Always.Look.Forward.

If there's one thing that can make any relationship work, its the fundamentals. Fundamentally sound. Being on the same page. Being on the same wavelength. Semantics for the same and for the one true thing that could make or break.

I thought I had found the best soundtrack of my Life and was walking on sunshine. The perfect verse over a tight beat. But clouds got in my way, as Joni Mitchell once sang. In the end, it was about trust. And taking that leap without feat, as the Sufis say, not in that context of course. They say fear is illusionary. It's unfulfilled threat of the unknown. Once you "know", it dissipates like a stench in a strong breeze. But there's always that nagging feeling when you know something's not right.

So in between future plans, escapades to exotic locations and the cotton flossed promises of what a future of together might entail, the day to day hit me hard.

The pieces fell apart soon enough. I've always reminded myself and those who seek my counsel: Pareto's Principle of 80/20. Be prepared to put up with shit 80% of the time, and then the rainbows during the rest. But sometimes even shit is hard to handle. I am not a pessimist. I'm just a realist and take great comfort in knowing such odds. I become less of a whiner that way.

Like all things, an end always heralds a beginning and unfortunately that can be a bit of a mess. Just as I was to embark on the new, the old comes for another run. This time, it was a proclamation of "Thy will be done"; an almost heroic middle finger to the circumstance and a one way ticket to the happiness that such recklessness is to offer.

I proceeded cautiously, even if it was brokered through a mutual friend.

As I waded through limbo for awhile, my new companion waded through his own sea of negativity and venomous thoughts. I had expected much more and would have loved an air of indignant calm. But I guess: therein the difference lies.

It was Darth Vader vs. Obi-wan. And surely the stakes are high.

Someone's got to lose. And everyone has to pick sides.

I picked happiness.

I watched with much cynicism as the months passed, 2 became 6 and 6 became 8... and suddenly the rhetoric became realised.

It is really happening this time.

We all have to stay tuned. Clouds still get in the way. But I don't mind clouds that much.