Inspiration

I had a little epiphany last night while I was out running. I have been thinking a lot lately about what it is that really attracts to me a man. I know I have talked a lot about this throughout this blog. It it is good thing to apine on is it not? :) I have talked a lot about all my boxes that need to be checked and about the "one thing" and humble strength and all that. All of these are good things. I have another thing to add to the pile.

The man has to inspire me.

I can't quite find the right words to capture the enormity of this for me, but I think that if I distill down all the things that I have talked about in the past, this might be the one thing that I can't live without.

I am inspired by:

• a man who has strong principles and values and sticks by them
• a man who will stand up for himself, his friends, his family and me
• a man who will fight to protect what he believes in
• a man who has bigger dreams than I do
• a man who volunteers
• a man who is more organized, focused and dedicated than I am
• a man who is more forgiving, patient and understanding than I am
• a man who sets goals for himself and follows through
• a man who makes me want to be better
• a man who encourages me to be better
• a man who is consistent and steady
• a man who is respected and liked by his peers

It is funny that my original list of boxes I need checked touches on most of these things, but doesn't quite frame it like this. There are also a lot of boxes that I now realize are very secondary. While it would be nice to have these boxes checked, if the above mentioned items were present, these secondary boxes would most definitely be things that I can live without.

Why do dreams get lost?

Overwhelming discouragement

We get lost

Other things become more important

We forget them

We forget what it feels like to realize a dream

We are the type of person who is perpertually hard on ourselves, so we only see the failures

Constantly striving, so we move onto the next dream before the first is realized

We are a scattered mess

Not believing we deserve that dream, we settle for less

I realized a really big dream this week: To own a home. I have thought about it for a long time and been looking for places for a long time. It hasn't sunk in yet. Maybe when I go and lay down on the floors and run my hands along all the walls and sleep there and eat there, then maybe it will be real. But it is so funny how I am already moving on to the next dream, without really enjoying the fulfillment of this one. Typical. I spend a lot of effort thinking about the dreams that are impossible, or at least currently unattainable. For this one I am going to try to take it slow and enjoy it.

Slacker

Yes, I know, it has been ages and ages since I have written. So sorry. All my loyal readers probably stopped checking my blog now and I will have to completely re market my self. Alas, I have been writing, it is just that the things that I have been writing about were more suited to going in my handwritten journal than out on the web. That is quite a statement for me, since as most of you know, I have been pretty open about lots of things on this blog. But most of the things that I have posted about in the past, were, just that, in the past. And I had processed them and the other people had processed them, so while they were humbling, they were at least mutually known.

The things that I have been writing about lately are not mutually known, so I don't really want the various people who are involved to find out about my thoughts through my blog. So therefore you all will have to wait to hear.

On other exciting news, I have new digs, and I expect that I will be hanging out in these digs for longer than 9 months (my average homestead for the past 6 years). I have great plans for the new digs, and in the spirit of Apartment Therapy, I will be posting photos of all my work. Very soon I will post photos of the "Before" trust me it is a great "Before" as the place needs a lot of work. Right now it smells like stinky cat and has stains on the ceiling from an old roof leak. The toilet is pink porcelain and the stove is from 1964. So I definitely have my work cut out for me.

Additionally, I gave up on the triathlon ambitions for now, as getting to a pool has proved almost impossible. So now I am focusing on a duathlon. I can handle running and biking. I am aiming for one on Oct 25th. So I would love to post about training schedules. I am trying to put one together now.

Today

Focus..focus...chimney...focus...focus...kitchen cabinets...focus....focus...couch....focus...focus...apartmenttherapy.com...focus...focus...roof deck....focus...focus...mortgage application...focus...focus...paint colors...focus...focus...oh what the hell, why am I even trying.

Boxes, boxes everywhere.

Continued from previous post: (as in read that one first)

So I was wondering....
I am now having the experience of meeting someone I really like and I am finding myself frantically looking at my boxes and seeing which ones he might fill and which ones he might not. Then Monday I had a little freak out session with my work roommate in which I talked about the boxes that might not be filled and she talked about all the boxes she has to fill (she is moving cross country next month from her apartment where she has lived for the last 13 years).

