:-)

There was a trail of broken women who really wanted to love me, but I wouldn't let them.

After my first marriage broke up... and the fiancee after her left... and another girlfriend broke up with me... I finally started noticing there were patterns in my relationships. They each seemed to follow the same beats, and ended feeling the same way.

I realized that all of these women were amazing people in their own right, and were committed to a relationship.

So, in a moment of clarity, I realized the problem must not be with THEM... it was with ME.

I had no idea where to start. So I simply stopped dating. Completely. For a year.

Then I realized that I always had some sort of distraction going... music playing, TV on, whatever... I was never just silent and alone.

So I tried that, and found that it was HARD. I didn't really like me. I didn't want to be with me, alone, with no distractions.

So I forced myself to.

And, over time, I discovered my actual self, deep down inside. Not the person I had always pretended to me, but the core ME.

I got to know him. And like him. And I built a relationship with him, and thought about what that guy really wanted... not what the marketing machine and the noise and the consumer culture wanted me to think I wanted. But what I actually desired.

And then I moved back to the USA, and it all fell apart again.

So I rebuilt it slowly over time.

And I have an astonishing relationship based on mutual respect for ourselves, and each other, and a genuine interest in what our wonder-twin powers can do.

I think it is like walking through a waterfall...

There is this hammering, scary, noisy wall of water.

It's cold. And scary.

And the ground is slippery.

And you start into it, and you think you are going to be crushed by the sheer hammering weight of the water, or you'll drown, or maybe there isn't anything back here to discover at all...

And it starts to get easier.

And the water lessens.

And you pass through the waterfall and find a lovely little enchanting grotto.

And the sound of the water is a quiet shoooooshing in the background, reminding you of the difficult path you took, and making you love this lovely little spot even more.

And you decide to stay.