Open Letter to the Universe to exercise the Law of Attraction.
Subject: What type of woman is and is not a good match for me.
NO drama queens… Every life has some drama in it, but I am not interested in someone who specializes in it. The scary thing is almost all who live life drama filled, don’t realize it. If you have lots of secrets or live some sort of dual life with a good bit of you hidden away, please stay away.
NO active mental cases… If you need anti-depressants, PLEASE take them. If you need counseling, GO and don’t stop going as long as you need it. If you have faced your demons and have them under control for the most part, wonderful. It’s not what you’ve been through that matters. It’s how it currently effects you. Difficulty either shreds or smoothes. Which has it done for you?
NO physical wrecks… I have taken care of myself, am physically healthy and in good shape. If you didn’t treat your body well in the past, I’m sorry, but I am not up for taking care of you right now. Too much life to live (God willing). If you’re healthy now for your age and we fell in love I would gladly be there all the way through old age.
NO “I’m all about being a Granny” … no offense. I don’t like olives either, but know many people do and they’re good for you. If life is 90% about your grand kids, family, little else and that’s all you need to be happy… you’re a lucky woman and blessed to be a Grandmother… just not my type.
NO fiscal messes… I have squandered too much, but saved too. I can take care of me. Can you take care of you financially? Not meant to be harsh, but I am done being the one who supports two people. Sorry. Do you have decent credit? Do you have a job or excellent short term prospects? Are you financially comfortable as you are? Do you manage well within what you’ve got? “Yes” is a good answer to all those questions.
NO party poopers… I am introspective and somewhat of an introvert more often than not. But soften I want to go out and have a good time: concerts (old and new stuff!), movies and popcorn, Canes Ballroom, BOK and Brady Theater, good food leaning to the healthy side or sometimes eating lots of yummy bad food at the fair with a beer. I don’t dance well, but like doing it anyway. Mixed in is a love of plays, live performances and a learned appreciation of the ballet.
NO dummies… if you hated school, we probably won’t get along. Do you read and if you do, does your reading include something other than romance novels? Not looking for a genius, but someone who had made some effort to educate themselves, formerly or otherwise.
NO “old” people… If you call yourself “old”, talk about being “old” and have taken up the habits of someone “old”… then find someone like you and be happy. I am not that. My doctor says I am physically fit as someone 15 more years younger. Does Burning Man interest you? Are you still a bit of a rebel? Are you adventurous? Are you still truly open to learning and growing? Two “Yes” answers and we share commonalities.
NO hoarders or really messy women. My style is collectively cluttered. I collect antiques and such. But it’s organized and you can walk through any room swinging your hands with ease. I have a problem when stuff thrown here and there which stays where it was dropped for weeks. Again… do what makes you happy, but if you’re the messy type, we are not compatible.
NO, I am not obsessed with younger women. It just happens that seems to be who I have more in common with. In the last decade I’ve dated a one late 20’s woman, one in her late 30’s and three 50-something’s, but seem to fit best with women within the 40’s and 50’s realm. There are exceptions I’m sure… I just haven’t gotten to know her yet.
NO near helpless types or women who need to be constantly taken care of or catered to. Are you mature enough to know when to let your guard down and when to keep it up? Do you express your feelings openly and appropriately? Do you know how to be in love? Does love make you strong, and not weak? Can you make a commitment and keep it? Are you faithful because you know it is a gift you give yourself? Only yes answers please.
DO YOU like to travel? Take a meaningful trip a few times each year? With a international destination thrown in here and there? Are you comfortable traveling in unfamiliar places with extended lengths of travel once in a while? Weekend visits to family don’t count… tack on a few days somewhere before or after, then cool.
DO YOU like sex or at least at some point in your life you did? I am not obsessed with it, but adore sexual sharing and closeness when love fuels the fire. I don’t sport F#$%! I am not compatible with any woman who can’t passionately let go with someone she’s in love with. Exceedingly far from a prude, but not an anything goes type either. I’m very opened minded to the vast majority of what a man and woman might enjoy together. Are you?
