my careless contagion

How do I tell her how irreplaceable she is? How do I tell her without sounding trite or cumbersome? Words cannot convey the waves of gratitude I feel. Saying I love her does not suffice. I can show her, but that, too, is soon outgrown.  God will have to show me how to protect and appraise her. How do I show love to someone I love so much? I am just a man, yet I carry an electric current of feelings for her. How do I tell her when I think of making love to a woman, I think only of her, and the thought of being with any other woman makes me sick inside? When I walk with her and when I talk with her, I will be blind to all other women. I will see them. But not really. They will be obstacles I cannot run into like extras on a movie set. You see, she was the good girl who took care of things — the house, the kids, the finances, the family portraits, everything — while her husband was chasing women, often long into the night. While she laid awake wondering where he was and who he...

Some people you just miss. You know who I'm talking about. It's hard to explain why, but no one fills their shoes. The easiest way for me to say it is she's my irreplaceable . We all have one. She's mine. There is no one like her on God's green earth. T here will never be another like her. What she is made of must have been plucked from the stars and the moon and the fire in a lion's heart.  She's like the first time you tied your own shoes. She's like your first kiss. She's your forever and your always. She's what makes you come home every night, the sweetness of your sleep, the marrow in your bones, the future and the past and everything in between. She's that thing you get once in your life, and, if you hang onto her, you get to keep her forever. She's like your first car. Like your first time having sex. Like your first stereo that broke. But that's the one you wanted, so you got another one just like it, and it broke to...

Above is a picture of Iron Cowboy, aka James Lawrence. Netflix is currently offering a documentary, which I have seen, about his ridiculous feats. See the description below.  I'm no Iron Cowboy. But I do have a lot of positive things going on! I'm not pushing my body like James Lawrence, but I am pushing boundaries and making gains. Many are small things, but small things add up. Everything matters, and I choose to not "despise the day of small beginnings." It's true that redheads have a measurably higher pain threshold than the rest of us, but that alone cannot explain James Lawrence's feats. Human beings are capable of amazing things. Even regular people like me can push boundaries in a good way! I dwell on problems here in my blog. That is deliberate. It's part of the understanding and problem-solving processes. However, to balance things out a bit, how about I post some positive stuff? Here we go.  I got a loveseat. This makes my livin...

It's a long-running joke. What do women want? Not even they know because women — all of them — are a mystery. A big, beautiful mystery.  It's no secret I have very little experience with women. I have experience with one woman . She was really my first serious girlfriend. I basically moved in with her the night I met her. Okay, we talked for about eight months on the phone and over the internet. But, really, I showed up and that was it.  So my first real relationship was full-on, all the way, live. And within a year, it was essentially over. She cheated on me shortly after we moved into an apartment after living in her mom's house for several months. I saw that infidelity as a test, like, she wants to see how much I love her. But, really, she was just an asshole because the testing never actually stopped. She abused my love until I no longer loved her. And that allowed me to engage in a lot of behavior (some self-destructive, some destructive to our relationship) I w...

Socrates and Plato talked about the importance of knowing yourself. It's a worldly doctrine, sure, but I think it's wise to start where you are and understand yourself before seeking to understand more difficult things.  Along that line of thinking, I decided to take a personality test. It's been a while since I took one and couldn't remember the outcome anyway. There are free online personality tests, so that wasn't the difficult part. The difficult part is deciphering the outcome. Below is the first site I used and the next link has the results. https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test   https://www.16personalities.com/infj-personality The first test results I took with a grain of salt. The result is INFJ-T, with the T standing for "turbulent," which is a measure of how confident I am in my decisions. With my obvious list of regrets, I can see how I got the T. I really don't think I live my life with my feelings as my guide, ...

What is the nature of failure? What defines failure?   No, this isn't another post about how much I hate myself or my life. Really, I'm just asking questions and positing the truth. So, before you say, "Here we go again," relax. This isn't another I-hate-my-life post. It's just an honest assessment. A child has many people to look up to. But, a child also has many people telling him (let's assume it's a boy for our purposes) he's wrong. Tell a child this often enough and he becomes angry or sullen. And then he assumes he is always wrong. How do I know this? I was that child. In fact, I am still that child, and those same people who told me I was wrong back then still tell me I am wrong today. In fact, I feel I've never been right about anything. I've been swimming in a sea of wrongness my entire life! On a fairly recent and random Saturday, I realized in many people's eyes (or, potentially, if they have all the facts), I am a fa...

I sit here heavy with troubling thoughts. I sit here full of remorse. I sit here begging for her to hear me, but she does not.  I'm sorry, Cindy. The words I had for you were the most unkind things I could have said. Whether or not I was being noble is no longer an issue. I know I hurt you, my dear friend. And that is a fact that tears at my chest like a wild animal.  I don't deserve to be your friend. I don't believe I ever did deserve that. Somehow, a magical door opened between us, and I was in your life. Soon, you saw the man I was, and that door closed. Our magical moment was gone, and I will pine for that as long as I live. I miss you, and I want it back, but it's not coming back.  My words. They were desperate. They were meant to hurt. They were meant to drive you away from me. They wanted to make a choice that wasn't mine to make. They wanted to send you through a door to a wonderful world beyond. But all I did was make you sad. I have cried, and ...

To be fair, here are 50 reasons I am good at relationships. I've posted why I'm bad at relationships and why DC is a better choice for the girl I love (which is still maddeningly true), and I continue to add to those (what, 100 reasons?) in my head. Still, I have a lot to offer a future relationship with someone someday. I decided to write this addressing my audience because this is a very personal subject. Writing this, it became easy to see that, for the right girl, all of my relationship excuses can go away. 1) I can make good come from a bad situation. For a long time. I can see the good even in the bad. Less-than-ideal situations are much the same. I can live like that for a long time. 2) I write notes. Little love letters. Thinking-of-you stuff. When we're both busy (or just you who is busy), it shows I'm still thinking about you. 3) I can talk about nearly anything. Bad day? Let's talk about it. Don't want to talk about it? That's okay, ...