Happy Birthday Love

Cheers lovers,

In this post, I would like to wish my blog a Happy Happy Birthday. It's 2 big years old!

Yes, exactly 2 years ago, I created NYL. It was the most exciting experience for me, and always felt very special. My blog has become a part of me, it's opened a window to my soul. I love you NYL.

If you recall, the purpose was to find true love in New York City. After somewhat disappointing experiences, I challenged myself to still believe...
But as I embarked on my journey, it became so much more. I shared most of my experiences with you, happy moments, big disappointments, ups and downs. I shared it all with no reservation. I wanted all (esp. my fellow New Yorkers) to be inspired to look for their own answers, to embrace the city (good and bad), to not lose hope, and most importantly let love in whatever way possible.

And the most amazing thing happened just 9 months ago. Last summer (2012), I reached my destination. I found the most important love of all, and shared it with you (http://sashasaid-newyorklove.blogspot.com/2012/09/so-what.html).
I realized that there is nowhere we need to look. It's already there, inside us. Love is inside all of us. We just need to see it, embrace it with all our hearts. Love is as deep as the ocean and it's inside you and me, and all of us. And that is the truth.
I am sorry if it sounds too New Age-y for some. But believe me, if you just keep on believing and doing your best, you'll find it one day as well. Trust me ;) For now, just know that it starts with You, Wonderful You!

So I found it. Not that I didn't know about it or didn't love myself, but it was only last summer that I finally got it. I realized, no matter where I am, who I am with, I always have my love for myself. This love is never changing, always there. It's more than enough, in fact, it's so huge you won't need to look for more. Quite the opposite, you'll want to share, give it to others.

Since then, whatever took place in my life was life. And I was living through all experiences in love I found within.

Just to sum it up, the following things happened:

1) Stopped looking for answers outside of myself. Now I look inside - it's all there. I listen to my soul, my inner voice that knows what's best for me.

2) Changed my living situation. I moved out from my roommate, and found a place for myself (and my Josephine) once again. And it never felt more like home!

3) Started listening to my body, and there was a lot it had to say. It resulted in mine cutting down on foods that didn't give me life, didn't give me energy. I'll write a separate post about it next. But watch out raw vegans, I am joining your club, at least half of the time :)

4) Canceled my gym membership to break the routine. I bought a bicycle, and started doing Kundalini Yoga. My mind, body and soul have never been this happy and alive!

5) Surrounded myself with happy and positive people.

6) and Many many other amazing things that made me move closer to my most authentic happy self.

And while I was going through all those changes, another most amazing thing happened. Love found me. Unexpectedly, quietly, and assuringly. I fell in love with the most amazing man I ever met. Will write about this in another post, for it surely needs to be a subject of its own :)

But for now, just believe me that once you embrace the love inside you, the most amazing love of another will join shortly. And if it can happen in NY it can happen anywhere....

Love to all.

If You Ever Loved Somebody Put Your Hands Up

I am immensely amazed whenever I hear people tell me that they’ve never been in love.

I know I should be understanding as there was a period in my life when I'd never experienced it. Yet whenever I hear this my eyes become larger than apples and all I can say is Really? How? Why?

Let me tell you, they are all normal people, at least they seemed to be. The fact that it was only men who ever confessed this important piece of information to me, made me re-consider that many times. Again men have their own ways that we women just don’t understand and never will. Yet I have no choice but to explore on this issue from my female perspective, hoping that in no way am I undermining men. I love you guys, and wouldn’t want to hurt you... But I am just too curious to pass on this subject.

First time, it happened 2 years ago, at my girl friend’s bachelorette party in Southampton, that a nice 33 y.o. guy confessed to me about his no-love experience. He was very cute and sweet. We talked for an hour, next hour we danced and it was a lot of fun (he might have been the most fun dancer I ever had). The last hour we kissed and it was even more fun as my friends literally had to pull me away from him and drag me back into a limo to go home. 

After that night, Ed and I dated for about 2 months, and I never could understand how is it such a sweet guy never was in love. I almost wanted to stick around longer to see how he falls in love with me and prove to myself (and maybe the rest of the world) that it was simply a matter of time and he was no stranger to love, he was one of us.. 

The second confession came from his closest friend, also a 33 y.o. guy. I found Stan very funny and witty. He had the looks and he was sharp. I even tried to set him up with my girl friend. And again I was sure that it was just temporary. A guy like that can’t go on in life without love. 

