Picture perfect

Don't get carried away, don't get too excited. Don't let your hopes get too high or your imagination run too wild...

Those are just few similar sentences I keep on telling myself. My mind is just the way it is; it usually gets ahead too fast for its own good.

Is it possible to fall for someone you've never met but have seen a picture? If so, then I might be headed that way... I shoudn't have looked, but hey, I'm a journalist by nature, so I'm bloody curious at times! So here I am, hoping for the best, fearing for the worst, and wishing that the Universe can play this time its game smoothy - and, you know, has brought this someone into my thoughts for a reason which is other than simply torture me emotionally for a minute or twenty.

Today I understood how hard it truly is to take a picture of oneself. You see, I took a look at the snaps I had taken about me, by myself. Most of them are... well... unprintable and were deleted as soon as possible. The lighting was off, my look was terrified and I looked white! But, funny enough, in few good ones, my face looked great, I actually looked myself, but the background was dark as a night... My camera is ok, my skills are great, so it must be the Universe working its wonders there! Hah hah...

I've understood that so often we forget that pictures are just that, pictures. They capture one, small moment, and that is all they are. Sure, they will show us happy faces and sad faces and gestures we might otherwise miss. But they are, still, creastions of that second they were taken and show what they want. The person in the picture is that person on that second and should the photographer take another one any minute, they would find that the very same person looks entirely different in that second picture. Or third, twentieth and so on.

And the people we see in pics and fall in like with them... Should we ever meet them in real life, right in front of us, they just might not be exactly like they are in the picture. I've seen that happening more than enough myself, and yes, the woman in my camera's snap shots is me, although even my mom would not recognise me in some of them... That's the way it is.

Nothing is picture perfect in this world, nothing.

Life lessons

Right now I'd scream out loud, but I'm too tired after staying up late last night (again) and shuveling all that snow... but I'll just scream inside. I'm not as frustrated as I was last night, but I still feel like writing a few lines down...

You see, about two seconds after I posted my last entry here, tiny voice inside me said: do not get excited in advance - you only set yourself up for a dissapointment. I did get excited anyway and oh yes, I did get dissapointed, as well.

That friend of mine never called about our meeting, so I didn't see her and all the nice things we had planned just will have to wait. That was dissapointing, because we have such a nice time when we're hanging out. I did clean my closets while I waited, though...

The Oscar nominations... well, I don't know what I was expecting, really. I was hoping for more nominations for Happy-go-lucky I suppose. I was happy for Heath Ledger, Kate Winslet, Anne Hathaway, Penelope Cruz and Mickey Rourke. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are always great, too. The rest of the noms... we shall see.

The date... well, let's just say that I'm not taken yet. He was nice quy, but not the my kind of nice. These things happen, and I could tell it after three seconds. We can fool our heads, but we cannot trick our hearts. Well, I certainly can't.

So I take it that God wants me to gather some more dating experience before leading Mr Right my way. Perhaps I need to learn a thing or two before that can happen.

Or perhaps he just wants to protect the world, because this time around ch is making me a bitch! I'm a walking hazard when I'm irritated by the pain. It's weird how some things and some people can push your buttons in the wrong way. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Bit too excited

I'm very, very excited about tomorrow.

I have plenty of reasons to excited, too!

First of all, the Oscar nominations will be (finally!) announced. I tend to get bit too excited about them... Not quite sure why excatly, but I do.

Secondly, I will meet one of my nearest and dearest friends again. That is a great reason to be excited about, I can tell you.

Thirdly, and most importantly, I will meet someone I've been keen on meeting for a quite sometime now. Now, of course, I do not know if tomorrow night I'll be as happy and excited about it than I am this minute, but time will tell.

But I tell you, it's been a while since I've been this excited about something - well, someone. And I like it, I like it alot.

And it feel so great to feel this excited.... =)

I have a nightlife!

Ever since my very own personal nemesis called clusterheadaches (ch) returned at the beginning of this year, I've been staying up on more nights that I really want to recall.

The "fun" part about getting hit at night is that getting back to sleep is difficult. The hit can be followed by shadows, even another hit, or I'm simply too much caffeined up (oh yes, I have been known to go to the kitchen and drink something with caffeine in it, although I do know what it means) to fall asleep streight away. But that is my life, right now.

