A friend of mine was diagnosed seven weeks ago with esophageal cancer. It’s terminal and she is in a hospice with only days left to live. I will write about Liljana “Pat” Stewart in a future post, but here’s what I can tell you now. She loved her life and lived her beliefs. She retired five years ago to become a full-time writer and besides having a passion for poetry, stories and painting, Pat absolutely loved her home. After years of renting, she finally purchased a place that she envisioned would be the sanctuary she always wanted. She spent hundreds of hours planting amazing English-style gardens, decorating rooms and hanging her art just-so. I don’t put too much stock in astrology, but Pat was a consummate Libra. She loved comfort, food, art, holidays and entertaining. If Pat’s house had a motto like those above, it might have been “In this home, we do warmth, we do welcoming.”

Pat's Home

When I saw the painted wall picture on Facebook this morning, minutes after I spoke with Pat, it brought to mind the dozens of photos that she sent me over the years of blooming flowers and new artwork. It also brought up my own thoughts about security, comfort, and the kind of environment that I’d like to live in one day. My needs and wants have evolved over the years. When I was raising my daughter, there were just four house mottos: Respect, Consideration, Kindness & Love. Everything from keeping the house clean to kisses goodnight fell under one or more of these simple words.

My Dream House

Being single, it’s different. Meaning that while my intentions are still the same, they’re not spent in the day-to-day realm of a familial or intimate relationship. And as much as I like to be alone, sometimes for days, there’s also a part of me that longs for someone to create an agreeable, loving environment with . . . to help paint the walls with mutual hopes, beliefs and goals.

I’m not lonely, though, and I’m not even looking. One of the things Pat and I have in common, besides our passion for stories, is a certain kind of acceptance for the twists of luck and life. If this is what it is and how it is to be, then I will make peace with it. Like me, Pat spent most of her adult years single (and quite contentedly), but I’m sure that if she’d met the right person—someone who made her heart soar while keeping her grounded with love—she would have returned their loyalty ten-fold and been very happily married.

That Red Hedge by Pat Stewart

Henry Ellis once said, “All the art of life lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” It took me many, many years just to start understanding that art, which can never truly be perfected. Sometimes, what seems to be a battle worth fighting proves futile, while at other times we suspect that we gave up on something too early. We can never really know. In the meantime, there’s only life . . . and that’s all there is until it isn’t anymore.

In this house today, I do reflection.
I do writing.
I do mourn, but I don’t regret.
I do great big imaginings.
I do nurturing of dogs & dreams.
I do laugh to myself and at myself.
I do cry when I have to.
I do wish.
I do pray.
I do live one close-up hope at a time.

What I don’t do, ever, is forget that life is a temporary state, meant to be lived as sweetly, fully, and passionately as we can make it . . . even when alone, even when it sometimes hurts, even when it’s unlucky, and even we’re so very far from any sort of perfect understanding that we constantly feel like we’re starting from scratch.

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I catch sight of myself in a mirror on a Sunday morning, with dark circles under my eyes and my hair a mess of untamed waves. My naked face, with its freckles, crow feet and laugh lines, doesn’t look at all like I remember it — I’ve got fine hairs on my cheeks and when I smile, my eyes crinkle. There’s a scar and three skin tags on my neck.

When I brush my teeth, the two lines between my brows furrow. When I wash my hands I notice that they are as strong and square as ever, but the veins are more prominent and the skin is looser.

Naked in front of the mirror, I am sundark, timescarred and agesoft. I am a woman of Skin and Soul. Skin/soul. Skinsoul.

I am a dichotomy of memory and being. I am the sharp collar bones, long rows of ribs, and jutting hips of my youth. I am also the full breasts, protruding belly and thick thighs of womanhood.

I am nineteen on the inside, nearing fifty on the outside, and most days I don’t feel a minute over 25 except in experience.

It’s a sweet trick my soul plays: A sleight of years, a vanishing decade or two or three. You will go on, my soul says to me, feeling young and often innocent. You will keep dreaming the biggest of dreams and believing in the most fantastic things, because you are my child and you will always be younger than me.

