One thing that consoles me about getting older is that I have gathered wisdom with my age or at least I hope so!  Like all of us, years of situations and relationships have been great learning experiences and these learning experiences I take into my next situations or relationships.  We learn and gather information and then we try to keep only what is valuable and useful.  That is wisdom to me.  I also have learned that the only sure thing is that NOTHING IS FOR SURE!  Just when you think that the planets are aligning for you and things are going your way, you can blink your eyes and POOF! It all changes!  But the same happens when you think everything is NOT going your way. You might think that everything is going to hell and yet some miracle suddenly happens!

I have been thinking about how this goes for our romantic relationships, too!  Being in a relationship is like playing Russian Roulette.  You can put all your chips on one number and color and you see the ball bouncing around as the roulette spins. There it goes spinning fast.  You can’t really see the numbers but you do see the white ball moving from black to red from 10 to 4 to 16 until finally it stops on a totally different number and totally different color than you chose.  You lose all your chips.  If you are lucky, you are left with one last lucky chip. You feel miserable, lost and a loser. You put that single chip on a random number.  You feel hopeless.  And suddenly, VOILA!!!! You win and the house pays double and you start winning again!!

I love my life and I love my work.   My store gives me the opportunity to talk to so many people. I enjoy talking with couples and asking them how many years they have been married and, of course, I get all different numbers as you can imagine from 1 to 60. I like to ask these couples to reveal the recipe for a long and successful marriage.  You should see the facial expressions I get!  You would think that I am asking them what is going to be the next winning lottery number!

My personal theory about a good relationship is willingness. To me WILLINGNESS encompasses so much; willingness to be patient, willingness to forgive, willingness to be selfless etc. . . . Of course, I hear all the expected answers from couples: good communication, tolerance, open mindedness. We all know this.  However, I think there are a lot of other LOGICAL things that make for successful marriages or partnerships.  Here’s a list!

  1. Having your own bathrooms.
  2. Spending time and engaging with the other’s family.
  3. Enjoying the same restaurants or foods at home.
  4. Loving the same pet.
  5. Having an affinity for the other’s hygiene habits (or non-habits)!
  6. Equally seeing the importance of staying attractive for one another.
  7. Allowing the other to drive in peace with no passenger commentary!
  8. Happily participating in parties or movies or anything the other likes to do (even though the other one doesn’t particularly enjoy it)!
  9. Decide that if politics are discussed, make sure you are on the same page. Otherwise, don’t talk politics.
  10. Having the same moral values.
  11. Biting your tongue when your partner contradicts you in front of your kids.
  12. If one of you needs to talk, let that person talk even if you are fake listening for hours!
  13. If you are a shoe lover, always have enthusiasm for every new pair your partner brings home!

The list can go on and on. Will you help me to increase it?  Write me and let me know what yours are.

I’m not sure what’s going on in Santa Fe but… I feel there is an extraordinary amount of bad ass women that live here! It seems that all of my friends and even the women that I just meet in the shoe store, are empowered, hard working, successful, intelligent, deep thinking and feeling women! And of course they all have good taste in shoes! Is it just me that notices this phenomenon? Does Santa Fe have some powerful energetic magnet that draws incredible women here?

The drawback that I noticed about this however is that there are too many amazing women and too few men to match them in this town. You all know this too: there are way too many single women here! While we women are great at satisfying and fulfilling one another with our friendship, we need our counterparts (I.e. the opposite sex) to balance us out and to connect with. There MUST be men here who are equally as extraordinary! And I don’t mean exclusively for relationships but for true friendships as well. Gay men count for this too!

I feel like about 10 or 15 years ago, I had some incredible friendships with outstanding men here. They were deep thinking, loving, emotionally connected, and very masculine men. And no, no I’m not talking about lovers! These guys were just my friends! It was so wonderful to have them in my life, bouncing off ideas and experiences with one another. … I guess you could say they were platonic lovers, lovers of life and of exploring experiences together. . One by one they started vanishing, either they got into serious relationships or they literally just disappeared! Sadly, a couple of my closest friends passed away.

I have nostalgia for those friendships. They were very satisfying.

Where are these men? Are you at Home Depot? In the galleries? Stuck in Starbucks? Or are you off on some spiritual retreat with no return? In any case, we women miss you! Come back! We are thirsty for these friendships… there is a severe drought.