Slow News Week

It is difficult to come up with something brilliant to write week after week. Both hyper critical and competitive (I mostly compete against my own personal best, which one might think makes the game a win-win every time. Alas. That is not the case.), I agonize over word choices, sentence variation, tone and cohesiveness.

Often times I desire to deliver a sagacious message – food for thought for my readers – that will inspire just one person to make the world a better place. Other times I think of writers like Dave Barry (I can remember reading him in the Miami Herald and thinking how cool it would be to write for the newspaper) and I want to be funny – to throw out some zinger that people talk about at the proverbial office water cooler.

This happens to be one of those weeks where the thoughts that will eventually translate into words on this page feel stifled – despite the fact that there is certainly a lot of fodder for conversational writing both nationally and in our community.

I don’t have much to say about the recent election. Somehow an “In your face!” seems juvenile and inappropriate albeit funny (something my editor might secretly edit out of my work much to my dismay).

Truth be told, I am one of the few in the upstate who voted for Obama (there must have been a misprint because it didn’t say anti-Christ on my ballot). That said I also voted for many Republican candidates in Pickens County. As if I had a choice! (My editor has made me so paranoid about offending our readership that I have to add – People, that is supposed to be funny).

While it is possible for me to maintain objectivity and a balance of voices when I write, I can’t help but shake my head and laugh about the ensuing Dog Debacle in Easley.

Seriously!?!?

I cannot wrap my brain around how surreally this entire ordeal continues to unfold right before my very eyes. I still don’t understand why, between law enforcement, magistrates, council members, and our mayor, something cannot – has not – been done to return this dog to the family who unequivocally owns her when that ownership has been publicly conceded by the people who refuse to return her.

Of course, I could also comment on the factions at war over the old, abandoned Doodle Line. Pickens and Easley would like to combine their efforts and turn the old rail line into a safe, aesthetically pleasing and pedestrian friendly path where families can ride bicycles, run or walk and not only enjoy the out-of-doors but also reap some of the health benefits associated with physical activity.

 As there is any time a current of change surges through the county, certain groups are appalled by the notion that tax payer dollars would be used to groom Pickens and Easley into anything remotely like the Sodom and Gomorrah of Greenville. Put in a pedestrian friendly trail and what’s next? Brothels? Sunday alcohol sales?

I shudder at the mere thought.

Yep. This has definitely been one of those weeks when my thought well has been depleted and dehydrated. Here’s hoping something interesting happens so I have something to write about for next week!

Practice Kindness

I have been on a journey of self-discovery for as long as I can remember. As I have said before, we are all works in progress. Some of us actively seek to learn more about ourselves to improve our lives and relationships with others. Some of us fall into circumstances that wind up teaching us applicable life lessons. Others ignore the idea of self-improvement all together and are content to move through life in a state of blissful ignorance.

Over the last several months, I have been afforded a variety of opportunities to learn more about myself and how I interact with other people. There are some fairly simple, fundamental truths I constantly attempt to put into practice daily. Sometimes it is more difficult than at other times, but if we could all practice the most basic principle we learn growing up, imagine what a better world we would help shape.

Em and Ella have each experienced conflict at school lately. It seems each of my girls has been faced with a bully of a classmate. When I pick them up after school, I listen to stories about recess play gone awry – degraded into name calling and petty meanness.

Before I begin to wax philosophical, let me say this: I am not one of those parents who believe that my daughters are saintly or should be considered as candidates for canonization. I know that they are not always on their best behavior, and I know that they are not always polite. I know they don’t always speak with kindness or act selflessly. Thankfully, they are children and I have time to help shape and mold their characters.

By the way, I am not perfect either. However, I do attempt to be an example for my daughters when it comes to treating others with kindness, compassion, understanding and unconditional love. While I might be idealistic, I don’t think it hurts to smile at someone even when I am having a bad day.

When I hear my girls talking about other kids that have been unkind, I emphasize that the people who are not nice are often the ones most in need of random acts of kindness. After all, most of us treat other people the way we been and have learned to treat others.

As children, if we grow up in a home where we aren’t hugged, loved and nurtured how would we know how to treat other people with kindness and compassion?  

