My Past is Her Future

Timing is everything. I came across this quote only four days after my first love and heartbreak said, “I do” to someone else. It’s  been over 20 years since we parted ways, but it doesn’t make the sting any less.  I loved him with all a 20 year old college sophomore knew how to love, but to find “happily ever after” before seeing the world, testing my limits and dare, I say, finding myself, would have been foolish. We said, “good-bye” 20 years ago, and over time I slowly let him go, recognizing that there were many more boys to like and love.  Today, as as a mature thirty-something, single gal, who is fully in tune with herself, I understand, I accept that my past is someone else’s treasure. Geoff, I loved...

Read More

Defining Soul Mates

I often have discussions with girlfriends on the existence of soul mates, and what does the concept of soul mates mean. It seems our beliefs in their existence is as varied as how each of us defines it. Even good ole’ Webster has a hard time defining it, simply stating, “a person with whom one has a strong affinity.” So if Webster can narrow down this complex concept in nine short words, why is it that as humans we struggle to see it in others? The other day, I rediscovered a passage from Eat, Pray, Love, which for me, seems to best define what I believe a true soul mate is. “People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is...

Read More

First comes love, then comes…Really?

First comes love, then comes marriage, and you know the rest. For girls of my generation, there was little question on the order of love, marriage and kids. It was all supposed to go the way the song said. Recently, I discovered, or rather I accepted, that I am classified as one of “advanced reproductive age.” A classification that frightens single girls who grew up believing in the playground ditty, but have failed to follow its prescribed order. To set the stage, there’s no boy or potential boy within a 3000 mile radius of where I now find myself: a woman in the latter part of her child-bearing years. Furthermore, any talk of biological clocks, marriage and being together forever is akin to living in Chernobyl in the 80′s, no...

Read More

Alone or Love?

After a lack luster season, Grey’s delivered a finale that made me pause to ponder the question: Is it better to be alone than to risk catastrophic damage in which we’re never the same? Love makes us vulnerable and dependent, we like it, it feels good, it’s a drug we want more of. But when we’re drugged to enjoy the high, can we survive when we no longer have the fix? Isn’t easier to just say “no” to be alone and say not me, I’m not gonna risk it? Maybe, maybe, not, I really don’t know. I do know that no one truly wants to be alone, yet it’s not always a choice....

Read More

Who’s Walking Out of Your Life?

I’ve always believed that fate and a higher power brings people in our lives, but it’s up to us to determine how we nurture that relationship, or not. As I get older, I’ve found that it’s more imperative than ever to tightly hold on and cherish these people for who they are and who we are when we’re with them. We’re bombarded with work, family, commutes, and countless other obligations, and it’s easy to just let people go, to say next week, next month until we eventually forget and have replaced them with the unfulfilling and often melancholy noise of the world.Yet it’s the people in our lives that shape us, change us, make us better, and understand us for us. They travel with us on this challenging, but rewarding...

Read More