Queer Mating Rituals of Heterosexuals

By Pierre Le Roux
http://gaywarfare.blogspot.com/


With Swine Flu threatening global health, I am also convinced that a more ominous virus is threatening society and especially my social circle. Many of my friends recently ended their relationships and this is starting to feel like a pandemic on its own, with the unexpected revelation of a couple of pigs amongst us! Having more single friends now, the majority of which being straight, I have become privy to their queer mating rituals. This left me with an interesting conundrum: Are the mating rituals of heterosexuals and homosexuals so different?

All 3 respective breakups were quite traumatic and one theatrical. My male friend’s girlfriend broke up with him because he wanted to get married and she wasn’t ready. For some odd reason she changed her mind shortly after, and now wants him back; maybe she realized what she lost, but alas it’s too late for reconciliation, and he’s keeping his sperm for someone else.  My female friend learned that her fiancé was cheating on her via a Facebook message, and consequent phone call from his mistress - what a horrific way to learn of your partner’s infidelity!  Naturally she was devastated and the breakup was vicious! The most recent breakup was another of my female friends, whose boyfriend of 2 years and 5 months (she was very specific about the duration) ended their relationship over the phone without any substantial reason.

It came as a blow to her and she cried for a few days, but with the help of a couple of magic prescription pills she has returned to semi-normal functioning. All of them displayed fleeting homicidal tendencies and revengeful thoughts towards their ex’s, and with the exception of 1; I firmly believe that their ex’s will safely make it to their next birthdays.

Observing my 3 heterosexual friends enjoying their new found freedom, their mating rituals have become a matter of particular interest. I have noticed that when straight people become single their social life escalates into a frenzied diary of dinners, clubbing, events and drinks - not much unlike that of a gay people. The consumption of alcohol also increases substantially!  All, in my opinion, to abolish the painful memory and to maybe meet new people that will help them transition into the becoming again, who they were before their hearts were ripped out of their chests and trampled on.

However, unlike gay people, straight people appear to have a peculiar way of selecting their potential mates. I think this is where natural selection comes in – after all heterosexuals have the added burden of having to procreate to sustain the species! It appears as subconsciously, potential mates are ruled out by a process of elimination prescribed by the flaws they exhibit which are similar to those with whom the hunting heterosexuals have had a previous unfortunate encounter. If any potential mate shows any sign of weakness, the words “let’s just be friends” will be uttered. I was also surprised to learn that unlike some gay people, heterosexuals are also far less promiscuous when forced into the single life – they rather tend to use the promise of sex as a lure to test the potential mate’s persistence and tenacity. Only after they are satisfied of the potential mate's commitment sex will occur and if it’s bad that too can be the death of a potential relationship.

When surviving a breakup most people tend to swear off relationships, as the wounds are still too fresh. This holds true in both the gay and straight community. There is also always the fear that lurks like a shadow behind you, of getting hurt again. So both straight and gay people surround themselves with friends and keep socially active. With straight woman I have discovered they are more flirtatious during the stage following a break up, maybe due to the need to be wanted and found attractive, but as soon as too much attention comes their way an Ice Queen emerges and the potential suitor is in danger of frostbite. With straight guys the predatory instinct kicks in and testosterone goes into over drive. Spending more time with their straight single buddies reinforces this.

However, after a few rejections the guys will go back to being dejected and become overly cautious, bordering on shy, as not only are their ego’s bruised but similar to their female counterparts, their desire to be wanted and found attractive is also not met. So I deduce that heterosexual men and women’s timing must be perfect for a relationship to occur, hence the term coined chemistry! If the man is too early he will face the cold shoulder and if the woman is too aloof she will end up a spinster. But when the timing is just right and both are ready for it chemistry occurs and magic happens!

The mating ritual of homosexuals and heterosexuals are not so different. In many respects a broken heart is a broken heart no matter what your sexual preference. The pain of a breakup is the same and much of the behavior following the breakup coincides. The fundamental difference lies in the obvious - the fact is that in the gay community we may find it easier to understand our potential mates as we are from the same gender, and our approach to potential relationships progress in an easier fashion. With heterosexual the mating dance is more intricate, prolonged and fraught with caution. But the homosexual community need our straight friends to never give up on their pursuit to find a mate and never give up on relationships no matter how badly their hearts have been broken.

Time really heals all wounds! So it’s imperative that all my heterosexual friends never lose hope of finding that special person because until homosexuals find the means to naturally procreate, and believe me we try, technology and heterosexuals are our only means to our continued survival!

Till next time.

