The mysterious magnet is either there

One thing I do know about intimacy is that there are certain natural laws which govern the sexual experience of two people, and that these laws cannot be budged any more than gravity can be negotiated with. 

To feel physically comfortable with someone else's 

body is not a decision you can make. 

It has very little to do with how two people 

think or act or talk or even look. 

The mysterious magnet is either there, 

buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not. 

When it isn't there (as I have learned in the past, with heartbreaking clarity) you can no more force it to exist than a surgeon can force a patient's body to accept a kidney from the wrong donor. 

My friend Annie says it all comes down to one simple question: 

"Do you want your belly pressed against 

this person's belly forever...or not?

In desperate love...

In desperate love, 

we always invent the characters of our partners, 

demanding they be what we need of them, 

and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform 

the role we created in the first place

Learn your way around loneliness.

When I get lonely these days, 
I think: So BE lonely, Liz. 

Learn your way around loneliness. 

Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. 

Welcome to the human experience.

 But never again use another person's 

body or emotions as a scratching post 

for your own unfulfilled yearnings

I am braver than Loneliness ♥

I’m here. I love you. 

I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, 

I will stay with you. 

There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. 

I will protect you until you die,

 and after your death I will still protect you. 

I am stronger than Depression and 

I am braver than Loneliness 

and nothing will ever exhaust me.

I can choose my thoughts...

There is so much about my fate that I cannot control, 

but other things do fall under the jurisdiction. 

I can decide how I spend my time, whom I interact with, 

whom I share my body and life and money and energy with. ´

I can select what I can read and eat and study. 

I can choose how I'm going to regard 

unfortunate circumstances in my life-whether

I will see them as curses or opportunities. 

I can choose my words and the tone of voice 

in which I speak to others. 

And most of all, 

I can choose my thoughts.