There was, as always, a method to my madness.  Crushes gave me a way to experience all the excitement of being in love without, you know, actually having to “be” in love and experience the vulnerability that entails.  Forming crushes on unavailable men also gave me assurance of what I was pretty sure was going to happen anyway, a sad and lonely ending to the love affair.  Since the guy in question was never going to love me, something I always secretly believed would happen because I wasn’t that lovable,  I didn’t have to wonder if I would be hurt or anticipate a bad ending to things.  That bad end and the hurt that came with it was a certainty.

Compounding my little crush problem is the fact that I’m totally clueless when it comes to determining if a man is actually interested in me.   I’ve been places with friends and been told after the fact that a man was flirting with me and I was totally oblivious.  I’ve identified a few times myself when I was given an opening the size of a Mack truck and I completely failed to see it or take advantage of it.   When it comes to the logistics of love, it’s like my radar is off and my navigation is completely screwed.  I tend to focus on men who most likely would never be Mr. Right, or to get involved with men who clearly are not Mr. Right while a potential Mr. Right is standing off to the side vainly trying to get my attention.

I’m sadly in need of advice and counsel.   Those of you who are in a relationship, how did you know Mr. or Ms. Right was right?   Those of you who aren’t currently in relationships, how are you planning to go about finding Mr. or Ms. Right?  At this point I’ll take any and all suggestions, since I don’t seem to be doing to well at this on my own.

What’s weird is that when I really start to examine those memories, I realize that high school wasn’t the problem.  During my high school years my parents were on course for the final crash that would derail their marriage during my freshman year in college and my family life wasn’t that great.   It was in high school that I was targeted and abused by a teacher whom I should have been able to trust.  My high school years were also the beginning of my long spiral into a depression that would derail my life for a year when I was in my early 20s.  None of those things specifically had to do with high school, but all those events have infected my memories of high school.

Oddly enough what started me thinking about all of this was making use of a Facebook account I’d started a while back but never really maintained.  Enough people whom I trust and listen to had told me that Facebook was fun and useful, so I decided to give it another try.  Several people with whom I went to high school had contacted me on Facebook, but I’d mostly ignored them, thinking that they would have the same memories of me in high school that I had.  As usual, I was being harder on myself than anyone else could be.

Reconnecting with some of the friends and acquaintances I had in high school has allowed me to see that time in my life and myself in a different light.  There was fun and laughter and friendship.  I wasn’t as much of a misfit as my memories tell me I was.  The connections that I formed during that time still hold, even after years of benign neglect.  It’s like being handed a different mirror that allows me to see a part of my life in a whole new way.

In the last few months I’ve had several experiences that have allowed me to see that what I thought about myself, or what others told me about myself and I accepted as truth might not be as truthful as I thought it was.  Having that realization is freeing and a little bit sad at the same time.  It’s freeing because that means I can drop some outdated ideas about who I am, and some of those ideas really need to be banished.  It’s sad because I’m now wondering what opportunities I missed because I believed something about myself that wasn’t necessarily true.   Since you can’t go back and change the past, I guess I have to let that one go.

One thing I know I won’t let go, at least not again, is the new connections I’ve made with my old high school friends through Facebook.  I fully intend to stay in touch with these people so we can share old memories and make some new ones.   I may never be big on high school nostalgia, but I’ll always be big on keeping in touch with old friends.

Just before Christmas the family announced that they wanted to come to my house.  Unfortunately, my house was far from ready for guests.  I subscribe to the “don’t rush into it” school of decorating which means I have the bare minimum I need to be comfortable (loose translation, a bed, a couch, a television and a computer) and I add the rest as funds and inclination dictate.  In this case that meant I didn’t yet have a dining room table.

It’s absolutely obvious that you don’t have people for Christmas without having a table around which they can sit.  I had to have a table so I gritted my teeth and bought one which, while not the admittedly expensive one I had my eye on, seemed to be one that would do.   It would have done nicely, except for one thing.

