ONLINE...TOO MUCH WINE!

If last summer was the height of my impulsive, “70”’s, face-licking, free spirit and fall was the height of my optimistic, soul searching, believer in all thing’s romance related;

Winter began my phase of ambivalence with dating, romance and all things connected to online pursuit of love.

In hindsight this seems like a natural rhythm anyone might have with a passion they are pursuing. We start out with a certain beginner’s luck so to speak. Our complete and total naiveté makes us open and wide-eyed this is a very magnetic influence and I must say a majority of my dates took place during this period.

Then as we learn the ropes and experience makes us wise we create intention around our action’s and our taste bud's tingle with the thrill of knowing and knowing more!

It is only fair to expect that at every point in a stage wave’s peak and this is exhilarating to say the least and waves also have low’s this can be a time for insight and reflection or sometimes a cause for paralysis based on the lack of momentum and the shift in energy.

I had reached a point of entitlement and boredom by January. I made it through the holiday’s as a single girl dating and seeing men. I had managed to have a great time and avoid the “holiday woes” most singles succumb to. I threw a holiday party and I honored the ties of my friendship’s. I was incredibly pleased with myself entering the New Year.....

Little did I know around the corner lurked a devilish little elf of emotion waiting to embody me.

When the holiday’s passed and I was spinning in the delight that I had not actually been undone by them I failed to notice the transformation in my attitude around dating.

I felt entitled...and I was bored....and I was tired.

Let me break these bad boy’s down a bit.

As a native New Yorker I understand entitlement and the traps that come with it well.

Similar to some of the religious practice’s out there entitlement is based upon suffering.

I know many native’s of New York who feel that a golden key should be placed in their palms with any apartment of their choice in Manhattan at their disposal simply because we grew up here in this ridiculous city where our High School’s had security guards and our playgrounds had abandoned drug paraphernalia.

We may feel this way but the truth is we know at our core that in some way this was our path and it has made us who we are today.

This does not change the ugly truth that when we feel entitled to something we are the farthest from achieving it because the feeling that you deserve an outcome acts as a block to your heart, it becomes the obstacle.

This winter I had assessed my efforts at dating and I believed that I was done....

The universe owed me my man simple as that!

Another word for entitlement is “Black Hole” nothing happens in this phase I have learned.

Hence, bored as my second predicament this winter. My mother always said and this may seem cruel but it was so true, “When you are bored, you are boring.”

If I am wallowing in the belief I deserve my relationship dropped in my lap because I have spent an allotted amount of time committed to it and the process is taking longer than I thought and this is all I have to offer a given situation?

Boring! I tend to agree with my sometimes too truthful mother on this.

All of this leads one to the state of TIRED...

Two sometimes four dates a week, plus my job, and my regular practice left me little room to play with my friends and do the things I love on my off time because on my off time I was getting dressed up, meeting strangers, e-mailing...

My friend Gary said to me “I have never heard of a fairy-tale where the princess meets her prince because she is tired.”

UGH!

In Yoga we talk about Attitude being everything and it is! On occasion I will have a student leave class in the middle or come into class late and I don’t take it personally. This person is in their process and who knows what is going on in their head, in their heart, I can’t comprehend to take that on and the fact that they made it to class or had the self-love to walk away...it’s not my job to decipher this material.

Just because we are in a negative space does not necessarily mean we aren’t listening and more importantly shifting from this vortex of darkness to a place that invites light.

Last winter my attitude about dating was one of entitlement, boredom and fatigue....

Every-time I went online I saw the same faces, I reached the same conclusion’s, I met with the same obstacles. So, like any intelligent human does in a time of darkness I started drinking and going online as my practice...

Wine does alot to alter attitude! That said, wine is not helpful when it comes to discernment and truth...I stopped reading profiles and I stopped looking.

I replied only to those that would write me and I did very little to assess the candidate.

My basic requirement was: is he cute and is he under 40....

Under 40 is good but cute to a woman drinking wine online?

Negotiable....

Still, I do believe despite my poor attitude and my inebriated tactic’s I still managed to navigate my path towards love.

Vimarsha is a sanskrit word meaning reflection and it is of the highest kind. Intimacy is the purest practice of Vimarsha because we see in each-other ourselves.

At times this is emancipating and liberating and at time’s as with all things High and low as I discussed in the beginning we see in this reflection that which we do not wish to ever see! As yogi’s we know this to be a mirror that has brought up painful territory and has very little to do with the one reflecting.

During this period of dating I had my most painful reflection and it shifted me gratefully to where I am now.

Henry wrote me and expressed his interest in me during my winter of dating malaise.

I perused his profile (wordy and lengthy unlike most) which means I looked at his picture cute and more than one and he smiled in one, I surmised his age 35, and I made certain he was employed and lived close to NYC.

Done! I wrote him back...he instantly asked me for a drink and this raised my suspicion.

Dating in NYC is a game of timing and investment it is rare to meet under these circumstances. So I looked closer without my wine induced haze at his lengthy profile.

I did this after agreeing to meet him for a drink.

He met my requirement’s during the day! He was funny, smart, verbal, and sensitive.

He told stories and one of his many interest’s was writing! As I came to the bottom of his profile I found my reflection waiting like a surprise messenger in the wings “Exit pursued by bear” always a possibility with Shakespeare and boy did that man have a brilliant grip on life.

