Time to Saddle Up!

by Richard A. Allcorn   

I completed a divorce not quite 2 years before this writing.  It was the hardest thing I've ever done.  My former wife and I were the best of friends, great roommates too!  But, we just weren't "in love"!  I tried everything that I knew, concerning faith, in confessing, believing, acting, and trusting GOD ... but you cannot "make" someone to fall in love with you.  She loved me, don't get me wrong.  But she was not "in love" with me.  In fact, many things about me she didn't even like!  The criticisms, and the picking, the spying and what seemed like micromanaging of my life finally got to a point where I felt like I was being bullied, emotionally.  It's not her fault ... she was just being "her".  But we were not compatible in that realm.  And it took it's toll.  

When two people are in love, they love and adore their partner!  They like everything you can imagine about them!  And because of the way they are with one another, they simply cannot stand to be apart!  They cannot imagine living without the other!  And that was the problem, I could imagine that.  My former partner rarely if ever complimented me.  When asked about it, she remarked, "I thought it would go to your head."  What she didn't understand was, the more "public" a person is, the more they need the compliments, the reassurance, the pat on the back.  It won't go to their head, it reassures them that they're "ok".  And that's been one of my biggest problems is, I constantly think that I'm "not good enough", "not liked by others", and "a big failure".  I desperately needed her praise, her uplifting, and her reassurance, just to be happy.  

Since the divorce, I've learned alot, about myself and about people in general.  I have learned that I desperately need the feedback she was unwilling to give.  On occasion, I would come across her talking to someone and I would overhear her talking about something I did that she thought was wonderful!  And I remembered thinking to myself, "Why doesn't she ever tell 'me' these things?"  Remember that in your relationships.  People "need" reassurance, uplifting, encouragement and praise.  It's important!  A compliment, an encouragement, a pat on the back for just about anything, will go a long way!  

In the relationship that I want with my hopefully soon partner in life, I must have that "in love" romance, that spark, that "lightening strike" in my life!  Anthony Hopkins put it best in his lines from the movie, "Meet Joe Black", when he said, "I want you to get swept away.  I want you to levitate.  I want you to sing with rapture, and dance like a dervish!  I want you to be deliriously happy!" He then told her, "Love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without ..."  He went on to say, "Fall head over heels!  Find someone you can love like crazy, who will love you the same way back!  Forget your head and listen to your heart."  He told her, "Theres no sense living your life without this."

When she wondered if she would EVER meet anyone like that, he told her, "Keep your heart open.  You never know, lightening could strike!"  And "that" is what I am looking for and am purposed to find.  I don't want just "anyone".  I've tried 3 times, being married to someone I thought would make a good wife, a good marriage.  But I realized that I've never been "in love"!  I have loved, but it's not the same thing.  I want "the magic"!  I want the passion, the obsession!  I WANT the lightening to strike!  

About 7 months or so ago, I started driving trucks, making at least $2,000 per week!  It was my intent to wipe out any/all of my debt, and money that I might owe to others, and then put the rest in the bank.  After all, I'm not paying for a home, and I'm gone all the time so I don't have a chance to spend what I make, so it's the perfect opportunity!  

In September of last year I started working for a trucking company making about $2,500/week. It was a great job, driving over-the-road in a beautiful truck. Then, about 3 weeks into the job, we were sued and our assets were frozen/locked-down.  I worked for the next 5 months without a paycheck.  

We won the lawsuit, but the judge gave them 90 days to release the funds! Our company barely survived, and only because of my driving!  All of the other drivers were gone.  It was a hard time for me, not being able to pay my bills, not even having money for the little things I might want to buy while traveling.  Then finally, after 5 months of this, I came home for some time off.  The intent was that these guys who sued the company will have released our funds and I could get paid my paychecks, and then we would start again driving, making more money to put in the bank, to get financially stable, solid and responsible.  It didn't happen that way.  

March 15th came and went, and these guys instead of releasing the funds began a legal song-and-dance to delay and hang on to the money!  It's evil, vindictive, and it's holding up MY paychecks!  So, I am still waiting for my 5 months of backpay.  I am not sure whether the company is going to survive this attack or not.  They don’t know when they’ll be able to pay me.  And so my big plans to turn my life in the right direction and get my act together ... it failed.  

I'm left this Monday morning, facing the situation, the odds, the results and the backlash of this all.  It just reassures anyone who thinks that I'm a failure that I must be, and will never amount to anything.  At least that's what the devil is saying in the back of my head.  And Monday is what I call "buckin' chute day".  If you've ever been to a rodeo, you're in the bucking chute, straddled atop a very large brahma bull, and you're cinching up the straps, checking your gloves and your hold, to make sure you can stay on when the gate is opened!  Because, you see, you've only got 8 seconds that you have to stay on.  Everything depends on how you start the ride, and how you maintain the duration.  

In the same way, on a Monday, you are starting your week.  How you prepare is how well the ride is going to go once they open that gate!  And that's where I am this morning ... my head is spinning in my thoughts about a recent encounter online where I saw the face of a woman that stopped me dead in my tracks! 

Now I've seen alot of beautiful women online, but this woman ... her eyes, her smile, her face ... I can't pin it down, but something about me seized me up as I was browsing through ... it's like a heavy chain was attached to a tree stump, and to the bumper of my pickup.  And I was attempting to just drive on thru, but suddenly ... suddenly, I was stopped dead cold!  My heart was racing, my blood pumping, and my eyes could not let go of the image I had just seen!  It was my first experience at "love at first sight", ever!

