So, November was a very busy month for me.

But I've already told you that story.

Sometime between my birthday and Thanksgiving I passed a very different sort of milestone.  It's not something most people would note, and with everything that was going on, I almost didn't remember it myself, until one night, seeking a little bit of quiet, I went for a short drive alone to sort out my thoughts.  Then it just kind of hit me sideways, like a little flashing light, just out of my line of vision, not that big a deal, but something I needed to remember.

The middle of November marked my 10th year of voluntary celibacy.

I undertook this journey when, at the end of my relationship with my daughter's father, I began to question why I kept getting into relationships that were pre-destined to end badly.  I constantly chose wildly inappropriate men, and ignored glaring red flags.  I was tired of my own behavior, and wanted to take a closer look at myself.  I also wanted to know what kind of relationships I would have, and how would they develop, if I removed sex from the equation.  It was to be, for me, a grand experiment in reshaping the way I viewed relationships, as well as my expectations regarding them.

Oh, the things you learn about yourself, when you remove all of your normal distractions!  It's important to note here that, for me, sex was a huge distraction.  It kept me from focusing on what I felt were my inadequacies, fed my mistaken notion that it was an equalizer between me and the "pretty" girls, and slowed down my eventual realization that relying solely on sex was no way to create, or maintain, a relationship.  Hard lesson to learn, but it's always better to figure that out sooner rather than later.

Some of what I learned I've touched on in other posts.  I finally figured out that I was jumping into relationships due to acute insecurity about my looks, or perceived lack thereof.  I realized that desperation attracts all the worst personality types, and any relationship with someone every bit as desperate and needy as you are is doomed to fail.  The most important takeaway from my strictly enforced vacation from relations, was that I started asking myself relevant questions about myself and my relationships: where did I want to go, what did I want to do and how do I relate to others?  It was only later that I found out that these are the kinds of question that relationship experts wish all people would ask themselves before entering into relationships and/or marriages.  Yeah, it would probably put them out of business, but a lot of heartache could be eliminated by a minimal amount of self examination beforehand.

1)  Who am I, really?
     Very few people know enough about themselves to really answer this question.  To be honest, though, most people will always be a work in progress, as the older we get, and the more we learn, we hopefully gain insight and wisdom, and become a little more refined in our behavior and approach to life.  But a little self-knowledge goes a long way.  I know that I am a rock and roll loving, Center-left, feminist, Christian introvert, with a serious tendency towards over helpfulness, that I channel into customer serviced based careers.  Knowing that about myself, why would I want to get involved with someone who hated rock music, was hard right politically, and really didn't like people who were different than themselves, just because he was good-looking, or had money, or a nice car?  This is just the situation that all of us, men and women get ourselves into, then cannot extricate ourselves from after we realize that we have gotten involved with the wrong person for the wrong reason.

2) What do I want/need/expect?
    If you have no idea what you want in a relationship, it's a lead pipe cinch you probably aren't going to get it.  You would think that was common sense, but this simple truth misses most people by a wide margin.  When I talk about wants, needs, and expectations, I am not talking about physical traits.  Everybody has their own specific set of features that works for them, so hey: Whatever Blows You Hair Back.  But once you have your person with your physical features of choice, then what?  Making sure that you know that you want someone who is kind to others, need someone with a sense of humor that is at least somewhat similar to yours, and expect to be treated with a certain amount of respect is merely scratching the surface of finding out what internal qualities are important to you.  In the end, it's those internal qualities that are going to determine whether of not what you have is a short fling, or the romance that will last until...

3) What really matters?
    I've noted before that the older I became (and frankly the longer this experiment has gone on), the more philosophical I became.  I came to the conclusion that if I couldn't make better choices in romantic partners than the messy people I kept attracting, then it was just better all around for me to simply not be in any relationship at all.  The focus was then on getting my life to the point where I was content no matter what happened, rather than pinning all of my hopes on my happiness coming from the outside, being provided by someone else.  Making peace with yourself, ( quirks, flaws, odd dents, and needed improvements), is the best possible thing you can do for yourself, and eventually for whomever you decide to bring into your life. 

Or not.  In my 43 rotations around the sun, I have known many, many people whose primary goal in life was to get married. For a while, I was one of them.  As I got older, had children, struggled, renewed my faith, and simply kept living, it finally occurred to me that I was content with the basic parts of my life, whether I found a romantic partner or not. I had achieved a certain peace, and that was all that really mattered.

This path of celibacy is not for everyone, nor is it a cure-all for relational ills.  I knew what my weakness was, and I removed it.  That's not to say it's been an easy spiritual walk.  I am a complete hedonist, and I know it.  While I was getting my head together I used food to soothe my emotions, and subsequently gained a lot of weight that I now have to lose. These things happen. 

What's most important to me, is that I am not where I was ten years ago.  What I hope, is that I now know enough about myself to make better relationship choices, even if that choice is not to be involved in a relationship.   As far as I've come, to my own mind, I still have a long way to go.

Here's hoping the next journey will be every bit as interesting as this one.
    

If you can't tell already, I am in love with words.  I am also a secret romantic, with an unconditional love of the R & B ballads that I grew up with in the 70s and 80s that current radio refers to as Slow Jams.

