Hi Leslie!

I've been going through a lot lately too...and a lot of soul-searching about life and love, and looking at my past relationships for patterns, etc.

One thing I see is that it is not easy for me to stay with a man for very long. The first knee-jerk reaction is to say to myself that is wrong, I should stay with them, but then I remember the situations and I can only feel that I only did what I HAD to do.

The only times it makes me unhappy not to have a life partner are the times I have decided I must have one in order to be happy or fulfilled. I haven't wanted to, but I have to admit to myself that I am quite happy without a partner too. I say "too" because I am happy when I am with one, but then for OTHER reasons I am happy when without one!

The Backwards Mirror: Maybe I am like the one you speak of who loves you and then abandons you. There is no doubt in my mind that some of my past lovers probably felt or feel that way about me. As if I abandoned them. But the thing is, I wasn't born hooked onto other person. I'm just me -- two legs, two arms and all that. And the only way I REALLY know how to function in ALL cases is with my own edicts -- my own perceptions, needs, thoughts, desires. Once I commit to another, it is like having one of my legs tied to another person's leg in a potato sack race and it's like "Oh no! He's going east and I need to go west!" and then unhappiness and struggle as I feel a need for independence, freedom -- freedom to do and be what I need to do and be.

The crazy part is that I forget that sometimes, and then I think the ideal thing for me would be to be with someone, like a family, even if it's just the two of us. It works great for raising kids if both have that child as anchor of something they feel a need to do: nurture, love and guide that child. But what if there is no child? Then it seems like we would have to be really, really, really compatible, wanting almost all the same things. Can I find a person like that? I don't know!

My last love was a chain smoker and I ended up smoking more right when I was quitting. He loves SAD and cooked foods and I struggle with trying to stay on mostly raw vegetarian diet.

I have come to a feeling of some peace about things in the last couple of days about all this. I feel like I need to just be happy being me and doing what I want and need to do, and realize that I cannot "settle" for someone who is too different from me in wants and needs.

My mother abandoned me when I was 8 years old. I know abandonment, and feeling unwanted. Overcoming those feelings is best done without the help of a partner, in my opinion, because then things would be projected onto that person.

Sometimes I feel I have so much love to give and would love to be with a man the rest of my life. Other times I feel terribly afraid of feeling suffocated, or losing my identity. I don't think these things would be a problem if I really found the right man. I feel I have never found him, and I don't know that I ever will. I want to be able to live with that.

Meanwhile, I just quit smoking and I can tell you from previous times I quit that I may get a bit crazy in my expression.

What I kept finding myself thinking in your story here is not so much that you have a pattern -- a favorite way therapists look at things -- but that perhaps you too just have not found the right person yet.

Right now it takes a lot to learn to love oneself and love the world amid the strange chaos that is happening today. I am grateful for every day that I can feel my blessings. I know it's so true that it's not a matter of what is happening but a matter of my attitude and how I choose to perceive things. I can be in a terrible situation and feel fine with the right attitude; and in a beautiful situation and feel terrible with the wrong attitude.

I used to, as an adolescent, relate to the song "Ruby Tuesday." It is funny how much now, so many years later, I still relate to it today. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but the song makes me feel good:

She would never say where she came from
Yesterday don’t matter if it’s gone
While the sun is bright
Or in the darkest night
No one knows
She comes and goes

Goodbye, ruby tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I’m gonna miss you...

Don’t question why she needs to be so free
She’ll tell you it’s the only way to be
She just can’t be chained
To a life where nothing’s gained
And nothing’s lost
At such a cost

There’s no time to lose, I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams
And you will lose your mind
In life unkind

Goodbye, ruby tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still I’m gonna miss you...

****

Hugs,
Michele