It was a party… New Years… the kinda’ couple-paloosa single chicks usually avoid… but I went ’cause I dug the 2 hosting couples… and stayed ’cause the whole group was so chill. In fact, it was so cool that when the elder of the host couples told the story of their honeymoon, I wished I had someone to share life with too.

‘Like being ‘hitched’ never turned a party into a ‘living hell’!’ my brain said, with what felt like a ‘shiver’.
Shocked, I flinched, and reflexively looked to the ‘honeymooners’, focusing on the ‘head over heels’ expressions on their faces. ‘But if it was like that…!’
‘Sure!’ my brain snorted, ‘but they’re ‘special’!’
‘Why?’ I wondered, a little suprised at that thought. So, like ‘Bwana Clyde Batty’ from ’60’s t.v…. I observed the rare creatures…
‘There’s that look, of course… decades!… and you could still see the sparks fly…’
‘One in a million…’ my grey matter told me.
‘And I’ve never herd either say a negative word to… or about the other… (I made a mental connection.) Like my grandparents… they’ve been that way… though thick and thin…’ and before my brain could collect itself for a come-back, the younger hosts jumped in to ‘help’… correcting and cajoling their oldest and ‘bestest’ friends… and, sure enough, they wore that same look…!’

‘That’s why I dig’em!’ I thought, never having put two and two together that way before, but as I replayed past meetings and moments from that night in my head, I realized I must have ‘picked up’ on it subconsciously… that others must have too… because when I looked around, I realized it wasn’t like any other parties I’d been to.
There was no trash-talking, no whining, no agruing… everybody was respectful of boundaries and didn’t even try hooking the only two single people up… ‘Is that their ‘secret’? I wondered, recalling all I’d learned about thoughts and words affecting our lives, and jig-saw like… peices snapped together in my head…
‘They got married ’cause they wanted ‘love’… enough to give their own freely… got all that love back ’cause, without being ‘forced’, their partners ‘wanted’ to give them their ‘best’… They must have… consciously or subconsciously… chosen to use ‘positive’ words to reinforce that all these years… and surrounded themselves with like-minded people… building and preserving that pair-bond…’

As the ‘big picture’ resolved in my mind’s eye, I made the snap decision to give it a shot if… and ‘when’… I found someone ‘special’ too… but, disgusted, my brain told me I’d ‘had enough!’ and forced me out into the cold to walk it off.
It was cold… yes… but snowy and still… so I might have enjoyed it if my brain hadn’t dragged memmories of my marriage along. ‘Cause it did, though, I felt ‘lost’ and more lonely than I had since before the divorce.
‘Just go back,’ my brain ordered, and I wasn’t sure if it meant to my Ex… to being ‘happy’ being single… or to the party… but I opted for my hatch-back instead. ‘Five years…!’ I thought, as I drove carefully across town, ‘and you’re still as lonely as you were before the divorce…! You’re still wishing… missing… the man you ‘wanted’ him to be… the man you’ll probably never meet…’ but then maybe because it was New Years, I told myself ‘never; was too strong a word.

Months later, after meeting my BF, we drove to his house and passed the same street I’d staggered down January 1st.
On a whim, I told him about that night… about my friends… and their ‘secret’…
‘I like it!’ he smiled, dazzling me enough that my brain stepped in to warn me I wore the same goofy grin that my friends always did.
‘Shut up, Brain!’ I told it, ‘or I’ll stab you with a Q-tip!’ and decided that moment was as good as any to make good on my promise to myself.

Like most New Years resolutions though, that promise has been hard to keep. Old habits die hard. It’s hard giving your ‘best’ when others choose not to… Life interferes… people interfere… and ‘trust’ comes hard when you’ve been hurt deeply or often enough…
Of course, I’ve tried understanding… tried ‘teaching’… giving people ‘chances’ to do things ‘differently’… but there’s times when things get ‘hard’ and I need someplace to vent. So, I’ve been using my blog as a ‘safe’ place to blow off steam.
Unfortunately, I never really thought much about the possible ‘side affects’. I was just worried about needing to say the things I don’t want to say out loud or that others won’t hear…

 ‘Don’t even go there!’ they tell me… ‘It’s not like that!’… ‘You don’t understand…’ ‘Don’t ‘stress’ it…!’

(Ego makes them unwilling to ‘hear’ or to ‘question’… to see one of them might need some help…)

If I learned nothing from ‘singledom’, though, it’s that no one’s going to ‘save’ you… that I’ve got to do that myself!
Well, I guess part of that’s got to be being more conscious of what I say… even on-line… and part’s finding ways to clear out old habbits. But, when it comes right down to it… it’ll be other people’s choices to listen or help me and if they don’t it’ll be my choice to move on.
For now, I’m not going anywhere.
I’m determined to give my ‘best’. I’m determined to ‘try harder’ and to be positive and creative.
Guess I need to work on this… huh?