Breathe, Kiss, Live

By L. Avery Brown
Founder, Real Bloggers United
Editor-in-Chief, RBU: The Group Blog
http://whenasouthernwomanrambles.blogspot.com/

Breathe in, breathe out.
Breathing is an autonomic reflex.
You really have no control over it.

And just as breathing sustains us so, too, do kisses. One cannot deny that all kisses, not just the romantic ones, are important in some way…if for no reason other than to acknowledge that we exist. But there is something essentially different about romantic kisses. Why is that? What is it about a romantic kiss that can make us trip over our own feet and cause our hearts to race so quickly we fear it might explode?

It is something close to magical because kisses born of romance have the amazing ability to make us feel like we are connected to the universe. On the one hand, they can leave us reeling like a blip that tumbles aimlessly into the nothingness of a black hole. But on the other hand, if you have ever been lucky enough to experience a truly significant kiss, then you know that within that intimate display of affection lies something that has the power to bring us back from the very edge of the oblivion that seemed so dark.

Like what you've read so far?  Want to read more?  Please click the link below and you'll be redirected to BookRix.com where you can find this story and other shorts by L. Avery Brown.  Thank you.

Valentine Lover

By Antony Waller, Submissions Editor-RBU: The Group Blog
http://antonyjwaller.wordpress.com/
http://antonystories.wordpress.com/

In the dead of night she will come

To invade your silent dreams

And live inside your head

Leave no thought unfettered

As she redraws your future

She plays to no rules

Misses no opportunity

This sensuous thief of innocence

Paramour of passion

Harbinger of love

She reaches out with fingers soft

And strums at your heart strings

To jangle your senses

And stir a well of feelings deep

She will tempt tease and caress

Bathe naked in your soul

A vivacious vixen of virtue

An emissary of emotion

A cupid of love’s longing

And when she whispers in your ear

Smiles and sighs inside your mind

Brings you crashing to your knees

Searing her name in eternal flame

And feasting on your faltering reason

Remember well this lover of affections

Love’s lusty simmering seductress

Desires only what you thirst to have

My romantic starry eyed Valentine

Post Humorous…

A Tale of Hope.

By Scott Riddick

http://atypicalread.blogspot.com/

“I want a divorce.”

That was all she said, the moment I walked in through the front door. I had not even a chance to remove my coat or even close the door behind me. She had been waiting for me to arrive, sitting at the kitchen table with an open bottle of wine and two glasses, but the way she looked at me did not suggest anything festive. I could hear our daughter giggling from the living room, which added an extra element to the cringing feeling I had overcoming my thoughts.

I cannot say if I was in a state of shock or even that I had not expected this moment for some time. Things had been rough going for some time now, and it did not appear as though they would get any better soon. The more we both tried to suppress fact with make-believe, the more surreal life was becoming for us. I sat, filling both glasses to the brim.

“All right.” I said, turning my head towards the living room. “Can we discuss this later, when she has gone to bed?”

Briefly I wondered if I was thinking about my daughter’s feelings or just attempting to delay the inevitable court date I had been trying to avoid. We had had these kinds of moments before, spread throughout ten years of togetherness that left us both an empty shell of ambiguity and regret.

“No. But, I hope we can both be civil about this and show a little maturity in not shouting at one another like always.”

The way she left a tiny little zinger on the end, no wonder all doubt had been lost with her. We both had known for a little more than a year now that our marriage was not going to last much longer, unless we both tightened the reigns and really gave recovery a chance. But my wife loves her baggage, almost as much as she loves a good Merlot.

“You realize this request comes on the heels of our 10th anniversary in three days?”

Nearly one year ago, we had made a pact with one another over dinner to work towards unity and create a lasting marriage that our young daughter, four months into her first year, could live happily within, until that time came when she was leaving the house and discover her own heartache.

“I do. But, I did not want to celebrate something I no longer believe in. I have mulled over this for some time.”

“You mean since our pact last year? This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when toasting to our future.” I said.

I could see her catch the expletive in her throat, swallowing it down with some wine, breathing through her nose and expelling it into her glass. I will not lie, things had been difficult these past several months, but I had also managed to turn myself around in the thick of it all and pull myself out from the slump. It was one of only a few things I could be proud with my marriage, my daughter being the best thing. I could not help but be a little sarcastic with my words.

