Paint Me a Picture

Sometimes I think my life is the wrong size for me. It just doesn't fit. But as long as I keep my head down and focus on my child, my work and myself I can survive. I yearn for a richer way of being. A radio show I listened to lately suggested to be happy we need to live in the right place, have the right job and be married to the right partner. I have also read in another source that we are often happier doing what we enjoyed as a child. My third inspiration William Wharton's answer to his daughter's question What is Love? was: “It is passion, admiration and respect,” he told her. “If you have two, you have enough. If you have three, you don’t have to die to go to heaven.”

And for the third inspiration, this is what I think he meant. Respect is engendered by trust, equality, love, forgiveness, integrity and mutual liking. Admiration is engendered by personal attributes that will vary according to the admirer but in my case cleverness, resourcefulness, resiliance and acheivement. Passion is engendered by; love, sex, chemistry and shared enjoyment of food, music, sport....

So here is my ideal life

I would live near to my family. I love them, I love their company and I would simply adore being included in all the family events. As for the actual geographic location. My home in the mountains is pretty nice, but I think I am deep down more suited to an urban setting. I have always wanted to live in France, mainly because I was rather good at the language at school. A loft apartment in Paris maybe, or just somewhere English speaking, Melbourne, London, New York. Definitely a small manageable home, in amongst the hussle and bussle, with a lively local community that I could connect with. As for my job, I would like something creative, that involved creating a usable artifact. As a child I loved to run, sing, play the piano and make clothes. Software development does fulfil this to a degree, but what I would really like to be is an Architect, fashioning the lived environment. Finally the most difficult part, to describe my ideal partner. Despite a life time searching and a good deal of compromise, I have never met my soulmate. My ideal partner would be someone with a similar level of interests and accomplishments as myself. A trained professional, who could earn their own living, active in sport and a good amateur on a musical instrument, or voice, with enough knowledge or love of culture and arts to be able to talk about it happily and freely and maybe participate at some level - draw paint sculpt cook.dance...Someone who is internally tough and does not need to be babied, but at the same time someone who I am sexually compatible with who's body soul and very being I long to be near to.

I faint at how lost I am to myself

How odd that when I translate my own attributes into those I look for in a man, I automatically feel I am asking too much, and that such a person would be too good for me? how low I aim!

I am frankly horrified by the man I live with, who recreates by lying on the sofa, farting loudly and listening to offcolor racist sexist humour downloaded off the internet, or porn. I can't believe this is my life choice. I do not seek to change him, I know this is impossible, cha·cun à son goût, but sadly neither do I seek to marry him.