I took this picture in NYC.

The wall took my breath away when I saw it. Sometimes, when something is so beautiful and touches me, I can’t help but well up with tears. I stood there for a long time looking at it.

Being kissed like that seemed such an impossible thing at that moment. I had a moat. With sharks (with laser beams!). More to the point, I didn’t *want* anyone to even get close to my heart. I wanted to heal and I didn’t know how. I felt so broken.

Over the summer the elementary school my kids go to paved the parking lot. I love the smell of hot asphalt in the sun – especially when the rain hits it. Anyway, the daycare/summer camp they go to is there, and you couldn’t help but admire the clean unbroken surface. Maybe a month after it had been laid down, the kids and I were walking in, 7:30 in the morning, and I saw near the corner of the building some green was pushing it’s way up through the the seemingly solid surface. I couldn’t help but think – Life will find a way. 

I thought about this ugly, knarled, determined little plant the other day after talking with my sister and Jan, who both gave me the tough love talk after I had had a down morning – feeling discouraged by the situation with Misty.

The reality is I have embarked on another crazy, not-easy road. It’s all above board with Misty (No fake open marriages, or phoney I-love-yous, no lies to sift through) – but let’s face it, I am in a very nontraditional place, where I am getting only *maybe* 50 days a year of someone I love. A person who got past the sharks and the laser beams, and wanted to come right to me. Wanted to fit me into her/his life, even though it would have been easier to not. There is effort. There are actions that tell me things – that is more important than words. Having heard all the words and seen none of the actions, I know whereof I speak.

The tough love talks were hard to hear, but I listened. I guess the saddest, hardest part of it for me, was knowing that when things get rough, I know some doors are closed.

Maybe I am in pattern? Maybe I fell in love too easily? Maybe I should end this before I get hurt (more/again)?

It’s hard to say, the view from the drivers seat is different. What I want is *different*.

I’ve lived in a bubble before, where I cut myself off from people. It doesn’t hurt. It’s routine. It is easier to manage. It’s respectable. But it’s not living. Life hurts. You try things, fall down, get hurt and get back up again. That is living. Happiness, for me, is a moving target. What I wanted 2 years ago is different from what I want now, and I’m sure that I will evolve from here too. I hope I do. It will mean I am still trying, still adventuring.