TELL ME ABOUT HOW YOU LOVE. I APPRECIATE THE RULES FOR HOW YOU LIVE… TELL ME ABOUT HOW YOU LOVE DEEPLY

TACTICAL

I haven’t made much mention of it but I am just as focused on my trip to Indiana as I was my trip to Carolina.  The same anxieties and concerns, but the stress is a slightly less fraught-filled.  The planning and logistics  are not as urgent, but that is why I need to be more exact in my preparations.  The mistakes are ALWAYS made at the easy places, and I don’t want to disappoint anyone else or myself.  So I will be tightening up for my flight to South Bend!!

For those who share my Facebook feed, I have joined a training website called Fitocracy.com, and I have been posting my workout routines on there.  I have linked it up with my other feeds, Twitter, Tumblr, and on Pinterest.  Not like I want to start a big following or anything, but I figure it is just sharing more of myself with those who are interested in me.  As I study for my certification has intensified, I figure it would be appropriate for me to talk about the process.  For instance, we are going to begin doing yoga/stretching more intently as well, seeing how both are critical to overall wellness.  Also, I have begun to think that nutritionist is going to be on my agenda in the future for me as well.  I already imagine that I am going to be in school for a LONG time, which isn’t a problem for me at all.

One of the characters I admired was “Howie” from the Lee Major’s vehicle, “The Fall Guy” television show.  No matter what the situation, he always had taken a class at some institution of higher learning which proffered an educated insight on a specific function of the case… and I can EASILY see myself going from UN-O, to maybe STATE, or even one or both of the “U-Dub’s” in my mind.  That would be a cool way for me to spend my 50’s, and I can stop worrying about my ever shortening bucket list and begin anew with goals to strive for.

My building has gotten Wi-fi that hasn’t worked well… I have thought about getting a wi-fi extender to boost the signal but I am not too sure… I went back to Cox and got my own account turned back on.  Currently, my major issues are making sure I send in the relevant information for my Medicaid and paying $50 to have a double-A battery installed in my smoke detector..!

TRULY, MADLY, AND DEEPLY        

I have returned to a question that was asked of me in one of my comments… “How do you love?”  And while I have struggled with the explanation, there are only three words that consistently come to mind when I ask myself, “How do you love, Mark?”, and that is truly, madly, and deeply.  Even if all of my journal has been a figment of my imagination and these are indeed the rantings of someone who needs both therapy and a life, the intent and passion that I want in a coupling should be clear.  The Adrienne Rich poem, a piece I read in my elementary school years, talks about the excitement of love and going on a journey where there are no directions and no markings to guide us along our way.  I want to be out on a safari, and adventure into the wilderness where maps can’t take you because they are so out-of-date.

See, I like it when emotions spill out like quicksilver, shimmering as it coalesces again in a glistening ball, ready for its next seemingly reckless dash across the paper.  But when things act on and in their true nature, what is observed is usually an illusion…

My pursuit of a person is usually because something on the fringes of my perception (as well as a nice set of hips and big breasts..!) drew me to them… usually, I recall the first time that I met someone I have dated, not because it was memorable for anything, but because of what I saw immediately when we met.  And I know that is not special in and of itself, but it also isn’t something that I take for granted… and I think that may be special.  Anywho, once I meet “someone who might be that someone”, the narrative arc scribbles itself across the paper and the story begins.  Isn’t that just mad?

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I have thought that I have loved someone truly… twice now.  First, the Delta Girl when I was at A&T, then years later when I ran into Tee Jay after I begin to implement my personal philosophy to life rather than let my belief be the fodder for rainy day conversations and Sunday evening reflections.  What I drew from both of those relationships is the concept of “the buy in”.  See, as two become one, there are some things that each will have to either put away or change in such a fashion that they can maintain a desire or belief without compromising it along with remaining faithful to the love that they claim to have expressed and want to share with another.

One of the things that has consistently happened when I have met a candidate for a partnership is the undeniable attraction that I feel for them and the subsequent lift in confidence that I should bring to their lives. It is not unusual for me to hear in a coupling that my partner feels attractive in a way no one had ever made them feel before.  I like to think that the whole “only has eyes for…” thing is what is happens when I meet someone special, and when it happens it is legitimate.

To be honest, I don’t know how many objectively attractive or beautiful women I have been with, though I am certain that I have been with a few of those.  But more importantly, these women that I am with, they are beautiful to me, and I desire them in such a way that casts the impression that I have never loved anyone the way that I love them ever before.  And in all sincerity, it is the truth-- at least it is OUR truth-- that they have become transcendent to me and all that I want, have ever wanted, and ever will want from another person can all be found in them.  And when you are wondering how deep, it’s deep, deeper than Atlantis.

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I was still fighting amateur boxing matches when I met my ex-wife.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go  pro, still feeling that I lacked the connection with a decent trainer to teach me to be a fighter.  So when I met her, I was still lacking a little confidence in my ability, to be the next Thomas Hearns.  But really, that was never my goal.  The dreams of professional sports stardom is littered with broken souls, and I never wanted to add mine to them.  But what I did see in boxing is the life of adventure and not only that, the means to my next step in my life.  Though I was never an “at-risk” child, I always had thought that boxing kept me from wandering the streets lost and in search of an identity, so it had already more than delivered for me.  With the modest goals that I had in mind for my professional career, I only needed to have been with a supportive woman to have achieved my goals.  Clearly, I did not meet that woman in my ex-wife.

Superficially, I know I give off the aura of “twee” and that whimsy is the garland around my neck.  I know that I sound lost to the pipe dreams of romanticism, and that my “goal-deficient” outlook does not sit well with the “more mature, realistic outlook” of women.  Whether they have children, looking out for family members, working and going to school, the LITANY of responsibilities that makes them “more responsible”, I think that those like my ex-wife, are doing the “good women” of the world a disservice when they appropriate that particular mantle.

When I look back and think about what I lost in that relationship… the term “deeply” comes to mind.  Not that I am shallow and superficial, because I am not nor have I ever been.  But that when it came to deeply loving, I had a “deep” but it was not “as deep as necessary”.  Apparently, that was a lesson that I had been hard for me to learn, because it happened twice.  And it had to be re-taught because of what happened the very first time I was tested.

My ex-wife did not like me boxing.  Rather than delve into all the insecurities and irrational thinking and behavior that took place, what I want to stress here is that for the good of our marriage, I stopped.  Cold turkey, not unlike what I have done since I retired for good, not even trips to the gyms about town to reminisce.  Nothing ran as deep in me as boxing did, and because I was sworn to an oath, unable to convince her to allow for my dream, I put it off, deferring it, actually, to another place and time in my life’s continuum.  This was the test of how “true” my love was for her.  Because if I truly loved her, why couldn’t I make this sacrifice for the greater good of our marriage?

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Now the past is prologue only if you did not learn the first time… and if it was wrong when you first went at it.  There are some things that needed to be changed and others, well, refined would be a better description for what became of them.  Yes, there were those ideas that needed to be jettisoned, others that needed to be improved upon.  The bottom line is that I have continued to grow and improve, and that I am a better person for it.