Taking the next step.

One thing about hitting rock bottom, in a relationship or otherwise.

Choices become simple again.

I’m not saying that they become easy.  Just simple.

It is like learning how to walk all over again.

Take the next step.

And these are the steps I have taken since I said goodbye to 2012:

• I realized that the new relationship I had forged with a man towards the end of 2012 was not giving me what I wanted, and so I ended it mid-January, quickly, and with very little emotional trauma.
• Made a list of attributes and values important to me in a man.
• I paid attention to people again, strangers, and realized again how much I loved people.
• Realized that I didn’t in fact hate men.  I loved them.  Loved their quirkiness, their idiosyncrasies, their physicality, their humor, their strength, everything.
• Dated some wonderful men and just as easily, let them go, since they didn’t have all the attributes I was looking for.  Easy to do when you make it about values.
• Allowed the man I broke it off with in January back into my life, with expectations for the new relationship clearly defined.
• Realized that he met all the attributes and values I had delineated earlier in the year.
• Didn’t get scared.
• Didn’t build castles in the sky.
• Just as quickly realized that I had to live each day purposefully.
• Which meant I had to choose, consciously and deliberately, to enjoy what I was experiencing in the moment, without fast-forwarding ahead in the relationship, anticipating the various scenarios I would normally spin in my head.
• Which is really hard to do.  But oh, so fulfilling.

And when I live like this?  Taking the next step, consciously and deliberately, without thinking too far ahead?

I’m happy.

Right here and right now.