LoVe

I have spent most of my life invisible.  On the outside looking in.  I have tried to keep my life private and my self secluded.  I was doing pretty well at this until a few years ago when I moved back to my home town.  It is not a very big city.  I know quite a few people here and they at least know me by sight.

One day, after I had walked my beautiful orange dog, Simba, on one of the frequently traveled roads in the city, I realized that it is very hard to be incognito with said dog.  I have good reason for hiding to me anyway.  I have always attracted the wrong people and I have no skills for readily sorting out good apples from rotten apples.

I think it is because I for some reason can always see the good in people.  When I moved to West Stockbridge where my boyfriend had his video store I came to realize that he was a very intimidating man, and a control freak.  He was very nice to me and my children, having a special place in his heart for my youngest son.  He used to flirt with the ladies and at first I was thrown by that, but that is business.

He took me away from my failed before it even began marriage.  His intention he told me was to make me beautiful and make my husband jealous and feel stupid for letting me go.  I believe both men loved me in their own ways, in so much as they knew what love was.

They were both the same in different bodies but I was unable to see that until recently.  I will always love things about these men.  Like I said, they loved me to the best of their ability but they did not love me for me.  They loved me because they possessed me.

I don't know if I am a romantic or not.  In my heart of hearts I think that I am.  I have not really explored that part of myself.  What I do know is that my self love is a grey area.  On this journey that I am taking I am hoping to achieve much.  One of the things that I want is to learn to love myself.  I know there is no use trying to be in love when your heart is clouded with shadows and pain.

I may not know what I want in regards to love.  I don't look at myself as incomplete as I have not been loved unconditionally by anyone besides my pets and my children.  I do not feel less of a person without a man in my life or one walking by my side with me on "our" journey - I can't visualize it.  I have many examples of what I don't want.  One thing I do is learn from my mistakes, although it may take a few times making them.

In Intro to Psychology in High School I read somewhere that we all have a twin and we spend our lives looking for that twin to feel complete.  I do hope that is the case and it would be nice to succeed in finding such a person. I wonder if we would recognize each other as such or if he, like me, will be too absorbed internally to even notice?