Ponody's Nerfect

As usual, I've been reflecting on my recent past. This year I had started out with the hope that it was going to be a banner year for me, not 3 weeks into 2010, everything crashed. I've been trying to get up and dust myself off for 9 months now and everytime I do, somebody pushes me back down. I'm thinking I should lay low until January 1st 2011, lol.
I've come to know Clarksville as Limbo...that's how I feel anyway. I'm in this treading water situation that I just can't get out of no matter what I do and no matter how hard I try. I've tried so hard to rise above it and carry on, but let's face it, my heart just isn't in it. I'm trapped here until I'm 44...44! Even though my life is on hold, the aging process sure isn't! All I want is to find someone who will actually love me for the rest of my life and whom I can love back just as much. Out of everything in the world, that's all I want, but I have come to realize that it's asking too much. I've met a couple guys this year that I truly believe I could have loved and every one of them only lasted under a month. most vanished without a trace, a couple were kind enough to email or call with their 'why we weren't going to work' excuses and THEN vanish. I think my proble, is that I'm too picky....I only am interested in men who are, in every sense of the word, too good for me. Then I sit around stupidly thinking "What happened? What'd I do wrong?" Well DUH! A heart of gold doesn't count for much when it's stacked against the image and all-mighty looks factor. It's not that I'm angry at them for thinking such, I mean, I'm the same way, so I understand. So once again, here I sit in Borders on a Saturday night, staring into the sunset thinking "what if..."
I watched the movie 'The Holiday' several times today. I love that movie! I can SO identify with the characters. It always makes me laugh and cry. Some times it leaves me thinking "Yeah, THAT ending is Hollywood, that'll never happen in real life, at least not mine" and then there's the rare times I watch the credits with new-found hope and a glimmer of "Ok, maybe it can happen to me too" The former is where I'm sitting today.
The opening monologue is beautifully done by Kate Winslet, over a series of brief character introduction scenes....

"I have found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespear's said 'Journeys end in lovers meeting....What an extra-ordinary thought. Personally I have not experienced anything remotely close to that, but I am more than willing to believe that Shakespear had. I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I'm constantly amazed by it's sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespear who also said "Love is blind". Now that is something I know to be true. For some, quite inexplicatively, love fades... For others, love is simply lost. But then of course, love can also be found...even if only for the night.
And then there's another kind of love. The cruelest kind. The one that almost kills it's victims. It's called "un-requited love". Of that I am an expert Most love stories are about the ones who fall in love with each other, but what about the rest of us? Yje ones who fall in love alone. We are the cursed of the loved ones, we are the un-loved ones. The walking wounded. The handicapped without the advatage of a great parking spot......"

I imagine (quite frequently, in fact) that it would feel so amazing to actually be completely in love with someone AND have them be completely in love with me. I often wonder if I have ever even been in love. I know I've never been in a relatuinship where both parties were completely and totally in love with each other. I have thought that I was in love before though. Like Iris (Kate Winslet's role in The Holiday) I was in love alone and it was the darkest time of my life. The feeling that you would do absolutely anything for them but knew that they didn't feel the same of you was crushing. There were very few guys that fell into this catagory of my life, I can list them on one hand with a finger or too left over. A couple of them, my feelings have faded, but a couple of them are still the cause for tears. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that may be true for some. For me, I think that's a bunch of crap. Absence makes feelings fade, which can be good or bad, but in my experience, it's what happens. I think that's why people run away from relationships... they realize they're headed towards loving someone and it scares them. Forever is just not everyone's bag. Usually it's the same group of people that state they don't want to 'settle', so they keep looking for something better. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Popular saying. My Dad once told me "When you find what you're looking for, STOP LOOKING. Because if you keep on looking, you'll end up losing a good thing for the gamble of something better...and it's usually not better at all." I believe that....you spend your whole life trading up and before you know it, you've traded everything you once wanted for nothing.
I know I'm not perfect...FAR from it in fact. I'm aware that I'm not some Barbie Doll with a perfect figure, dazzling smile amd flowing beautiful hair. Even though I have a lot of great things personality-wise, I still have a few flaws there as well. Even the guys I've fallen for in my past weren't perfect. I even would list their flaws out loud to talk myself out of liking them so much. Did it work? Sometimes. But more often than not, I would only reflect back on each moment that I adored them in......they're ability to act, their compassion for others, their show of affection or thoughtfulness, anytime we shared a bond or a laugh or a moment. That's what I remember. Not the fact that they had scrawny arms or smoked or was a little too short or couldn't sing. The good always out-weighed the bad and that's why I still to this day look back with fondness. Of course, since I was the one who had fallen for them, my leaving or the distance thing never really affected them. They has no idea what they lost. If they did, I would never know because my moving so much, it's not like I risk bumping into them later on in life. True a couple guys I have that risk, but in a few years down the raod, I'll move away. Luckily, in my life, that moving around a lot has been a God-send I mean seriously, I've had more addresses than most military folks! I usually look at this as a good thing. It's an escape clause in my life. When things get too heated, I bolt. Usually under the reasoning of a job relocation or a 'valid' excuse, but still, I always have the chance to leave and take it.

There's another great monologue Kate gives in 'The Holiday' that SO rings true for me...

"I understand feeling as some and insignificant as humanly possible, and how it can ache in places you didn't know you had inside you. And it doesn't matter how many new haircuts you get or how many gyms you join or how many glasses of wine you drink with your girlfriends. You still go to bed at night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong or how you could have misunderstood. And how in the hell, for that brief moment, you could think that you were THAT happy. Sometimes you convince yourself that he'll see the light and show up at your door. And after all that...how every long 'all that' may be, you'll go somewhere new and you'll meet people who'll make you feel worthwhile again. And little pieces of your soul will finally come back. And all of that fuzzy stuff...those years that you've wasted, will eventually begin to fade"

Well, it's going on 8 pm, the sunset is long gone and my butt is molded to this stiff, uncomfy chair. I went over my calorie count last night by about 200 calories, so today I've been extra good. Of course, that (and my wallet) both tell me that another night at El Bracero's is totally out of the question. So, this very single lady is gonna head to Kroger and grab some flowers for my zebra vase and a Redbox movie, go home and snuggle up with her 2 dogs on the sofa and enjoy a chick-flick.

Night all....