On the outside I am very philosophical about love and relationships, but on the inside all I need to hear are the first strains of certain songs that bring me back to the romantic notions of my youth.  Back on Valentine's Day, I commented that I like to rock when I'm driving.  I didn't mean that to say that I don't like love songs.  I do, just not all of them.  There is something about the whispered promises of love and fervent declarations of devotion that move me when it concerns the music that played in my house during my younger years.

Not to be one of THOSE people, but a lot of today's love songs don't talk about love as much as they talk about sex, which is fine if that's what you're into, but it's not really for me.  I miss the sensuality of the suggestion, rather than the bold talk about the act itself.  My mother always taught us to "leave something to the imagination".  The sweet sounds of Ronald Isley's tenor, mixed with the vivid imagery of sailing away from daily cares and worries to "a paradise, out beyond the sea" propels "Voyage to Atlantis" by the Isley Brothers into a realm of romantic iconography very hard to reach by today's artists:

The demand for instant gratification that drives a lot of popular music is noticeably absent from Cameo's tale of longing and anticipation "Sparkle"

If you have ever felt insecure in a relationship, the opening assurances in Debarge's classic "Time Will Reveal" will soothe whatever doubts you have in the opening 30 seconds:

I used to wonder what drove me back to these particular songs for repeated listening.  Maybe it was the intensity of feeling that people are afraid to express for fear of not seeming aloof, which seems to be the prevailing sentiment today.  Not so in the early 80s, when the thought of potentially lost love drove someone to song to express it:

There was a time when artists were not afraid to show vulnerability in their lyrics.  They were unafraid to show fear, doubt, longing, love or any of a host of emotions with beautiful words meant to let the listener know that they, too, experienced the same situations and circumstances.  Artists related to the audience, and invited them to go down this road to love and romance with them.  Bravado and lust had their place, but it wasn't the default the way it is now.  Music is the ultimate relational tool, and even if you couldn't explain exactly how you felt, out there, somewhere, was a song that could help you express whatever was in your heart to someone who may not understand your own fumbling attempts.  Even I can't fully explain it.  

Then again, maybe I can just play you a song.

I almost didn't write a post this week.

Busy, distracted by work and other issues, blah, blah, blah.  You know how these things go.

Then I got hit by perhaps the corniest inspiration on the face of the earth.

During the week leading up to Valentine's Day, radio stations like to bombard you with all the love songs they think you can possibly stand.  A grinch I am not, but I like to rock out when I'm driving, and all that soft, slow stuff makes me flip the station faster than you can say "talk radio".  A couple of days ago, though, I got caught on the tail end of a song I liked by the Foreigner track "I Want To Know What Love Is".  I let out a snort, then said to no one in particular, "Wouldn't we all?"  Later on that night,  the song replayed in my mind a few times (because that's how earworms work, unfortunately), and I realized that the song was such a hit because it stated a profound truth in an extremely, almost excessively simple way.  A man has been hurt many times, but he wants to try again, hopefully missing any landmines on the way.  What he would like, he says in the song, is some kind of map or guidebook that would tell him what he is looking for and how to get there.

It's like that with us singles.  Been around a few times, not all of them pleasant.  Wouldn't mind getting out there and trying again, but so many considerations.  One of the biggest considerations is where to start.

I have to say I like the way singer Howard Jones sang the question: What is Love, anyway?  Does anybody love anybody anyway?

The question is not as cynical as it sounds, and really neither am I.

A point of reference for me as to what Love is, is the 13th chapter of the book of 1 Corinthians in the Bible.  To me, it makes some very good all around points about what love is, and is not, and how you treat people when love is involved.  It also goes far beyond romantic relationships into the larger kinds of love.  I have a great deal of affection for the New International Version, so that's the translation I'll be working from here.

What I have always understood from this particular passage was that while there are a lot of people that have a lot of talents and can do a lot of things, if they are not doing it from a place of love, it means nothing.  If you knew, beyond a doubt, that you stood to gain absolutely NOTHING from your efforts, but that maybe, just maybe, you might help one person, would you do it anyway?  That might be a little on the extreme side of examples, but a small sample of what it means to use your gifts and talents out of love.

This passage is the one most often read at weddings, for the obvious reason that it lays out in very plain language how we are to treat each other in day to day relationships.  We need to demonstrate patience with, and kindness towards one another.  (As difficult as I know this can be, because there are people that will go out of their way to work our LAST nerve!)  When we love each other, there is no need for envy, or bragging, and among real friends, pride never enters into the conversation.  Not dishonoring others and not being self seeking are two sides of the same coin: one example might be gossiping  about someone else in order to bring down others estimation of them in order to bring yourself up in the eyes of those same people.  No, you are not to be happy when bad things happen to people you don't like, but be happy when the truth comes out for truths sake, nothing else.  With love, the urge is always there to protect, trust, hope and persevere.  These last four are much harder for those who have been hurt (or manipulated), but if they are thought of as goals, rather than insurmountable obstacles, they may be achievable.

We all grow and change over time.  Very few of us look, act or think the same as we did when we were children, and for good reason.  We know more than we did then, we can reason, and we have more self control than we used to.  Well some of us do.  The one thing that never changes is Love.  Perfect love, without flaw or defect (or price or hidden agenda or any of the modern equivalents) will always, we hope, come to drive out the imperfect, shed light on dark corners, and answer questions we've always had.  This is what we'd like to think.  What we dream of.  What we hope for.

I think so anyway.