The D Spot

Sweet like sugar and tasting
like the insides of a sour candy after I’ve
sucked all the tartness away.
Holding onto me like warmth
Like the smoke from a fire that I smell
the next morning in my hair.
I feel you breathe
I see what you see thru your eyes as they are
clouded with me.
I hear what you hear and I listen closely to
the words left unsaid, the spaces
between the words are where the real
conversation lies.
I lie with you nightly, hearing the
beat of your heart, the
rustle of your hair as it grows and the
edgy sound of silence as you dream.
We dream together and I can almost reach you
in the dreamtime, the quiet time,
in the spaces between us.

So what if you were, say, dying…the end of the road was visible.
What if you had regrets? What if you had things you wanted to do that you hadn’t done.
Of course you’d try to do them, right?
I mean, within bounds, provided it didn’t hasten the dying.
Everyone has a dying wish, or so I’ve heard.
So what, then, if your last wish…your dying wish… the one thing you’ve always wanted to do…what if that one thing was hurtful to someone else?
Would you do it?
I don’t mean kill someone, or maim or otherwise physically harm someone.
But what if something you did..that you did because you have always wanted to do it and it’s literally now or never…what if that something would make someone else sad?
Would you do it, knowing that you wouldn’t have to be around to clean up the mess?
Would you do it, knowing that it was something you’re literally at this point dying to do?
Would you not do it, sacrificing your happiness for that of another?
Would you do it if no-one would ever know?
Then say you found out you weren’t dying, but you’d already done it.
And loved it.
Would you do it again?

Paula Cole said it best in her plaintive, semi-angry hit several years ago.
But really, its not just the cowboys that have gone missing.
Its the heros, the prince charmings, the knights in shining armor…
Seriously.
Where’d they all go?
Swords, armor, and maces have been replaced with the tools of the modern age.
Magic mirrors and oracles have morphed into iPhones.
The trusty steed is now a 4-cylinder with great gas mileage and lots of trunk space.
And where does that leave us, the fair maidens, the modern-day princesses in peril?
Well, we fight our own battles now, conquering enemies in the boardrooms of the country while our knights are out playing golf with their buddies at lunchtime.
No longer need we rely on an outside rescuer to save us from danger. Nowadays, with tae bo and kickboxing and powerwalks…well, we can slay our own dragons, thankyouverymuch.
But still…
Wouldn’t it be fun, just once in a while, to find a prince charming ready to defend us? An occasional hero..someone to show up just when we need him and whisk us away to our very own happy ending, all the while ensuring we are home in time to get to work the next morning?
A fantasy I am sure, but one that I suspect many of us modern-day princesses hold onto in the backs of our minds.
I know I do.

So today a person from my mother’s past called me looking for her number.
This is the man that my mother eventually left my father for. He showed up every few years during their marriage, trying to get my mother’s attention..and whatever else. Eventually he got it and then eventually after that, she walked out of the marriage. (and soon after, he walked too)

Now, I have always been kind of glad that the marriage failed for many reasons. Mostly because it allowed my father to find his true love, my stepmother, whom my sister and I completely adore and see as a mother. There are other reasons too…issues of my mother’s that I was glad she had to deal with outside the marriage instead of inside.
The greatest blessing of course, is that my mother left us with our dad. She didn’t go far…didn’t move across the country until several years after they split, and so we did have to have visits and whatnot. But we were effectively raised by our father. My sister and I will be eternally grateful for that.

My mom’s greatest act of selfishness (what mother leaves her kids?) actually turned out to be our greatest salvation.

So anyway…
This guy called. It is no surprise that his name is M…That name is one of significance in my life in several ways, and in several people.

I left a message with my mother to call me. But its the weekend. There will be much drinking and whatever at her house and she usually keeps her phone off. And I will be working so I might not actually touch base with her for several days.
I emailed him, and told him that I’d called her and would give her his contact info when she called me back.

Hmm

So now I look back and wonder…
What if he HADN’T ‘courted’ her thru her marriage? What if she HADN’T cheated on my dad and left….
where would I be?
Certainly not where I am now. I defintely would not have done many of the things I did that led to the chain reaction of having my son and the family that I now have.

My kids are my life, my loves and my heart.

I am pretty grateful that it all worked out like it did.
Which begs one to wonder…is it ever okay to cheat in your marriage?
Sure my mother’s infidelity caused great amounts of pain for us all. But I can look back over 25 years and see now that things are how they are because of her initial act of deceit. So does that make it right?
Are there ever times in a marriage or relationship its okay to cheat?

Troths have been plighted, rings exchanged…and now what? Is fidelity really forever?
Are there special circumstances? Is there ever a good enough situation where stepping out not the wrong thing to do?

I am sure people rationalize their infidelities in many ways.
“S/He doesn’t listen to me like you do.”
“S/He doesn’t want to have sex anymore.”
“S/He cheated on me first.”
“S/He and I dont have the special connection that you and I do.”
“You and I are special, our relationship transcends my marriage.”
“S/He doesn’t love me.”
“I don’t love him/her.”
“What s/he doesn’t know doesn’t count.”

Are any of these legitimate?

I am reading a book called “The Lost Girls” by Laurie Fox and it basically chronicles the lives of Wendy Darling, her daughter Jane, Jane’s daughter Margaret, and Margaret’s daughter Wendy. (Yes those Darlings, of Peter Pan fame). The story is told by Wendy the younger. I am particularly impressed by something Wendy says, when talking about her boyfriend:

The theme in the book (so far, I am only just on page 82) revolves around men and boys, and growing up and letting go of childhood notions. It explores Wendy’s attempt to separate herself from her deep love of Peter Pan, her sense of abandonment when he does not return for her to do his Spring cleaning, and her travails as she grows up with the shadowy memories of Neverland in her dreams.

I am particularly impressed with a statement Wendy makes about her boyfriend: “I was a girl with a boyfriend who would love her till the cows came home, but who was not coming home with the cows himself”

The book seems to touch a lot on unrequited love. Not the kind of love where you crush on someone and it’s gone, but the deep kind of love that you know is real and true…..and that you sense in the other person but the other person cannot return that love to you.
True and real, unrequited love.
The tragedy and the heartbreak is tempered with the giddiness of the ‘what if’ and the total mixed messages received from the object of affection.

Is it possible to be in love with someone who does not or can not (or simply will not) love you in return? Or loves you in a different way than you love him or her?
Is it love if its one sided?
And if you pine, moon, cry or whatever dramatic way you deal with it….is it still love? Or is it a crush?
Is it really possible to love someone so much, that even when they don’t love you back, you still wish them happiness? Don’t you want to just jump on their back as they walk away from you, and grab onto them, and hold them until they admit the same feelings for you? (Or at least until you’ve humiliated yourself enough to let them go?)
Or do you let them go and find happiness in your tears of goodbye?
And on that note…
do you ever forget the person you’ve truly loved? Do you hold a fondness for them? A sadness? Or does it just wither up and blow away, dust in the wind and all that? Are your long-term feelings tempered by the feelings they had for you?