Luckily for me, I can spot the funny bits in this situation. I have a night life now! Just that I don't feel like turning on the TV (there's nothing on!) or the computer (if I'd go online, I'd cheer up too much and would never go back to sleep), so my options are either stay in the darkness or read something, and on few nights, when the beast had already left me, I turned a bunch of fairy lights on and read a book.

Oh yes, my nightlife is sooo wild... ;-)

I love this feeling

Yesterday I decided to do something which pretty much every dating guide book and guru forbits one to do: I sent a message to a guy who had not replied to me yet.

In the internet age terms, I called a guy who has not called be back.

Naturally, I need to tell you a bit more. This guy and I have written nice messages to each other and I begun to wonder why I had not heard from him this year. After all, seeing my pic did not scare him away, so I know it's something else...

So I decided to write and ask if he got the message I sent him in the first place and waited.

In fact, I asked for a sign about this. And I got one: he called me.

This guy... He is my age and cute and I have a feeling about him which I cannot quite yet explain. It's a good feeling, a hunch, though. Ever since I saw his picture, he begun to "appear" in my appartment and my life, and I keep on "seeing" him, which is part of something the Universe can explain to me later.

So, you can imagine my ethusiasm when he called! I liked his voice and I liked to feel the way I felt about everything during that conversation. And, as we hung up, I kept on smiling the whole evening. That smile was the kind which nothing could have wiped from my face!

And he even texted me later, when he had noticed that a tv show we discussed was on that night so I would not miss it! Talking about a darling. I practicly fell for this man already! And to think, we have not yet met... That will happen someday, next week.

And I simply can't wait! I love to feel this way, this happy, this excited! I love this excitement, this magical hope. Love to feel this way, I do. And I don't plan to fight this feeling, oh no. I've been waiting for this force of nature to take over me for too long time to do that...

Sure, blame the ch

The other day I got an email from my ex. I don't feel like turning time and going back to the past, but I had to respond to the things he wrote.

And, after few days of thinking, I decided to tell him how I saw our relationship: the negative things, which he had managed to ignore about himself. I wrote one draft and realised that I don't want to be that honest. So I let a day pass the text by, read it again, and took away some of the stuff, but left the content the same.

His response was 6 pages long. I was surprised to find that he had done some thinking on his part about what he had said and done. I didn't think that kind of development would happen...

But the most interesting part was that now, after some time, he had added another reason to his list of things which broke us up: my ch.

Oh yes, you read that one right. He actually believes that my ch has something to do with the fact that I decided to go... Our break up has, actually, very little to do with ch. Sure, the beast comes and goes in my life, but the pain and suffering which caused me to end it had everything to do with him, his behaviour and that alone.

I know too well what living with ch is. He walked that road as a partner, really, for those year and 7 months we lived together; what he saw before that was nothing. He might have understood parts of it, but not the whole picture. He would have not said some of the things he said nor done some of the things he did if he had understood it better.

I know that it is incredibly difficult to undestand someone else's pain, but using it as another reason is just an excuse. He wanted to skip blaming himself, so he blames ch. That is, I believe, another sign of his "emotional weakness", as he called himself his bad behaviour towards me.

Relationships take time, effort, work and dedication. I was ready to do that, but he didn't. I was the one who moved out, but he had emotionally checked out a lot earlier than that. I gave him and us a chance and tried my best to turn things around and love alone. But then came the day when I was emotionally finished and depressed, and I understood that there was very little strength and love left, and I would be in the verge of total breakdown soon. So I left, for myself. I had nothing left and nothing left to give.

I fully understood how low I had been once I left and had begun a new life. My deep depression simply flew away just like that and I felt like living and loving again. The friends who know me so well told me that they had seen that I'm not alright and that now I am.

The funny thing is, that as I type this, 2009 is very young year, but it also a year in which I've got hit every single day. Ch is part of my life strongly right now. Still, the idea of the pain has not stopped me from meeting new people and feeling hopeful that someone will love me as I am, inspite of ch and everything it brings with it.

My friends at ch.com reminded me about the great things I happen to be the other day. They reminded me about the wonderful relationships many of them have in which ch has not scared the other person the slightest. We all have "crosses to bare" and ch is part of my history, today and future. I cannot tell what that someone will think about it nor if it will scare him away. I can't tell when my next hit comes nor how long my next cycle will last. But I do know this: I can make sure that I'm as sunny as I've been between the hits and cycles and that there is that special someone out there who will love me as I am.

