It's never been on my list of priorities, because I was never before able to fully understand what long-term committed relationships are for (besides having kids). Since I've seen and been in so many mediocre-to-far-less-than-mediocre relationships, it's taken a long time to create any kind of "Vision." Because without a vision, my life is nothing more than an inflatable raft being thrust about the sea in a storm. And Other People's Opinions or what other people think I should do because it justifies the decisions they've made in their own life, are the waves that crash down on me with giant loads of guilt and shame.

I know what I don't want in a relationship.

List of What I Don't Want in a Relationship

1) A son.
2) A father.
3) A pet.
4) A siamese twin.
5) A babysitter.
6) An accessory.
7) A stand-up comic.
8) An encyclopedia.
9) A movie critic.
10) A TV guide.

It really goes beyond the limits of even my own imagination, to be perfectly honest. An adult relationship between two people, free of any need for manipulation, or expectations to conform to a rigid list of behavior patterns, based on free will, grounded in reality and the mutual desire to shoot for every type of expansion possible in life (material, spiritual, emotional, etc.) It's really a lot to heap on anyone. But it's too late to go back. It's sort of like what my father used to say about powder snow. Once he got a taste of it, he couldn't go back to skiing on ice and slush. He would just rather not ski at all.

Similarly, I just can't do the old dance routines anymore without large doses of irony.

Just for today, I have a kind of a vision for a relationship.