“How would you like to split things? Obviously most of the valuables are mine and I came into this marriage with them, so that pretty much just leaves the house. I am open to equal time with our daughter and only ask that you contribute your fair share of support for her. The vehicles are paid for and there isn’t much of a savings to be had, so I guess you can have that…”

I chuckled. She really had worked out how this would all play out in her mind. I took a mouthful of wine, swashing it around my tongue, searching for rhyme or reason. I tried to work out what had happened within the past 12 months that pushed her over the edge, but could think of nothing that drastic, which meant her mind was made up before our pact, and it simply took a year's worth of contemplation to muster the courage to follow thru with it.

“So you get everything and I split everything else down the middle with you...and my consolation prize for equal time in this marriage is a small savings account, which I think is somewhere around a hundred dollars and change and…the family dog?”

Again, she said nothing as she swallowed down her moxie and absurdity, filling her glass to the rim. I was slightly taken aback by her focused demeanour.

“Always deflecting the issues with your cynicism. That is one of the main problems with you, knowing when and when not to be so damn cynical about everything.”

“Who’s deflecting? This morning I woke up, relatively in a good mood, took a shower, dressed myself somewhat respectably and kissed my wife and daughter on the way out the door. I come back in through the same fucking...that same dang door and find myself about to be divorced. I’m sorry if my confusion and lackadaisical approach with coping is not working for you…honey.”

We sat silent for a while, determined to freeze the other out, growing colder with each passing moment. Part of me wanted to take my wine and toss it in her face for being such a deceitful lying bitch, and the other part wanted to take her by the hand and try, again, to get through to her. The main thought plaguing me was how it all had come to this point, but there would be plenty of time to figure out that.

The wine had started to take effect on her thinking, her eyes had started to water as her mind fought the urge to do anything other than focus on the decision she alone had made. How long had she been drinking, I wondered? Her face was flush, a sign of being drunk or, if anything, tipsy. Look me me. Now I was starting to make excuses for her.

Admittedly, I was beginning to break down from the inside. I had managed to hold on to my cards, since slapping the taste from my mouth with her words, but it was getting more and more difficult to fight back the hurt and anger inside.

“Can I ask you something,” She said without waiting for an answer. “Do you love me? I mean really love me, unconditionally?”

It was then I noticed a partial envelope jutting up from her purse on the table. I reached over and snatched it from her purse, before she had a chance to remove it and sat it on the table between us. It was immediately obvious to me that this was not part of the daily junk mail she kept in her purse to shred later in the evening.

From the office of Stevens and Gletchco. The envelope read.

It was then, she broke into tears. I wasn’t sure whether or not she now cried because of her seeking legal advice behind my back or that I had seen it before she was ready.

“You go behind me and take it as far as this, and then ask me if I love you unconditionally!?”

The line had been drawn in the sand. I got up from the table, finishing the wine and sat the glass calmly back down. I grabbed the envelope, tucking it underneath my arm, and started for the door.

“I need to be alone. I hope you can hold your alcohol, because our 17 month old daughter needs you to look after her.”

“Wait! We still need to discuss…”

“You have spoken loud and clear to me and I have heard your words.” I told her, backed by the largest lump I had ever felt in my throat. I felt sick and thought I would vomit where I stood. But I held myself together long enough to grab two more bottles of wine and get out from my daughter’s sight. I had promised her long ago that this type of thing would not occur in front of her…and I had failed to maintain that promise.

I spent the entire evening outside in the backyard beneath the moon and the stars, with one leg hanging over the double wide hammock pushing and rocking myself in a drunken stupor. I would bet my wife and I had exchanged hundreds of thousands of heated words, threatening this and that and attempting to hammer one another into submission, but never had we gone as far as papers.

Sure, we had wanted a divorce half the time, but woke the next morning and made love to one another. In fact, it was one of our heated arguments that acted as a kind of vessel for my daughter to enter the world, born of chaos and yet so beautiful and calm, quite unlike her mother and father.

Periodically, I would turn and look to the house. The lights were shut off and my wife was likely asleep in bed, cuddled with our daughter by now. I had silently hoped she was weeping and regretting drawing up the papers, which I had yet to open. I sat the empty bottles on the ground and sat upright in the hammock. Opening the envelope and skimming over the fine print under the dull moonlight, I read them. Irreconcilable differences, it stated coldly and to the point.

Were we? If that be the case, how come I was not so quick to sign them? Even in my drunken state, one clear cut thought clung to my heart and soul. I loved her…even now. Even after absorbing the initial shock, the papers and her adamant stance on a divorce the second I walked in..I fucking loved her. She was the mother of my daughter and the co-pilot of my wold. Irreconcilable differences. It was like stating something, no matter how accurate and true it was, to be irrelevant.

