This really is a hard goal for me right now. I think (read: hope) that it would be easier under easier circumstances. I’ve thought about this goal and the precepts that founded it for quite a while. I think about love almost clinically, being a scientist. And I’ve concluded (don’t worry, I’m not trying to make a Love Theorem or anything) that, while there are lots of people here in this town that I love, there’s no one here that I love with the intensity that I feel for friends and family in NC and what I felt (and still feel to a lesser extent) for Chris (the ex). I have to believe that if I were in a kissy-kissy-smoochy-smoochy relationship, I’d find it easier to GIVE love to everyone else (the alluded to S.O. included, of course). There’s no logical reason to believe that though, honestly. Before my husband and I separated, I wasn’t really all that loving. Not in the same way or with the same intensity that I would like to love people now. But maybe that was because that relationship was sucking the life out of me. Yeah, probably. And I have some really, really wonderful friends here in Fargo now. And I think I do a pretty good job of loving them. Yeah, I know; it sounds odd to me too (loving your friends) – that has something to do with the fact that, as Americans raised in an uber-moralistic society, we have the twisted (perverted, actually) belief that intimacy is sinful, especially between people of the same sex. Somewhere Americans got confused about the concept of intimacy. For me, it’s not about sex (unless you’re talking about sexual intimacy, of course, a different subject), but rather about being transparent and affectionate with all the people you love. It took me a while to figure that one out.

And, of course, my friends from NC…the whole group of us are more like a commune of love-monkeys. Even when I don’t talk to one of them for a few months, I know we’re right there on the same page. Always just a plane ride away if they need me or I need no them. It’s a bizaarely beautiful relationship we have, all of us, really. I’m selfish as hell to even want more love than what I have received from my family, friends, and Chris. But I still do. I want someone HERE, dammit. Not sure what to do, except wait. Maybe all this is surfacing from my subconscious right now because spring is mating season. Hmmm…