hurdles and sweetness

I recall a year ago when every single baby step along the way to dating seemed like a colossal hurdle:  there was simply getting a date, and then going on a first date enjoyable enough to be asked on a second and — with the low barriers to entry in online dating — actually experiencing the follow-through of a second date and so on and so forth, every new hurdle higher and more effortful and seemingly impossible.

For a long time, I wondered if any of it would ever seem natural again. And then suddenly it did and was, and a first kiss and third date no longer seemed like milestones of sorts and, before I knew it, I had a lover and boyfriend and relationship.

When I look back on these hurdles that once seemed so impossible, so beyond my ability to leap over them, they are faded and shrunken and have no particular significance to me any longer. And then I realized when it all changed:

At some point, late last summer, I decided to stop looking for love and to stop looking for abundance and decided, instead, to fill myself from within and be love and be abundance. No longer was I seeking. Rather, I was enjoying and sharing. And, of course, that’s when love and abundance seemed to happen in my life. If and when masculine energy appeared in my life, I simply enjoyed it and the way it allowed me to feel feminine. I recognized it, appreciated it, expected nothing more of it — and then attracted more of it. It wasn’t about effort or ability. It was about being. And, with this simple shift in energy, things changed.

I suspect that might explain why a man who had clearly told me on more than one occasion that he didn’t view me as a potential romantic interest kissed me one night. And then asked me out again. And kissed me some more.

For some of my long-time readers, you’ll recall my epic vision board endeavor of early last year. I had no husband, partner or job, and all the time in the world to dream and meditate about all the ways in which I wanted to change my life. I packed that damned board full of so many hopes and dreams and desires that there was no way I could ever have implemented or embraced it all at once…at least not without having gotten a lobotomy.

Somewhere along the way, I was able to distill it all down to two fundamental concepts:  love and abundance, two simple words / concepts that represented the greater whole of a full, rich and joyful life that I wished to create. And I’m proud to say that I feel I’ve embraced these states of being pretty well, for the most part.

I haven’t created a vision board for this year. Meant to. Allowed myself to let it slide. And I’ve decided to try to add just one thing for the coming year. You see, I’m happy with being love and being abundance. They still fit and feel good to me. Yet, if there’s just one other thing I’d like to add, it’s sweetness — I want to bring more sweetness into my everyday existence, recognizing those stop-and-smell-the-flowers moments all along the way.

So, three months belated in sharing with you all, that’s my vision for 2012:

• Be love.
• Be abundance.
• Be sweetness.

And I know, in so being, I will also draw these things to me.