Category Archives: Love

Now I understand love

Yesterday was my dog’s birthday. Well, it would’ve been. I know I have told this story a million times but hear me out. I had always wanted a little girl dog. My parents took me to a farm. When we pulled up to it, you could see a small play pen in the yard holding three little white puppies. We got out of the car and the lady asked me to help her carry one of the puppies. She handed me one and when it looked into my eyes, for some reason I knew that this was the only dog for me. But it was a boy dog and I wanted a girl… I debated. I knew that if I didn’t pick this puppy, based on whatever it was I saw in his eyes and him in mine, that I would regret it for the rest of my life. I am glad I listened to my heart that day.

I was so tired Saturday morning. QT Pie had been sick that night and I must’ve taken him outside five times. Well actually that could describe every night that week, him waking me up to take him outside five times… or maybe for the last month, I have lost track.  He was starting to get antsy again. I woke up and looked at him. He was staring at me. More like gazing, a loving gaze, really.

When I found out he had renal failure, a month or two earlier,  I spent the night alone crying in the living room. He soon appeared out of nowhere to comfort me like he always had. This of course made me even more upset. Whenever I cried, since I first got him as a 12- year old child, he would lick the tears off of my face and lay down next to me until I felt better.

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Filed under Friendship, Healing, Heart, Journal, Life Lessons, Love

My New Dress

My Spring frock came from Ross Dress For Less. I love that place. It is a zoo but I know it so well now that I can get in and get out quickly. I could spend lots of money there that I do not have. But I got this dress for less than twenty bucks and it made me happy.  I had it tied around my waist and that tie came undone at the gas station.  I didn’t realize it was hanging half off of me as I went into the station to pay my bill.  This dress is trouble.  I wore it to a community dinner at my Mom’s and I felt good in it and got a compliment from her which is rare.  But what I really wanted to do was share my new dress with a lover.  I know I would enjoy vamping around the living room showing it off to a fun fellow but there is no one like that in my life right now and that makes me sad.

So I vamped in front of my hallway mirror and got some great shots.  Playing around with my camera is one of the things I love to do.  I did not use my self timer this time but I have figured out how to twist around so that the camera is not in the scene with me while I pose in the mirror.  I must have taken about twenty photos and I had fun.

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Filed under Dating, Love, Photography, relationships, Sex, Uncategorized

True Love

As the weather gets warmer and the radio plays Journey, Chicago and other band’s love ballads non-stop, I cannot help but think of the summer I spent with the only guy I was ever in love with. I guess it kind of tarnishes the good memories when I remind myself that he treated me like shit. But that is besides the point, and also the reason most men and women stay in abusive relationships for so long (because whether you want to believe it or not, there are some good times mixed in between the bad ones).

Today my aunt told me about a documentary she was watching on the actress Dolores Hart. I had no idea who Dolores Hart was, but then my aunt told me that she was an actress, and why I had never heard of her. Back in the 1950’s and 60’s Dolores Hart was a rising star in Hollywood. Engaged to be married and at the height of her career her life seemed perfect until one day, while visiting Italy, it took a very unexpected turn. While in Italy, she met Pope John XXIII. This encounter inspired her to quit acting, sell off her worldly belongings and dump her fiancee to join a convent. She has been a nun ever since.

I have thought of doing something similar from time to time. I always felt spiritually compelled- but compelled enough to live a life of celibacy and service? Sometimes I feel like I am already there (without an official title, of course). Despite my pleas with the universe, miracles are still like seedlings and do not sprout in timely enough to suffice me. I do not think I am greedy. It has just been a long and arduous journey and with my little dog getting ill, it’s about to get worse.

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My Love, Fred

I can feel his spirit over the mountains in Arizona.  I can  imagine him in his perfect swimming pool and in his big high bed.  I can feel his kisses and his long arms around me and I don’t know if I made the right decision not to love him.

There seems to be no choice in Love as it is just pure emotion.  I still talk to him on the phone and we are like lovesick couples everywhere tho we are not together. Three days after I met him he said, “I know what this is.  It’s love.”

“Oh no, it can’t be!” And I held up my fingers in a cross to ward it off.  “Let’s call it like.”

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Becoming the woman I used to be

Lay, Lady, Lay

by Bob Dylan

 

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

Whatever colors you have in your mind

I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine.

 

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile

His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean

And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen.

 

Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile

Why wait any longer for the world to begin

You can have your cake and eat it too

Why wait any longer for the one you love

When he’s standing in front of you.

 

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead

I long to see you in the morning light

I long to reach for you in the night

Stay, lady, stay, stay while the night is still ahead?

 

I’ve been too sad lately, it’s been 8 years and I should be over my former husband by now. Everyone wants me to be over it, so that’s how I pretend to be. I miss more than the man, I miss who I was with him. How easy it was to be myself, think what I wanted, feel what I wanted, express what I wanted, be quiet when I wanted. He thought so highly of me, more than I deserved. He was a plain man, quiet, funny with his close friends and  tough as hell, he treated waitresses like they were princesses and his word was gold. I was so proud that someone that good loved me. I don’t do well in captivity but like anyone else I want a soft place to land, and he was mine.