Since it didn’t work out for Ed and I, I forgot about this matter for awhile. Actually until last night, when a nice 35 y.o. guy confessed to me the exact same thing. My eyes became apples and instantly I remembered Ed and his friend Stan. Today it got me thinking even more. How is it that those guys have never been in love. And I am sure it’s not just them, there are more of them out there. So my questions is to all of them How is it that you never had your heart beating for someone else? 

I don’t remember if I ever asked Ed and Stan this question or it didn’t go beyond my bigger than apples eyes and a gasp. But I sure asked this question the guy last night. He said he didn’t want to have his heart broken. And I understood him, my eyes came back to their normal size and it made perfect sense to me. Of course, I was in love twice and maybe falling now again (will tell you later..) and, Man, it hurts.. Love hurts and whoever says it doesn’t found the secret that I want to know..

It hurts even when you are with them because of all the insane demands we have for our partners. If partners are not on the same wavelength it creates a feeling of a huge responsibility that not many can handle. Name at least one person who is fine with it. It gets overwhelming for both with expectations and demands, which in the end hurts both. I am not talking about those happy couples who are so in sync that they won’t even understand what I am talking about here. I am speaking for those whose relationships fell apart or not as smooth as they wish to be.

As much as it made sense to me last night, I still wouldn’t change a thing about my past 2 loves. Love, no matter how painful it was at times, made me experience myself and grow internally like nothing else. It made me feel alive. When I love I am life, and I feel eternal. Death has no meaning then, for when I love I know it is not as important as the love I have. And that is the reason I can’t wait to fall in love again.. I want to die in love..

In the end, I haven’t found the answer on why those guys and many others have never experienced love. But I hope one day they will. For they’ll see that the pain associated with it faints compared to the Love itself.

Crazy in Love II

So I finally let the first love go and there was no more perfect timing for the second one to enter my life. And so it did. A few months and a couple of days later, I met him in the most magical yet most distructive way. It was a rainy late October evening, 2009, a week after I came back from a month-long trip to Europe with my best friend Nadya. Something very stressful happened right after I came back and I felt that my world was turned upside down. I think that was the first time in my life when I felt that I was losing my ever so positive, truly genetic outlook on life (believe me I was born with it!).

Anyway I had a date that night with someone I dated for a couple of month prior to my trip and, let’s just say, the stars were not shining bright for us. Ed was an amazing person indeed, but after the trip and the dreadful event that happened when I came back, I knew he wasn’t the one and that night couldn’t make it clearer. We had some food, wine, and once out on the street I had a fit when he said that I would be ok. How do you know I’d be ok, you have no idea what I’m dealing with at this point in my life. I knew right then he wasn’t fit for me and my life which was running 300 miles an hour at that point. No one’s fault really, it’s just that our lives were running on different speeds, and mine tending to always be way too ahead. 

As overwhelmed as I was all I could do is say back “ I don’t know if I’ll be ok”, turn around, and run. The truth is, at that moment I knew I wanted a man who would say “Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure everything will be ok”. As complete and self-sufficient as I am, that was the moment, that rare window of opportunity, for the guy to step in and show me his charge. I wanted more passion. True to myself, when the opportunity doesn’t present itself, I tend to run away (I’m working on it) to find where it will. So I ran, I don’t know for how long, but it was long enough to realize that my date wasn’t after me to say the words I was hoping to hear.

 All I remember is that at some point I stopped and realized I had no idea where I was, I felt as foggy as the air. It wasn’t raining yet but I felt my face wet and my whole body shaking. I stopped. My practical self saw a person approaching and stopped him to ask for directions. Again, I don’t remember how it all happened, but that’s how I met him. He told me where the train was and I said that I didn’t want that particular train, maybe there was another one? I didn’t want any train, I think, at that point. I needed a boat to take me far away to the ocean and sail away from everything. He found it amusing so that even when it started raining he didn’t realize it. It was two of us standing on the corner of some street in West village, with rain and strangers passing by, that we felt something different. When I asked him if he wanted to open his umbrella, he asked me if I wanted to go to “Pravda” for a drink. That was the beginning of my 2nd love. We became an item right away, I called him a boy-friend only after a month of being together. 

So here is the thing I have to tell you. It was true love but it was painful love. You’ll see why. I met him when I wasn’t my usual complete self, the one that is happy and satisfied with her life and herself. I didn’t feel complete at that point. I know I am not a super woman and allowed to feel less than complete at some points. But those are rare for me and that point was the most incomplete moment I ever felt. I think I was lost and was looking for someone to guide me, to help me find the way back to my usual happy and optimistic self. 

