treat me kindly. Since then and as a result of everything I have faced, I have essentially formed a thick scaly dragon layer over my heart and have set it up on the shelf. I still have an open wound but it is still healing. Like a deep stab wound that has to heal from the inside out and then fill in all of the holey spot caused from the knife. I guess I never really have taken it off of the shelf either, because it will really hurt if it drops and gets stepped on on the floor I suppose. Even though it's scaly, I still bruise. But a true lady can brush herself off and continue on. I am the Dragon Queen.

That's okay, because I've learned how to tussle. And I've never been a fighter. I guess I finally passed a self defense class, I just really need stop being on the offense. He doesn't call me Tin Man because it's cute...

I am capable of feelings. I have a lot of feelings. But I'm learning so much. The older I get the more I'm finding out that I don't know, and here I thought I knew it all. And feelings really suck sometimes. But it is nice when you are feeling really good about something. About someone. Love is life blood and it flows throughout everything and when it is good it is great. And vice versa.

And besides all of the gushy love stuff, it comes down to all of that physical nonsense.

Which isn't really nonsense at all. It's the most essential part. What is it about attraction? Why is it such a chemical and cataclysmic thing with some people and not with others? You can't trick it either.

It's actually quite disappointing sometimes because you know indeed this is an attractive person however there is something, sometimes something and sometimes you can pin down quite what it is and sometimes you can't. Lots of clarity in that situation., right? But it doesn't work. It doesn't want to work. Sometimes you can make it work with enough alcohol. And then you wake up and realize maybe you shouldn't have drank so much because it would have been worthwhile to drive home. Right?

But not like I do anything of the sort. All hypothetical. 

And sometimes you find someone that it does work with. That being around them drives you crazy because you want to be all over them. Everything meshes and they are totally comfortable and wonderful and intelligent and funny and absolutely to die for sexy. Just hope that they aren't totally abusive and crazy as well.

It's a tricky process.

And I don't know what to say except I'm just living and letting myself be open to love and not letting it all go until I get there.

And if I have to wait awhile, that's fine by me.