Although I cannot tell you what my wife had been thinking the next morning, I can tell you that she woke, the next day, with my answer. On the table, sitting beneath a fresh bottle of Merlot and a clean glass was the envelope. The page that mattered most to her was outside the envelope, with my wedding ring sitting next to the line I signed my name on and a hand-written note, the ink still slightly wet, I had left for her.

Dearly Beloved,

How can I convince you of that, which is irreconcilable as also being irrelevant in how I feel about you?

The note was the easy part. But, convincing myself that there was no truer a saying than those few words, summed up a decade with my wife. Nothing more was needed.

I sat in a lonely motel room, an hour before my 10th anniversary with a partially melted bucket of ice and a corked bottle of champagne, wondering if I was about to celebrate new beginnings or the first of many sleepless nights ahead of me. The latter currently holding firm in the back of my mind. I felt hollow. Animated on the outside, but lifeless on the inside. I was dying and perfectly healthy. A smear harshly wiped away.

I set the alarm in my cell phone for midnight, and once the bell tolled and my pocket hummed a sonnet for the recently divorced, I reached for the champagne and began to uncork the bottle. That was the moment my phone rang.

“By telling me that I am a stupid fool and a complete asshole for doing what I did.” The tearful voice on the other end had said.

I was quiet, unsure of her words and all I wanted to do now was numb the pain.

“Are you there?”

Since the moment I laid eyes on you, I thought.

“I’m here.”

We both sat on the phone listening to the other breathe. It kind of reminded me about the times we spent hours on the phone with one another so many years ago. She would eventually fall asleep and I too would drift into sleep with her cute little snoring.

“Please come home.” She said finally.

“Come home…where you belong.”

I sat the receiver down onto the hook. Picked up my things and started for the champagne, deciding it would better serve someone other than me right now. And I went home.

How can I convince you of that, which is irreconcilable as also being irrelevant in how I feel about you?

Love is...

by Anne Marie Segal
http://applebananayoga.com/

Love is...

...what separates this picture, of this young girl,
from all other pictures of young girls eating popcorn
and wearing 3D glasses at movies
all over the world.

To the Love of My Life

By Glen Staples,
Managing Editor, RBU:  The Group Blog
http://glenslife.com/

I remember the first time we met so clearly. This meeting was so important, but started so randomly. Do you remember those eight words?  Do you?  My life was changed forever that night because of those words, and I’ve never regretted it.

Oh, we have had some tough times since then, and there have been mistakes made by both of us. We have been separated and we have been so far apart, but never have we forgotten each other – how could we?

I cannot even start to breathe words into life that do justice to the life you have given me. You rescued me from myself and made me the man I am today. Without you I would be a smaller man, you have to know this.

I need you.
I want you.
I love you.

Sometimes you annoy the hell out of me. Sometimes I annoy the hell out of you. I have to say I find this reassuring sometimes, because it reminds me how right our relationship is. I think we need the occasional fight in order to remind us what is important – us.

When you have had something so great, for so long, it is too easy to become stuck in a pattern or complacent. It is because of the respect that we have for each other that we are able to show each other when we are unhappy. We need to vent our opinions and know that they will be listened too, even if not always agreed with.

If I spent all day just walking around fawning all over you and dreaming about being with you, who would I be? What kind of scary monster would I become?

We need our differences to make us real, and to allow us to grow. We need to be individual as much as we need to be one. I could never force you to be something you are not as you would never try with me.

Children and a crushing mortgage has piled on the pressure between us, and almost torn us apart a few times. Nobody said love is easy though, and I seem to remember committing to being there for you not just in the good times.

After all these years and after so much belly ache, the reason I still respect, admire and need you is simple. It is because I love you more with every day that I know you.

You are amazing.

You are my world.

I truly believe that I would shrink away to nothing without you. I have a Disney quality 3D picture of that first time we met in my mind.

I can see you, I can smell you, and I can taste you.

The feeling of overwhelming excitement in that hotel in Florida, where I sat you on the bed and had you for the first time, will be burnt in my mind forever. The smell of you hitting me so strongly, that I almost fainted as I opened you up. Those ‘oh so magical’ eight words still fresh in my memory, “What would you like to order today, sir?”

Oh, Dominos, how I love you.

I know I have dallied with Pizza Hut and even with ‘Pizza n Kebabs’ on the High Street, even though they are dirty and cheap (maybe it was BECAUSE they were dirty and cheap).

