Quaking Aspens in October.

I do a little hiking and photography when I actually wake up at a decent time of day. These are my favorite trees. The photos were taken in North Cheyenne Mt. Canyon.

Long time, no post.

Whoa, I have a blog? I had no idea. It has been a long hard 2 plus years since I wrote a damn thing. I had to tare down my whole life and build a new one. I realized that I was seriously ill with a spiritual sickness. Man that sounds like some lame hippy bullshit, but I happen to be a pretty lame hippy so I'm going to go with it. Anyway, I have a new life in Colorado Springs, 1600 miles away from my hometown. I'm still a food slave, just with a more scenic view. Back when I started this blog, I think I thought by now I would be done with college and married to my then boyfriend living all happily ever after. Until I realized that I have this problem with honesty, even with myself. It had rendered my life unmanageable. Everything spiraled out of control when another man came along and I did the right thing in the most wrong way possible. I had to tell the truth and hurt the man I thought I loved and was going to spend at least a large part of my life with. He went into a serious depression, painful denial, and attempts at suicide. It was terrifying that I could cause this. And it wasn't the first time a breakup had ended like this for me. I had two relationships end the same way. I became bored or resentful or uninterested, took comfort in the attention of other men, and was eventually found out by the significant other, sending them into psychosis. This was turning out the be the third time my relationship fell apart so extravagantly. How could this happen? How to I attract the same type of men over and over? I than asked this next question for the first time ever. Whats wrong with...me? That's right, I did something some people may never do, I took responsibility. I realized it was me, not these not-so-innocent victims the men I "loved" turned out to be. I had developed an unhealthy relationship pattern that had rendered my life unmanageable. Just like a drunk realizing it isn't the whiskey they have to blame, it's them, and there disease of alcoholism. Relationships were my whiskey. For a while I was almost homeless, But I some how managed to finish school at the end of the 2011 spring semester. I had lost contact with the other man, which was mostly thanks to him. I had realized I had a problem and had to break the cycle. I had to stop destroying any opportunity to be successful with my desperate need to not be alone. I had to find a power greater than myself and realize that no man would ever make me whole. I had to find that within me and my higher power. Once I became honest with myself, I would love to tell you life got easier; Everything was perfect; I lived happily ever after. It didn't. What happened is that I developed a real relationship with myself, not one dressed up in pretty lies. It was raw and sometime disgusting and very painful, but from it I grew so much. The other man came back into my life later that year. We slowly grew closer, which was a challenge for me, the whole slow thing. I would now not only call him my lover, but my best friend. We're on an adventure together. So far it has taken is to Colorado and up two 14000 foot mountains, and to a new level of honesty. I now realize that honesty is as essential to any relationship as love itself. We are a normal couple, we are not perfect. We fight and make up and disagree and fight some more. I know now that everything that happens was all part of a master plan that isn't mine, and I can only control my little piece of the puzzle. Life is so much about letting go, and as some say, letting "God." I'm not writing this as a conclusion. I still have a long long way to go, and I know I will never be free of this addiction. But if I stay honest, and remember that even when I am alone, I am never alone, I will keep the upper hand. I can be free if I let myself.

If you read this, and it sounds familiar, there are others like you who have fought the same battle, and we can help.