Bliss.

Is allowing yourself to be pulled into the moments of sheer delight.

Is finding the sweet spot of all divine beings and taking the time to enjoy it.

Is giving of yourself to help another being.

Is realizing that ALL animals on this earth, are in fact, divine.

Just a reminder for lovers everywhere.

4 Love is patient. Love is kind. Love isn't jealous. It doesn't sing its own praises. It isn't arrogant. 5 It isn't rude. It doesn't think about itself. It isn't irritable. It doesn't keep track of wrongs. 6 It isn't happy when injustice is done, but it is happy with the truth. 7 Love never stops being patient, never stops believing, never stops hoping, never gives up.

"All I'm asking for is a little help around here!"

Women are nags. Yes we are. But we certainly dont CHOOSE to be this way and we certainly dont WISH to be viewed as this consistently complaining bitch. One of the most common complaints that women have is a husband or significant other's lack of help with small jobs around the house. This is an even more common complaint among working women who just dont have the time to do it all. Even moreso...sometimes its not the refusal of a male partner to DO a simple task, its usually the lack of following through with an INCOMPLETE task such as closing the refridgerator door after getting something out, or rinsing the dishes before leaving them in the sink, or replacing the trashliner after emptying it.

To a woman, these small follow-throughs are common sense and considerate of the person who loads the dishawasher and washes the stuck-on crap off of the pots, pans and dinner plates. (My personal pet peave is that stuck-on sludge left to harden at the bottom of a whey protein bottle.)

These are crazy rediculous "small things" that believe me, women wish not to have to bitch about, but they are annoying inconveniences that take up so much of our time to have to correct later on when it would have taken 1 minute out of the culprit's time to do in the first place. One incident after another usually leads to an array of things that usually (God help you boys) all seem to happen at once or all in the same day. NOT a pretty sight if a woman is faced with these annoyances one right after the other.

Solution: THINK ahead. Consider the person who does your laundry, makes your bed, cleans the kitchen, folds your underwear...etc. etc. etc. And listen! Dont just "hear". Women DO actually communicate loud and clear what they need. And remember, doing it once and expecting life- long recognition of achievement for it is not going to work. Good household habits with consideration for those who live with you is a MUST for the happiness and longevity of any domestic partnership.

We all know that a relationship is 50/50 give and take. But the truth is, relationships are 100/100 % of the effort provided by BOTH partners. If you're on board, you'd BETTER be on board. Be prepared to get your toes stomped on from time to time, be prepared to deal with the moodiness of your stressed out mate, and most importantly...go the extra mile to help out wherever and however you can if you truly love them. A little effort sure goes a long way in the eyes of an appreciative partner.

And remember, boys...a happy wife IS a happy life! :)

Give it a chance.

Finding the right connection is an art form in itself these days.  We are all picky...all looking for the perfect match. We all want the same thing, yet it's difficult to find someone...like a needle in a haystack...that will be the one to endure through all of our trials and faults and challenges that life hurdles at us. The fact remains that this is a new age. People are impatient thanks to the subliminal training we receive on a daily basis through the internet and this fast paced, over marketed, in-your-face advertised world that constantly tells us what we should do and be and buy into. Though we are all looking for the same thing, we are all confusing ourselves as to what kind of package that should come in.

I fervently believe that in our quest to receive nothing short of what we deserve, my generation has lost the desire to WORK through difficult times with their partners, thus giving up, becoming lazy, and losing the chance to work toward something greater like our grandparents have achieved upon their 50th wedding anniversaries through years of dedication and devotion. As a result, being a single in my 30's has brought me to find a plethora of divorced, separated, and insta-families...in other words, singles that in mid life have already "been there, done that" in terms of marriage and the attempt at producing a family, and subsequently have failed. These are the terms of dating in your 30's in 2011. The pickings of single men who've never been married or who have no children, who actually WANT to settle down are slim to none. Or so it seemed for so damn long.

Much to my surprise, I have found that there are plenty of these gents out there; however, through their baggage and own negative experiences in the dating world...they are quick to judge, slow to love, and very very skeptical in the department of trust and appreciation for women. Basically, everyone is so darn jaded, that we all put the brakes on hard before we even turn the ignition. How is anyone going to ever feel real love if we can't give love a chance?