DO YOU like Kids? Yours? Mine? I have a son I’m proud of and close to. He’s grown (early 30’s) and self sufficient on his own 700 miles away. We talk on the phone every day or two and see each other several times per year. I will be openly accepting of your offspring, BUT not looking to get involved with a family whose household has late-20 or 30 something year old “children” living at home who are long term still “finding them self”. And if one of your children’s behavior has caused you to become too familiar with the court system… not a chance.
DO YOU look good for your age? Do you think are attractive? I do and am not vain about it and would not want to be with someone who is. In all directness, not a fan of very skinny (hugging a bag of bones is a turn off) and prefer a little meat on the frame. Now if your physique has top to bottom features like the Michelin man I can’t do that either. Attractive is more in attitude and the way one carries them self more than anything else.
DO YOU appreciate your physical self? Are you comfortable both dressed up or in jeans and a t-shirt? Can you dress it up or down, and get ready in less than an hour? Do you have a personal sense of style, whatever it is? Do you know how to dress appropriately for whatever occasion? Two or three yes’s would be good.
DO YOU like following sports a lot? It’s cool if you do, but know that is not an interest we’ll have much to share about. It can just be one of the differences that makes up a relationship. Once upon a time I was a fan of professional and college football along with pro baseball and hockey. I gave up all the time and energy I spent on it about 25 years ago for more rewarding and fulfilling interests. PS: I never learned to play golf either.
ABOUT ME: I’m 61, but told I don’t look it. I have my own sense of style and am not stuck with the same wardrobe I had 10 years ago (not even five years ago). Although I’m no accurate judge, I’m told I have the attitude and condition of someone mid 40’s to mid 50’s or thereabouts (past all the midlife BS!). I’m tall (6’3″), weight about 215 lbs and still have hair (wavy gray hair.. but not as much hair as I once had). My eyes are hazel and my face sports a well trimmed goatee.
ME: I have three tats… a triquetra and Chinese symbol for “honor” on my left upper arm and Buddhist Sanskrit (“Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ”) with a Lotus blossom and small butterfly on my upper right arm. I have no piercings although I have no aversion to tasteful ones.
ME: I’m a spiritual man, but not particularly of the church type although I attend a Unitarian church with decent regularity. I believe living in line with some basic Buddhist tenants like the “Eightfold Noble Path“. My goal is to meditate and work out at home regularly and I am true to those intentions more often than not (got to have a day off now and then).
ME: I’m a gentleman raised in the deep south. I open doors and say please and thank you. I tip well and am never unkind to service people. I smile at strangers and have been known to leave anonymous notes in retail establishments to cheer up folks and give hope to people I will never meet. My belief is what good I give comes back multiplied.
ME: I was born curious and like learning new things. I can “drive” or just as easily be in the “passenger seat”. Depends on the situation. Balance is the key. My music taste is not stuck back there somewhere. My taste buds are fairly conservative and basic although I like discovering new foods once in a while. I adore Asian food, Mexican food, soul food, fried chicken, vegetables, fruit, salads, coffee, a glass of wine (but far from a wine snob as I drink what tastes good to me) and I don’t get drunk (never have been even once) and love a good margarita (but two of anything is about all I ever have).
ME: I own my home (well the bank and I do), drive a nice car, and have friends… close ones are my Tulsa family (grew up in Alabama, have lived in eight states and a foreign country). I like to eat out, but enjoy cooking in just as much. I am professional person and worked as an executive in media for a LONG time, but switched to being a therapist recently (truly want to help people) .
ME: I’ve been married twice and was more responsible than my partners for screwing up the marriages (last one ended in 2006). I’ve learned from my mistakes and experience has taught some tough lessons. The last eight years have been spent largely focused on becoming a better man. While it took lots of walking straight into storms and resolving old issues, I am proud of who I have turned out to be.
CONCLUSION: If I have pissed you off or offended you, I’m sorry. If I appear to be too picky and persnickety, I apologize. If it appears I have hang ups, well, I do. We all do, most just won’t admit them. If I have made you smile or even laugh out loud once… that’s a good sign. I’m just casting what I hope for into the universe with humble hope to attract it. It’s impossible to find what one does not go looking for.
Love is not really a mystery.
It is a process like anything else.
A process that requires trust, effort,
focus and commitment by two willing partners.