Today, I have all of that on my mind, AND wondering what I'm going to do now, with my future, now that my plans have been suddenly halted!  And what if I'm going to meet this "Selin" ... that I wrote about in my last post, "Love at First Sight". 

Now I have to find a way to suddenly begin to come up with lots more money, to get my life together, to find an alternate plan or financing to resume my previous plan.  Why?  I not only want to be responsible, but I "want" a life with this newfound love.  She "illumines" me, filling me with hope.  We haven't met yet but are planning to do that this month.  I want to be ready.  

And so, here I find myself, atop the brahma bull, tightening my straps, securing my gloves and my hold
on this beast, and I am beginning my week.  Just a few more seconds here and as the buzzer goes off the gate will swing wide and it's time for the ride!  The ride can be rough and treacherous, but I have to ask myself, am I ready ...

In a recent conversation with Lanie Gardner, she asked me, "What does love mean to you, Rich?"  Lanie has always been an awesome friend, and she asks the questions that need to be asked, and she digs deep into life like all of us need to.  Thats why her songs are so awesome!  I thought about what she asked me, and these words just began to flow ... 

I share this with you today, on my personal blog.  One day soon, I will publish it, but I am posting it, for now, so it is "known" that I wrote it. 
(copyright stuff)  

I dedicate this writing to Lanie Gardner, for inspiring me and for encouraging me, to write ...

What Is Love?

by Richard A. Allcorn   

An extremely powerful, overwhelming feeling that comes from deep down inside the innermost places of your heart, that you have for another, resulting in feelings of despair, anxiety, difficulty breathing, and even a feeling of emptiness, when they're not around you, when you're separated, or if they are not yet in your life.  You literally cannot live or function without them!  

When you love someone like this, you will do anything for them!  

Each day of your life you spend showing them how much they mean to you. You massage their feet while watching TV, you shower with them and apply shampoo and conditioner for them, as you massage their back, neck, and shoulders…  all just to show them how much they mean to you.  When you're walking together, whether on the beach or through the mall, you hold their hand, or maybe place your hand in the small of their back, letting them know that you're always there.  You open the door for them, pull out their chair for them, and you throw the bathroom towels in the dryer just before you both shower ... just to make it all special ... for them.  

Because THEY are always there for you, doing the things that YOU like to do, and enjoying it, because they get to be with you, your love then makes you want to find out and discover THEIR dreams and THEIR hopes, and play an integral part in helping THEM to achieve THEIR dreams and the things that they have always wanted to do.  

It's about working hard, trying to help each other to reach the point of being the very best that each of you can be.  It's about allowing them to KNOW that, even if you are fighting death, or maybe in a coma, and everyone else is saying just pull the plug… You are the one to fight for them!  You are the one to not give up on them.  You refuse to quit, and you refuse to allow them to die, and leave you, because of your love for them.

No one else even knows that, while all of this is going on, you on the other side are having a discussion with God, as to whether to come back or whether to stay in Heaven.  No one knows that you are on the brink of a major decision for your "life", and because the one you love is fighting for you down here, you have that chance to return, and you have that chance to beat this thing, and finish your life with them!!

Love is that feeling you get when they come walking into the room, and your whole body lights up!  Love is when your blood pressure rises, and your heart starts to beat, and you want to be intimate with them.  Love is when they look at you intently, you can feel your whole body responding!  You want to express your feelings towards them.  You may kiss them, or hug them, or the two of you may excuse yourselves from the party and leave early.  And when you are intimate, you're totally completed.  Your focus is on "their pleasure", not yours!  You do everything within your power, to be the best that you can be, for them, so that in every area, you rock their world!  

That's what love is.  It's that kind of commitment to the other.  And this doesn't come from an online chat, or getting a few likes electronically.  But you discover this when you look deep into their eyes, and you get lost in there somewhere as you wander through their soul with your heart.

You discover this each and every time they touch you, or when they run their fingers through your hair, or when they scratch the back of your neck with their fingernails, or rub up against you in a crowd, on purpose, just to let you know that their desire is for you, and for you only!  

You want to be intimate with this person as often as you can, because it brings about an even closer feeling than you've ever experienced ... with anyone!  And you don't want anything to come between what the both of you have, so you seek that intimacy with them at every opportunity.  It makes you feel that much closer to their heart.  

That's what love is all about. Your life becomes centered around them, and their life becomes centered around yours.  You get involved in everything they do, just so you can be with them, whatever you have to do!  And likewise, they do the same for you.

Each of you enters into areas of interest that you might never have considered, but because of the one you love, you will do just about anything to spend each and every day with them.

God said it best, when one day He was pondering the condition of the man He had recently created.  He said, "It is not good for man to be alone."  And in His l commitment to the man He had created, and for that mans happiness, God fashioned the most beautiful creature that He had ever before created ... "woman ".

Woman was created for the man, not the other way around. God created her specifically for the man.  And God created the woman from parts of the man, that would place "her" in a place where he would not be complete without her!  He did this because they are meant for each other.  

Love is when two people, who share the feelings just described, come together to become one flesh, and they love their lives together, in the fullness of this thing we call love, and life.  

by Richard A. Allcorn  

© Copyright  All rights reserved.  04/04/2024

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