Brand spankin’ new

If you can read this, then the final DNS update has happened and you’re reading the Normality Factor on the new host.  This has me very, very excited.

This is all part of the final stages of done-ness.  The divorce is finalized, the kids are settled in, and while there are still a few loose ends, they are minor things.  Three and a half years it’s been…

Too long, but I suppose everything happens in its own time.

I’m not sold on this skin, by the way, I just wanted it to be different from the old host.  I’ll probably come up with something even cooler soon.  For now… let me know what makes your reading experience here handy.  🙂

As I sit here and think about what all has transpired, it’s a little mind-blowing.  Once it was clear that Joe and I were going our separate ways, I didn’t sit around moping for very long.  Eventually, I realized that I mourned the loss of stability and consistency, but that the price of having that (or the illusion of it) was a loss of emotional experience and intimacy.

I’ve spoken for long hours about the lacking in the marriage, yes, but that was the defining “ah-ha” moment, when I realized that I needed the intimacy.

Intimacy can be expressed in a wide variety of ways.  There’s touch and words and sex and food… but, like love as a whole, the actions themselves do not necessarily mean anything without the proper motivation/feeling/emotion behind them.  For instance, as I’ve often said, I have a fierce foot fetish, nothing sends me over the top higher than someone really worshiping my feet – except if they’re not into it.  If they don’t like feet or they’re doing it just because they think I’ll like it, it’s okay, but it’s not the best ever.  Intimacy and love are like that:  the same action can produce vastly different effects depending on the motivation.

But what, then, is the difference between doing something out of love and doing something for intimacy?  In fairness, they are derived from the same base emotion, but love is an expression outward and intimacy is sharing something together.  (This is, of course, my interpretation of this difference.  Your mileage may vary.)

Rubbing shoulders or touching skin is a way of showing my love, I do it because it feels good to me.

When my partner responds to that with a sigh and visibly enjoys it, that gives something back, and that creates intimacy.  It is a circle.  It’s a cycle.  It’s what makes relationships more than business arrangements, with sex.