Levels of Intensity in Passion and Spooning

The other day I was in one of my self-analytical moods and owned the fact that I am intense about everything I’m passionate about from hobbies to relationships. I’ve had 50 years to sort out my likes and dislike; I know what I want and what I don’t want. For me, there are really only two levels of passion, “off” and “on.”

I don’t do anything halfway. When I experience something I want to immerse myself in it. When I learn about something new I want to do nothing but that for a while until I’ve had my fill. Then I’ll back away and come back to it again at a much more relaxed pace. Most of my passions are creative and usually have to do with creating comfort of one kind or another. It might be having a nice stack of big fluffy towels at my disposal to learning how to do stained glass (the latter I intend to get to at some point in my life).

Likewise, I know what I want in a man and I'm intense in relationships too. Men think women like me are trying to get them married right away. NOT true at all actually, not for me anyway. I’m not in a hurry to be married, just in a hurry to be happy.

I spent 20 years in a loveless/sexless marriage. I loved my husband but he was never in love with me. You cannot make someone love you and you can’t love someone just because you want to. So when I do meet someone who meets the basic requirements, I’m interested, but when they meet many of my farther reaching hopes and dreams too, then I’m intense.

By intense I don’t mean I’m a stalker or anything. I just fantasize about holding hands, kissing, making out, sex, companionship; about the things we could do together and I wonder about our level of domestic compatibility… I'm usually one step ahead of the actual happenings. I don’t know if other people think that way or not, I just know I do and I want to experience each step in the process to the nth degree.

I am no less intense about my work. I focus in and work like mad until I complete the task at hand. (I once worked long hours and wrote the rough draft of of my first novel in 63 days, conceptualizing as I went.) I’ve worked myself right out of a job because I pride myself in efficiency and production.

My hobby explorations or personal projects receive the same level of intense focus. I hardly slept and neglected housework for three whole days while I hand crafted a Monopoly board that would not only hold up to four kids but hopefully withstand generations of abuse. It is important to me to do everything well. I have stopped expecting perfection but I haven’t given up striving for it.

When I do something, I intend to do it right. Whatever it takes to get the job done the way it’s intended to be done, I do, from hobbies to relationships. I don’t begin a project or a romance with failure in mind. I intend to be successful at whatever I do. People admire that in me, usually, and I admire it in myself or I wouldn’t be that way.

Sometimes I forget that others may be conditioned to expect failure due to things they have experienced prior to this time. Or they may not be able to see the bigger picture like I can. The same thing often happens when I am building something. I can explain my idea to most people until I’m blue in the face but until they see the finished project, they can’t fathom it, not really.

I trust my instincts and I go with them. If I’m wrong then I still have time to try something else. I’m not trying to force square pegs into round holes in my life, just trying to get all the elements to line up like spoons in a drawer… Most humans are content in a spooning situation, right? I want to spoon my way through life.