Chapter One: Too Tough for Love
Do strong, independent women unconsciously push away the love they deserve? How do you balance being a “tough girl” and having a life partner?
Chapter Two: Strong Enough to Leave
When it’s time to go, it’s time to go. How do you know when it’s time to make the break?
Chapter Three: Tough Enough to Stay
You want to run, but here are the reasons you should probably stay.
Chapter Four: Facing the Brutal Facts
You’re beautiful, sexy, independent, strong, and completely fabulous all on your own. But you’ve got problems.
Chapter Five: Tackle the Past
And now it’s time to deal with them.
Chapter Six: Selecting Your Sidekick
What exactly do you want anyway, tough girl?!
Chapter Seven: Staying Tough
Ways to make it work while maintaining your independent self.

Something has happened where we have allowed our lives to be, forgive me, cluttered by people.   People who likely weren’t fit to survive the friend test prior to the advent of online friends or circles.  People who we may even spend time, precious time, looking at their family photos, reading their status updates, or perhaps even communicating with.  And to what end?  Do these relationships add value to our lives? More likely than not, we are spending this time focusing on someone who, had social networks stayed extinct, we may not recognize today.  They would pass us by in the deli aisle at Whole Foods with their children strapped to a plastic-car grocery cart, and we wouldn’t have exchanged a word.  And life would be equally as beautiful.

Facebook, Google +, and whatever other social networks will exist have screwed with the natural, social evolution of our relationships.  People came and went from our lives.  We learned lessons.  We moved on.  Now, they are all here – and they are here for good.  I’m not sure we are better off for it.

But the fresh start forces you to question: What now?  But the answer does not lie with the fresh start.  It is fresh. It is new.  It does not know the answer.  In fact, you just asked it its very first question – the most important question you will ever ask of it.

So, what now?  I am still a writer. I am a lover.  I am a skeptic in rehab.  I am a cautious believer.

Imagine the sorry you owe me.
You smile as you deliver the story.
Reminds me you were never weary
of your own mortality.

Shower me in that heavy blanket
the one with you cuddled in it.
Your ghost can whisper you love me
and that you never want to sleep without me.

And I can fall asleep
resting in that peace.

Here’s the picture:

I’m old. I’m dying. On my deathbed kind of dying.

As my life flashes before me, there’s this timer in the upper right hand corner.  It has logged all the hours of my life I wasted watching bad movies.

End picture.

So, when I see a bad movie, I don’t have a rational reaction. I get angry.  Really angry.  These are hours of my life I cannot get back.  Avatar was one of those movies.  And the more I think about it, the more angry I get.

I am writing in it.

I spent yesterday organizing, cleaning, moving things around.

Where should my Ohio license plate go?

Where does my Lebron James bobble-head look its best?

Do I sit where I can see out the window to the mountains surrounding our home or do I sit facing a wall so I don’t get distracted?

I have options in my room.

And today is the first day I wrote when writing is the only job I have.

Today I am a writer.

http://www.twirlit.com/2009/12/18/working-together-how-to-make-sure-it-works-out/

http://www.twirlit.com/2009/12/18/his-cheating-heart-can-tiger-syndrome-be-cured/

http://www.twirlit.com/2009/12/18/keeping-love-alive-when-life-keeps-happening/