I wanted these stories to sort of be a trajectory leading to a grand, happy finale. However, sometimes I get caught in the stories, in the past, and find they’re all skewed through the blurry lens of time and memory. It has also been suggested that perhaps I have taken for granted the present and the promising future in my delving deep into things that happened so long ago. If I remember my Bible stories correctly, it was Lot’s wife who looked back on the burning city as her husband attempted to usher her to safety. However, she couldn’t stop looking back. And the fires consumed her too.

Because I’ve always been a Phoenix, I thought that being in such a good place in my life provided the perfect space to reminisce and rehash my coming of age stories in relationships. Though this may very well true in my mind, my Lot has urged me to look away from these crumbling stories and onto what lies before us. And for the first time, I feel compelled to do nothing but take his hand.

It’s so much safer to talk about the bad, the past, and what was *slap palm on the forehead* learned. It is much more difficult to say and dare things aimed at an unseen future. It is hardest to speak the words that have no safety net in yesterday and no guarantee for tomorrow. These are things that must be braved, evoked and left suspended in the unknown of today. Of course I preach this from the pulpit. However, I am often a coward hiding in my own words of yesterday.

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The truth is I’m an annoyingly, pure idealist. In high school, I remember writing a song on my guitar about finding one Sweet Prince who would get all my quirks, passion for art, and worship of Tori Amos. For many years, these idealistic highs were followed by realistic lows.

I coveted my idealism as if it was a gift no one else had. I saved it for the perfect person who wouldn’t devalue things like sex and love as everyone seemed to around me. I clung to this notion throughout high school and even college. Eventually, after living through the experiences I have written about here, I realized it was I who was missing out on the mating, learning processes everyone else seemed to come to know through trial and error. So eventually I gave up on my ideals and plunged into an even seedier abyss than those who had been experimenting all along.

I told a few of those seedy stories here and finally, My Manbattical, let the light in. I came to a point where I didn’t care anymore, wouldn’t let myself chase guys, and kind of dated like a more normal person would. I learned things like letting a guy buy me dinner. Giving just a kiss goodnight. Waiting to see if I really liked him. It took me until I was almost 25 to learn these things.

During phase of un-caring I met someone who loved me for the first time in my life. My friends were shocked when we reached well past our year mark given my history with guys. He treated me well and often with kindness. But he wasn’t right for me, our opposite temperaments eventually repelled and no longer attracted. He broke my heart on a street corner and I retracted into dark, sad thoughts for a long time. Although, I never went as far back to the places I had been before knowing him. Why? Because I had loved and been loved.

Feeling loved, even for a short time, changed my life. It was wonderful, dreadful, and it too eventually broke my heart. Though it took time and perhaps the most courage I ever had to muster, I moved on. To this day, I am better for it.

I’m still not certain if I can say I am a better person for all the experiences I had before my first love though.

After being loved and making it through the fall, I walked a little taller throughout the time I spent single. I knew what it was like to give my whole heart and have it split open. I had battle wounds and pride. I had more to offer than I ever thought possible and I knew it.

I then dated casually, had a shorter relationship, and learned the right way to break up with someone you care about. I learned how to spot toxic guys right away and not give them a second glance. I learned the art of class and discretion in capturing the interest of men. One night, feeling confident in my singledom, I thought I’d have some fun and list the top ten things I’d want in a guy. This idea sort of came from an older friend who said, “You girls have no idea what you want from guys. You go to the grocery store with a list don’t you? Why don’t you have a better idea of what you want?!” So, for hours I lounged around in my studio and thought hard about what I wanted from a guy… long term. I had so much fun with the exercise I wrote probably 20 secondary things that would be bonuses. The exercise gave me even more focus and direction in terms of what I sought from guys. Even more than that, it told me a whole lot about myself.

The one required item I made myself put on the list was that the guy had to really be crazy about me. If he was all other nine things and still wasn’t into me, I had to turn away. And then, I stayed completely true to the list.

After I made that list, most days I was unstoppable, impenetrable in my strength. I took good care of myself and stopped looking for guys. On the days I didn’t feel so strong, I accepted such feelings as transitory. I’d allow myself to wallow a little, but then I’d move on. At the end of tough days, there was really only one logical thing to be anyway: myself.

Two months after making that list I met the man I am with today. I heard somewhere if you find someone who meets 80% of what you are looking for, it’s an excellent match. I’m not sure what percentage he is of that list, but he probably ranks somewhere in the upper 90’s :) . He is these things and even then more. He is more than I ever expected to find in my whole life. After experiencing all I have, he reminds me of that silly song I wrote when I was 16 about a Sweet Prince. I remember writing the song about no one in particular and vowed to save it for someone completely worthy. Though I have since scoffed, sneered at and even logically dismissed the white horse idea, my R is truly a prince if there ever was one.

Though I love him through a logical, grounded, and grownup lens, I also love him in the same whimsical, warm way I always dreamed I would as an adolescent. He is everything on my list and in my heart.

It seems things have come full circle for me. This must be what overwhelming gratitude and bliss feels like.

So I will close for now in saying that the past has had its time. And I don’t want to hide in it. More than anything, I want to ante up, say the really daring things, and brave an uncertain, promising future with R. It is through this sort of daily chance, an active unknowing, I think a life can be suspended in goodness.