You ever wish you could start a conversation over? Wish you could be more witty, more charming? Unfortunately, there is no going back.

There are people out there in the world right now who, if you met them and said just the right thing, would change your life forever. Would be a catalyst for change in your life that catapults you forward. There are people walking around right now who would be the love of your life, igniting a passion that will spark epiphany. But time and chance shake us all.

The right person at the wrong time. The right person, right time, wrong thing to say. And what happens when you meet someone who is all of this, what happens when you can’t hold on to them. Maybe we all need to be a little less jaded, a little more accepting. Embrace our frailties, our flawed hearts.

We bind our love to desire, to ambition, to politics, to what we wear, how we talk. So many caveats and criteria that we kill the soil in which love might flourish. Perhaps we need to till the soil, start again. Accept your flaws, their flaws, our flaws. Love with your whole self, hold nothing back.

You’ll be destroyed, again and again. I know. I’ve been there. But any way else is the slow strangling death of hope. And that, that I will not accept.

I’ve just realized why people call me chivalrous. I’m a romantic. I see and talk about beauty. If someone I’m romantically interested in puts themselves down I assure them that this is not the case even if only to me.

If whomever I’m with is open to it, then I’ll write them poetry, open doors, insist that me paying is my honor. I’ll keep my word, if I give it. I’ll strive to be worthy of them as I hope they strive to be worthy of me.

It’s not chivalry, or if it is, it is the kind that comes from within. It is honor. Is honor so rare it cannot be recognized? Except as a fairy tale ideal? A person who is chivalrous is a shining ideal. I’m no one’s shiny ideal. Honor is a daily struggle in the blood and muck. Sometimes I fail. But I pick myself up and continue on. Chivalry is a fairytale. Honor is as real as you allow it to be.

This is a three stage process that can be further nested. It should be noted that subgroups from this process will most likely not achieve mainstream acceptance on the same time schedule as the primary.
Though in some cases, the aura of respectability that the larger movement is accruing can lend itself to a subgroup and, in fact, accelerate the subgroups acceptance ahead of that of its primary; This is often because the subgroup would have been accepted more quickly by the mainstream culture but for its lack of cohesiveness that the primary allowed.

The most powerful lies are the ones we tell ourselves. The ones that shield us. That say we are unique, so unique that others must comply to our standards. Must accept our choices instead of compromise and consensus.

These lies are seducers, they whisper to us through our flaws, our vulnerabilities. Who doesn’t want to be desired for their uniqueness? But this is false, the moment we allow our Ego to speak as if it were truth we are lost.

If you perceive a flaw or issue in your personality, then you are beholden to exam it. To soften it’s edges and if you find that it impacts your emotional well being, then you must work on it. If you feel you can’t or feel you’re fine then see a therapist, tell them everything. See if where you are is acceptable to you.

It’s a hard thing to know yourself. Harder still to keep reexamining when you perceive yourself to be OK.

Defining language is useful to a subgroup in the beginning stages. It allows them to self define as other without the ambiguity of an explanation. It further allows those outside the subgroup to show support or lobby on behalf of the subgroup to those at a further remove. So it is a useful tool. However, like most truly useful tools, it is dangerous. There is a tendency to use the self definition to elevate to a point of superiority. Either over those outside the subgroup or, if the subgroup is sufficiently large, as it splinters and those groups adopt defining language of its own.

I’m unsure, unsettled.
I’m not sure that this level of openness is something I enjoy. I’ve always hidden pieces of myself away. Kept them away from the people in my life. Moreover, I’ve drawn strength from secrets.

Since people are only privy to the bits that I dole out. I can say that it doesn’t matter what is going down, in this aspect of self, I am ascendant. I have a 160 IQ. I’m a priest. Or other things. Secrets have become my refuge. Splintered right up against a belief in truth.

Maybe it’s insecurity. I often feel like a fraud. Like I’m pulling the wool over the eyes of people I like and/or love. Perhaps at the heart of the problem is this.
While I like people and can accept friendship, I cannot conceive of a person who knowing everything that I am, everything that I have done or desire to do would still want that friendship, that relationship.
I cannot conceive of a person who would want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.

And if they did, why. What horrible secret of their own drives them to my company.
It is a startlingly level of self doubt slinking beneath the surface of my normal confidence that borders on arrogance.

So I tell people that the Winter solstice is a time of mourning.  And since these people generally know that I’m a pagan and that I specifically worship a God of Winter, this puzzles them.  “Isn’t the Winter solstice the beginning of winter?” It is, that is correct. So why am I in mourning,  shouldn’t this be a time of joyous exaltation. Yes and no. At the summer solstice, it is the beginning of Summer, but it also signifies the time at which summer will be at it’s most powerful;  Winter will only gain power from there. So this time, where winter gains power and summer loses power is a time of joy,  at the autumnal equinox Summer and winter is in balance,  from here Winter will only gain more and more ascendance. From the Time of the Winter solstice, while winter is at it’s most powerful,  it’s power is bleeding away.  So Summer Solstice is a time of exaltation as winter gains ascendance in the world; And Winter solstice is a time of mourning,  For from there winter can only fade.

I say adios or farewell or, if leaving for a long time or permanently, I say Walk in beauty

I prefer flowery romantic language to plain words; Your eyes shine like the heavens rather than your eyes are pretty; I’m not setting you on a pedestal.

I believe that each word has a emotional and logical spin to it. Using the correct words in the correct sequence has a beauty all it’s own.

I’m in love with beauty;  which is not to say pretty things or some ideal but someone or something that can effect me emotionally;  anything that does i consider beautiful;

I fall in love quickly, because I see the flaws and strained lines in each person I choose to associate with and those are beautiful;

I care deeply and quickly.  I don’t expect those feelings to be returned;
I just hope that it does not push people away or scare them

I am 100% capable of letting those people exit my life; I won’t stop caring because they do. Unless they betrayed me, but that is a whole other thing.

I read genre fiction and various non-fiction, about a book a week on average; so called  literature leaves me cold;

My taste in music is wide and far reaching;  Instrumentation only pieces (classical, new age, metal, etc), Full Band, Singer/songwriter;  I prefer that you write your own lyrics if not music;  And if you have lyrics then I want to be able to understand them (as in hear them over the music) ;  if I can’t, your instrumentation better be unfuckingbelivable or I’m out;

If you can and do, give and receive, sober consent then have at it, may it bring you joy.

I prefer the truth if the answer is personal and interesting if the answer is not; Is it likely that gnomes are stealing my socks?  No, but its more interesting that noting that the missing sock is inside a pair of pants that I have not worn in awhile; So I’ll go with that; Espousing an interesting lie as fact is not the same as believing it to be fact though I do believe in some pretty bizarre things;  may be safer to just ask for clarification.

I prefer dark clothing. I don’t wear jewelry because I’m allergic to most metal, yes even hypoallergenic titanium; I have fashion sense but I don’t really use it on myself;

I see the physical body as a tool to be used,  not a thing to be worshiped;  though I have worshiped a persons desires  and pleasures through the medium of their body.  I find pleasure in their pleasure, within limits. Though admittedly my limits are probably not the norm for most societies. Though, I imagine, some societies would find my limits confining; I am not always successful in this regard.

I write this to try to understand who I am. I post it to make sure it’s honest. It is a reminder of who I am in my better moments. As this calm, cool me slides, inexorably, into depression.