I know how it still upsets you when you remember those two years I spent in Naples, flirting around those beautiful Italian thin crusts. I’m so sorry, but I was young and naive then. We still were not really exclusive and I made mistakes, but then don’t think it doesn’t kill me a little inside whenever I see one of your little scooters passing by me, heading to someone else’s door!

I want you to know that although we haven’t seen each other for a while, I have not forgotten you. This happens every year doesn’t it? January and February are spent apart as I try and convince myself that I no longer need you. But who am I kidding?

We both know that by March I am yours again.

All yours.

Missing you, and with love

Glen.

A Couples Day

by Frank Brinkman

http://icare2b.wordpress.com/

A Couples Day

 Today is a couples day.

The other days of the year

Are different.

They are your day or my day.

You give, I receive.

I give, you receive.

Today is a couples day.

The day of sharing.

You with me.

I with you.

Celebrating us.

Today is a couples day.

Memories are made.

Memories celebrated.

With us and/or not with us.

A couples day.

 

In celebration of Valentine’s Day. It is a lovers day. It is a day for a lover to say, ‘I love you!’ It is a day we hope our latest romance will have a forever happy ending.

I send my fervent wish and hope to all lovers that they will experience a forever happy ending.

 

She Who Is Milk White

by Colleen Wagner

http://thefallenmonkey.com/



The “Pygmalion” myth is the story of a young sculptor (Pygmalion) who falls in love with a statue he creates, believing “her” to be the ideal woman. He names her Galatea (meaning, “she who is milk white”), and he utterly adores her and brings her gifts. Eventually the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, takes pity on him and brings the statue to life as a real, flesh-and-blood woman. Galatea reciprocates Pygmalion’s love, and the two marry, have a child, and presumably live happily ever after together. It’s a lovely, terribly romantic story that I do love in its original form; nonetheless, I thought I’d try it from a different angle…

She Who is Milk White

   I was already dwelling inside the stone when he “created” me. My outward form was different then, to be sure—rough, chipped, stained, weather-worn—but it was me. All along. When I came into his possession, I enjoyed the way he would look at me, his eyes alight with the potential he saw, yet shaded in humility of what he himself might achieve. He never doubted me, only his own actions.

   From the beginning it was a labor of true love, the sculptor and me, he placing his hands upon me, circling me to summon what could come out, and I standing patiently, quietly, liking the way his hands felt. I may have felt cold to the touch, but he warmed me, his oils seeping into my pores to give me a luster I’d never outwardly known. He gazed into me so intently, caressed me so fondly.

   And then, he began chipping away. In place of the soft beds of fingertips and palm, I felt the rigid steel of his instrument, the chisel wearing me down from the outside-in. I stood in mute terror as I watched my outer fortification crumble, pieces of me clattering to the ground like so much rubble. At the end of each day, he would clear the debris and thereby banish bits of what made me ME. I had lost my natural coloring, along with the scars of my environment and experience, and the ridges and dips that used to catch the warm rainfall—send it trickling down the ivy with which I was clad to sprinkle just lightly on the delicate grasses at my base—were smoothed and buffed into curves and mounds untrue to me. I would peer from my pedestal, beseeching him to look at and touch me the way he once did when he glorified me for what I was and could become, believing what we saw was the same. And still he would chip and hammer and chisel away.

   Yes, I had loved him, and he had loved me, but his spiraling admiration evolved into something foreign. As my figure slimmed and limbs emerged, I saw marble tendrils tumbling down my backside, coiling from what I supposed had become my “head,” and what had been so raw and naked and pure of my surface was likewise sculpted into imitation of silk in motion that puddle at my “feet.” The dust of my own decay choking my once porous flesh, I was stifled, and the more imprisoned I came to feel, the more he appeared to delight in the look of me.

   In my state of paralysis, I looked on with no choice, in disgust of the way his ravenous eyes now consumed me, no longer meeting my gaze, but gawking at the swells above my midsection and seeming to imagine what was concealed beneath the draping folds of my “gown.” He would stare at me hungrily, fingering his tools as though contemplating whether he ought to just refine my stone away further to see what he really wanted to, and at times I felt that he would. It was at such times he would throw his implements down into my dust and approach me with hands in the way I had so long hoped he would again. Yet his touch was not one of affection as he groped my swells, ran a finger down my curves, and forced his tongue onto what he’d sculpted to look like lips on me; the warmth and moisture he projected onto me at these times were certainly not what I’d once felt. Unsatisfied, he would fall away and moan and pull at his hair and raise a hand as if to strike me, only to sink to the earth among the gravel of my former self and weep over his unrequited physical love. I would not see him for days after spells like these, but he always did return, gawking anew and repeating the futile cycle.

