I did so well in the month of November, keeping on top of my feelings and doings. But I've struggled since to write much, because I'm terribly afraid of jinxing myself. I know that's silly. I know whether I write or not has no influence on what happens around me, but still I fear. If I divulge too much, I'll have to un-divulge it when it's over. And I hate un-divulging. It just seems so...sad.

But I guess I'll say something brief. I've found a very, very special man with whom I'm currently sharing my life. We're not a couple, we're as yet close friends, but it seems to be heading in the direction of something more meaningful. (Not that there's a lot more meaningful than friendship.) I'm being very careful this time...though I think I am every time. But with him, I'm so much more interested in a sort of future. He's wonderfully sweet and kind, creative and so witty. He's tall and handsome, has some beautifully unique features, like 2/3rds of an index finger. He's so far very different from the boys I usually date and I suppose that's a good sign.

But I'm being careful. My heart is as sensitive as it is tough, and I cannot make the usual mistakes with this man. So instead of thinking so very much all the time, I'm just being me. Just living life, taking it all in stride, hoping for the best, and living one day with him at a time. Here's to hope!

I. am. so. boy-crazy. How is it that I've never been in love?! Sometimes I feel like God's protected my heart from all the silliness it seeks after...for one, by keeping me from falling in love, and for two, by keeping boys disinterested in me. That is, at least, what I tell myself. It's God's fault they don't love me. :) I guess boys aren't completely disinterested. That's half the problem. They're really interested! And then...they're just not. I don't get it, ya know? I mean, I'm the same Emily day one to the end. So why do they like me...and then just not like me?

What a life-long mystery. Moments like this, when I'm content and cheerful, and happy to wait for so-called Mr. Right, I can laugh about it. It's a silly little complication in my life, and I'm pretty sure it will all be resolved one day when I meet some sweet, wonderful, honest man who finds my quirky charm endearing.

When I struggle with this thing...this pattern I have with men (or they have with me?), I sit back and think to myself, "Self, could you (I) be happy never getting married?" And I do think I could. Especially now that Baby Chas has entered my world.

I want to get married. I want to have someone significant with whom to share my life, but it's not the thing of my life. It's just a thing. One of many things I'd like to do in a lifetime. But part of me would also like to be "Crazy Aunt Em" who lives all over the world and brings you cool souvenirs, and she's always smiling because she loves her life. And when you ask her (me) why she never got married, she just looks at you shocked and says, "Well! I still have plenty of time, young man!" (Or young woman, if I have a niece someday.)

But I am boy-crazy. I love those boys, all of'em. Perhaps one day I'll really love one of those boys and he'll love me.

One...two...three Old Chubs make a girl honest. 1) I miss the way you kiss, the way you tell me I'm sexy, the way you hold me while we sleep. 2) I wish you would mean to me what I want you to mean to me. 3) I think you're just my friend, until I see you again, then I realise all I want is for you to want me.

I want love. I need love. I need that man to need me the way I know, without a doubt, I need him. But time keeps passing and still he doesn't say, and I know deep down that he doesn't feel that way. This way. The way I feel right now - ready, honest, bound. I am bound. By him, by all hims who have ever been something to me.

Say you need me. Please, dear man, dearest of all dear men, need me now.

Last night was a big revelation to me on why I don't date much. My skin is paper-thin. I went on a date with a guy I'd been in communication with for a few weeks and we were both so excited about getting together, when it actually happened, it wasn't, of course, the violins and fireworks I'd imagined. I do this every time. I work myself into a frenzy, telling myself over and over, "Calm down, take it in stride, do not get your hopes up." But it doesn't matter. My hopes are always sky-high, even if I tell myself I have no expectations.

I want love. I desperately want love, and while I try on these very different, all uniquely special men, I can't help but hope every single time that this may be the man who loves me. At the end of all these experiences, I tell myself, "You just need to do it more...date more...grow thicker skin." But I can't help but wonder who I would be with thicker skin. Is it better to harden yourself, prepare for the worst, not let anyone in until they've proven something significant, or is it better to fall in love with everyone and be wounded with every experience?

I can't decide. I know there must be a middle-ground. And I know that I'm not completely to the one extreme, as most of these incurred wounds are barely skin deep. They heal pretty quickly, usually. But they are painful, still, and I feel like I could probably do without them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, would it be better for me to change my heart, to harden that skin, load on the experience, and try to get hurt less, or to change my behaviors, date less often, be more choosey, keep my heart to myself.

Again, there's got to be a happy medium. I've got to find it, too, before I get hurt worse than I yet have.

Amazing what time and life can do to a wound. I have no doubts that they can almost completely heal. But I still say only "almost" because I so much believe some wounds can never completely heal.

My wide open gushing wound from the death of my father is a wound that will never, in another 60-70 or 80 years, will never entirely heal. If I live to be 84, I am positive that wound, however minute and scarred, will still gently throb on the 60th anniversary of my dad's death.

