Let's Dance

Fair warning:  this will seem trivial to alot of you.  If you wish to avoid that, move onto the next entry or another page.

I had a dream this morning that has been disturbing me all day.  In the dream, I was at a wedding reception.  I was alone.  I kept getting asked to dance by guys only.  I got several of these invitations, all from guys who appeared to be perfectly polished and pressed, hair-gelled and perfumed, boy-band-stylin'-gay.

I am not the least bit homophobic.  I have many friends who are gay.  Its not a subject that makes me particularly uncomfortable on its own merit, nor is it one upon which I seek to impose my own social, political, or religious agenda, either to support or to oppose.  I have a live-and-let-live approach to the whole gay/straight issue.

Still, this dream bothers me.  My main goal in life right now is to find a way to become half of a healthy, productive, total partnership with a good woman.  I am fighting tremendous insecurities that tell me I will never have that because I am not worthy, or too ugly, or in some other/additional unique or combined way, wholly unappealing to all women.  Given those insecurities, which I am working quite diligently to attempt to manage, this dream was particularly unsettling to me in a way that has affected my whole day.

Now, I get that this is funny.  I know most of you will say, "let it go", that its "just a dream", or that "sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar".  That's probably all good advice; but, I want my cigar to have a pink band, not a blue one, wrapped around it!  I want it that way!

Light 'em up, boys...

"Smoke From a Distant Fire", Sanford Townsend Band.

Souls Re-Shoed Here

What I have learned today, and really in the last several months, is that there are friends, there are best friends, and there are soul connections.  All are blessings.  Only the third is permanent.  With some soul connections, it would be easier, at times, if they were not that; no matter, they are.  I believe you choose your friends and you choose your best friends.  I believe soul connections are brought into your life by forces both Divine and universal. 

I gained this knowledge by learning from the example of someone I consider a soul connection.  This individual showed me that it is okay to let go of some of the people in your life when the shared experience with them has run its course, even if you still hold them dear.

A week ago, a friend told me that I am too quick to appropriate the expectation of a soul connection with the people, and especially the ladies, who come into my life.  Kerry, my therapist, and a few of my other friends, have told me that I am quick to give away the best aspects of who I am to anyone I meet, whether or not they have demonstrated the worthiness of that level of emotional investment.  They are right, and it has been a painful lesson in the course of experiencing my relatively newly acquired capacity for feeling.  I know now that it is okay to hold in reserve the best of what I have to offer another person for those who are truly special - for those who are soul connections.

I really wish we lived in a world where we could all freely give away the best of ourselves to each other, and know that we would always get the same in return.  We don't.  The world we live in is a good one, I just want it to be perfect. I try to make that happen for all those around me.  The lesson learned is that I can only effectively make it happen for some - the soul connections - who are willing and ready to receive it and who, hopefully, wish to reciprocate.

"There's a Light Beyond These Woods (Mary Margaret)", Nanci Griffith.