I finally know what I want out of a relationship!

Let all of heaven and earth stop on a dime and lend an ear. It's as if the gods themselves delivered a message from the mountain, etched in stone and seared permanently in with fire and brimstone. I consider myself quite blessed to have had such a religious experience while eating my fried sheet of chicken and shoelace french fries.

As anybody who has been following my story for any length of time knows, I am not the king of relationships. Never have been. My relationship story reads like a who's who of great moments in historic monumental failures.

But for this moment...in this day...it finally hit me what I want out of a long term relationship, and I am still reeling from the clarity that has shone down upon me, opening my eyes to new and brave worlds.

So let me share with you, my readers, my epiphany. My grand plan for the hopes that on some day, on some distant planet, I can find the female who wants the same things and we can make beautiful babies together.

1. I do NOT want to get married again. No way, no how. Fuck that. The laws of this country are incredibly ridiculously skewed towards women in a divorce, and I am not going to place myself in that position ever ever again.

2. I have no issue in buying a woman a ring. But I will not spend more than $50, tops on the mother fucker. What a giant gaping waste of money to spend anything more than that on a ring. And what does the man get in a return? We are encouraged to spend 3 months salary on a ring. What is a woman encouraged to get a man in return? ....... *crickets*........For 3 months salary, I could buy a hooker every weekend for 3 years. Are you kidding me?

2. I have no issue with standing in front of my family and friends and declaring my love and my commitment to a woman. "Wedding" is not quite the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind. Just don't ask me for a marriage certificate. If you want that, I'll print you one off my computer and put little cartoon giraffes on it and make it cute if you want. Let's leave the government out of our affair please. What I refuse to do is to spend ridiculous amounts of money on such an affair. We don't need a big elaborate ceremony. I'll get up in a suit and tie, you wear your sunday best and do your hair. Then we'll cart off to a restaraunt somewhere with family and friends and enjoy their company. AFter that, if you want to spend money on a nice trip, I'm all fucking for it. I'd rather spend my money living my life in an experience that lasts more than 5 minutes, thank you very much.

3. There is no "work" to this relationship. If it feels like "work," why don't we stop wasting each other's time and go off and be happy with other people? What misplaced since of ridiculous bullshit has told us that to get with someone for a long term it takes work? You have friends, right? Do you feel like those friendships take an enormous amount of work to maintain? NO. N-O. They work because you are on the same page, you get together and chill, talk, whatever. Sometimes, on the off chance, you fight, but you always work it out and it's not a huge deal to hang shit over their heads. You forgive...then you move on. Simple. Effective. Efficient. REAL. I have no issue, however, with performing routine maintainence. We can go on dates, we can learn to comprimise our issues, we can learn to listen to each other. I can handle that. What I won't stand for, in no way, is leveraging issues that arise to gain the "power" in the relationship. When that happens, goodbye--don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Go assert your power over someone else who gives a big fat flying fuck over power. I don't. I don't want to control the people who get close to me. That's their own business.

4. A relationship consists of the following things: someone to talk to, someone to fuck, someone to eat with, and someone who knows when to leave you the fuck alone. That's about it. If you, my fair woman, would be so gracious as to have a hot meal waiting for me when I get home from work, I'll suck it up and do the dishes. If you, my fair lady, will be so gracious as to wash my clothes (you don't even have to separate the whites and the darks! I'm not picky!), I'll pull them out and fold them. Better yet, fuck that. I'll wash my own damn clothes and you wash yours, deal? If you, my fair lady, will be so gracious as to clean up after yourself, I will in turn clean up after myself. Keep shit off the damn floor. Take your dishes to the sink. Those are my only two requirements, and I'll be sure to help make that a reality. We'll get together and clean up the cobwebs some other time...together. The point: there are things that need done...fucking do them. Sometimes I'll do them. Sometimes you'll do them. That's life, let's not bitch and groan about who does what.