Elizabeth Bourgeret
To a dear heartbroken friend:
Don’t worry about the future. It will unfold as it does, unaffected by your thought and worry. What is to be will not be swayed one millimeter by your anguish. I know you are heartbroken, but it is not love that is the source of most of your pain. Love is always pure and never the source of grief. Given time, if you allow it, misery and sorrow will overpower the purity of your love and bury it in animosity and bitterness. Please don’t let that happen.
Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing… Elizabeth Gilbert
Comfort and happiness, as enjoyable as they feel, are not catalysts for personal development. It’s the difficult times where fertile ground exists for our growth. Please do not hate your pain. Growth is always uncomfortable; sometimes even agonizing. Accept the hurting with a thankfulness for what was instead of a dread for what might or might not be again one day.
I wish I could tell you getting past your heartbreak will be easy. It won’t be. But if you intentionally let go a little each day, slowly your aching will ease. With effort you’ll be able to not think about your loss for a little while at a time and with practice your heartache will be out of heart and mind more and more. Progress will be slow, but certain if you make is so.
Giving her the space she has asked you for is a certain way to show your love to her. To cling and grab to hold on, will only shred into jagged pieces what was once shared. If there is more for you two to share, it will arrive in its due time and not one second before.
Peace and Love,
James
I am grateful for friends who are comfortable enough with me to share their deep private feelings. It is in a common trust and sharing of emotion and thought with others who “get me and I them” that healing and recovery is possible.
We crucify ourselves between two thieves:
regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow.
Fulton Oursler
First posted here on April 16, 2013
Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
William Shakespeare
It was Carol’s fiftieth birthday, and Jim had two plane tickets to Hawaii in his pocket. He was going to surprise her. Instead, he was killed by a drunk driver.
“How have you survived this?” I finally asked Carol, a year later.
Her eyes welled up with tears. I thought I had said the wrong thing, but she gently took my hand and said, “It’s all right; I want to tell you. The day I married Jim, I promised I would never let him leave the house in the morning without telling him I loved him. He made the same promise. It got to be a joke between us, and as babies came along, it got to be a hard promise to keep. I remember running down the driveway, saying ‘I love you’ through clenched teeth when I was mad, or driving to the office to put a note in his car. It was a funny challenge.
“We made a lot of memories trying to say “I love you” before noon every day of our married life. “The morning Jim died, he left a birthday card in the kitchen and slipped out to the car. I heard the engine starting. Oh, no, you don’t, buster, I thought. I raced out and banged on the car window until he rolled it down.
“Here on my fiftieth birthday, Mr. James E. Garret, I Carol Garret, want to go on record as saying I love you!”
“That’s how I’ve survived. Knowing that the last words I said to Jim were ‘I love you!’
http://www.inspirationalarchive.com/246/the-last-i-love-you/
Saying “I love you” can become routine. I never speak the words unless I mean them, but the feeling is not always distinctly alive with their speaking. With those I care deeply about it’s a habit to end a phone call with “I love you” or for those to be parting words. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a good practice. What matters is to make sure the feeling behind the words is present within them being spoken.
In a romantic relationship, I have had a tendency to say “I love you” too frequently. It’s healing to admit I realize sometimes such words are spoken with the unconscious hope to hear the sentiment returned. I’ve had the experience where the other person is not one who expresses their feelings as easily and frequently. The attitude was ‘I said it yesterday. My feelings have not changed. You know how I feel about you.’ Within those tendencies we are both playing directly to our self and probably not as cognizant of our partner’s need as we could be. I no longer have expectations of hearing love expressed with any particular regularity and am grateful for the heartfelt times it is expressed. Guess I have grown up!
Within a small wake-up call alive in my head this morning it’s important to remind myself to cherish every moment with each loved person in my life. I don’t know when it will be the last time I see one of them. It is not the words that matter so much as the feeling behind them. I am grateful for a new flame of awareness flickering within.
Life isn’t a choice or an obligation,
it’s a gift,
so embrace it as much as you can.
You never know how much time you have left…
Nishan Panwar
Writer and film producer Nicholas lost his sister to cancer and events in her life inspired him to write “A Walk To Remember”. The book was made into a movie I have not seen. However, the book touched this old hapless romantic’s heart.
“Do you love me?’ I asked her. She smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you want me to be happy?’ as I asked her this I felt my heart beginning to race. ‘Of course I do.’
