Desert Messenger

12 www.DesertMessenger.com February 3, 2016 Traveling with Gypsy Jane by Jane Finley writer * artist * teacher (stretching, exercise, relaxation, meditation) Gypsy Jane tells all... Those of you who keep up with my writing will be surprised to read this story, as I never write about my personal life, but here goes. A story has been crisscross- ing my mind all day, prompted no doubt by a relationship I just ended. I should have known not to trust somebody who didn't like peanut butter! It was a long-term relationship, for me, (three weeks with one of those being by myself in Laughlin, NV escaping Christmas). Red fl ags appeared from the fi rst, but hop- ing against hope, as usual I ignored them. (I'm trying very hard to let people be themselves and not have to agree with me on EVERY- THING.) First red fl ag: He's from Canada and has limited time in the U.S. Secondly, he wants a live-in relationship, which I interpret as someone to share expenses (i.e. pay her own way), cook, do laundry, clean, etc. YIKES! Been there; done that! Nevertheless, I kinda liked all the attention and the potential for an ongoing relationship. So what happened, you ask? The usual: Not talking about little things, letting them pile up, and then exploding. Not me, him. I thought everything was going swimmingly. But then I DO talk about everything. I just can't be constantly thinking about stuff, let- ting it get in the way of the relation- ship and "living 100% right now." My daughter always asks, "Is he older than I am?" Probably because my last real relationship was 19 years younger than me. I was with him for 10 years in a committed re- lationship (although we never lived together). Nice guy: smart, graduat- ed from Yale -- a man I could learn from. He knew everything about music and poetry and literature, but he didn't have "street" smarts. And as for the age difference, I did more before breakfast than he did in a week! He was the one who said, "The thing about Jane is that if we're not talking about it, everything is OK." I think there's a certain security in that -- a certain peace of mind. I liked that! Another boyfriend said, "Jane, you have convinced me we can have a committed relationship without living together." Has it come across that I don't want to live with ANY- ONE? And how can I commit to anything but RIGHT NOW? Com- mitting to someone "for the rest of my life" scares the @#!*% out of me. Why? Because I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago or even yesterday. I thrive on change! I can't think of anything more bor- ing than being with another person for the rest of my life -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner? 24/7? My apologies to those of you who ARE, I hope, happily married, but my choice is to be together WHEN we choose, WHERE we choose, for as LONG as we choose, and then go to our separate "corners" to regroup or heal, as the case may be. I wasn't really sad about this recent break-up. It was too new to mean much. Besides I've been working on "attachment" and "expectations" which Buddha says are the source of all unhappiness. Maybe I'm progressing, but three weeks isn't all that long; so I don't know. Anyway, it was Saturday SEE GYPSY PAGE 36 2 ACRES WITH POWER ONLY $6,995 • Good Terms • 30 min. NE of Lake Havasu Chaparral Land Co. • 928-753-7125 • www.landarizona.com WILD MUSHROOMS Tyson Wells Show N-23 See us at Quartzsite Farmers Market Wednesdays 8am-2pm @ Desert Gardens East J & C Trading 541-880-6270 Quartzsite Animal Clinic Dr. John Hadlock 745 W. Main Street, Quartzsite Open M-T-W-TH 9am-noon 928-927-6404 Walk-ins Welcome Serving Quartzsite for 28 years! night, and I was ready to DANCE! Knowing dancin' almost always lifts my spirits. So thinking back....dare I talk about the men in my life? At my age, there have been a few. (Prom- ise not to add this all up and guess my age. You see, right now, today, I feel about 30, realizing that age is a state of mind, irrelevant really. Some people are old at 20; others are never old. But age is another story to write!) I'll start with the fi rst man (boy?) in my life -- a bright guy, majoring in chemistry, and one year ahead of me in school. We were "going steady," (pinned) my junior year of high school. I wore my class pin and his crisscrossed over my left teen- age bosom. I was so proud.....but nobody seemed to notice. That was the fi rst disappointment. I can't re- member exactly how it ended, prob- ably because he went off to college. I remember my brother asking about him and my telling him that his goal was to make $10,000 a year. My brother replied, "So he's into money." That was a lot back then. Now we'll skip a few hundred years to last Saturday night at Silly Al's in Quartzsite, Arizona, where someone said about the men: "The odds are good, but the goods are odd." (Examples follow...) Neverthe- less, I had the most fun dancing I've ever had. I don't mind dancing by myself if there's a good tune, and it's pure torture for me not to dance, but this night I was asked to dance by men all night long. NICE!

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