Insights from freak out session:
1. Perhaps I am just really terrified of another relationship, because to me relationships represent pain, sadness and disappointment
2. Perhaps I got a little carried away with my boxes
3. Boxes don't fill themselves, bastards!
4. Attics and basements swallow boxes whole!
5. Closets also swallow boxes whole, but then they vomit them back up about a week before you have to vacate your apartment.
6. Perhaps I am getting way, way, way ahead of myself
7. You can usually determine whether the boxes that make up the "Would be nice to have" list are filled early on but the really important boxes, like "Encourages you to fulfill your dreams", take longer to know. (In short, it takes time to get to know someone, you can't make snap judgements on the most important elements of their character in a week or two)
8. Booze makes boxes get filled faster (both boxes)
9. Friends make boxes get filled faster
10. Perhaps, filling or not filling boxes is not what we are dealing with here

Well Damn it! I thought I had completely processed all emotions surrounding my past, I thought I was so mature and had so successfully rebuilt the walls around myself that I was completely safe from ever falling off the cliff again. But could it be that I am so terrified of repeating my mistakes that I am not allowing myself to even peek at the view from the top?

My cardboard fort with walls a hundred feet high, so I would never have to worry about screwing up my and some nice man's lives again.

The thing with making boxes is that then you have to fill them

Cardboard boxes.

I think only when we are kids do they represent fun. Once we can't fit ourselves in them anymore, they quickly come to represent one of the most hated rituals of adult life: moving.

It starts with procuring the cardboard boxes (no small feat in a city without a car), then taping the bottom, then filling them with just the right combination of stuff so as to not break anything, including your back. Then the filled boxes have to be moved, or stored, and then they have to be unpacked, or in my case, when you move 10 times in the past 10 years, you eventually give up unpacking and they sit in the corner of your living room. Ah boxes!

About a month after leaving my husband I sat down and made a rather extensive list of qualities or character traits that I wanted in a spouse. I was reasonable, I categorized the list into "Must have", "Want to have" and "Would be nice to have". I accepted that I probably couldn't find everything, and I wanted to be realistic about the things I would compromise on and the things I wouldn't.

I tucked the list away in my journal and didn't really look at again until November when I started working on developing a target identification model for potential bank merger scenarios for my client at work. Basically I took a bunch of criteria for banks and weighted the different criteria based on my client's needs and then ran the targets' data through the model and it spit out a score for each target. Of course I was like "Ha ha wouldn't it be totally great if I did this with my own target criteria". (Sick MIT student, sick, sick). Thankfully I got busy with other things, and didn't attempt such craziness. However, I mentioned my casual stroll to the edge of the cliff of nerdom to a classmate (while we were on a date) and we got into a pretty good discussion.

I argued that having a list of boxes that need to be checked is a really good thing, cause it makes you evaluate a potential target fairly and objectively before you fall (or jump) off the cliff. He argued that while having criteria is good, usually for him there either is chemistry or there isn't, and you may have really great chemistry with someone who doesn't fill all the boxes, and you may not have any with someone who does, that is just the way love goes.

At the time, I thought "Silly boy who hasn't had a relationship with LOTS of chemistry for the first year with someone who didn't check any of the boxes completely destroy your life." But now I find myself wondering if he was on to something....

continued in next post....

The 2 fears that drive relationship decisions

1. The fear of being alone
2. The fear of being with someone who would make you unhappy

Things about these fears:

• They act in opposition to each other
• Everyone ascribes different weights to these fears when making decisions
• The weights people ascribe to these fears changes through different points of life
• Number 1 is the root cause of relationship decisions where people stay in relationships they should not
• Number 2 is the root cause of commitment issues
• Past experiences heavily determine people's fears

More Good things about Marriage

Again possitive thoughts, although most of these are not based on experience, but hypothetical and/or from friends in wonderful, loving relationships:

1. Someone to be completely naked with
2. Someone to work hard alongside
3. Someone who isn't affraid to put you in your place when you need it
4. Someone who knows how to encourage you when you need it
5. Someone who has your back
6. Someone who pushes you to be your best and to reach goals you never thought you could
7. Someone to build things with
8. Someone whos eyes are your mirrors
9. Someone to dream with, who understands your dreams, and who shares your dreams
10. Someone who actively participates in making your dreams a reality