   When he’d determined he had “completed” me, he tested another means of seduction. He brought me gifts, laying them one by one at my feet in expectation that I’d yield to him, disregarding wholly that all I would ever accept from him was not what would die and disintegrate along with this mortal world, but that which would transcend the heavens into the infinite.

   By this time I had hardened to him. I was aloof, detached, even colder to his touch. I almost came to delight now in the way my new exterior would allure him, tease him, send him right back into pitiful despair. I once had hoped he would, in his most desperate of moments, affix his chisel to the heart that refused to offer me real love and drive it in to take his life as he had taken mine. Yes, this had become something I’d wanted badly, and I prayed to the gods that one of them would come to my aid.

   And she did.

   As the sculptor slept, snoring away in his miserable stupor, Aphrodite descended unto me, asking me, “My dear Galatea, what is it you request of me?”“I desire that you please take pity on poor Pygmalion lying there. Go to him, and bid him what itis he requests. He has endeavored so much to deserve that which should come to him.”

   Aphrodite smugly responded, “I shall go to him, but I alone will determine the merits of his request.”

   “Fair enough,” I conceded, and left the goddess to take matters into her own divine hands.

   By sunset of the following day, as the sun bled red into the purity of a periwinkle sky, Aphrodite had given Pygmalion exactly what he deserved. I stepped off my pedestal, feeling the residue of my identity poking and scratching underfoot, and I allowed Pygmalion to hold me. I allowed him to marry me. And I allowed him to make love to me.

   At first.

   Intercourse led to weight-gain when I conceived and bore our child. And, alas, while Pilates may sound like an ancient Greek exercise, that regimen had not yet come into being, so I lifted not afinger to regain the figure he’d once bound me within.

   Coursing with the blood through my human veins was my human temperament, and I berated him for any way I deemed him lax in his vows. My aging skin became dry, calloused, and I turned an icy shoulder to him in the marital bed. The next strike of my hammer was to jealously forbid him from sculpting any more females. His livelihood impacted for the worse, he then resorted to whatever odd employment could provide for us, skipping his own meager meals such that his wife and son could have the more. It was still never enough, and you can be sure I informed him of as much at every opportunity.

   Dejected, he drank himself to near ruin and began to rot from within. The first organs to go were his eyes, and I was lost to his sight forever.

   That is when I felt the fissure, almost heard its sizzling crack.

   Coursing with the blood through my human veins was now my human compassion, and I berated myself. The streaming corpuscles surged with strengthened force, eroding the rock that had calcified inside my chest until the fracture widened, deepened…and broke my heart.

   I moved to sit beside him, to clasp my warm palm against his and press my fingertips into his sun-leathered skin, feeling the fine, frail bones of his hand. After a time, I lifted it to my breast such that he could feel the gentle pulse that did beat there. I watched the subtle shifts and twitchings of muscle underlying his face, waiting for them to betray the pleasure he once took inlaying his hands upon my curvature in this way. Watching, I waited.

   All I detected was a slight furrow of the brow before Pygmalion released his hand from mine and raised it with his other to my own forehead, to my temples, to my cheeks, my jaw, my lips. From then on he would only touch my face to know my expressions, to pinch my chin with affection or to dry away my tears.

   I liked the way his hands felt, and I emerged from the stone I had been dwelling inside when he loved me.

Your Love Amazes Me

Kathy Combs
http://thetruckerswife.com/

   By the time I was 28 years old, I had already been scarred by one disastrous abusive marriage that ended in divorce. I had drifted for three years in the love department and was at the end of my rope. Whatever I was doing to meet someone new was failing dismally. All I was meeting were jerks and at that point in my life I was fed up.

   I remember seeing an advertisement in the local paper for a local dating service, and thought to myself…”Well, this is a last ditch effort! If I can’t find someone decent this way, I never will! I will resign myself to becoming a hermit surrounded by many cats who adore me.” That was the mentality I was in when I laid down the money to meet Mr. Right.

   The dating service kept sending me guys left and right. All of them were basically idiots and there was no connection. By the time my seventh connection contacted me I was beginning to become jaded. He called me one night and we talked on the phone. It was amazing how we found so much to talk about. We had so much in common, it was unreal. Before we knew it, we realized it was morning and that we had been on the phone literally all night long. By then he wanted to meet me, and I started to get paranoid that anyone who could possibly be that easy to talk to had to be scary as hell in real life.