We wouldn’t.

Bullying of any kind is absolutely unacceptable; yet I imagine that kids who bully other kids are probably victims of bullying themselves. Most kids are not inherently mean-spirited. They are taught that behaving in this way is ‘normal’ somewhere along the line. It seems to me, then, that the best way to combat unkindness is to shower one with love and understanding.

I’m sure this all sounds like hippie-dippy, tree-hugging, leftist rhetoric, but I think my thoughts have some merit and I would challenge my readers out there to give kindness a chance. What is the worst that can happen? Put a little love out there and, hmmm, you might get a little love in return?

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” ― Mother Teresa

Confession: I often find that when I do the math, I am older than I think I am!

Ruminating about what I was going to write and compile for this week’s B-Front, it seemed liked only years ago that I graduated from high school. I was thinking about the palatial digs all these kids are going to high school as they enter any one of the four majestic buildings in Clemson, Liberty, Easley or Pickens.

I had the opportunity to tour the new EHS and walking the halls was more reminiscent of being in a museum than my old high school.

Beach High (that really is my alma mater’s name – Go Tides!) had what one might describe as an institutional feel: cinderblock building construction painted a drab sand color; dimly lit hallways; beat-up, dented in lockers; linoleum floors that had ferreted so many dirty sneakers to and fro no amount of bleach could make them look pristine.

We were lucky if there was a television in each room, and I don’t mean the flat screen variety. I can remember feeling like I had won the lottery if selected for the task of going to our library to check out the reel-to-reel film projector and wheel it, atop massive cart, back to whichever classroom I was in at the time.

Thinking about all this, I heard my voice echo in my head “I only graduated in 1994. That isn’t that long ago. Then I started doing the math in my head and, I won’t lie, on my fingers: Voila! My twenty year reunion is just around the corner.

Yep. Not only do I feel old, without the aid of an incredibly talented stylist, I would boast a fair amount of grey hair to prove this fact.

An old friend once told me that I was like a bottle of wine in that I only got better with age. I’ve chosen to ascribe to this theory.

While I might get older, there are still some things that never change. For me, one of those things is the excitement of Back to School.

A self-proclaimed nerd, I loved (I love) preparing for back to school. One of the neat things about having children is getting to relive exciting moments, such as these, with them.

Picking out book-bags, pencil boxes, binders, glue sticks, crayons, paper, and pencils was a thrill a minute. Getting home from Wal-Mart, putting all of the new supplies out on the kitchen table, organizing and packing them up always brings back fond memories for me.

I wish I were going back to school too.

"'This Year's Love'"

I wish that I possessed a knowledgeable vocabulary or deeper understand of music such that I could talk about it in an intellectual way as opposed to simply saying  ‘I really like that song.’ I’ve always been an avid music fan, and if it had been possible for me to memorize chemical or algebraic equations the way I have managed to remember song lyrics over the years, I would be a freakin’ genius.

Seriously. It would be amazing if there were a way to look at my brain memory the same way I can pull up the pie diagrams that display the way my computer memory is allotted among various programs. I would love to know how much of my grey matter contains song lyrics compared with, say, geometry. I imagine the results would be sadly astounding.

We all have favorite songs that become part of our life sound tracks. Songs that, regardless of how much time has passed or how much we might grow and evolve, we will always love. Music, I believe, becomes ingrained in our sensory memories – they become part of us and who we are. There are pieces of music I love because of the lyrics and because of the instrumental sounds. I love voices, especially those with that earthy, scratchy, gravely kind of tone.

People who know me would tell you that I love Dave Matthews. He would be an example of the many ways I love music. There is something about the quality of his voice that resonates with me. Add to this the lyrics – the longing of his love songs – the multitude of instruments like flute, saxophone, violin (or fiddle?), guitar, drums … it is an amazing explosion of sounds and words that “get” me.

Running through my mind the last couple of days has been David Gray’s “This Year’s Love.” The first time I heard this song I was in graduate school – snuggled into my bed watching Felicity. The scene for which this song was the back ground took place in winter time New York. I recall a couple, who had struggled earlier in the episode, embracing as this song echoed in the back ground.