I believe that which is like onto itself is drawn, so I attracted the partner who was in the same boat as me. He was also looking for salvation and guidance. We were on the same wavelength right then. 

My heart was sinking and it had no problem going along with his sinking heart. But my mind was shouting louder than ever that I had to leave, that he would not be able to give me what I wanted, that he was too conflicting for my world. The battle between those two lasted for the next year and several months. I just knew the moment of being lost was temporary to me and would pass shortly. However, his moment was already several years old with no clear site for a change. Naturally, I got back to my complete self within several month. and when he didn’t, my heart started listening to my mind. I was torn. I loved him, I would do anything. But I can’t sacrifice my life, my soul. I was willing to sacrifice my desires, and I did. I let them go. But I could never sacrifice my heart. In the end, I still loved myself more and would never go against my instincts. 

So I had to go, there was no space for me in his troubled world. And even stripping myself of all my desires and willing to just go for love, I couldn’t forgo myself. 

It ended the same way it started: fast and dramatic. I cried for a week, I analyzed for a month, and in several months I let it go. I wasn’t willing to drag it for as long as my first love, I'd learned my lesson already. This time I knew who I was and what I was looking for. And it was a great strong heart looking for a happy love. Yes, I didn't want to be crazy in love anymore, I want to be happy in love.

One of my friends likes to say Third time is a charm, when he refers to his 3rd marriage. And I take his word for it. I believe that my third love will not only be a charm it will be a happy one..

Crazy in Love I

Last week I learned another amazing fact about my take on love.

So far in my life, I experienced true love twice. Surely, I was infatuated many times and even had those moments (usually after great sex) when I thought it was true love, only to realize later it was all chemical. Now I am positive - real love happened to me only twice. If anyone has any doubt whether it was love or not, ask yourself after it’s gone whether you loved the person or not (be honest with yourself). If the answer is yes, it was love. If no - it was a strong attraction, great sex, you name it.

Anyway, first time I fell in love, when I was a skeptical 24 year old, focused solely on my career. I remember I would say that love didn’t exist, it was simply our mind’s imagination. It was the moment in my life when I only wanted to believe in what I could see and touch. Love seemed too superficial. You imagine something in your head and then make yourself believe that you can’t live without that person. Seriously?? I was too self-centered back then to even think that I needed anyone to bring more meaning into my life, to share my world. But not only was I skeptical of love, I ardently debated it. I would be extremely outspoken and would try to prove to people that it was only their imagination and they could control it any way they wanted to. It wasn’t real. Get real, people! 

Life is what we make of it, I really believe it. However I also believe that some events happen just so to make us learn something new about ourselves and maybe help us see clearer who we truly are, you know, all the way deep down. And it happened to me, I fell in love. I didn’t know it was love for about 6 months since we met, I only knew that for some reason I wanted to be with him most of my time, I wanted to see myself thru his eyes, I wanted to make our time together eternal. I wanted to smell him in my hair and skin, I wanted to replay his voice in my head over and over again.. 

6 months it took to convince me that love exists and there is no other more exciting feeling a human could ever experience. I still agreed (till this day, do) it was highly imagined in our mind but God who cared? it seemed so exhilarating to feel such passion and love for another human being. I was driven by that love, I was brave, I was audacious. Nothing scared me. Nothing, except losing this love. And I did. I might write about it separately at some point in a greater detail. But for now, just telling you that this love was not meant to develop into a Forever-After. That was also the time when I learned that timing and love need to be perfectly aligned, one can’t go without the other. The timing was off for my first love, and all I could do is to learn from it. 

First, I learned that I want love in my life. I love love for what it is. As ironic as it might sound based on how I felt about it when I was 24, I realized that I love to love. You see I always gave myself a lot of love from within (yes I am spiritually evolved!), I realized I had too much in me. I was ready to share. I wanted to experience myself through another human being. 

6 months is all we had, before he moved overseas and we would meet once a year for the next 4 years, and all of them I was in love with him. And here is the second thing I learned about myself. When I fall in love, it’s kind of forever. 4 years of not really being together, you see. It was too strong to rationalize and move on. Give me a credit, it was the first time in my life. There was nothing I could do, I thought I was a one-man's woman. I wanted to.

But time takes care of us and helps us forget and move on. So 4 years later, when I couldn’t sustain my love on fleeting annual reunions anymore, I decided to let it go. It was hard to do, but I wanted to have love on a daily basis. I was no longer willing to sacrifice a new love that deserved that chance...

Stay tuned for "Crazy in Love II"