Three dreaded words.  Some Assembly Required.

I don’t do some assembly required.  The light on my stovetop has been minus a cover for almost a year now because I took the cover off to change the bulb and couldn’t figure out how to get it back on.  The list of my DIY attempts and failures extends far beyond that.  I’m just not handy, and I’ve made my peace with that.

Still, the table was there and guests were coming, so I ripped open boxes and read instructions and gradually and painfully assembled my new dining room table and six chairs.  It turned out pretty well I thought.  Nothing wobbled, much, and everything seemed fairly sturdy.  The only issue I had was the cushions for the chairs.  They didn’t seem to want to be attached.   There were screws that were supposed to attach them, but I couldn’t figure out how to make them work.  I tried and failed and tried again and finally had a brilliant idea.  I’d do the easiest thing in the world. I’d get some sticky tape and stick the cushions to the chair frame.  That was sure to work!

Except it didn’t work.  My family arrived, one chair was moved and the flaws in the sticky tape were quickly revealed.  After a lot of laughter and incredulous looks from my DIY savvy sister, she marshaled her troops (her daughter and two sons) and set to work putting the screws in the bottom of my chairs.  Like magic, all the cushions were secure.

And, sadly, so was my DDIY crown.

Despite my lack of readiness, I still believe in the list, and I still think the goals on it are good ones for me to pursue.  I also know I don’t want the list to turn into yet another thing with which I can beat myself for not being good enough, not completing the list in the time frame I set, or whatever other transgression I can pin on myself.  If the list becomes an obligation instead of a privilege, then I’ll never get it done.

Probably one of the largest unwritten and unspoken items on the list is changing the way I think and giving myself a break on occasion.   I never specifically wrote either of those goals on the list in those words, but if you read between the lines, those goals are there.  Given that, I’ve decided to change the way I think and  give myself a break.  I’m expanding the time frame on the list.  Instead of a year, I’m giving myself a decade.

A decade will probably be more time than I need, and I may find that just taking the pressure of a shorter time frame off my shoulders will help me get back to working on the list on a more regular basis.  The goal here is to get some momentum going and hopefully once movement starts it will pick up speed as it continues.

I hope you guys will stick around with me as I work through my list.  I certainly need the encouragement, as well as people to keep me honest and on track.

As we all can see, I have a lot of things to do.

Truth be told, I never really knew what this blog was supposed to be.  I knew I wanted, and still want, to change my life.  I wanted to jettison the chains that I felt were holding me back, chains formed of memory, and a mind that wouldn’t let me forget every hurt I’d done or every hurt that had been done to me.   I’d stored up all the slights and digs and doubts and forged them into this shield that I thought would protect me from everything.  In reality, it protected me from nothing, except perhaps the stuff that had the potential to make me happy.

Because I didn’t know what this blog should be, it has mostly languished these last few months.   I couldn’t tell the truth here, the truth being that I had big goals but I was afraid to pursue them, and I didn’t want to lie, so I didn’t say anything, except that I was too busy or I had other claims on my time, all of which were true and lies at the same time.  I can make time when I want to,  but telling the truth seemed to hard, and lies seemed to shameful.  Silence was the easier and, to me at least, more honest option.

Given that this is a new year, and given that I still want to change, I figured the beginning days of 2010 were a good time to start as I mean to go on.  That means telling the truth instead of avoiding it. That means setting goals I can live with, even if they aren’t as ambitious as I’d like them to be.  That means calling a spade a spade and accepting that I don’t always do as well as I would like, but I’m a good person anyway.  That means making mistakes, absolving myself of them and moving on, without the mistake clanking behind me like another link in the chain of my failure.

I’m not sure I can do this.  I’m not even sure I want to do this.  Telling the truth, my truth, has never been something I was particularly good at doing.  Keeping quiet and staying low always seemed safer.  Despite that fact, or maybe because of it, I’ve come to realize that no one much cares what I think, and that keeping quiet and staying low won’t get me to where I want and need to be.   I created the outlet when I created this blog.

