Date someone you can have fun with at the grocery store. Someone who is home and an adventure all at once.
Someone who believes in you when you don't.
People always tell me when giving me dating advice, "what about meeting someone at yoga?" And even though it makes sense, it's hard to explain to someone that "yoga people" are just as non-committed ~ not looking to be your boyfriend ~ as the rest of the dating pool. Sometimes worse (in my experience). I think it's harder to get over someone I meet through yoga, because both of us are searching for the same things in life, and we connect on a deeper level.
To be completely honest, I have met guys who are students in my yoga class...
Apparently I have a type. They're into fitness, and diving deeper into spirituality.
For me - intimacy is not sex, it is not where my attachment is formed. It's sleepovers, and sleeping next to someone night after night...and waking up to them each morning. In my experience it forms a co-dependency, and then I feel "off" or sad when I'm not sleeping next to that person. I slept next to the same man for almost 5 years and when that ended, it took me a long time to get close to someone in that way again. For the past few years, I have avoided the sleepover stage of a relationship. I would think of any reason to leave in the middle of the night, or if we "went to bed" late I would bail a couple hours later (early in the morning).
This past year I met someone who made me break my own rules. It all started because he just slept over and I felt too awkward to wake him up and ask him to leave. I remember going into the kitchen and telling my best friend (who I lived with at the time) that he had fallen asleep and I was nervous to have him sleepover. She encouraged me to try it out...so I did.
We spent a year together (obsessively), but this past February we broke up. Our relationship was complicated to say the least, we were technically "friends" but our day to day was the same as my last serious relationship, so it confused me. We told each other we loved each other almost every day, we fell asleep in each others arms every night and had this strong bond of friendship that made going to run errands playful and exciting. To be honest, I'm not really sure exactly what happened or the truth of why he left me. It was like one day he just woke up, and was done. The experience dragged out and got dramatic and was not how in envisioned our future unfolding.
What I took away from this relationship was I need to be more clear with my partner about what I need - and that I can still THRIVE after a heartbreak.
For example, since then I've had a lot of really great things happen in my personal and professional life. I've made some really nice friends in the past few months, and I got promoted to manager at the Airbrush Tanning salon I work at.
I started hosting a monthly community event (New Moon Circle) with my friend Karley. I get to babysit for my former neighbors each week, and work jobs that I enjoy doing.
photo: Luke Armitage
website: lukearmitage.com
- a Queen always turns her pain into power -
"never settle". a mantra, a phrase, a lifestyle that I've carried with me for the past decade. To me this applies to anything, relationships, jobs, living situations, etc. I am proud to say that I am living in a city I want to live, working jobs that I love, and dating someone new who makes me happy :)
If you want to learn more about how I turned my pain into POWER, email me:
moderngypsydream@gmail.com
