When I said professional athletes are intense, I meant that they are so focused and driven and they don't give up on anyone or anything once they set their heart on it. Which is a lot when the focus is on you, Lord knows I married one in my last life and I've dated several in this life. (and there was another I forgot I dated since Isaiah, but that's because it was really just a physical carnal thing and nothing grew from it -- in part because he was super competitive as a form of bonding and I'm not; I'm competitive against my own potential but I'm not competitive with other people or even with past versions or future versions of myself. I'm only competitive against my own best me in the moment I'm in.)  There's something about the intensity of feeling seen and wanted that being romantically with a professional athlete gives you... And obvs there's the ego boost in just being with someone who chooses you and you can question, "You could have anyone you wanted -- why me?" and also, um, well, athletes don't date people who don't have hot bodies. They just don't. So there's an additional ego boost there too. I got laughed at for my self-deprecating admission, "I was surprised you asked me out, I'm in really terrible shape right now. Mostly because I haven't bothered trying in a while." and then he told me, "How do you not realize how hot you are? Trying or not. I wouldn't have asked you out if I thought you were in terrible shape. But if you want to get in better shape, it wouldn't take much toning and tweaking to get you there from where you are now. Let me know when you're serious about wanting that."

It's still very much exploratory, not relationship at all, and certainly not something I'm telling anyone about. (I tend to keep my dating to myself -- mostly because I hate the cleanup after introducing temporary people to permanent people in my life. Life is more straightforward if they never cross paths until I'm certain someone has potential to be permanent in my life.)  But he wanted to go out for dinner again tonight so I said yes.  And when he looks at me, he has that intensity of single-minded desire in his eyes that athletes get when they're truly into someone or something. And as someone who is so incredibly go with the flow wanderer all about what I can discover in my wandering (Libra sun Pisces ascendant) there's something I find damn sexy about that sort of determination and desire to make a vision manifest by sheer force of will... I use my force of will to right injustices and to heal spiritual/physical hurts, but in this life I rarely use my force of will to redirect people or systems or life paths. So being with someone who uses their force of will on the tangibles of life to achieve goals helps to balance me out a bit, y'know? I like to observe and question and deal with reality of things as they are, but I'm always at my best when I'm partnering energies with someone who likes to intervene and tinker and make things how they think they should be.  

See, the thing is. I've had the world in the palm of my hand in enough past lives and I've used my life/death to save the world and alter the path of history enough times that in this life I have no interest in money or fame or power or those who pursue/value such things. I'm not even that into me changing the world. Let humanity collectively choose to change itself, it can do it without my intervention this life. This life I give up ego temptations and claims on the world. This life is perfectly fine with me if it's forgotten by history and society after I leave -- it's a life for me and the people I care deepest about, not a life for the world  I want to make better everyone/everything I touch with my life but I don't need that to be a large quantity of people and I don't desire to be remembered for it. I'm here to remember what gives meaning to incarnating and the joys of being alive to the reality of incarnations. I am far happier as a hermit with my trees and books and music and art and fur babies and plants and tea than I ever feel getting dragged back into the entitled assholes and drama and mess. I have no desire to live in a big city where the light pollution hides the shining of the stars -- anything you try to build there will be a miss with me. Especially if it's to try to curry favor or respect from the rich or the would be glitterati... I've had that last life, it was fun tinsel, but it's ultimately empty and meaningless and busy just for the sake of being busy. I want a space big enough for my books and some canvases to paint and to comfortably house the lives contained in my home -- and no bigger. I want to live where I can see the stars on a clear night and have space for flower gardens and herb gardens and I can hug a tree friend any time I get the urge and where wild critters can continuously surprise and delight me as we wander across each other's paths. 