Skin, though, refuses the heady smoke of the soul and faces the mirror head-on. It wants to be recognized for its long history of accommodation.  For the many times it has been stretched around the twin swells of pain and joy, and been pushed to its limits by circumstance and choice. For the thousands of hopes and burdens it has carried — the stillborn dreams it has grieved and the living ones it has nurtured — for all that it has raised up, clung to, chased after, let go of and run away from, skin wants to be acknowledged. For all the joys it has housed, the secrets and fantasies it has harbored, and all the loved ones it has sheltered like a protective mother, skin wants to be honored.

Skin says remember. These age marks and accidental scars, these generous arms, thick hips and wide feet have lived through the experiences that helped create soul.

Skin carries the handprints of rage and violence as well as the fingerprints of tenderness and affection. It is layered in sensate memories of love and cruelty, vulnerability and passion, beautiful wants, desperate needs, and thousands of human-to-human connections.

Skin has been warmed by lovers who have been accepting of its faults — who found solace in its uneven planes, tender breasts and soft belly — who have kissed the calloused palms that caressed their faces, rested their heads on the slopes of weary shoulders, or settled into the open arms that held them while they slept.

Skin has offered up comfort to children, friends, and even strangers. It has been a sanctuary and a blessing and, on occasion, a prison and a curse. It’s been shunned, starved and humbled. Sought out, desired and lusted after. It’s been burnt, cut, scraped — but it’s also been healed, bathed and cherished. It has forgiven everything but time and forgotten nothing except, on occasion, its own limits.

The soul and skin together hold all the stories of the human world — stories, that if laid out feeling by feeling, touch by touch, word by word, could fill the bookshelves of heaven and hell and all the spaces in-between.

The skin-soul of the heart has been filled up and deflated so many times that it’s become a thing of lightness, a blood red cloud hanging in a colorful sunset to be lit or cooled as it pleases, shifting as it needs to either bask in the waning sun or seek refuge behind the mountains.

I am not the woman I ever imagined I’d be, but now that I’m here, face to face with a mirror on a Sunday morning, feeling both old and young, wise and naïve, experienced and innocent, I think this must have been the plan all along. To be not too much of one thing or the other — to neither fly too high or be grounded too long, but to give equal time to both body and spirit. To dream as well as to do. To learn to live skinsoul instead of skin/soul.

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I loved you on purpose. I was open on purpose. – Ntozake Shange

Sometimes it feels like I have pocketfuls and pocketfuls of love, but nowhere to spend more than a penny or nickel of it at a time. As a currency, my love has always fallen short. I am a pauper. . .holding out an abundance of spare change—an embarrassment of coins—in a world of clean, crisp checks torn from a book I’ve never owned. – Excerpt from Elephant Girl

Could it have finally happened?

Have I have learned to love myself on purpose? To be open with myself and others on purpose, without fearing failure? To spend my pocketfuls of love wisely instead of tossing all my coins into a murky wishing well?

A few months ago, I surprised myself with the realization that, even though my life is as unsettled and uncertain as its ever been, I haven’t felt unhappy for quite a long time — not in a way that diminishes my sense of self or that shakes the foundational core of who I am — not in any significant way.

This revelation was surprising to me because the past two years have been filled with new challenges and life experiences, including a few that were painful, and that caused me to question my most deeply held beliefs about love, loyalty and relationships. There was a time that I nurtured, breathed, imagined and exalted those beliefs. I held onto them as if they were sacred ideals that would somehow, one day, tangibly fill a vacancy.

I cherished those beliefs and still do in some ways, but the difference between now and then is that beliefs aren’t all I have. The wide gap that once existed between my reality and my beliefs has narrowed considerably. I’m living the life I want to live, even if it’s sometimes difficult. Like children that have grown up and left home, wishes aren’t my sole focus anymore — I carry them in my heart, but they’re no longer my biggest reason for getting up in the morning. I’m excited about possibilities now — things that stand a chance of becoming real.

