Boundaries. Latecomers are a b*tch.

"It is our choices that define us, far more than our abilities."
- J.K. Rowling

You're born to a family that puts the fun in dysfuntional. Let's face it: we all are.

You learn not to need. You learn to please. You succeed to please.

Fast forward decades and you learn at a professional workshop that your key conflict resolution methods are avoidance and accommodation. You are not surprised.

You spend years in a relationship with the kindest person you've ever met. You have needs, but are schooled to subvert them. He has needs, but is schooled to not voice them. You part.

You date. You meet compelling people. You learn. What you want. What you don't. What is compatible. What isn't. That it's a triple-punch of intellectual, physical, and emotional attraction (for you, in that order) that resonates with Clive Staples Lewis' idea: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one."

You get distracted. The intellectual attraction is the bite. The physical attraction is the hook. But the emotional attraction? Continues to elude.

You get lost in the first two at the expense of the last. But the cost of the loss of that kindest person is the reminder you need. That if the collapse of that emotional attraction boundary was worth it, for anyone, it would have been for that kindest person.

You have intellectual and emotional chemistry with your peeps. You just don't want to jump their bones. You hope. That finding the attraction trif*ckta is possible. Until then, solace. With the peeps. Whose bones may not be jumpable, but whose hearts are unyieldingly authentic.

"There is good. And there is evil. Right, and wrong. Heroes, and villains. And if we're blessed with wisdom, then there are glimpses between the cracks of each, where light streams through. We wait in silence for these times, when sense can be made; when meaningless existence comes into focus, and our purpose presents itself.

And if we have the strength to be honest, then what we find there, staring back at us, is our own reflection bearing witness to the duality of life. That each one of us is capable of both the dark and the light - good, and evil - of either; of all.

And destiny, while marching ever in our direction, can be re-routed by the choices we make; by the love we hold on to; and the promises we keep." - Heroes, 15-Dec-2008