A Different Way

I feel like I have an opportunity right now to do things differently.  To love in the way I've always wanted to love; without fear... open and free.

I have gone through a lot since the last time I was in a relationship, I really have.  Perhaps the changes weren't obvious here, or perhaps they were, but didn't come out the way they felt inside.

The closest I've come to being in a relationship since Smith was Bird, really, and those were both five, probably even six years ago.

I've grown so much in that time.  Looked at so many things about myself that didn't work, worked at changing so many things that made me unhappy.

Am I perfect?  Fixed?  No longer in need of growth? 

No.

But am I the same person who was broken by Smith, all those years ago?

No. 

I feel like I'm closer to myself.  I know I love myself and like myself in a way I didn't know about back then.

I also know I can get through anything.  I already have.  And I've talked and cried and pushed my way through some very old hurts.  Things I didn't really know about, fully, until right around the time Smith and I were falling apart for the last time.

Bird was part of that, that healing, in his own way.  And the few crushes or hopeful dates I've had since all pushed and propelled me forward. Change sucks.  It does.  Growing, working through your issues and your baggage sucks royally.  Completely.

I have hurt so much these last years, but grown so much stronger through it all.

"In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer."

Going through all that, and not being done, but being further, being stronger, being more human and more... me, leads me up to this point of being at the brink of a new relationship.

A relationship with a man who has, so far, shown himself to be in possession of so many of the qualities I am looking for and value in a partner, a lover, a friend.  And being at this point makes me want to do it all differently.

To not come from a place of fear.  To not hold myself back from loving because of all the things that might go wrong.

To not hold myself back from holding, or asking to be held because of anger or uncertainty.  To remember to breathe, and to live this new love from that place.

That calm place of connection and centeredness.

Will it be that easy?  To just want to do things differently and.... boom, it'll all be smoothly and easily that way?

I'm sure it won't be, but I think knowing where I've been, and where I want to be and where I believe I can be will give me that intention, and that may be even more than half the battle.

I am in a different place this time.  Now.  And I want to live this relationship from that place.

A different place.

Without all the garbage that likes to tell me how to feel and think and be and act.

Without fear.

As much as I can.