I’ve grown in the last two years, in the last few months, and even in the past few weeks. It seems I’m on a path of quick turns, slow transformations and gradual realizations. I’ve made some life-altering personal changes — too many to recount here (and reason enough to write another book) — and the ones that have come the hardest have also been the most gratifying. Here are three of them:

I’ve Let Go of My Expectations of Other People.

For years, I wasn’t secure about anything in my life. I never knew what tomorrow would bring and had great, big fears that my carefully patched together world would unravel at any minute. I think this is the reason I held tight to my expectations of other people. I felt like I needed some sort of anchor — something I could count on — and if it couldn’t be a stable home, a paycheck, or even my own life, then it had to be other people. I expected friends, family and even acquaintances to share my beliefs about loyalty, love, truth, respect and consideration. If they did, then I felt valued as a person. If they didn’t, then I felt defeated in a very personal way — as if I’d been betrayed or totally disregarded.

There’s no question that people can act poorly and be hurtful, sometimes in surprising ways. In the last year alone, I’ve been lied to and about, been the target of someone else’s need for internet drama and had someone I deeply care about show me how very little they cared about me. At one time, these hurts would have consumed me. My fragile sense of security with other people would have felt broken. And all that was truly good in my life — all those people that had shown love and support — along with all of my bright moments and achievements — would have faded into some distant background.

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment of change because the process was gradual, but my expectations of other people no longer exist on a grand, all-or-nothing, thought-consuming scale. If someone acts in a poor, dishonest, or unloving way, I no longer consider it a reflection of my own worth. If someone lies to or about me, I don’t wonder what it is that I have done to make them uncomfortable with telling the truth. If someone is disloyal, I don’t internalize it to mean that I failed to do something to engender their support. In other words, I stopped thinking that the choices other people make are really about me. They’re not — even when they think they are, they’re not. Character is character, caring is caring, and love is love. How other people choose to act, think and express themselves has everything to do with their own spirits, and not a thing to do with mine.  It’s a lesson that took me 49 years to learn, but I’m finally free from the self-made burden of having my sense of personal value or security hinge on people’s actions or approval.

*

I’m Speaking My Heart & Then Consciously Moving On.

I used to debate interpersonal issues and argue for my beliefs — a lot. I’ve always been a very passionate person, especially where it concerns fairness, relationships, love, social structures, empathy, thought processes, politics — well, everything really. And it all felt so very important to me that I not only wanted to share my beliefs, but also to convince others that hey, I’ve given this considerable thought. . .and this is why you should agree with me.

The passion that has served me well in writing has worked against my personal relationships. While I’m very fortunate to have close friends who love me despite my occasional philosophical outbursts (or rants if you prefer), when it comes to the rest of the world I’ve realized that trying to change someone else’s already made-up mind serves no higher purpose: it’s simply an exercise in frustration and futility.

I’ve learned to speak my heart, share my feelings, and then consciously move on. It feels good now to say whatever is on my mind — to release my thoughts and emotions — and then choose not to dwell on the matter. After all, I know my passions inside and out. I know why I feel the things I do. I know how I’ve reached whatever thoughts I have. As I’ve become more self-aware and confident, it’s become less important to debate with others. I am who I am because of my own life, spirit and experiences and others are who they are because of theirs. Live and let live. It seems we all learn what we need to learn, when we want to learn it, and not before.

*

I’m Setting Boundaries & Realizing That Being an Open Book Doesn’t Mean Being Open to Everybody.

I’ve made some really bad decisions in my life, but I don’t think that being open about my life is one of them. As a blogger and writer, I’ve put the worst of myself out there as well as the best. I keep the book of my life open for the most part, because I believe that keeping secrets adds to a sense of shame. So I’m gay and out of the closet. I’m fallible and talk about my many mistakes. I’m a woman who’s had a lot of experiences and when I feel compelled to write about them, I do.

