Cha-Cha-Cha-Cha Cha-a-anges...

I was thinking this morning about who I am today and how I got to this point. It is amazing, if you stop to think about it, how people can come into your life and change the entire fabric of who you are, what you want out of life, and how you go about finding it.

Not that they have the ability to change the core 'you,' so to speak but they change how you look at the world around you and go about getting what it is that you may not have realized you wanted.

I am not going to name names so if you were looking for some random episode of True Confessions, perhaps you should stop reading now. But there were two distinct people who have touched my life and helped me become the virg of today.

One was a man. Yeah. I don't use the word man loosely either. I don't know many 'men.' I remember that when this particular guy started hanging around, I wanted nothing to do with him. The timing was all wrong for a relationship and that seemed to be what he wanted from me. Also, he was NOT my type. At all. I mean... He was sort of a dork.

Perspective. That is another funny thing that can change. But I digress.

Anyway, what started out as something I didn't want ended up being a huge life-changing event for me. I learned how I wanted to be treated as a woman (I want to be friend, equal and partner and it really is possible to be all of that at once. I want to feel sexy and irresistible and be able to laugh with you. I want moments that take my breath away right alongside moments that I laugh so hard I can't breathe. ) and how I wanted to be looked at.

I also learned what it felt like to really lose someone you love. To have your heart break in your chest. But to have been loved well enough to have the strength to go on...
But with much higher expectations for the future. Never again would I settle for someone who 'looked' good enough to date. Never again would I settle for someone who 'kind of' got me.

Never again would I fall for a line of bullshit from a man. I had heard one actually tell me the truth... and I knew what it sounded like now.

So although that little relationship didn't work out (Obviously... I am single.) it changed my view on men and of myself. If I deserved to be loved like that once, I deserved it again. And if I couldn't be loved like that, I didn't want any love at all. It upped my standards. I wanted more, now. So without that relationship fail, I would have settled for shit my whole life and never known I was missing out. So even failure can be a victory of sorts.

The other really life changing event was a friend. I guess I never really saw myself as particularly strong or independent. I always had said I was, before her, but I was afraid to really be either of those things. I let people control me and figured it was better, safer, to be loved even if loved meant being controlled.

I didn't really get, before her friendship came along, that love didn't mean control. Love meant leaving someone to make their mistakes and being willing to pick them up if they fell. Not making decisions for them so they never fell. Falling is learning. Falling is part of LIVING. I was kind of afraid to live before I met her. Afraid to fail.

Then I met her and she was brave and sometimes bitchy and bossy... and I realized it was because she knew that even if she fell, she had people around her that loved her enough to catch her when she fell. I totally didn't have that.

Now I surround myself with these 'safety net' kind of people. And I keep away from those that would control me. Because I can see them now. I couldn't before her. And I try new things everyday. And I am not scared. (Okay, the strokes probably helped her influence a little... Hard to be a chicken shit when you don't know what tomorrow will hold.)

But I guess the point of this whole rant is that people come into your life and leave sticky little bits of themselves, their souls, with you. Even if they are gone. Some of these people make you weaker and damage you because the bits they leave behind are sharp and jagged and tear at who you are. Others leave bits that change your whole outlook on the world... Sort of like glasses for the eyes of the soul.

I would not be the writer I am today if I didn't have them in my life. I wouldn't be able to love as much as I can without them. I feel they made me a better mother, friend and all around human being.

If I had the words to thank these two people, I would embarrass them both horribly and thank them. Probably with tears in my eyes.

The best I have is to say thank you. Thank you for helping me see the world in another way.

Neither of them read my blog that I know of. So probably neither of them will ever know that I feel this way.

But it doesn't change the fact that they save me, just a little, everyday. And for that, I love them.

And I probably always will.