Thoughts in my head on a different day...

These are some of the things I am thinking about:

--love and relationships
--career goals
--writing goals
--OTHER GOALS
--friends
--adventure
--travel

Is this really going to fit into a single post?

Okay, here's my first take on the whole shebang. When I wrote the above list, I realized that the biggest issue I face right now is GOALS. But I haven't been accomplishing them. I made a new friend on Facebook the other day and the very first thing I saw when going to his profile, right in my face, was this statement as a tagline: "It's easy to sit and ponder yet so few can transition that dream into action. Have you taken a risk lately?" Not much, perhaps, but enough to get under my skin and irk me for more than 24 hours, because here I am sitting at my computer "pondering" and more than ever wanting to take the plunge without calculating risks...I need to just jump in and do what I want.

Since May, my life has inadvertently revolved around the question, "What comes next?" and I have casually tossed the question aside while curling up in my proverbial comfy chair to mope. (Isn't sitting around dreaming about something without ever making the move to go for it kind of like moping?) I have several ideas about what could come next, and the same thing could come next just as easily as something new. It's all a matter of how hard I strive to get it. I have given myself the benefit of the doubt--oh, don't worry, Crystal, you have a broken heart right now! Eventually you'll pick up and be the old dream chaser again, just like you once were--but I feel that 6 months time is more than enough time to "mope" over something that isn't changing anyway. I mourned my loss, I calculated my remaining assets, I reconsidered the path as I saw it, I came to a unique understanding of what happened and why (After all, the answers that really answer why don't matter much when the result is still "no." The goal is merely to find peace within myself and the ability to move on from what happened.) and I can at least accept the finality now, whether I once liked it or not. 6 months...it doesn't seem like it's even been that long and I think it's because I've locked myself in and held myself there, steadfastly but stubbornly refusing to be removed from a demolished house. When I look back I can see how very much I've changed as a person in the past year. December 31 slipping into midnight will be a pleasant farewell...

So...love and relationships. In summary, these things are nothing at all like the way I imagined them to be, once upon a time. People leave, plain and simple, and the things we expect to last just don't last, and I'm much more comfortable now seeing everything that I do as a step of temporality; at least when I don't believe that something will last, I am so much more likely to appreciate it for its short life. Eternity should exist, and indeed does in other realms, but we as humans ascribe to much to it and expect too much from it. Everyone seeks happiness and comfort and peace and love and we all hope it lasts "forever." Sure, I want that...but I have lately narrowed my list of specific desires down to a mere three things...

1. I want to be with someone who will grow into love with me. My relationship with my best friend Robin is the platonic example of what I want in romantic love. We were just regular friends who knew each other, but there was always something in the back of my mind that told me I wanted to know her better, and over the years she has grown into the person that I go to with everything, and I can't imagine living without her. With romantic relationships, we are all too likely to jump in and press "go," but the flame burns so quickly and then it's burned out. Why can't a relationship grow like a strong, steady tree, so that we go from liking each other to being unable to live without each other without even knowing when the intertwining took place. I thought I had this kind of love before, but as always, my impression was different from the other's impression. The key to this kind of love is that the other person sees it too, not just me.

2. I want it to be simple and true. I need you, you need me, we're better together, let's be together. I realize it takes wading through the dumping grounds of crappy relationships to find a relationship like this, and maybe even then we are too damaged to trust and too frustrated to heal, but I don't know. I have to believe that's out there.

3. I want it to be fun and interesting, but my idea of "interesting" is not overly intimidating, I don't think. This goes with 1 and 2, because if someone loves me like their best friend (provided I can find that kind of love again, and this time to last) the love will be simple and true, and fun and interesting because it's best friendship! My idea of "fun" is to be able to laugh--life without laughter is like a silent representation of a soul without laughter (a dead soul!)--and to be able to cry--because tears are simply outward manifestations of inner emotions, and I think that best friends should be able to share those feelings with each other, or at the very least have them--and be silent--because silence is comfort, although it isn't always romantic, and although I like to talk, one of my favorite things in the world is pure and uninterrupted silence, just to enjoy the love of the person by my side and say nothing at all. What remains unsaid sometimes keeps the mystery alive, and while so many people are intent upon knowing the answers, I've come to realize that as long as the most important answers are certain (namely, that you need me, love me, and won't leave me, and that I feel the same) whatever else is missing will eventually fall into place as the trees intertwine to become one.

I was thinking this morning (I'm finally beginning to think in scenes again, and I love it. I've been waiting almost a year to get back into my own head again) and I imagined that the most pure and simple profession of love would be a marriage proposal that was not necessarily fancy or romantic or rehearsed. It may not contain flowers, candles, dinner, verses of poetry or glistening diamonds, but it would contain the most important possible words, the keys to the heart. I just want that, that bravery that comes with loving someone, someone that will change my mind and make me believe again that people will stay and do need me, I just want to take care of someone who needs me and live a life of care and love with that person. I won't settle for anything less, and if I feel like it's less, I don't want to take it.

The hard part is feeling the same way as someone else; the part that trips up the whole deal is finding out that two people just can't feel exactly the same way about each other, and that there are always the little mysteries...but those are hurdles to jump in time. Right now, none of this is, and the castle I have just constructed in the air before my face will fade into the mist as I turn away...but is it possibly the representation of something in my future? I wish I could just know...but if we always knew the answers to our deepest mysteries, we would give up hope and have nothing to strive for, since we already know we won't achieve it.

I don't even know if I have time to get into the other goals on my list. I guess there will be another blog: "Thoughts in my head later on the same day..."