There’s a difference though between putting the stories of my life out there for public consumption and letting myself be daunted by the criticisms and beliefs of other people. For the most part, writing has been an affirmative experience for me. I have the privilege (often sacred) of hearing personal stories from other people, particularly women, who resonated with my work in some way. I am humbled nearly every day by my interactions with readers, some of whom have become good friends.

It wasn’t always this way. As in other areas of my life, whenever something “bad” thing happened with my writing, it overwhelmed the good. I used to pretty much cower when I was hit with harsh judgments or hurtful perceptions about my writing. My tendency was to absorb criticism rather than to consider its meaning and source. If someone told me I was a lousy writer or human being, part of me believed them.

In the past couple of years, though, I’ve come to realize that the most wounding critics are those who don’t really read my stories (or other writer’s stories) at all. Maybe I was naïve, but I never knew that there were people who read articles on domestic violence just so they can tell women that they brought it on themselves with their poor choices. Or who seek out posts on poverty so they can rail against the laziness of the poor.  Or who troll the internet for stories about obesity just so they can tell overweight people how gross and undisciplined they are. Instead of reading for understanding or knowledge, the wounding critics search in-between an author’s lines to find something to bolster their own preconceived beliefs and sense of superiority. If someone’s in pain they must have a victim mentality; if someone is sad or grieving, it’s because they don’t have the right attitude; if someone is sick it’s because they didn’t take care of themselves. All of which provides the wounding critics with a narcissistic ego boost that’s meant to convince themselves that they’ve done a better job at life than other people.

I realized I turned a corner in the way I view criticism when a reader of Elephant Girl wrote me to tell me that I’d gotten it all wrong. She was raped by a family friend when she was 15 and didn’t turn promiscuous like I did. She also found all sorts of support for healing when she screwed up her courage and told her dad about the rape. “Your book sends the wrong message to other survivors,” she reprimanded. At first, I didn’t know how to respond. The account of my rapes is factual — they occurred decades ago and I was a child — and the past is already done. Even if I could rewrite my history, I wouldn’t do it just to make other people feel better, or to make them like me more as a person or an author. Elephant Girl is my story and I own everything in it, even the ugly and uncomfortable parts. Other people’s stories, thoughts and experiences are their own.

I finally wrote the woman back. “Tell your story,” I encouraged her. “There’s room in the world for all experiences, including yours and including mine.” And with that, I was done. I didn’t dwell. I didn’t absorb her words, take them to heart, or feel like I had to apologize for her disappointment.

I’ve learned that being an open book doesn’t mean I have to be open to every judgment, perception, or criticism. It took me all these years to finally “get it” but this basic lesson has taken root. Take whatever is valuable, meaningful, and well-intended and leave the rest behind.

*

Much of my life has felt like a game of roulette. I’d bet on as many people and situations as I could afford and wait to get lucky. I’d give my heart, love, efforts and even possessions to anybody who expressed an interest in them and hoped that I’d win loyalty, love and care in return. I’d throw all of my chips into a game of chance and pray that at least one would hit the right number.

I’ve learned that the best odds of being happy don’t come by way of accident or luck, but by having a clear and strong sense of purpose. It’s late in the game, but I’m beginning to see the value of my own life and spirit, instead of relying on the words and actions of others to tell me what I’m worth. By loving myself on purpose, with a fully conscious mind, I can love others on purpose, with reason and intent, instead of haphazardly or by chance. I can love more fully, more openly, and with more just cause.

By choosing to be open with myself and others on purpose — instead of by accident, impulse or passion— I’m less likely to feel stung by hurt, rejection, or misunderstandings.

I’m owning my own life, bright and dark, triumphs and mistakes, scars and beauty. I refuse to be a pauper anymore.

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In desperation, we scrambled to make it to bus stops, factory doors, and daycare centers. We carried our heavy loads, balancing children on our hips, and tried to forget there was a time when we would have stopped to pray for, or at least consider, the lives of those less fortunate.

