Equal in the Garden of Eden

I'm still considering various aspects of being single, as it's a subject close to my heart at the moment. The whole area of attraction is very interesting. On a recent relationship course, there was a repetition of a theme - how confusing we find the opposite sex. I was pondering this and came to the conclusion that I don't find men confusing at all. I can understand perfectly where they are coming from, even if their position is contrary to mine. However as soon as I want to be romantically involved with one, they might as well be speaking Japanese as I can't fathom where they are coming from at all! It's a funny thing this men are from Mars etc, we weren't created as different species, it's not as if men are Baboons and women are Giraffes is it? God made us to complement each other, we have the same emotions, we just process them differently. Imagine how it would be if the church led the way on true equality between the sexes - our strengths equally recognized and our weaknesses equally compensated for. Imagine what would happen if men were affirmed as men and women were valued as a whole package and not just as sexual objects. Amongst my group of friends we've been thinking about what it means to live in community and obviously that mostly relates to how we interact with people that we don't have a natural affinity with but what if we added a further dimension to that and looked at the relationships between the sexes - we could start a revolution!

West Wing

I'm beginning to think that the West Wing is real.
I've been watching it from the beginning as I'd missed many of the early episodes, having been slow to pick on how fantastic it was. However, as I am using rented DVDs I have to watch them within a certain timeframe, which means seeing sometimes up to 3 episodes in one sitting.
I wish Josh Lyman was a real man not just a fictional character and wouldn't it be great if we had a President Bartlett?
I know, I know, back to reality...
If it was real though, I'd work in the White House.....

The beginning

So here I am, on another learning curve. However steep and difficult these curves may be at least I can always be comforted by the fact that they are upward curves. I mean, whoever heard of a downward learning curve? Downward spirals are a well known emotional state but thankfully I seem to have avoided those. I'm not saying that the altitude of the current curve hasn't meant that oxygen is a little sparse but I have always arrived at the peak of the summit....eventually. Anyway, enough of the mountaineering analogies now and on with the learning itself.
I am single and this year has been the first where I have actually been upset by it. Oh, I have cried many tears following various romantic rejections but 2005 has seen the first real torment on the single thing itself. What sets this kind of agony apart is the lack of light at the end of the tunnel. If someone breaks your heart, you know that however rubbish you feel, that time eventually will allow you to heal and the pain will lessen. Unfortunately, the light at the end of this tunnel would be a relationship and who knows when that will happen? I know that I don't need a man to complete me, I know that as I stand before God He has plans and purposes for me that rely on my unique skills, passions and talents but somehow I can't help feeling a little lopsided.....like I'm walking with a limp.
Still, this is a learning curve, the top hasn't been reached and there are plenty of new discoveries to be made.
I have been single for the majority of my life and one of the things that struck me recently is that my character has been developed and my self discovery made without reference to a man. I know myself in way that wouldn't have been possible if much of my twenties had been spent in and out of relationships. I'm not saying that all men are a bad influence (far from it) but you only need a couple of duds to completely eradicate your self worth, and we all know how long that can take to be reinstated. I'm going to carry on up this curve (in a 60's British comedy kinda way) and see what else I can discover....