But here I am, almost three years later, and the intensity of that particular wound has bayed to a slow ache. If this wound were a gash, it would be much like a week after stitches. The threads are falling out, no longer needed to keep the wound closed, but a sharp blow on just the wrong spot could undo every stitch in the flash of a second.

I miss my dad like crazy. I miss every little thing about him. But I'm finally beginning to accept his absence, and perhaps becoming able to carry on with life joyfully and with purpose.

Seems strange, though, as time passes, new hurts come to life from this wound. On my way out of town this afternoon, I thought about my mom, and I saw her pain in a different light. Rather suddenly my heart broke for her. Her wound is completely different than mine, and for the last three years, I haven't been able to empathize with that pain. I still can't really, as I've not yet been in love, but I guess as my own healing process begins to really show some effect, I'm able to see outside myself much more clearly. And I see her in pain - an incredible pain I'm not sure I would be able to bear. I'm not entirely sure she's able to bear it, but I assume God will see that she does.

I pray with my whole heart that I'll be able to empathize with her now. That I will ache for her pain, instead of being annoyed by it. That I will see ways I can take care of her, and do my part to patch the wound.

I just finished reading a friend's blog about life's small (and grande) pleasures. Her list was full of sweet-nothings, things you or I might never think special, but in her words I could feel the warmth of her soul as she described a few of her favorite things.

I thought about my own list, my list of tiny happies, and though I struggle day to day to find meaning in this menial life, I know in my heart my list is so long it's nearly endless. I both love and hate my life. When that exact thought first popped into my head, for a flash of a half-second, I thought, "How can that be?! Why am I so crazy?" But it's not crazy at all. It's really quite simple: I'm human. Every moment of my existence is a battle between two sides of myself. I have the most beautiful, insightful, pleasurable side who is a child of God, who is secure in her heavenly future, and loves this earth with every ounce of gusto because it is a precious gift from my Lord.

But simultaneously, I am a fleshly being. I am one who hates and loathes and despises everything that is not Heaven. I long with all my heart to be there, to be Home as I so often reference it, and because my heart already belongs there, a place of utmost beauty and endless joy, this side of me hates this world and its robbing of my true life.

...

Rhetorical questions.

I got an apartment today. I'm moving into a really nice little condo with one of my very best friends, and it's the deal of a lifetime. Why, then, am I so sad? I'm sitting here in my room (at my mom's house), realising these are my last moments here...my last nights...last days. I love this house. This house is the first place in so many years where I found home. So much has happened in the last eight years, some of it within the walls of this very house, and my heart breaks to leave it.

I remember a similar feeling when my parents sold our house in Dallas, the house where I grew up, more or less. This dull aching inside, accompanied by a knotted stomach, signifying the end of a very meaningful history. For the Dallas house, it was 12 years living with the three people in the world I love the absolute most. We were a small family, complete with various cats and a dog, sometimes a gerbil or two, and every minute spent in that sweet little home added something priceless to the woman I am today. I remember that house perfectly. I remember ever corner, every tree, every unsuccessful attempt to grow grass, every game of detective, every birthday party, and every slammed door from that red-brick house on Applegate. It felt, and sometimes still feels like a part of my family.

I know that's cheesy. I know it's silly to love a building that much, to make it that meaningful to myself and be so sad when it's gone. But it's kind of like the neat little package that bundles up all my most pleasant memories, and what do I do with them when it disappears? One by one, they start to disappear, too, little pieces of me, memories of things and people and a beautiful life just begin to face away with time.

This house is much the same as that little red one on Applegate, but its contents are so much more full and real, because I've been an adult all these eight years. Ramshorn is a perfect home. I can see the famous Long's Peak from my kitchen window. I keep my window open year round, because the air's so fresh, I hate to miss a second of it. Elk and dear and coyotes and bears traipse through our "yard" like we're in the middle of the zoo, and no matter what time of year, how hot or cold, this house always stays the perfect temperature. The part I love most about the house itself is its location. Besides all those things previously mentioned, it's also perfectly situated on the edge of Estes, so that in the middle of the night, you can't hear a blessed thing, and not much more during daylight hours. I've grown to love the stillness out here.

The memories here, of course, besides being more mature, are different in other ways, too. This house was my dad's. He touched every surface in this house, every plane; he died here. My dad's life ended right here, on the middle level bathroom floor. But in some ways, my dad's life also began in this house. He was a new man when he and my mom moved here in 2002. He was the same Mr. Ed, loving and kind, gentle and humble, but he was different, too. He liked his jobs, he got my mom all to himself, he made incredible friends, and every single day he got to wake up to mountains and that sweet fresh air I love so.

Every moment I spent with my dad (and mom) in this house was perfect and priceless. The walls, if they could, would speak of the love that passed here, and would whisper stories of that happy little family from Dallas, Texas who planted here, grew here, and ultimately left here.

That is why my heart breaks.