I do like this new soccer player love interest quite a bit and I'm enjoying the explorations of how we might fit together. It's why I said yes to seeing him again tonight, two dates in two days instead of waiting longer - he piques my interest and curiosity. Do I like him as much or as soul deeply as I have been drawn to Eric? No, but that door is closed by Eric's own choice for the direction he's taking his life path and the person he's letting himself become. I'm not going to wait or let him reach for me down the bond if he's choosing someone else for his life. That's not how it works. If he chooses to have relationships with others, then I have the right to the same thing. And if he wishes to explore life outside of the soul bond between us, that's his choice but it also means I have the right to explore other connections which I prioritize in this life.  The only way he can have any right or claim to my love or my energy is if he is choosing of his own free will to pursue a connection with me in this lifetime right now in the present. And only when I also choose that do I have any rights of expectations towards him. He's not making such a choice , his energy changes at a soul level when he chooses to build romantic relationships with other women so I always know when his choices shift, and so I'm going to explore and see where other explorations with other men leads me to my own heart/body's content. I'm not here to tell him what to do with his life/time or try to chain him to anything he doesn't choose for himself -- but I won't share with him the delight in the strength and light and love of our connection if he's not going to choose it as central to his own life. 

In his past lives he has made me complicit in the infidelity of our mutual longing while building his life with someone else who can never be me. He has done it in enough of his past lives for it to be a recurring pattern of choices for him and I have reached a point I choose for myself that I refuse to wait on him when he behaves that way or to be complicit in him perpetuating it in this life or in future ones. He can repeat that karmic cycle of his own longing and fear of choosing to pursue his longing for however many lives he wants, but I don't want any part of it and I won't knowingly encourage or take part in it. If he chooses to seek a life built around others, he can -- but I will do my best to consider him a closed door and push him away when he reaches down the bond for me until he chooses to seek a life built around shared real world 3d tangible experiences with me.  It was different when we were younger, especially as kids when our life paths are to most extents created by our parents choices, but once our life paths crossed it became more than just a pull in a direction and a yearning for something not yet in your life -- every moment since our paths crossed has been a moment of choosing whether you want the pull to be in your life guiding it or not. If either of us chooses not, then ethically I will do everything I can to not be complicit in making the pull of the bond stronger. Including finding innovative new ways to use my gifts and/or spiritual allies to shut him out or put the bond to sleep. It was different when the pull of the bond hadn't yet manifested in recognition and life paths crossing. Now, now it becomes an ethics issue to choose something else but not to choose it wholeheartedly or with a desire/temptation always pulling you away from what you're building with a third party 

He's free to choose anything he wants for himself and I will always hope for his sake that it brings him the happiness he seeks -- but he is not free of the consequences of his choices. Nobody is. Incarnating into life on this planet is about the sanctity of free will and on learning the hard way of consequences what the responsibility of that free will entails. It helps you make better choices if or when you're ready to incarnate elsewhere than in this mess of free will being tempered only by the cause and effect of karmic repercussions and lessons. Which is why I will hold free will sacrosanct for as long as I'm choosing to incarnate among humans, a choice I've been making for thousands of lifetimes now for reasons of "if not me then who?" that are why I first entered this mortal coil. It's sacrosanct meaning you're free to choose whatever you want and I won't try to interfere or give advice unsought unless there's a very good reason for me to speak up, even when I can see the consequences of the choices being made, but it also means I won't feel any pity or do anything to help you or save you from the consequences of your choices when they fall upon you.  Holding free will sacrosanct means holding sacred all the consequences of the free will choices made. 

Still. I'm enjoying this current flirtation so far and I look forward to seeing where it might grow, even if it's only a short term mutual interest that doesn't last. Including dinner tonight. It all feels so Hallmark movie right now. And I'm going to make myself get up out of this cozy warm bed to go take the dog on a brisk morning walk. May as well do something now to be more active in my own life.

I do expect this post to be the last little niggling thing for me to want to give the story lines an ending (or as much as the unfolding of living has endings) and that I will then set this private to authors and leave it that way. There's no real reason for it, I could just as easily leave it public and keep writing here after all. My choice here boils down to a simple intuitive sense it's time to close a chapter so a new one can begin and ending this as a window into my heart and soul and random thoughts is a part of the closing chapter.