5. If you have credit card debt up to your eyeballs, please find someone else. I'm not paying YOUR debts, and I don't expect you to pay mine. If you have a credit card with any sort of serious balance, you're not the girl for me. Sorry. I don't want debt. I've went through hell (and bankruptcy) to get out of debt and I intend to stay there. If that means not buying today what we can save up for tomorrow, so be it. We'll take a 15 year mortgage for a house, small loans for slightly used vehicles, and on ocassion even small debts that we can pay off quickly (think 3 months). Beyond that, cash is king of this house. Get used to it or go find someone who wants what you want.

6. I have a career. I expect you to have one too. I can't quit my job whenever the hell I feel like it, neither should you. If we have kids, we'll work something out until they get into school. But it's your own responsibility to make sure you are marketable for a career on the chance that our relationship doesn't work and you have to support yourself. BTW, we'll keep our bills limited to what one of us could survive on if the other lost their job. That way, we aren't stuck together. I want to make it as easy as possible to walk away at any moment. That way we don't stay together because we NEED each other. We stay together because we WANT each other. A relationship built on that basis is far more healthy.

7. While I'm not the healthiest eater in the world and I can slack on my gym time from time to time, I do try my damnedest to stay in shape. I want to look and feel healthy. I expect you to have a similar outlook on life as well. Yes, I'll still <3 you if you get fat, but I probably won't be attracted to you sexually. Just know that in advance. I figure you to be the same way and to hold me to the same standard.

8. Honesty at all times, no exceptions. Secrets? What are those?

9. I have kids. They are a package deal. They are number one in my life...always. They will always be number one in my life, and sometimes you are going to take a backseat to them. Understand that upfront.

10. I like to play games. Relationship games. I'll make you a promise: I'll never play a game to manipulate or deceive you. Aside from that, it's game on. Let's have some fun.

Yes, yes...That's an extremely tall order and pretty much goes against anything society tries to ram at us nowadays. But that's ok. If I find that and someone who wants THAT, there'll be no question that we are made for each other.

I hope this didn't come across as bitter, because it's not coming from a place of bitterness at all. It's more from a place of blunt, honest truth. This is what I want. I'll never force anyone to do any of those things, but I don't have to change what I want either. I'm looking for compatibility, not comprimise.

Etched in stone. These are my ten most basic needs. Hallelujah!

A Shiny New Blog/Website

Well, I'm at it again. This blog was shortlived, I guess. I dunno if I'll keep this one going at the same time or not. I haven't decided that yet, but I do want to announce that I've started a new website:

http://soulsasylum.org/

I used to have a similar site, it got to be way too much for me to handle at the time so I shut it down and walked away. Like an itch, that desire to do it again his jumped up and bit me. For now I'm going to keep it simple. I may add some message boards sometime in the future, but right now I just want to post blog content to the main page and get some traffic. From there, we'll see what happens.

In the back of my head I'm thinking of it becoming a second source of income (from ad revenue and the like), but right now it's just a simple blog. And it'll probably stay that way for a while.

Thought you guys would like to know, as I may be abandoning this particular blog for the greener pastures over there. :D

It's been real.

Setback

First things first: I bought a pack of cigs and a pack of cigars last night and smoked myself silly. There was no sudden relief (that I thought would come) or no hooey cloud of "wow this is amazing." It just light...smoke...oh, ok, i'm right back here now with no real immediate joy to the smoking anymore.

I wanted to wake up and say...Boom! Day 1: Recharge or some bullshit like that, but that's not going to happen today. I feel like I've been whipped through a war. I feel like someone has taken me out and flogged me and left me to rot. I don't feel a shred of guilt about smoking. I just feel exhausted from a week without smoking. I assume it's because the wounds that the smoking is "crutching" haven't healed enough for me to walk on alone. This is why this blog post exists. I may be smoking again, but I still intend to figure out why I got so depressed when I quit and why, all of a sudden, the depression is slowly starting to fade now that I've had a few cigs.