Dates and older men - what a diffence age makes

I have a secret. The thing with secrets is, that as much fun as keeping them is, eventually one wishes to share (at least some of) them. So do I and here it is.

I'm "out there" again. I'm seeing people again. I'm dating again, oh hell yes.

And you know what? After feeling alone, abandoned and taken for granded for such a long time, it feel f*****g great to feel adored and appreciated again. And it never hurts when a handsome stranger tells you that your eyes are beautiful...

Shallow, moi? Nah. And I do not appreciate false comments nor words, which are stated in attempt to manipulate or impress me.

But I'm a fan of real, genuine compliments - especially when what they're saying happends to be true - my eyes are (at their best, I may add) absolutely enchanting, as they shine brightly, when I'm happy, content and excited. As I happen to be, at all times, when great company is present.

I've also noticed that while I was in a 3 year relationship, time flew on and dating has changed a bit. At any age, one must make a choice between younger, same age and older, but I've noticed that 28, some of the sub groups have changed. These days there are available 28-year-olds, naturally, but also smart younger ones (actually one guy who asked me out was 24... chey now, what would we have in common, I wonder?), weird a lot older ones (hello! At 40 one should be able to tell that divorcee interested only in s-e-x is not what 28-year-old is interested in when she mentions especially that she wants marriage and kids!) and yes, then there are those in between, who, at 30-something have managed to avoid finding The One or did found her, had kids and suddenly found himself alone all over again. Dating, at any age, is a challenge, let me tell you.

So, here I am, happily in between single and in relationship, in the dating land. I like it, although once Someone Really Special shows up, I'm more than happy to enter love land.

The thing is that I need to find out what I want of love and relationships this time around I'll explain you why.

When I decided to date again, I had simple ideal in mind: someone bit older, intelligent, funny, kind, available, wants same kind of things (meaning marriage and children) and has similar values (meaning faith in God, faith in people, optimism, family values, appreciates homelife and family and friends). But it's already clear to me that it's heck of a lot more complicated than that.

At 28, one chap was telling me how he is all gentleman. Well, sure, he opened one door and paid the drink, but he didn't listen to things I was saying, was rude at the cafe, critizised things inappropriately, kept on talking about the winters past and wanted to leave after an hour. Might as well, I thought, as it took me about 5 minutes to tell that you're bit of a jerk. And that view did not change within time. Smart idiot, so to say.

Then came another someone who asked me out. At 34, he is six years my senior. And man, what a gentleman! I felt like a Lady. We went to a museum, admired the works of art and had tea and lovely conversation afterwards. I had the best time on a date with him this time around, I can tell you. And yes, when he asked me if I'd like to go to the movies (what's up with men and James Bonds...?) with him, it was easy to say 'I'd love to'. As much as I enjoyed getting to know him better, I do know very well that I need to think about one huge issue: he has two children from previous relationship. I love kids, I plan to have my own when I'm married, but the huge question remains: can I be a stepmom one day, is that what I've ment to become? If I continue being intereted in dating this man, I need to figure that one out, because that is a necessity. Falling for someone is one thing, his kids is another thing, and they both have their challenges.

28, 31, 34, that really doesn't matter. We all have loved, lost, liked, trusted, hurt, cried and so one. Nobody is a tabula rasa at this age. The thing is, of course, what I want, need and what I'm meant to learn next in the road of love. I'm curious, that is for sure.

But, let me tell you that, after last night, my expectations of conversation and company have reached a brand new limit. I won't settle for less than the best of both, you know... Love is a game for two, naturally, but there are certain lessons I've already learned. And I won't let the past become my present any longer, I've done with those teachings and tests at one go.

I'm also very much aware that dating means also putting my heart into risk again. I can fall in love with someone who will leave me, hurt, abuse, igmore, belittle and all the possible bad things out there. But you know what? I'm simply ready to love and trust in someone, and because I'm a lot wiser, I can spot what I didn't in the past. Time and experience do make bolder, stronger, wiser and better. I do need love all the same, and I do want to give love as much as I did before I had my heart broken. I can love again.

Naturally who is the lucky guy... that is still a mystery.