We lost many things on our journey. School pictures, cherished albums, love letters tied in teenage yarn. We had no place to store the proof of our memories, so we left them roadside, along with our burned-out cars, or gave them away like we did the bright, youthful clothes we no longer had occasion to wear.

We traded dreams for practicalities and tucked our stubborn hopes away in empty pockets. Our skin grew pale as we traded iron for baby food and protein for something that was 10-for-a-dollar. In parking lots, the women with their late-model key chains and freshly styled hair scurried to move their children away from ours, as if poverty, with its day-old bread and generic boxes of rice cereal, was catching.

We shielded our children from glaring or sympathetic eyes and, with never-enough guilt twisting in our stomachs, somehow always managed to find an extra dime for the gumball machine or a quarter for the merry-go-round outside. At night, as they rested in the crooks of our arms, we read our children fantastical stories of faith and transformation: ugly ducklings that turned into swans and earnest frogs that became princes. Wanting to believe in miracles ourselves, we read with animation, perfecting the voices of wicked witches and wise fairy godmothers. It’s never too late, we taught them, to become the person you were meant to be. At the same time, we feared our own lives were cautionary tales with no assured ending. We knew that hope without any real, tangible possibility was futility. We prayed that it would be different for them — that the things that had proven impossible for us would not be our children’s curse to bear.

We taught them to read and write, and drilled them on spelling, numbers and songs so that when they went to school with the sons and daughters of the women with the late-model key chains, they would not feel the weight of their hand-me-down clothes or five-dollar shoes, but take pride in their achievements.

Under a set of fluorescent lights or out in the elements, doing tedious work that required no special skills except the labor of our hands or the strength of our backs, we tried to grow numb, thinking that if we could sever the nerves that attached emotion to circumstance, we might not feel the depth of our own despair. We might not feel the empty space left behind by lost potential, or the oppressive pain of not being fully alive — of being nothing more in the working world than a nine-digit number with 10 expendable working fingers or a strong, replaceable spine.

Yet, we knew the feeling of half-dead wasn’t dead at all. It was only a shrunken, dried-up sponge of emotions waiting for the next disaster, reflective hour, or inescapable conclusion to burst its cells open and overflow. At unexpected times, while in the middle of work or staring out of a bus window, we often found our eyes watering with the pressure of a spirit looking to find its way back in — to be heard, acknowledged and perhaps even nurtured.

And when our children asked questions about the future, all we could tell them is the same thing we told our spirits. Maybe Someday, Baby.

Maybe someday the cupboards will be full.

The night will not be frightening.

We’ll find a car that runs.

Our hopes will turn into possibilities &

the ugly duckling will turn into a swan.

It is also what we told ourselves in the hours we were alone, when we were not only resourceful mothers or strong-spined workers, but women with soul-needs of our own. We told ourselves that everything that we never had or that we lost along the way would be found or rediscovered. That there would be new pictures to frame and set upon a mantle — a future full of love letters, ticket stubs and pressed flowers to revisit on a sentimental winter’s day — and a little black dress with no practical purpose to hang in our closet.

Maybe someday, baby, we promised ourselves

There won’t be as much to fear.

The panic will subside.

We’ll pick up the guitar or paintbrush again &

walk barefoot along an ocean shore.

Maybe someday, baby, we’ll find love.

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I’m at a point in writing my memoir where I am admitting some really ugly truths. Those closest to me know what they are but I’ve never made them public. If I were to think about how other people might judge me for my past, I might never write this book at all. So I don’t think about writing in terms of possible consequences—I think instead about how even the worst truths aren’t as devastating as the best image-keeping lies.

The child in the Hawaiian print shorts is very likely my brother or sister. I tend to think brother, but there’s no way to know for sure. What I do know is that this picture was taken in June of 1959, on a Navy base—2 years and 7 months before I was born. The girl sitting on the floor is my eldest sister, Dawn. We look nothing alike. I look nothing like my other older sister, Dianne, either.