To do that, I'll probably make a series of posts (some here and some that will probably never see the light of day) and work through from where things started for me. Just because I'm feeling better (almost immediately actually) doesn't mean that that depression isn't sitting there under the surface. I know it's still there, even if I am feeling it less and less now that I am smoking. So I supposed I'm going to have to go in there after it. The thought, frankly, kinda scares me.

It scares me because in order for it to disappear while smoking, it almost means that has to be some subconscious shit. It's like I dealt with the conscious part of it in the past couple of years, but there's apparently some stuff underneath that I haven't dealt with and I don't want to go digging in there to see what's causing it.

So, as soon as I can get some sort of break at work again, I'm going to find a therapist/counsellor of some sort and see what I can come up with. In the meantime, I'll be writing through it, I'll be looking for ways to find ridiculous amounts of contentment in my current life. And I have a new desire to become more of a presence in the lives of my kids. I've realized lately I've just sort of been going through the motions...getting them on my days, but not really being "available" to them while I have them.

So, I have lots of stuff to work through. And lots of cigs to smoke.

Big thanks to all of your comments, though. I appreciate the support and the comments helped me immensely.

Day 7: Got to be

It's 9 PM on day 7 and I am sitting in my apartment watching the Office. This weekend was pure hell, but by some stretch, some friking miracle, I managed to make it to this point with no cigs. Which means that when I go to bed and wake up tomorrow morning, this will officially be my most successful attempt at quitting to date. So, whatever happens, I can be proud of myself for that. I've also learned more about myself this time than I have in times past. I've faced a few inner demons and come to terms with them. All in all, I've grown. So yeah, I consider it to be a success.

The problem is, that I can't explain just how close I came to buying a pack of cigs or cigars tonight. The only thing holding me back was that it was day 7 and if I were to wake up tomorrow without having one I will have broken my "old record" for days without a cig.

At this point on? I have no idea what is going to stop me. This weekend was the absolute hardest time. My mind was a flurry, my nerves were on edge, and my head was a mess. I'm a little better now, but I'm still not solid. I still don't feel strong enough to say I'll never smoke another one again. I honestly don't know if I'll break down and buy a pack or not. I'm not going to bullshit myself here (like I've done in the past).

But tomorrow I get to start a new cycle. I've been through everyday of the week and tomorrow I get to start over with the cycle. Which means I've gotten a chance to ward off most of my "normal" triggers that happen in a week's time. Which means that this coming week *should* be a little easier because I've already been down this road once.

The two things that have kept me from buying a pack of cigs on this attempt:

1. The thought of being able to run and to not be out of breath.

2. The thought that one cigarette will put me right back where I was.

In other news, I went to church this morning (for the first time in a lonnnng time). It was a new church that the one I used to go to. I was just curious to branch out and go to some different places and see what it's like. So far, I once again find myself sitting in the pew staring up at the people that take the stage, and thinking of them as just "entertainers." It all just seems like one giant show to me, and that drives me bonkers. Seems like a load of bullshit. Even in my old church, the one I like to go to, it seems that way.

I should probably get over it. I'm finding bits and pieces of my faith again, but I know that I'll probably never be able to reconcile myself with church or with some of the things in the bible. Just too much that doesn't make sense to me, even if I do believe in a God that actually gives a shit what we are doing. But I take all that by faith...as I think you have to. The only proof I offer is the cosmological arguement (by Aristotle), beyond that I think it's up to each of us to take things on what we believe to be true.

There's a Universal Unitarian church in the area that I think I might try next Sunday morning. They are supposedly more open than most churches, so we'll see how it goes. I'd sort of like to find a place where I can go and get help and support, make a few friends, and maybe get involved in something within the community through them. I don't want to delve too deep into it. I'd rather keep it to the surface for the most part. Old wounds from churches have taught me that...don't get too close or you'll get ripped in half.

Ah well, it's 9:30 and I'm still smoke free on day 7. I feel good about that. How long that will last? Fuck if I know.