GROOOWWWRR!

Ha!  I've got a handful of what if's that I think about from time to time and two that I think about nearly daily.  The first is a woman from years ago that I loved dearly but we always came up with excuses for why we should remain just friends.  We half joked that after we had burned through everybody else in the tri-state area we would move in with each other and grow old.  That was 20 years ago.  

Then there is another from a few years back that I won't get into because it's a long, complex story of mad love and desire and screwed up circumstances.  I've thought about her daily since we split up... not in a sad sense.  About once a month she spends about an hour reading catching up on my blog so I know that she thinks about me too.  We don't speak though.  She's met someone and gotten married and I'm doing my own thing.  There are days though when I'm half asleep on the train and I'll catch a whiff of the same perfume she wore and it gives me a jolt... half panic.

It's not regret, nor sadness... merely what ifs... she was a life changing experience for me and changed the way I look at myself and the world.  It's probably best left at that.  

The "bad man" initially gives you the feeling that anything is possible.  There is an element of rule breaking, excess, and intoxicating intimacy that is unparalleled if unindulged.  I have made the mistake of going all the way with the bad man and learned that the fear, weakness, and sociopathic numbness that propels this individual is more repelling than the most innocuous nice guy.  The only way he maintains his power is leaving before he is tested.  Enjoy the memory, but rejoice in the loss. His secret is that he has no secret.  

This line of thinking can sometimes seem all a bit fate and karma-y but really i think its a choice to see things this way.

If he was the man you needed him to be, a man that would still be valuable in you and your children's lives, everything that COULD have been done to make it work, WOULD have been done.

So either, he didn't do everything he could have, and therefore isn't worth your time and lamentation, OR he DID do everything, and it just didn't work out and it just wasn't right. In either situation, there is really no response, just a solid platform from which to move on.

How Zen..

GIVE UP STATCOUNTER????  NEVER!!!!!

It's probably the least harmful of my addictions.  

All bad men are 95% fabulous, if they were mostly rotten we could size them up quickly and avoid the heartache.  My worst lout was a manly PhD candidate with plenty of talent, charisma, and intelligence (ooops...and a 5% nasty lil' secret coke habit).  I suppose rehab/therapy works for some.  For this fellow, he just learned how to master the art of rehab/therapy and became even more adept at deception.  Look to your Daily Knob as a celebrity example of Mr. Right.  Ms. Witherspoon leaves her druggie cheatin' husband, comports herself as a single mom with dignity, and lands Jake G. who isn't a fixer-upper or tortured soul.