I look like the child in the flowered shorts and so does my son. Same coloring, hair, lips, eyes, and ears. Same face shape and expression when tired.

This picture was discovered and given to me after my mother died, but she wouldn’t have told the truth or given me a name even if she had lived another six decades. She was married when I was born, to a man that was so obviously not my father that it only took me about five years before I began suspecting the truth. It took 30 years beyond that to get her to admit her infidelity fully. Still, she wouldn’t tell me anything about the man who fathered me. I don’t know his name or his nationality. I don’t know one-half of myself and it’s a blank history I’ve passed on to my children. I suspect that the affair between my mother and biological father wasn’t short—that he was also married and stationed on the same ship and Navy bases that my stepfather was.

This post isn’t about unsolved mysteries, though. I’ve sadly reconciled to the fact that I have almost no chance of finding out who the child in the photograph is or who my real father is—my mother had no close friends and held onto her secrets tightly.

What I want to say—what I want to scream, really— is that this is why people should not lie. Not to their children and not to others. Lies are not contained in a neat, singular vacuum. They have far-reaching consequences, for the liar certainly, but even more so for the ones who have been told the lies.

My mother was ashamed of me and her husband resented me. I felt it, I knew it down to my bones, but I didn’t know why. I turned myself inside out trying to be better, trying to understand why I could never, ever be good enough. I was about seven the first time I ever thought about suicide. My child brain reasoned that since I was the source of her misery, my death would make my mother happy—and nothing makes a child feel so good as when they can please their mother. Over time, as my own pain grew, my suicidal ideation became a self-comfort. “If it gets too bad, I can end it.” I comfort myself during hard times with the same thought today.

Most people, even the very young, I think, can feel the truth of a matter even if they don’t know the finer details. If a person feels lied to, even if someone close to them is insisting that they’re telling the truth, then there’s probably some divide between the information that was wanted and what was offered. My mother, for instance, used to point to my birth certificate as “proof” that her husband was legally my father. Legally is not actually—it didn’t square with the truth I wanted—but to her it was close enough. As an older child, she tormented me with teasing games of misinformation when I pressed the issue, telling me my father was Rod McKuen, Warren Beatty, or some stranger she met in a bar. Later, she’d recant and go back to the birth certificate. I can laugh at some of the stories now, but it’s not a happy laugh. There will always be some part of me that craves the truth even if it’s almost impossible to find.

A woman I recently met felt that something in her twenty-plus year marriage had changed and that her husband had grown more distant. At first he denied her feelings and then he blamed work, tiredness, and even her—if she didn’t nag him about it so much, maybe he’d be happier and more interested. For two years, she wavered in a space of swallowing her own feelings for his comfort, hoping he’d recover, and rising up to ask for the truth, or counseling, or some clue that she could work with. In the end she found out that he’d been having an affair. It was a brutal revelation, more so because it came late and it didn’t come from him. When faced with the truth he admitted to it but now, a year or so after the fact, what lingers for her isn’t the infidelity, but the two painful years she spent living with a lie, desperate to reconcile what she felt with what she was being told.

Two years, thirty-five years, or a lifetime…lies cause far more pain than honesty ever could. Had I been told the truth as a child, I might have better understood the why of being treated differently than my siblings. I might not have internalized the shame and resentment. Today, being told the absolute truth, under all circumstances, even if it has to be dug out of rock hard ground, might not be so very important to me. Had the wife been told from the start that her husband was having an affair, she might not feel so bitter about the two years she spent feeling desperate, abandoned, and confused.

People lie for many reasons, but one of the major ones is to make themselves look good. Denying the truth of my father meant that my mother didn’t have to admit to being unfaithful. Other people wouldn’t think less of her. How she looked in the eyes of others was more important to her than the pain her lie caused me or even herself. It couldn’t have been easy for her to have and raise a child she did not want. Had she been willing to be more honest though, she might have given me up for adoption and saved us both from decades of turmoil. She might have looked bad to family and acquaintances for a while but the shame she felt would not have been as long lasting and the consequences not as heavy.