‘Will you do something for me then?’ She looked away, sadness crossing her features. ‘I don’t know if I can anymore.’ she said. ‘but if you could, would you?’
I cannot adequately describe the intensity of what I was feeling at that moment. Love, anger, sadness, hope, and fear, whirling together sharpened by the nervousness I was feeling. Jamie looked at me curiously and my breaths became shallower. Suddenly I knew that I’d never felt as strongly for another person as I did at that moment.
As I returned her gaze, this simple realization made me wish for the millionth time that I could make all this go away. Had it been possible, I would have traded my life for hers. I wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the sound of her voice suddenly silenced the emotions inside me.
‘Yes’ she finally said, her voice weak yet somehow still full of promise. ‘I would.’
Finally getting control of myself I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. even now she was perfect. My throat began to tighten again, but as I said, I knew what I had to do.
Since I had to accept that it was not within my power to cure her, what I wanted to do was give her something that she’d wanted. It was what my heart had been telling me to do all along. Jamie, I understood then, had already given me the answer I’d been searching for, the answer my heart needed to find.
She’d told me outside Mr. Jenkins office, the night we’d asked him about doing the play. I smiled softly, and she returned my affection with a slight squeeze of my hand, as if trusting me in what I was about to do.
Encouraged, I leaned closer and took a deep breath. When I exhaled, these were the words that flowed with my breath. ‘Will you marry me?” From “A Walk To Remember” by Nicholas Sparks
For a soul that is open enough to accept big love; for a heart that is strong enough to love with every fiber; and a mind that can get out of the way and let love soar… I am deeply grateful.
Love is like the wind,
you can’t see it
but you can feel it.
Nicholas Sparks
…love is the key
to understanding
of all the mysteries.
Paul Chelho
1. Men are NOT mind readers.
2. Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up. You need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
3. Sunday sports: It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
4. Crying is blackmail.
5. Breasts are for looking at and that is why we do it. Don’t try to change that.
6. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.
7. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.
8. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one! Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
9. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
10. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
11. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become Null and void after 7 Days.
12. If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us.
13. If something we said can be interpreted in two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
14. You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
15. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
16. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.
17. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have NO idea what mauve is.
18. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
19. If we ask what is wrong and you say ‘nothing,’ we will act like nothing’s wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
20. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear.
21. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine… Really!
22. Don’t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as Sex, Sport, or Cars.
23. You have enough clothes.
24. You have too many shoes.
25. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!
26. Thank you for reading this; Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight, but did you know men really don’t mind that, it’s like camping.
This list has been posted many times over the years, but I could not resist putting it up again. A good bit of it does not fit my feelings well (particularly numbers 3, 15, 16, 18, & 22) but a lot of it is just plain common sense. I am grateful to have lived long enough to be able to express to any woman what I do and don’t like (well… most of the time). That was one hard learned lesson!
Men marry women with the hope
they will never change.
Women marry men with the hope
they will change.
Invariably they are both disappointed.
Albert Einstein
Five Rules of a Relationship:
1 – Stay faithful.
2 – Make them feel loved and wanted.
3 – Respect your partner.
4 – Don’t flirt with others.
5 – Have time for each other.
http://mylovelyquotes.com
I used to think that finding the right one
was about the man (woman) having a list of certain qualities.
If he (she) has them, we’d be compatible and happy.
Sort of a check-mark system that was a complete failure.
But I found out that a healthy relationship isn’t so much
about sense of humor or intelligence or attractive.
It’s about avoiding partners with harmful traits and personality types.
And then it’s about being with a good person.
A good person on his (her) own, and a good person with you.
Where the space between you feels uncomplicated and happy.
A good relationship is where things just work.
They work because, whatever the list of qualities,
whatever the reason, you happen to be really, really good together.
From “The Secret Life of Prince Charming” by Deb Caletti
It is not a lack of love,
but a lack of friendship
that makes unhappy marriages.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In order to have a successful relationship
you need to put out of your mind
any lessons learned from previous relationships
because if you carry a sensitivity or fear with you,
you won’t be acting freely
and you won’t let yourself be really known.
In order to have a successful relationship
it is essential that both people
be completely open and honest.
Susan Polis Schutz
Good Morning Gratitude 