As soon as I heard the song, I loved it.

I wish there were some way that I could write about it in a way that would convey how it makes me feel, but I think I lack the tools and capability to be able to do so.

The song is simple – piano and Gray’s voice. What makes it so powerful is the timing – the pauses between words – the emotional ache in his voice as he sings. When I hear it, I can feel exactly what he is describing. Does that make sense?

This year’s love had better last
Heaven knows it’s high time
I’ve been waiting
On my own
Too long

Then piano….

When you hold me

Like you do
Feel so right
Ah now
Start to for-get
How my heart
gets
torn
when that hurt
gets thrown
feelin’
like you
can’t go on

Turning circles

when time again
It cuts like a knife
oh yeah
If you love me
got to know
 for sure

Piano....

Cos it takes something

more this time
Than sweet, sweet lies
ah now
Before I
open
up my
arms
and fall
Losing all
control
Every dream
inside
my soul

And when you kiss me
On that

Midnight
street
Sweep me
off my feet
Singing
ain't this life
so sweet
So whose to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on
And won't you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

The way I’ve broken this up is the way it sounds in my mind – where the pauses are between words – the way the emphasis sounds. Again, there is something about the longing ache in Gray’s voice. It captures a feeling that I have felt before at times in my life. In various relationships.

I guess it is the longing that I love. The sense of urgency. I have always wanted someone to feel that ache for me – the longing to be near – to know that love is real and that it isn’t going anywhere.

It should also come as no surprise that, hopeless romantic that I am, I am in love with the idea of being swept off my feet. I can imagine literally being picked up, held and kissed in a way that makes me breathless – shoots my heart rate through the roof such that, in any other context, I would be terrified I was having a heart attack.

Really, I have not done this song justice. I know. I’m certain there are technical terms, musical language, that would more accurately convey what Gray does as a singer that causes listeners, like me, to have such a visceral response to the music. If I were compiling a sound track for my life, “This Year’s Love” would definitely be on the list.

Alchemy?

What I am trying to believe about myself:

·         I am loveable.

·         I am worth the effort.

There are times when I absolutely hate the fact that I am a hopeless romantic; times when I wish I could simply eradicate this from my character. I imagine, with practice, I could. But there are other times when I love this about me.

Being a romantic means that I believe in the impossible; that I believe in miracles; that I believe the extraordinary can happen in real life even against the most seemingly impossible of odds. I enjoy thinking that, like my beloved Gatsby, I possess an “extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as [Carraway] have never found in any other person and which it is not likely [he] shall ever find again.”

I want to believe in Alchemy – in the notion that if and when we believe, God and the universe conspires to help us find the treasure we seek – that which we desire most in our hearts.

All things considered, God has blessed me with incredible riches.

Despite the fact that I am a child of divorce, I have an amazing mother. My mother always made me the primary focus of her life. There was never a day of my life when I wasn’t told I was loved or that she was proud of me. I never wanted for anything. I never knew what the ache of hunger felt like in my belly.

While my relationships might have been short-lived and unorthodox, at best, I have been blessed with two amazing daughters. Brown-eyed beauties who are so snuggly and loving – intelligent and funny – that I sometimes wonder what role I have played in how incredible they are.  Slowly, I am learning to give myself credit for the love and nurturing I offer them. The perfect parent I am not, nor would I pretend to be. But I love them unconditionally and without limits. This has to be worth something.

So I sit here and I feel selfish for wanting more. For feeling like there is something missing in my life; like life remains, in some way, incomplete. Yet no matter how diligently I try to ignore this void, to stuff it away, it is there.

I desperately desire to be loved. To feel loved. To be someone’s heart’s desire. To be longed for and sought after – the pearl of great price.

The Alchemist was truly a life changing book for me; however, sometimes I wonder if I can’t separate fact from fiction – reality from dreams. And yet when I read this book it seemed to affirm for me every ‘romantic’ notion I have clung to my entire life.

“In alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the World. When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force.”