I’ve no doubt that the woman’s husband lied to look good, or at least better, too. He didn’t want to admit to an affair because that would mean that he was responsible for doing something unethical. It was easier for him to put the burden of their failing relationship on his wife because he could still look like the good guy. He wrote the story of an overworked, tired man with a nagging wife and wanted her to follow along until maybe, at some point in the future, when it was more convenient for him, he was ready to leave home and start a new life with someone else.

There are common lies of omission and less commonly, differing definitions. My ex-lover would insist that she loved me but her actions toward me didn’t match her words. In the end I didn’t feel loved, so the chances are that I was not—at least not in any way that would have matched my definition. Love invites in, it doesn’t shut out.  Love is special and rare and not easily replaceable. Love is willing to fight for itself. Everyone has their own definitions of what love is and isn’t. Had I known that her definition was so far off from my own—had she told me that her feelings about love were, in fact, quite opposite, I might not have invested so much of myself into loving her, and the end of our relationship would not have been as fraught with confusion and anguish. I would have been quicker to forgive her for not being able to return the same kind of love I gave to her, and I would not still be working on healing months after our final goodbye.

Lies are not solitary, isolated events. They change people—mentally and spiritually—which means they also affect that person’s present and future—and never, it seems, for the better. Lies add pain to situations that are all ready painful. The truth is not always kind but at least what people might feel as the result of an unhappy truth is real. It’s not clouded with confusion, suspicion, and lack of knowledge.

A harsh truth might cut deeply, but only the first time it’s told. Lies, on the other hand, are like a continuous poison that can seep into years, even decades. It’s easier to heal from a swift truth than a slow, drawn-out lie.

For that reason I’m all for telling people, including my own children, the truth even if it doesn’t make me look good. I know I’ll recover faster and so will others.

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The other day at Starbucks I had an unexpected conversation with a stranger. Afterward, I wanted to run home and tell my partner all about the beautiful, older woman who had just finished a meeting with her husband’s younger side dish. I had the same urgent feeling of wanting to share earlier this month, when the moon was a peculiar shade of bright yellow, hanging over a purple mountain. “You’ve got to come see this,” I wanted to say to someone. Of course, there was no one there. Instead, I walked up the gravel road to return to my empty hotel room and another chapter that needed finishing.

I was born independent, or so the story goes, but that’s not really the whole truth. I’m 90% water and earth and 10% fire and steel, (give or take a few points in either direction depending on the circumstances), but it’s the 10% that keeps me single. The same fiery passions and beliefs that initially draw certain people also tend to bring about the end.

That 10% has also saved my life, not once, but several times over. Fire and steel gave me a spine and lent me bravery when needed. They allowed me to stand strong and survive crises. They’ve given me clarity and truth when winds and waves left things muddy. For these reasons — and simply because I like this part of myself — I refuse to devalue it, especially in the name of something I feel so passionately about: Love.

I believe love should be fearless. It should be able to withstand scrutiny and hold its own in a debate. It should have more answers than questions and more courage than cowardice. Love, to me, should be a deeply felt conviction — something worth standing up and fighting for no matter what the opposition is or how strong in numbers. Love should seek to loosen restraints, not create them. It should actively nurture all that it promises  — it should be fiercely loyal, encouraging, and honest. Love should seek, above all, to be genuinely happy in the long-term. Sweeping things under the rug or ignoring the elephants in the room can only ever be a temporary convenience, and when the pile grows high or the room gets crowded, there’s little space left for love — instead, there are resentments over things not said when they should have been said, and open wounds that have grown past the point of healing.

I believe in love so strongly that I refuse to settle for less than what I believe it could be if I met my match — someone who believes with as much conviction as I do in the sanctity of love, its power and courage, and its ability to raise people up to the highest plane possible.