Now I just have to make use of it.

Oddly enough, my shift in perspective occurred at a Fourth of July party.  It wasn’t a large party, but in the course of it, we started talking about my desire to find a partner.   I was, you see, the only solo guest at the party.  My single state ended up being one  of the discussion points at dinner, and the thing that struck me most was the fact that everyone at the table, including the men, seemed to take it for granted that I was a catch.  There was no doubt in their minds that if I put myself out there I could find someone who would think I was wonderful.  No one, mind you, was claiming that there wouldn’t be some frogs to kiss along the way, but no one seemed to be in doubt that there would be princes who would find me worthy of kissing as well.

I was also told another wise thing at this dinner, and it was something that struck right to the heart of my problem.  You have to, I was told, go into it with no expectations.  If you meet someone who turns out to be a good friend, that’s great.  If you meet someone you don’t particularly like, or with whom you don’t click, that’s o.k. too.  If you go out enough times, you’ll eventually meet someone who you really like, but you have to be open to the possibilities.

For me, meeting someone and dating has always been more about me waiting for someone to want me and pick me than it has been about me wanting or picking.   Once I switched my perspective from being passive to being active, the whole thing became a lot less scary and a lot more fun.

I still haven’t gone on a date yet.  I do, however, have my profile, complete with picture, on three online dating sites.  I am, as I noted in the title of this post, taking my first tour of the boy buffet.  I’m kind of excited by all the choices out there, and I know I may have to sample several things before I find the perfect dish, but that’s part of the fun.  Right now I’m just responding to people who catch my eye and seeing what happens.

I’d say that’s a pretty good start.

It didn’t take long for me to recognize the power of this imagination that I have.  I’m pretty big on visualization.  For me, it works.  I tend to imagine scenarios and try to work them out in my head before I play them out in real life.  I’ve imagined job interviews, speeches, presentations, meeting new people and a host of other situations so when those things happened in real life I was ready.   While I’m not a huge proponent of the whole affirmation movement, I do believe that visualization can help you be prepared for real life events.  I know it has worked for me.  That, sadly, is what has me worried at the moment.

Any of you who read here regularly know that one of the goals of my 40 Things Project is to go on five dates this year.  I want to meet someone and fall in love.  I want to have a supportive, loving relationship.  I just can’t imagine that happening.

Sure, I can imagine the romantic movie kind of love.  I can fantasize about ending up with George Clooney or Tim Omundson or any number of handsome men,  and have a lovely time doing it.  What I can’t do is fathom meeting an ordinary guy and falling in love.  I can’t envision having someone there for me day in and day out.  I can’t imagine some man picking me to love over everyone else.  I just can’t see it.

I have to confess that worries me.  I’ve always believed if I could envision it, I could make it come true.  I’m not saying it would be easy or quick, but I believed I could get it done.  Now I’m trying to imagine something that is really quite important to me, and I can’t seem to see it.   I don’t know how it will look.  I can’t decide how it will feel.  I’m not sure I even believe it could happen.

So I guess that’s the question.  If I can’t imagine it, can it happen?

They say when the student is ready, the teacher appears.  In my case, my lesson about lack of control has been a little something called Afib.  For those who don’t know, Afib is a heart issue.  Basically the rhythm of your heart gets all screwed up.  Your heart races, you retain fluid, you get short of breath.  It’s not life threatening, unless left untreated over a long period of time, but it’s not fun.

Until last Sunday, it had been nine months since I’d had to deal with Afib.  I took my meds faithfully, right on time, every day.  I exercised.  I ate right.  I worked to minimize stress.  I got more sleep.  I did everything I could to live a heart healthy life and, in return, I expected Life to keep my heart healthy.  Except Life apparently didn’t get that memo.  This Easter saw me in the Emergency Room with a case of atrial flutter.  My bargain and all my hard work apparently didn’t matter at all.