Romantic love. Married love. Best friend love. Unconditional love. This is what I desire with all my heart; what I have desired for as long as I can remember. In my quest for this, I must say I feel more spiritually connected to God than I have felt in a long time. I think I have finally learned and understand what it means to surrender.

Obviously, I would not have my daughters without the choices I made in my life; but those were my choices. As insane as this might seem to some people, I am really trying to allow God to lead me in the choices I make. I desire a lasting love relationship. Not one that is going to fracture and fall apart when life enters stages of difficulty or throws in obstacles that must be hurtled.

In those times, I want someone who is going to hold my hand so that we can overcome these things together.

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person realize his dream.”

I so desperately want to believe that this is true, but my beacon of hope dims a bit every day. The green light at the end of the dock becomes more difficult to spot through the fog.  

Like everyone else, I imagine, I have watched endless news feeds of the recent tragedy –blood-drenched theater patrons seeking asylum in a dazed mass exodus. As I have watched the footage, and both read and watched the commentary, my mind has been churning with questions since the news first broke.

Boil it all down to the most basic of queries and we are all left with one immense ‘WHY?’

Why does a seemingly intelligent, by all accounts ‘normal’ young man with opportunities for a bright future ahead of him, purchase 6,000 rounds of ammunition and plot out a plan designed to injure and kill innocent strangers?

Crimes of passion, while no less heinous, are predicated on irrational, over-zealous human emotion – love and hate can drive the most balanced of people in behaviorally insane directions.

I am in no way offering a pass on these crimes, but I can, at the very least, wrap my head around the “why” and simultaneously offer a variety of solutions to the problem that doesn’t end in homicide.

Walking into a movie theater and shooting into a crowd of complete strangers – this I simply cannot fathom. Is it an act of insanity or is this the personification of genuine evil?

Sitting in the safety of my family room in Easley, hundreds of miles removed from Colorado, I have not personally experienced what these victims or families are having to endure; yet, I am able to translate what I am seeing on the television news into an earnest sympathy and compassion for the events that have unfolded.

I will never again be able to walk into a movie theater without a heightened awareness of my surroundings – my fight or flight instinct at the ready to protect my children. And it makes me sad that this thought is now part of my conscious awareness.

Living in Pickens County (as opposed to Miami) has lulled me into a false sense of security.  The fact of the matter is what happened in Aurora could have happened in Easley. Obviously we all hope nothing like this ever happens here, but no one can definitively guarantee that we are immune to an act of terrorism such as this.

Still, we can’t all live our lives fearing what might happen. As senseless and horrible as the Aurora massacre continues to be, in some way I think it is another reminder for all of us to live each day to the fullest – as if it is our last.

Obviously we have responsibilities that cannot be cast to chance, but we can be a little more mindful of what is truly important in our lives: our children, our spouses, our parents, our siblings. Maybe we can let go of past insults and injuries, replacing those with a hug and an “I love you.”

None of us knows what is going to happen from one minute to the next, and there are things in life for which we cannot plan; the actions of others over which we cannot assert control.

This is why I never let a day (or an hour – who am I kidding?) elapse without telling and showing the people in my life that I love and value them.

Life, as we know it, is fragile; it can be turned upside down and inside out in an instant, when we least suspect it to happen.

Congratulations!

Sometimes performing the simplest of calculations can make a person, well, me, feel really old. Doing the quick math, it would seem that I graduated from high school 18 years ago this month. Time flies when you’re having fun or getting older and raising children. Any way you slice it, time is certainly a gift I have come to value more and more over the last year.

Last Saturday, I had the privilege of attending Easley High’s graduation ceremony. I know for many it was bitter sweet – 2012 is the last class that can claim roaming the hall of the historic buildings for their entire high school career. Change. This is the one constant in life on which we can always depend. Without change, there is no growth. No evolution. Difficult as it can be at times, change can be an incredibly positive experience.

While I offer these words of wisdom to all of those seniors in Pickens County – recent graduates who will be heading off in a new direction – I would like to note that I am very proud of my ‘adopted’ daughter, Kaiteland. I have had the honor of being her second mom and watching her grow into an amazing young woman these last few years. She graduated among the Easley High class on Saturday, and I beamed with pride as they called her name and I got to watch her walk across the stage.