After my recent experience with fake love, I learned that I’d rather be alone with my ideals than together with someone whose “I love you” (at least towards me) meant as much to her as “I’m hungry, pass the potatoes.” I don’t want to be in someone’s life as a convenience, a stopgap, or an in-between lover. What I want — and am ready for — is the real thing.

I want marriage, traditional or not, with all the bells and whistles — the tough times, the great times, the waves and rifts, and the romance. I want the mingled laundry, cosigned holiday cards, daily routines and occasional surprises of a loving partnership. I want to be someone’s cheerleader and have them be mine. I want to look at the same person every day and feel like I understand and love them just a little bit more than I did the day before. I want to share all of me with someone and know that they love me enough to do the same.

I have friends who believe, passionately, that you can manifest the lover you want by consciously envisioning, in great detail, who that person is while still leaving the door open to other possibilities. I’ve always challenged the “think it and it will come true” philosophy, but so many of my friends insist that it works that I’m willing to give it a try. Here is the love that I’m manifesting:

For now, I’m going to call her Kim. She may be an attorney, but not a rich one because she does a lot of pro-bono and charity work. Or she may be in some other field she enjoys and volunteer only on occasion. She’s taller than I am, somewhere between 5’8” and 5’10”. She’s not thin or heavy, but she’s got a strong build. She likes animals, especially dogs, but limits herself to two or three. She prefers summer to winter and likes to spend time outdoors. She watches TV on occasion but isn’t addicted to it, and her favorite music is from the ’60s and ’70s.  She’s got a great sense of humor that’s balanced with her ability to be serious. She’s out of the closet and feels no need to hide our relationship from friends or family. She’s a thinker, not just a reactor, and she’s also capable of spontaneity.

She’s kind but in a genuine, heartfelt way—not in the way learned from Ms. Manners books and social convention. She’s trustworthy. When she says something, she really means it — her words truly are her thoughts and can be counted on to reflect what she authentically feels.

When I ask her what she wants — out of life, our relationship, or from me — she knows herself well enough, and trusts me enough, to answer.  She doesn’t respond with “I don’t know, what do you want?”

She’s not a coward and she’s willing to name her beliefs even if they are ones I don’t share. She knows that love can accommodate differences of opinion as long as they aren’t harmful to the relationship.

She accepts me for me but understands that, like her, I’ll always be a work in progress. I’ll grow and evolve and occasionally change my mind or rethink my beliefs. She will, too, and that’s part of what will make our relationship exciting — we’ll grow together and teach each other new things along the way.

She isn’t intimidated by the part of me that’s fire and steel, because some part of her will be the same. She’ll understand that a roaring fire doesn’t mean the house is burning down and that steel isn’t used only to make swords. She’ll respect my passions because she’ll have her own.

Compromising is a natural part of a relationship, but neither of us will demand the other change some essential part of herself as a condition of love.

Our weaknesses and strengths will complement each other. She’ll be good at paperwork things, like insurance and balancing the checkbook, and I’ll keep the refrigerator stocked and the kitchen clean. She’ll handle car repairs, and I’ll take our pets to the vet.

She’ll understand that being able to contribute to her happiness is important to me. I derive a lot of pleasure from making someone I love happy, and she’ll let me do these things without feeling like she has to “earn it” or like there has to be a quid-pro-quo trade. She’ll let me make her dinner or help her with a project because she knows that doing nurturing and helpful things makes me feel good. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t want to do them. Likewise, she’ll add to my happiness by doing the things that are in her heart to do.

We’ll be strongly bonded, but not one of those couples that always have to do things together. We’ll recognize the value of having separate interests and occasional times apart, because when we come back together we’ll be recharged and have new experiences to share.

I don’t know if “Kim” will come to life in any tangible way — she may remain a figment of my imagination — but writing about my ideal partner, especially in light of my recent disastrous and painful relationship, has helped me clarify what being in love really means to me. It’s too beautiful and special a thing to waste, or at least it should be, and I’m determined that if there’s a next time I fall in love (I don’t take it for granted) that it will be with a strong, loving, kind, slightly fiery, honest person — the right person for me.

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