The grass is always greener.

I feel like having been through what I have in my life I should be a lot wiser than I currently am. It amazes me how naive and oblivious I can be. How swept up in the moment I become as my curly blonde head is catapulted skywards to bob merrily around amidst the cumuli. Retrospection prompts a counter-response, and I metaphorically curl up in to the foetal position.

I have had a very surreal weekend for a girl who three weeks ago spent weekends, well - alone. I rarely feel lonely. I have fantastic friends and have learnt to feed my soul with endorphins and nature and solitude. And for some not insignificant time in the recent past, whatever the activity, whoever it was with, things have been done on my terms, as a solitary unit. And there has been peace and an element of invincibility that has accompanied being alone.

I've always considered myself a dire romantic, with a raging feline vanity glorifying in flattery and affection, and secretly cultivated delusions of ultimately being destined for a hedonistic existence worshipped by some hapless lesser mortal of the opposite sex. I think it was because I have never had anything remotely along those lines before, and that's what fantasies are for. I have decided that the ex-boyfriend, the only boy I've ever loved in 'adult' fashion, was emotionally lazy, he was uninspired, and he was frightened, of what I am unsure, but he was hopelessly rooted in his sedentary comfort zone that over time suffocated me, suffocated the whimsical and spontaneity in me.

That's not to say there weren't wonderful things about him. I mean he tolerated what a head case I could be for one. But I am suddenly achingly aware of the kaleidoscope of people in the world, the jigsaw puzzle pieces of people in existence that joined could make an infinite number of pictures. I am curious about the potential for love without crippling compromise that would not callously cast shadowy judgments or scorch like an over-zealous mid-day sun, but instead allow each other to furl and unfurl flower-like at the appropriate times in life. Surely there could be appropriate nuturing and appreciation, but no requests to change colour, or grow facing a certain direction, or worst of all, neglect.

I'm not saying I'm falling in love. This new boy is rather at the opposite end of the spectrum from what I am used to, and perhaps I just need a good hard back hand but I suspect his intensity. At moments I watch the courtship with a detached objectivity and marvel that although time has given me perspective, it has by no means healed all. At this present moment I have a deepened awareness of myself, of why it is I don't want to be vulnerable, why it is hard for me to trust, how perhaps I need patience and tenderness much more than I need to be twirled around on moonlit beaches or gazed at adoringly over the rim of a glass heaped with cabernet merlot. I particularly don't want to take on anyone emotionally weaker than me, not at this stage in my life. As I go about my day allowing a stranger in to my life, my fears, my bedroom, I expect to hear an inner voice chanting softly from my core. The voice hovers protectively over a tiny blue flame that it has been guarding devoutly for many months, years, and it now burns solidly although it was once almost allowed to be snuffed out.

My mother always chastened me for over-analysing things.