In the almost two decades it has been since I graduated from high school, I think the most important lesson I have learned is that we truly never stop learning. There are so many things we learn from books and from our teachers, but there is an equal education we receive living life, making mistakes and tackling new challenges. If I were giving a commencement speech, I would urge everyone to be receptive to each and every opportunity life offers you to learn more about yourself and the world around you.

The acquisition of knowledge is a process that really has no end but one must be open to embracing the experiences that will allow us to learn and grow.

My other piece of advice would be not to wish your life away by constantly focusing on what tomorrow might bring. Don’t get me wrong – I certainly believe in thinking ahead and planning for the future, but not at the expense of ignoring the present moments with which we are gifted.

Tomorrow is never a guarantee.

When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to be in college. When I was in college, I couldn’t wait to go to graduate school. Looking back, I wish I had taken the time to thoroughly enjoy each and every course I took, to more completely cherish the friendships I had and the lack of true adult responsibility. You will have plenty of real-world, grown-up responsibilities in the form of jobs and bills soon enough.

Find your passion and what you love to do with your time. I have degrees in English and Counseling because I love people and I love language, literature and writing. Maybe it was unwise to choose a career path that would not afford me the opportunity to measure my success by how much money I earned in each paycheck. However, every job I have ever had – be it teaching, counseling or writing, has made me happy.

I have measured my successes by the fact that I enjoy going to work and that what I do makes a difference in the lives of others in some form or fashion.

The last piece of advice I have to offer is from Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford commencement speech. Having not heeded this advice in my younger years, these words have had a profound impact on my life over this last year.

“Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know [what you love] when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

Congratulations to the 2012 graduates of Pickens County and a very warm ‘shout out’ to my dear Kaiteland. I am so very proud of you. You are an amazing young woman with so much heart and oodles of talent. It is entirely my honor to be your second mommy. Listen to what is deep inside you – to what stirs your soul – and follow your heart knowing that there are so many people who believe in you, support you and love you more than words could ever say. Congratulations!

Lacking Foundation

I imagine most people are fairly conventional when it comes to relationships.
Two people meet and begin dating. They take ample time to get to know one another, to develop trust, emotional intimacy, strong communication processes. Maybe they also develop a physical intimacy built, again, on trust and communication. They share their individual needs and wants and begin to dream of a future together making those hopes and desires a reality.

At some point, they decide they want to get married, so they get engaged. The engagement process is typically proportional in time measurement to the months and (or) years leading up to the engagement. The couple gets married and settles into life together. Maybe they start a family. They evolve as a unit built on a foundation of unconditional love and acceptance. Mutual respect and appreciation.

I’m certain it will come as no surprise to my regular readers that I see love from a slightly unorthodox perspective, which is to say that the romantic in me believes in love at first sight and soul mates. The notion that God, in all of his infinite wisdom, has divinely created perfect matches that he unites when the timing is correct.

Recently I reread my copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist (an AMAZING book if you’ve never read it). In hindsight, I believe that I was drawn to the novel at the perfect time last year. My Mom had recently been diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and my world felt like it was crumbling around me. Looking back, it was also around this time that my marriage was slowly unraveling, stitch by stitch.

The book offered me a renewed spiritual peace from which I was able to cope with the massive changes taking place in my life at that time. It made me feel grounded and it gave me hope for the future.

As I read back through it, the following passage caught my attention: “At that moment, it seemed to him that time stood still, and the Soul of the World surged within him …. he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke – the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen – the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life.”

“It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.”

I find myself exploring this possibility because – without even being consciously aware of it – I have ascribed to this philosophy my entire life. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that everything – good or bad – just or unjust – happens for a reason.
Everything we experience in our lives – the challenges, the triumphs, the failures, the setbacks, the joy and sorrow, pain and heartache – all of these things mould and shape us into the people we are supposed to be. Following the Biblical analogy where God is the potter and we are the clay – being ever shaped into the most perfect form of ourselves at the exact moment in our lives when it is imperative. There was a time when I thought my hopelessly romantic nature was silly. Childish. My perspective, however, has shifted. I believe in the divinity of soul mates because I believe that God’s love is limitless.

