I'm in this for the ice cream.

I had spicy pork at a dinner party last night. No, I'm serious! I've been meaning to post that!

Then I came home and read a message board. Much of today I have been thinking about relationships and breakups.

My two cents.

I am averse to the predicability with which major breakups evolve into major life turning points(in the retrospective). When you look at the story of your life, you can easily mark it out in who-you-were-loving-when and breakup milestones.

I think personal development is much more interesting and empowering. Am I making sense here? Once you can wrench yourself away from needing that person next to you when you wake up, you have to unentangle your personal development issues from your ex and take them on with a renewed forward velocity. . .

. . .And when you look back, keep that person in your heart as an influential factor in a certain part of your life, but use your own development for the milestones. I swear it breeds a healthier outlook.

Moving on, to me, is a single moment of letting go of the other person as part of your self-definition. And then reminding yourself to let go.

I think the best things a person can cultivate in today's dating world are
1. good judgement of character
2. an inner denial-check montior
3. a willingness to accept and give love fully whenever it just might work
4. an ability to let go of things--the deeper the ability the better--which requires personal velocity

From what I've learned, a major particularity about Americans is that we tend to either hold on to pain and use it to define ourselves, or we repress it. We have no framework, no good examples beyond the intangible, for letting go. And that makes a lot of us unhappy.