   I was certain that once I laid eyes on him, Prince Charming would turn into a grotesque frog that I would shudder to even contemplate that I had talked to all night long. I put the meeting off, and he told me that he would call me later that night after he went and rode his ATV. As soon as I hung up the phone I began to regret it. Now I wanted to see what he looked like. I waited and waited! Finally that night I reached him and invited him over to my house. Certainly someone who was that nice on the phone wouldn’t murder me!!

   To my surprise when he arrived at my door I discovered he was pretty amazing in the flesh too. He has been with me ever since. On Valentine’s Day he surprised me with an engagement ring, asking me to marry him. After only three months, we were ready to pledge forever. It was a whirlwind courtship that you only read about in books that has ended happily ever after.

   Sure we have had our ups and downs, but we have weathered the last 14 years together through the good, with the birth of our two children, to the bad, struggling to pay bills and bidding farewell to a loving parent who has went onto Heaven. Through sick and sin, until death do us part. It is an unconditional love that I will carry with me eternally. A love I have never regretted. It is the best kind of love there is. It is the love described in our song “Your Love Amazes Me”, and I am so glad I finally found it.

Love Lessons

By Lea Bryan
http://sidewaysgirl.blogspot.com/

How do we learn about love?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.

I Corinthians 13:4

   Some may learn about love in Sunday school… but just to hear stories, or read about love usually falls far short of actually experiencing love. One thing we have learned over time is that children seem to learn best by example. So, even though parents (and other primary care givers) do not typically sit down with their children and explain love, they are often the ones that are actually teaching their children about it… through their own example, through the way they love.

   Most of us are not gifted enough to explain love in any way other than example. I cannot write a poem or a story about it. I cannot photograph it, draw it, or paint it. I cannot sing it or compose music that expresses it… but I do know it, and I can show it because my parents taught me how by their example. I did not learn it from a book or a class. I know of love first hand, from the love that my parents gave to me… and the way they expressed love to their friends and family. I know it from the love they showed to strangers and members of their community that were less fortunate. And now, as they grow old together, I am learning even more about love… Now, when I thought I already knew all there was to know, they are teaching me, through the love they still have for each other.

   I come from a middle-class, working family. Both my mother and father worked full-time jobs outside of the home. We needed the second income, so off to work they both went… begrudgingly. They both worked their entire lives. They did not have careers, they just worked. They did not climb the corporate ladder, and strive for professional success. Their jobs were not their lives, nor did they seek fulfillment in them. Work was a necessity. They sought fulfillment in the laughter of their children, and the companionship of their friends and in their love for each other. They went to work every day anxiously anticipating the day when they could retire and enjoy their golden years together. I watched them navigate their professional lives and balance it with their marriage and our family life. By watching them I learned about priorities, making goals and having a strong work ethic. I didn’t have a class about that, or read a book. These were more lessons taught by example.

   About ten years ago or maybe more, my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. This diagnosis was like a slap in the face to all their retirement plans. As my mom has become less and less capable of living independently, my parents have watched their dreams fade into the sunset. Instead of golden years filled with travel, exploration, grandchildren and hobbies, they now have only doctor’s appointments to make and prescriptions to fill.
  
   Parkinson’s disease as a disease which attacks the patient’s motor functions… but sadly there is more to it than that. Most people really only know about the disease from movies such as Awakenings, or through the struggle and advocacy of people like Mohammed Ali or Michael J. Fox. Many people know the disease causes tremors, or that people afflicted with it may become “frozen” and unable to move. A few may even know about the “Parkinson’s mask” or the “shuffling gate” that is evident in people afflicted with the disease. However, not many people know that it can also be mentally debilitating. Some people afflicted with Parkinson’s disease also get Parkinson’s Dementia, or Parkinson’s Psychosis.

   The dementia and psychosis causes patients to have hallucinations, delusions and false beliefs. My mother is experiencing all of these things. They can become angry, paranoid, and combative, even though as is the case with my mom, this may be the complete opposite of their normal gentle, giving, calm and loving personality. Additionally, many Parkinson’s patients sleep fewer and fewer hours as the disease progresses, and when they do sleep, they may experience vivid and terrifying dreams, which are often confused for reality. If you are wondering, I’ve had no formal education about Parkinson’s disease, no books, no classes… This is just another lesson I’m learning by watching my parents.

   There are days on end when my mom is fixated on a paranoid delusion. During these times all she speaks of is her paranoid belief… a government conspiracy, people trying to rob them, people trying to poison her, or kill someone she cares about, her loved ones lying and betraying her, beloved pets being injured… or even apocalyptic events.