The biggest problem in my marriages has been that I have lacked God as a foundation. Ever the control freak, I wanted to be in charge of every detail rather than giving it up to God and allowing Him to take the reins. I lacked faith, instead allowing myself to be consumed by fear and uncertainty.

I am saying good-bye to fear as the guiding force in my life, and replacing it with Faith, Hope and the knowledge that, with God, nothing is impossible.

It Had to Be You

For some reason I’ve had Frank Sinatra crooning in my head: “It had to be you. It had to be you. I wandered around, and finally the found the somebody who could make me be true, make me be blue, and even be glad, just to be sad thinking of you.”

Let me tell you, Sinatra is a light-year leap ahead from the days when it was Barney’s “I love you. You love me” insidiously snaking its way throughout my cranium ALL DAY LONG! But I digress…..

Coupled with Sinatra are snapshots and film reels from none other than “When Harry Met Sally,” one of my all-time favorite sitting home alone on New Year’s Eve dreaming about meeting the love of my life movies.

Taking center stage in my mind is Harry, running through the darkened streets of NYC on New Year’s Eve, racing to Sally before the stroke of midnight, to tell her that he loves her and that when “you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin as quickly as possible.”

Being a hopeless romantic, someone who loves love and the notion of soul mates, star-crossed lovers predestined by God or (and) the Universe to find one another, after undergoing the trials and tribulations that shaped them into the perfect match for their other half, when they least expect it … my way of thinking certainly has its drawbacks – to the average onlooker.

I have been married twice. And it would seem as though I am about to be divorced twice. The funny thing is, had I never legalized and legitimized these relationships, they would simply be relationship break-ups, which does not carry the same albatross like weight of two failed marriages.

Ultimately, I suppose, it all comes down to perception.

A dear friend of mine, who has been married three times, put it this way: obviously we BELIEVE in love and the institution of marriage. Otherwise, we wouldn’t keep trying to get it right, would we?

Proffering this analogy, my friend went on to pose the following fodder for thought: imagine you are getting ready to board a plane to -- here I am taking the liberty of inserting – Paris. There are two planes on the runway. One of those planes, after logging hundreds of hours and thousands of miles in the sky, has never had any problems requiring tinkering or fixing. The other plane has had a few mechanical issues; however, it has been recently serviced, gone over with a fine toothed comb by a team of seasoned mechanics, ensuring that it is in tip-top shape and ready to climb the skies.

The question is, which plane are you going to board to embark on your journey? The plane that is seemingly perfect or the plane that has had a few kinks has been worked on to be the best and safest plane for travel?

Nothing is ever as perfect as it might seem based on outward appearances alone, right? By this logic, I suppose I would rather take the plane that has had problems but worked them out – as opposed to a plane that, never having displayed any problems prior to the flight, might implode mid-air.

Too often I beat myself up for all of my imperfections and human flaws. Perhaps I have made some impulsive, unwise choices. My intentions, however, were always in the right place. I got married because I believe in the institution, because I believe in love and romance and the possibility of happily ever after.

Rather than blame myself for being a failure, I choose to believe that my marriage(s) did not work because I married the wrong people – not bad men – just men who do not share the same ideals and beliefs about love and marriage as me.

While I may be a hopeless romantic, I also understand that there is a realistic side to marriage. Loving someone is easy. Staying married for 50 years – that takes work. But that work has to come in a combined effort.

I used to love to watch the Crew teams practice out on Biscayne Bay in Miami. Those men and women had to work in unison; they had to going in the same direction to propel their water craft to victory. When one team member gets tired, the other one puts in a little more effort to compensate. Then they trade off. The effort might not always be 50-50 at the time, but over the long haul, it balances out harmoniously.

This is what I want – a partnership. I love LOVE and the idea of romance and happily ever after and I believe it is possible. I want a partner who is willing to put forth the same effort as I am – who will go the distance and finish the 26.2 mile marathon no matter how daunting the task.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love. I have faith and hope that my love is out there somewhere. Who knows, he might even be reading this right now.