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Filed under Dreams, Fairy Tales, Growth, Healing, Heart, Life Lessons, Love, relationships

Love Isn’t Love Until You Give it Away

“Love Isn’t Love Until You Give it Away.” I saw it written on a poster at the store this morning. I probably should’ve been working, but instead I went shopping for vintage jewelry.

“Love Isn’t Love Until You Give it Away.” I just Googled it- apparently it is also the title of a Reba McEntire song.

Last night I was reading various blogs and I came across a post by Phyllis Bright Eyes. The title of the post was “Will I Recognize Love When I Find It?” Wow, good question. Most of us have grown so used to negativity and rejection that “Will I recognize love when I find it?” seems like a more than valid question. Most of us have settled for something or another, something close to love someone that our parents or friends warn us that we should not pass up. But what makes it a good thing if we have to look outside ourselves, to the voices and opinions of others, to see that it is? This is all a grand delusion, a self-deception that will fall apart in time.

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Filed under Dating, Domestic Violence, Love, relationships, Sexual Assault

Men in Vehicles

 

"Vehicles" Suzanne Smith 2012

Johnny Stewart in the back of his friend’s car in the early sixties is a vivid one because it was my first kiss.  Our teeth clicked.  We snuggled into the green plush seat back in that old car and sped along the back roads on the Island of Guam.  Johnny was an airman on the base where my Dad worked and he was a lifeguard at the pool on base.  I was an avid swimmer.  I am so glad he was my first kiss.  That was my first memory of men in vehicles.

Then there was a ride back from the casino to my mother’s house with a fellow in the back of another fellow’s truck.  The three of us had so much fun.  This particular evening  we were rocking and rolling around in the back of that truck and I’m thinking I am way too old to be doing this.   I didn’t want to screech to a halt in front of my mom’s house so I banged on the truck window to let me out a block away.  Disheveled, I said good night.  Mom never knew.   She didn’t know I did it another time with those two guys in her guest room where I was staying.  We were all three very quick and sly.  I could see her down the street talking to a friend.  I miss those crazy guys.  One worked for Amtrak and the other is an Artist.  It sounds like we were teens but we were all in our fifties.

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Filed under Dating, Love, Passion, Uncategorized

Protecting My Heart From Love

When you have a relationship with a person who is not reliable you cannot let yourself fall in Love with a capital L. There are caring feelings and lots of fun but protecting your heart from the inevitable break has to part of the plan for the relationship. The big loves of my life have all been precarious. I knew going into them that there was danger. The test is to let someone into your inner family circle and be proud of your relationship. If that is not possible society says you should ditch them.

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Filed under Growth, Healing, Heart, Love, relationships

Being crazy was easier

Last June I started to have an unfamiliar feeling of longing. It wasn’t a fleeting feeling, it was a deep in your gut longing. The kind you can’t get rid of no matter what you do to distract yourself. I don’t think or process aloud, instead I spent a few weeks silently trying to understand what I wanted. To protect myself  from being overwhelmed with emotion, I reverted to an old behavior and crawled into bed. It’s hard to hurt yourself or anyone else if you are in bed alone.

I miss being crazy. That thought hit me recently when I realized clarity had returned. It was easier when I had blender brain and all the thoughts were scrambled. I was stuck with reality and it was worse than I realized. I have PTSD and Attachment disorder, I have labels and disorders. What a drag.

As I was lying in bed a thought attached itself to the feeling of longing, it popped into my head: I wished someone was holding me. Then the thought came again. It surprised me. The first time, I shrugged it off as weird and fleeting. The second time, I laid there and thought more about it. I tried to remember if I had ever before desired to be held but could not recall. It was years before I could accept a hug from a friend without recoiling and often it still makes me uncomfortable. I’m only comfortable hugging children. The year before I asked my eldest for a hug and then we stared at each other for a few tense moments. My mother started hugging me last year and I want to hug her, so I do, but it feels very unnatural and strange. Now all of a sudden at this age, for no reason at all, I’m longing to be held. What’s happening to me? I miss the way I didn’t feel.

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Filed under Dating, Growth, Healing, Life Lessons, Love, relationships

Promiscuity

There are some who might say that I have had way too many sexual partners in my life.  I have been tested and do not have any STD’s yet I know I have taken chances.  I think it has been a rather normal progression of people in my life and I like to think I have played it safe.  I look back at the journals I wrote during those times and I wonder what I was thinking.  I know I was imagining that this was the way to love.  My journey and documenting the stops continue to this day and I feel close to some personal truths.  My path is not for everyone but I don’t regret my life.

I had been divorced after twenty five years because the sex was terrible.  That really was the bottom line in addition to religious, personality and astrological differences.  So when I was free I went looking.  I actually found an affair while I was still married.  The Internet swept me into a world that still intrigues me.  Bruce was my first fellow and he gave me the kisses I was missing. My ex is still a fine friend but I needed more.  I found it and never looked back.

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Filed under Addiction, Art, Dating, Destiny, Dreams, Heart, Love, Passion, relationships, Sex, Uncategorized, Writing