   During these periods of delusion it is impossible to talk to her about anything else. She is often hysterical… screaming and crying and begging us to “tell her the truth” about some delusion we know nothing about. It is impossible to reason with her. It is impossible to convince her that the delusions are not real. It is impossible to have a normal conversation with her. She is not there. She doesn’t even seem like my mom. It is only the disease, and you cannot (as hard as you may try) communicate with the disease. Again, I’ve learned about these things by witnessing my mother’s struggles, no books about delusions, no classes about psychosis…

   Through all of this, my dad has remained by her side. He is the sole caretaker, as I live hundreds of miles away. He is with her 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He only leaves her side on occasion, to go to the grocery store or to get a haircut… and only then if a trusted friend can stay with her for the few hours while he’s gone. He is there… often times with only the disease to keep him company. His wife, my mother, is not there.

   We’ve had the awful conversations about how to manage the care of a loved one in declining health. “I can’t leave her” he once told me through tear-filled eyes, when we were discussing nursing homes. He will not leave her in the care of anyone else, unless it becomes physically impossible for him to continue to care for her. He loves her, and struggles through long days and even longer nights with only the disease to keep him company… He honors his vow… to love and protect in sickness and in health… And now, so many years after he has retired, he still works… but he has acquired new skills. He has become house keeper and cook, finance manager and accountant, nurse and nurse’s aide, patient advocate, doctor and pharmacist. He still never complains about his work.

   It is just a fact of life, a necessity. He no longer punches a clock, or collects a paycheck. What is his reward? What does he work for now that there is certainly no golden retirement in his future? It is for the few precious moments when my mom comes back… when she is actually there with him. He waits for that look of recognition in her eyes and for the love for him that is still within her… her smile… her laugh. He works for those times when they can both remember what it is supposed to be like.

   I think this must be the greatest lesson about love I will learn from them, and again... I have no books about this, no classes, just another lesson taught by example. It breaks my heart and tears are streaming down my face as I write this post… but once again they are showing me what it really means to love. Perhaps this is the final lesson about love that they will exemplify to me. Love is patient. Love is kind. It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It always perseveres. I’ve heard those words before. I’ve read them. Now I understand what they really mean… but not because of books, not because of classes.

YouTube Video:  Always Remember Me – Ry Cuming

*RBU claims no ownership of video



Prelude to Love

By Walter Steve Williams
via L. Avery Brown
Editor-in-Chief, RBU: The Group Blog

What's the fuzz about LOVE?

By Nicone
http://dynamicfamilyhome.com/
http://www.just-add-yoga.com/

I'd like to contribute to this group discussion by raising the question of why we are more concerned with receiving love, than with giving it? Even though the concept of love is ideally reciprocal, we primarily worry about whether or not we are loved. He loves me, loves me not, is the excruciating question, not – do I love him? Or, am I capable of loving someone unselfishly? This is a paradox because giving love is just as important, and possibly even more rewarding, than receiving it. It is also something that is partly within our control, whereas it is beyond our control whether or not Mr. Dreamy loves us back.

The movies and magazines lead us to believe that love is something that might strike us like a Cupid's arrow, and then let us own it. If you should happen to lose it, it probably wasn’t true love, just some look-alike. Truth is “they lived happily ever after” probably means: "they worked f.‘#!¤ hard at it!" Falling in love, anyone can do, but loving this person year after year, as you learn all his weaknesses and watch his belly grow fat, now that's an accomplishment! Young love is sweet, but old love is even sweeter because it has proven itself to be true.

A romantic relationship is just one of the shapes love can take. We shouldn't forget that the ability to love starts with the ability to love ourselves. Other forms of love are the love parents feel for their children and siblings, or friends for each other. Even more unselfish is the love for all fellow human beings, animals or even plants.

The big reward you get by focusing on making others happy is peace of mind, so being loving can actually be quite selfish. “If you have to be greedy, be greedy for your peace of mind” a wise man once said. The kind of selfishness that brings this kind of love into the world can’t be so bad? Love in its pure form flows from within your being towards another person, object, animal or whatever it is you love. The ultimate ideal is to be completely filled with love for everything, which I imagine is what heaven or Nirvana would be like.

Why not focus on giving love (and our life-partners, families and friends is a nice place to start) and then work on expanding our ability to love to include all living beings? Working unbecoming a more loving person is a win-win deal, because no-one is more lovable than a kind and loving person, right? And, perhaps you could even say that no one is happier either.

Reach Out & Touch Someone!

By Layla Morgan Wilde
http://www.laylamorganwilde.com/

A Message From the Founder's Keyboard...