With speed dating and internet dating, we seem to be on fast forward toward finding the right person, but without the chance to really get to know someone on an intimate and comfortable level...we're doomed from finding that connection right from the start.

Sometimes, we make the mistake to build someone we like up to who they really aren't and then get our hearts broken when we realize that person was never the person we thought they were. And it is highly important to realize that you CAN'T CHANGE PEOPLE. If someone isn't already the person you'd like them to be...then they are not right for you...period. I've learned to stop wasting my time trying to change someone and move on...remaining forever on my quest to find the right match. This has provoked me to leave some very long-term relationships, two of which were pseudo-engagements. As I get older, I get more stubborn and more jaded, and more picky. There have been so many times where I've thought to myself...am I simply not giving it a chance? Am I just one of those people who are so hard to please that I'm passing up opportunity after opportunity?

I've recently listened to a plea from someone to give it a chance. And I'm so glad that I did! Because my mind and my heart has been newly opened to something I very well may have been looking for all this time. That needle in the haystack.  And he's been looking for his too.  And only time and the chance taken will tell. All I know is that everyone has always told me to have faith and that when it's the right time and the world's energies are in order for me...it will happen. But to all of my single and never-been-married friends out there...take down your guard every now and then...if you're afraid of bridges...face your phobia and drive over one. In other words, if something looks worth it...risk it...and give it a CHANCE.

Talk to me...but don't say that!

Why is it that when we ask our loved one whats wrong, we usually follow the answer with some sort of defensive excuse? Is it so, that sometimes in love and relationships we just can't be perfectly honest about our feelings without the fear of being rejected and devalued for our attempts at solid communication? I truly believe that some relationships are just not cut out for meaningful communication because they lack the maturity or the connection needed for true open and honest communication.

The Lover and the Beloved

“First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons —but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world —a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring —this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.

Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else —but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.”

~The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories,Carson McCullers

A quest for the heart.

The human heart is a crazy possession.  It can be a tool or a weapon.  It seeks out to love, bond, and even at times destroy based on that very love, fueling passion and jealousy.  It is a defender of its territory, and mostly...it is a defender of itself and its own feelings. The human heart houses our pride, our passion and is the giver of love.  It's a highly guarded personal commodity.  It enables and it hinders.  It fuels our passions and efforts yet offers confusing messages counteracting our carefully trained acquired common sense.

I love people watching.  I especially enjoy watching how others interact with one another, particularly those interactions in intimacy.  I'm not talking bedroom interactions.  I'm talking those special moments shared between a mother and a daughter at the airport or a young couple in love at a hotel. The most intriguing relationship exchanges come with that of older couples. There's a wisdom and a certain sense of that long lost art of commitment over a span of 20+ years that baffles me and inspires me to wake up and pay attention.

You can say it's living vicariously.  But I am at the time in my life when I've just about lost hope that today's modern couple has what it takes to surrender our pride, look toward the benefit of the relationship and take the necessary steps and sacrifices to ensure happiness and the endurance of  an everlasting love.  I've learned that it's not always age-appropriate.  Sometimes younger couples seem to get it. Sometimes middle aged couples turn around and give up at the 25 year mark. Is it an overwhelming supply of fishies in the sea throwing temptation in our faces? Is the grass on the other side actually becoming greener? We hear of so many divorced and separated couples actually finding great true romances after they take the option of the great divide.  After all...some people just lose compatibility as they grow and change...some...realize they never had it to begin with.

I want to know the secrets. I want to know what it takes in both individuals to sustain love and romance, and why does this idea seem so foreign to today's generations of lovers? After all...we are all mostly looking for the same thing. Everlasting, fulfilling love.  Why do so many of us, then wind up falling short, when we are all striving for the same thing? Why do we allow our egos, our friends, our family, temptation and distraction claim victory over that one true mission of the heart? I know I'll never have all of the answers...but I intend to uncover a great deal in the dynamic of the relationship and the human heart.