At the end of his profile Henry boldly announces his tragedy. He is missing a leg. He does this with a vulnerability and an amazing inner source of confidence in his writing style. It is my wish to honor him and not quote his profile but it was incredible his bravery and skill to put it out there on a dating site where most people confuse boldness with sexual prowess and skill.

I was blinded and disarmed by this discovery. I couldn’t fathom it and I had very little self- awareness at the time to process it.

I wanted out! I called my friend Mindy and told her the deal. She is a tried and true native of New York. We grew up together and now she lives in SanFransisico and after many years of her own “Dating” journey she is now married and incredibly fulfilled.

She is one of my many “Dolphin Friend’s” who would like to see me happily mated and does everything she can to positively skate me through this period.

“I agreed to meet him for a drink and now I just found out he is missing a leg!”

Mindy is an Iron-man champion and she has been around athlete's of all shapes and sizes including those that partake in these events with handicap’s.

I must say I have very little exposure in this forum and it shows in my complete lack of composure and grace.

After hearing me out Mindy says “Look, this is the least of your worries you have to meet him! There are fetish’s out there for amputee’s! Some people would kill to be in your shoes. In fact there are magazine’s all about people missing limb’s more popular than “Playboy”. My friend Rachel has a fantasy about a guy who is missing a leg. It’s sexy!” Here she sold me “I would much rather date a guy with one leg, than a smoker.”

That made sense to me....I kept the date and I braced myself because really all my fear and hesitancy was a “Vimarsha”. A reflection back to me of my own personal handicap’s and limitation’s.

I picked the bar on the lower east side and I was there first, early. Instantly I recognized my mistake. The place was crowded and full and there wasn’t a seat in the house. I was nervous! My protective instincts were on high gear and I knew this place was wrong. This throttled me awake from my dazed winter slumber.

When a person is ambivalent they lack emotional connection and care....there is very little at stake and very little meaning.

Henry’s predicament had me on high alert and I wanted to protect him as most women have a natural instinct to do.

I waited for him on the street. I expected he would have a prosthetic leg and possibly a cane? He had no leg and two crutches....my heart went out to him and yet I wanted to behave “normally”....what? Nothing about this was “normal”.

I told him the bar was full and we should go across the street. We found two seats at the bar across the street and proceeded to have a pleasant “normal” conversation between two people who have just met...

When sitting it was easy to feel we were on mutual ground. I used to have a boyfriend who was 6’3” and I am 5’4” mind you. Whenever were out walking, dancing, meeting for a kiss it felt like alien’s attempting to interact. We soon loved our time together sitting or laying down because our entire reflection of each-other was even.

Henry and I had the same level of interaction here on our date. Two people sitting at the bar! Then he told me his story...it was inevitable.

He lost his leg in college while rushing a fraternity. He was on a scavenger hunt in the building’s of his University and one of the classroom’s was undergoing construction. A giant piece of Plywood fell on him across his lap...he waited 13 hours for someone to find him. Not your average first date conversation but...amazing and engaging and real.

His ability to share, my ability to listen and be empathetic this made for an intense first date exposure. Most first dates are laden with a certain superficial dance of hidden agenda and flirtation. This one was raw, exposed and steeped in confrontation which was exactly what I needed at the time.

I saw him and I saw me being seen by him and seeing myself seeing him....

Vimarsha!

Henry lost his leg in College when he was 19 years old and his life was full of promise and possibility. When we met he was 35 years old and spent almost the same amount of time on this earth without a leg full of promise and possibility from a new perspective.

His ability to go online and to share his story his amazing bravery inspired me and it drew me out of my own personal comfort zone.

I told him the story of my own handicap. I lost my best friend when I was seven. For me this was not equivalent to losing a leg...I can’t comprehend that loss.

What I can comprehend is the life that has changed as a result of this traumatic event and the way a spirit, a soul, a human being is shaped with this painful loss in our bloodstream, in our heart-stream, in our every endeavor.

This date brought to surface a great deal of sadness for me. I went home and cried.

I tried to establish who I was crying for, but it was unclear.

I was crying for Henry, I was crying for myself, I was crying for my lost best friend who like a limb was taken from me and I always feel the painful ache even when no one can see it.

The people we meet have a past and our lives are full of gain and abundance but equally so full of loss and departure. It may not be as visible as a missing limb but truth be told we are all in a state of longing for something, someone, at this stage in our lives we have experienced loss to some degree and this takes it’s toll on us.

Some of us reply by burying this loss and navigating life as a tool to avoid this innate scar on our psyche. Some of us choose to look, to live, to share and carry this loss as one of the many experience's life has offered. In Henry’s case his loss is evident to all and he has grown accustomed to explaining it, to living with it, to making his mark on this earth in the best way he knows how.

We never met again after this date and we never spoke again either.

I think it was a mutual agreement that we needed to meet for our single purpose’s but that our togetherness was not in the cards.

I am so full of gratitude for our meeting because I learned my heart is compassionate even when I am down and I bear a loss from my past that I must honor and recognize when I am safe and comfortable enough to share.

It was a sobering encounter that brought me closer to my own Vimarsha and helped me to distinguish how and when I wished to share this reflection with other’s.

I am so grateful to have the choice....