I guess the Universe is trying to tell me something, and will keep bringing the lesson until I get it.  I can’t control my life or the people in it.  I can’t even control what my own body does.  All I can control is how I react to the circumstances of my life.   All I can do is go with the flow.

A lot of this year so far has been spent railing at the circumstances of my life.  I’m mad that I haven’t met the love of my life yet.  I’m bored with my job.  I’m angry that my body isn’t working right. I’m annoyed by this and depressed by that and generally grousing about things I can’t change.  Being the control freak that I am, I want to bend the world to my will, instead of bending to the will of the world.

The thing is, the world and the people in it, will do as they like regardless of what I want.  The only thing I can control is how I choose to react to what happens around me.  I can do my best to provide myself with opportunities to have the best circumstances possible, but I can’t make life work to suit me and my need for control.  All I can do is relax and swing at whatever gets thrown at me.   All I can do is live my life as positively and with the best attitude I possibly can.

My attitude, thankfully, is one thing I can control.

Still, ever once in a while something comes along that just gobsmacks me with its stupidity and I have to shake my head and wonder if we’re all really as dumb as this particular thing would make it appear.  In this case, the event in question is Earth Hour.   If you haven’t seen this yet, the idea is that everyone will turn their lights off for one hour starting at 8:30 p.m. on March 28.  Supposedly switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, while leaving your lights on is a vote for global warming.   There’s so much wrong with this idea I don’t even know where to start.

First of all, neither the Earth nor global warming care which way we vote.  I’m guessing most of the people for whom we actually could vote don’t care whether we turn our lights off or on either.   I highly doubt our elected officials, or the elected officials for any country are going to be running around counting who has their lights on and who has them turned off.  We know our planet has climate issues.  It’s not like a lot of people have been in the dark about this.  Except perhaps those who will voluntarily be in the dark tomorrow night.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, this is another example of a program that makes people feel like they’re doing something without actually doing anything at all.   It’s rather like sleeping in a cardboard box for a night to dramatize the plight of the homeless and then going back to your comfortable home the next day, it’s all show and no substance and it changes exactly nothing.

I’m about as liberal as they come, and I believe that people can bring about change, but they only way to effect that change is to do something.  Turning off your lights or sleeping in a box or doing a pantomime in the town square doesn’t accomplish a thing.  If you want things to be different you have to roll up your sleeves and make them different.  Buy the homeless man a sandwich.  Help build a Habitat for Humanity house.  Plant a tree.  Install solar panels.  Help educate others about cleaner burning fuels.  Do the work and take the time and make a real differnce.

What scares me the most is the idea that there are people out there who believe that something like Earth Hour is really doing something.  I’m sorry to say that it isn’t.  If you want to preserve the planet or attack any of the problems that face us, you have to be willing to do the work.  Sitting in the dark for an hour tomorrow isn’t going to change the fate of the planet or stop global warming.

Going out into the light and working your ass off to change things just might.

Now those who know me, particularly the long suffering Steve from Vanseodesign, will tell you that I know just enough HTML to be dangerous.  I can generally make changes to my blogs, but we can’t always be sure that the changes I make will work out as I wanted them to work out.  Steve has rescued me from self created blog meltdowns before, so I’m always a bit hesitant about making changes.  I’m a writer, not a coder.  I generally like it best when I can write the words and leave the problem of making them look pretty to others.

Still Settling for More needed a change.  I needed a change.  So I went looking for a new theme, and found Scribble Scratch and a lovely selection of Wordpress themes.  There were several I liked, but this one just seemed to stand out.  I liked the colors.  I liked the bridge leading off into the distance.  It just felt warm and soothing and right.

So, the blog got a makeover.  While I have to admit I secretly hope that everyone who visits here stops by for the writing, I do know that appearance does make a difference.  I hope you like Settling for More’s new look as much as I do.