Friday afternoons

[qoe100]

Hehe!!!! Another blonde moment.

[Just_Me]

I know it's not Friday, but since this opened with the subject of soulmates I wanted to revisit this issue.

I had a lot of fun this weekend at the expense of soulmates. I learned it's possible to have 5-6 soulmates as long as you still have money. I am so terrible. This subject made for a humorous weekend. I saw my soulmate across the room, but I didn't have the guts to go up and tell her. But, doesn't matter...she should be able to find me without me having to do any work. She'll be drawn inexorably to me...like I'm a black hole or something....oohh bad choice of words

Anyway, my new subject for the day....I guess I don't have one. That will have to wait until Friday.

Me

[huh?]

I do believe that there is someone out there for everyone, I really believed that it was my XH, we connected so quickly and paths were closed together yet never crossed--same school up until 9th grade, lived streets apart, worked next door to each other. It was as if we were meant to meet. Maybe it is like Jo said, maybe he was a soulmate just not who I am destined to spend my life with. Our breakup was very painful, but had I not met him I would not be who I am today and I like who I am. I do believe in true love and one day I will meet that guy and grow old with him. Linda

[Just_Me]

Hey all,

I guess this is the new thread since the old one is locked up. I just got back from vacation. It was very nice seeing my family and looking around for a soulmate.

I see that this area just keeps getting more and more new people in it. It's sad, but reality, and I'm glad they made their way here to kind of ease through this painful process with company.

Okay...the great truths I learned this week. Elderly women are very relationship savvy. I sat next to an 80+ year old on the plane and pretty much talked relationship stuff the entire time. Most of her daughters were divorced and somehow we got onto the topic. This is the second elderly woman I've talked to on an airplane that knew the secrets of DB and a lot of these relationship books without having to read about it. My take home message was save money on books...just listen to your grandma's advice on marriage.

One thing that struck me: she told me about her long marriage to her husband (he died 15-16 years ago or something) and the relationship she had with a man after that. She said what she missed was having someone to tell things to...to share her day, a newspaper article, or something else of interest. As I walked through the streets of Charleston I thought.."XW would love this." Having new experiences is great, but having someone to share those things with is really important...at least it is to me. I guess that's just another aspect of having a soft place to fall. I told my XW this because it doesn't matter anymore. If I was worried about pushing her away from me I wouldn't bother. I wish for her to have someone to share experiences with and wish the same for myself.

That's all for my musing for the day.

[michaelH]

Maybe the question isn't "Do you have a soulmate".

Maybe its simply "Do you have a soul, mate, and krikey what's your relationship with it?"

[BethM]

Hi LA_Me,

Sometimes the truth is so much easier to see when we stop going on emotion and start dealing in the reality of what is.

As you said in telling your wife that she would have enjoyed SC, when there is no neediness or urgency behind it we can carry on a conversation without the motivation to make someone see things our way. We all know how tiring and fruitless that is.

You are in such a good place right now. Oh I'm sure you have your moments, we all do. Although now I see in you the realization that it is better to have the right person in your life instead of the not quite right person. Whatever the reasons this happened to us, we really do need to do some long hard soul searching to understand the why's. It's got nothing to do with the sox on the floor or fact the that we weren't good listeners or even that we always have to get in the last word. For someone to walk away from a life, and in the process throw a whole heap of hurt and lies at us, just says to me a whole lot more about the person that we were married to than it does about us. I see the problems as much deeper than we ever cared to believe, and in most of these cases, unbeknownst to us, these are the very same problems that they have been hiding from the world and us of course since before we ever came into the picture. How could we change what we don't know?

I think from what you post you do see the whole picture. Once that happens, how do we go back while still being true to ourselves? No can do.................

Love,
Bethie

[Just_Me]

Ya know, this speech was really moving. I'm going to post it.

The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863


Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler. The text above is from the so-called "Bliss Copy," one of several versions which Lincoln wrote, and believed to be the final version.

I have no relationship inspiration today. But in the famous words of Kip

LaFawnduh is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I'm 100 percent positive that she's my soulmate. Napolean, I'm sure there's a babe out there for you too. Peace out.

Peace out!

[Just_Me]

Hey there,

I guess I could post where things stand now with my XW. We've slowly, but inexorably been moving farther apart from each other. It's largely her doing. Over time she has come over less frequently, essentially now quite infrequently, and initiated dinners, movies, get-togethers, what-have-you less and less. I don't call or e-mail much. I do if there is something to say, but otherwise we are moving closer to two completely separate lives.

Before I left I told my X that I thought she needed to move all her stuff out of the house. I also told her that I didn't want anything more to do with her; that I wanted us to go our separate ways. She seemed fine with that. She did call on Thanksgiving, reason undetermined. We had a decent conversation. Nothing since except an e-mail from me asking if I could see the kids to give them some momentos I'd pick up on my vacation. Other than that...all's quiet. Oh, I guess I did say it was okay for her to swing over while I'm not around to pack up her stuff. She'll have to rent a storage unit, but that's not really my problem.

Anyway, that's it for my updates. As JDD suggested, I probably do belong in the "surviving the big D" section. Unless something dramatic happens with her, I wouldn't take her back if she wanted to. I miss having someone to share my life with more than I miss her. She's just something I'm familiar with. But I don't even know her anymore and I probably never did. That's probably the likely scenario...she isn't changing, I'm just finally waking up to the problems (I won't go into details).

[michaelH]

Just_Me,

A lengthy diatribe to follow, but all in tribute to you:

First, your posting of the Gettysburg address was a great inspiration for me to apply in all my personal relationships. Indeed, to remember in all my daily affairs with humilty and gratitude. As a Canadian, for me that speech has nothing to do with dying for your country, and everything to do with standing up for your beliefs.

Personally, I choose to believe that the majority of men and women who choose to serve, and if necessary, die for what they believe in, on some level understand that regardless of the outcome for their own lives, their valiance has indeed served a larger purpose. A purpose that is by no means lost on generations to come. Rather, it is fully assimilated into the very fabric of humanity by our children, and our childrens children forever thereafter. To what end? Let's call it Awareness. Transcension of duality. Divine consciousness. Harmony of thought and action. Or maybe just...

Peace.

And so we think globally and act locally. We learn how to be at peace with ourselves, first. As Antoine De St. Exupery wrote in The Little Prince: "It is a question of discipline. First we must tend to our own needs, then we must tend to the needs of our planet."

We can never know the full impact or scope of our individual words and actions. We cannot know who may benefit from the lessons we have learned, nor the true extent and value of the example we have set. For example, even if I tell you outright, you really have no idea how grateful I am for things you have written on these boards - and its not so much the things you say, its the knowledge that such wisdom can only come from the experience of your actions. My words here, like at Gettysburg, are nothing compared to your actions.

I've heard it said that experience is what we get when we didn't get what we wanted. Instead of our desired outcome, what we have instead is the simple satisfaction of knowing a job well done. Knowing we acted in alignment with a true and noble purpose.

For what its worth, no matter where you go from here, I just want to thank you again for your impeccable standards, insight and leadership. And to congratulate you on a job well done.

Bravo.

Now here's the only other word I can add that might be of any use to you:

"NEXT!"

Let me know next time you want some company in Vegas. Maybe I'll find my soulmate dancing there as well.

-michael

[Just_Me]

Wow! I'm honored by your very eloquent tribute. You know, I just took a lot from your words. I didn't have relationships in mind when I posted the Gettysburg address. I thought it was very eloquent and that I was moved by the way Lincoln paid tribute to those fallen in battle. But it's the attitude that can be applied to your own situations. Thanks for writing about it.