The Kiss of The Unknown

by Aashdoda

© June 14, 2011

          The kiss of the unknown is a very hard thing to savor sometimes when it is messing with my love life because someone thinks it is right to take my identity and pretend they are me to my love, then take his and do it to me.  They try to extort money, manipulate, fabricate heart wrenching stories just to get what they want, more money!  It may not be personal to them but to me it is very personal.

          I've never been a woman to be trifled with and as I age far less so.

          "Get a job!  Get a life!" I snap back knowing that's the only way anyone gets anywhere in this world.  "You want something then go earn it."  I understood this at age 8.  I went and got my first job throwing newspapers so I could afford to buy jeans my mother wouldn't because she told me we didn't have the money.  It was so elementary to me it was like adding 1+1 in school and it equaled the action of responsibility.

          Being responsible for my own need to have a warm pair of jeans was my first experience with learning that I was responsible for what I do and do not do.  I saw that I could do without them and be cold or have the jeans I wanted and stay warmer on the long 2 mile trek to and then again from school every day.  Colorado's cold isn't the most unforgiving around, no moisture to speak of most of the time makes it milder than most climates however, there are days that isn't the case especially when the snow was up over my knees.  I simply saw no need to suffer because I had the will to change it, no need to whine or feel sorry for myself.  I saw no need to argue about it with my mother.  She had clothed me the best she could but the pants I had were hand-me-downs and thread bare unlike the ones I wanted.  I simply saw that I could change the situation if I applied myself and did it.

          I had no reason to disbelieve my mother and every reason to help myself.  In fact that was a long standing joke in my family because I was all but born saying, "I myself."  Stomping my tiny 16 month old foot in protest because I wanted to tie my own shoes like everyone else, never mind the fact I hadn't a clue how.

          In the process of life I have found that it is paramount to be responsible for what energy I am creating and bringing into this world.  In life I am either corrupting or blessing every situation and everyone I touch.  I'm not a victim so scams are lost on me early in the game.  I live by feel and I know when I'm being played even by the best.  The subtlest lie leaves a faint smell of stench I've grown up with and I recognize it anywhere.  The hardest place to catch it is on the internet because most of human communication is nonverbal which betrayers feelings are able to keep carefully hidden behind a distant computer screen.

          The internet is nothing but the unknown, throw a heart into the mix hoping to look only to for the love of a like minded soul to spend time with, something that can grow into a relationship and hopefully find that special someone to grow old with, and suddenly without warning your ISP is hacked, your conversations hijacked and I find myself in the darkest place I've known in years.  I'm flying blind!  I hate it but this is what our world has come to, the stage between the real honest communication between two people and the growing technological seam popping of progress where upon the improvements haven't caught up to creating that perfect environment where real honest communication can't be faked, barring of course the choice to lie.

          Lies are so much more than a slippery slope.  They cause the liar to slip and slid and struggle to remember the details if it's going to be convincing but the fact they are tearing their own soul apart in the process is the real tragedy.  Every lie is a paper cut to the spirit and soul, some eventually festering with infections that are hard to stop.  In time the tissue itself will rot and fall off, disintegrating the limbs one by one until it's too late.

        At 8 I figured it out, responsibility was simply an act of responding, choosing how I wanted to act.  Reacting is a gut level response without thought, without choice put into action.  Often desire is a great motivation to react without thought or care to someone else's feelings and situation.  Reactions can be both good and bad but generally I see them as uninformed ignorance or choice to be ignorant and thoughtless.  The only time reactions are helpful to me are those born of my already predetermined by conscious considerable choice how I have chosen to live my life with healthy and appropriate boundaries, enforcers of those boundaries.  Cross those boundaries and I will react with a verbal declaration to go no further or..., that is when I lay out the consequences of proceeding further and reveal my considerable powers of will and action that will in fact enforce the undesired conclusion.  I'm tough and hard if I have to be, far more than any diamond thought it could be.

        I have been a woman scammer's seem to think is a push over on the internet.  I am as kind and nice, thoughtfully soft and womanly nurturing, as I appear to be.  I don't have a desperate bone in my body.  Living alone is a pleasure of its own though not knowing me they can't begin to size me up, I am a woman after all.  Cross me however and my mother's instincts and survival mode or self preservation will instantly kick in and I am a bear to deal with.  I will play with them just to see how far they intend to take the game, waste their time and efforts before I slam them much harder than they could ever see coming.  Mess with my heart and I will not let that go. 

        I never mess with other people's hearts or affections.  I live the Golden Rule and I never expect to be treated any other way than honestly.  The heart is a primal place no one should ever be cruel or dismissive, nor betray the confidence of intimacy established.  I believe it to be one of the most heartless things a person can do is to betray anothers trust, because it betrays the entire relationship and leaves scars that sometimes go so much deeper than is possible to know.  Why knowingly or unknowingly destroy someone because you think, and think is the operative word here, they have something you want?  Love in particular doesn't come along every day.  It is the most incredible blessing I have ever known and been honored to experience, a sacred treasure beyond anything that can be described.

        As I've waded into the internet dating scene looking for companionship with the potential hope for something more to grow out of a basic healthy relationship I realize that the kiss of the unknown is immensely sweet or devastatingly sour.  It has been my unfortunate experience to have tasted the sour of life so much more than I've known sweetness.  Websites have tools at their disposal to make this kiss of the unknown much safer for all of us yet they still do not use them, statistics tools that track IP's from the country of origin.  All it would do is tell those of us looking if the person is in fact telling the truth or not at the beginning.  It is a very sad commentary on humanity that we still need to govern some people's behavior.  At least this would give many or us a real chance to find the real thing.

        Even so the loneliness in my heart says give love one more try.  Just because a few apples in the barrel are rotten to the core, spoiled and nasty, doesn't mean the entire barrel is a waste.  The kiss of the unknown lives in my memory now just as it always has with both agony and ecstasy.  I simply choose to look hopefully toward the later mindful of the former and the games that reveal which I'll find under certain circumstances.

        I am in awe of the human spirit and it's resilience!  The eternal optimist I am perhaps I have more resilience than I ever dreamt.

        Here's to love and to life!  I plan on getting the best of everything I can, earning it.  I will learn when it hurts, and I'll kiss every toad I must to find one special enough to keep here beside me that wants me for the same reasons.  Rotten apples aside, love is worth the risk, the pain and the fear of the unknown kiss.