Love is Difficult

It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation...

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

In Defense of Marriage

The subject of marriage seems to be appearing everywhere I look these days. My friends marriage is on the rocks. Her husband believes I left my marriage on a whim - and thus doesn't want me around. I am still struggling with the legacy of my failed marriage... and trying to figure out what it all means; especially as I am in the situation of neither being married nor being divorced at the moment.

Some friends of mine are getting married in a couple of weeks. Ale and I are invited to the wedding, which he doesn't really want to attend because he "doesn't believe in marriage"

Now, first of all - my suspicion about Ale is that he is committment phobic to begin with. He has a problem committing to Saturday night, and he only commits when I make it clear that he's got to - and that it is for really practical reasons. Using the word love in a sentence makes his throat close up. Making a plan past the coming weekend is really hard on him.

Despite his commitment phobias, I really respect Ale, I wanted his idea's on this. I was hoping for something deep and profound.... because he really is capable of depth and profundity.

Unfortunately, in this case.... it was clear that he hadn't REALLY thought about it, or he was unable to articulate it clearly, because what he said was the same bullshit our culture feeds people about marriage these days.

"Most marriages end up in divorce; forever is nonsense because people eventually die anyway; people should stay together because it is a choice, not because of a piece of paper".

He had the good manners not to add "I haven't found the right woman" or "How could you resign yourself to only fuck one person for the rest of your life" - but, it goes with the rest of the argument. :)

I asked him about his parents marriage - which has been a long one, to which he replied "They would probably have gotten divorced, but you didn't do that in the 1960's and 70's". I forgot to ask him what he thinks would have become of his father if they had....

Ale is not particularly at fault in his beliefs about this. Aside from his general avoidance of commitment - which certainly does bug the fuck out of me, he is parroting our modern understanding of marriage. We have all become so cynical, so afraid - and our public media loves to report the statistics of marital failure, or how men get taken to he cleaners, of how no one wants marriage anymore. However, we don't hear about the successes, the longer life spans, the increased wealth of both parties, the higher life satisfaction, the better lives - the happy people. Happy people aren't interesting.

I don't believe in our modern understanding of marriage either. We have created out of marriage a system of economics, and we consider our marriages to be as disposable as our clothing. Our modern concpetion of marriage completely misses the point, and is a complete misunderstanding of what marriage is, and why.

Our world has become so secular and so rational that there is no longer room for the sacramental. It is the tragedy of our generation. The religious bigots stole the sacraments and all that makes life sacred, right out from under us, and the only sane response is to renounce all that is mystical, all that is sacramental... leaving us with secular humanism at best, or with a deep and ugly cynicism at worst.

Marriage is a sacrament. To say you don't believe in marriage is as nonsensical as saying you don't believe in naming your children, or giving your parents a funeral. We have very few major public sacraments in a lifetime; our naming day, our wedding day, our funeral. Our baptismal day - we are too young to remember. Our funeral, well - we cannot join the fun. Our weddings are the only time in our lives that all the people we love best in the world are with us, to wish us all the best - and its the only public sacrament where you can dance!

sacrament

c.1175, from O.Fr. sacrament (12c.), from L. sacramentum "a consecrating," from sacrare "to consecrate" (see sacred); a Church Latin loan-translation of Gk. mysterion "mystery."

When you get married, it doesn't matter if you believe that marriage is a sacrament. Most people who get married don't seem to comprehend that its a form of magic... you really ARE consecrated at this point. So, people enter for the reasons of paperwork, or with the idea that they can always get out of it... with thier eyes closed, or fingers crossed... but they are just as married. They just pretty much guarentee a bad ending. Because, you don't FUCK AROUND with magic.

In marriage, you consecrate yourselves to each other. You remain yourself, yet become more. You promise to dedicate yourself to each other, and to strive in all things to make each other happy. It is the only sacrament we have where we can recreate ourselves, our relationships, our families - and strive for something greater, outside ourselves - by creating a new thing. We create a family - we dedicate and sacrifice ourselves, and in doing so - we grow in ways that we cannot otherwise grow. It is not the same as living together... and it transends romantic love.

Its a pretty wonderful thing.

These are the vows I took - I held to them, sometimes joyfully - sometimes not. But I understood them as a sacrament, and was bound by the committment I made.

WITH this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I also promised to love, cherish and obey. I did my best, and I was a very good wife. I really liked the "with my body I thee worship" part....

I liked being married. I liked being dedicated to something outside of myself. I entered it with a full understanding of what I was saying, doing, and promising. I'm sorry my marriage ended, and I wish that Nick had not screwed with the magic by believing that he could be unmarried just because he didn't mean what he said.... because he still was married, but he missed out on much that could have been great, and didn't appreciate what he had until it was gone. But, even though the ending was so sad, I am not sorry I did it. It made me a better person. I can't even say the marriage was a failure - only that sometimes, things end - despite your best intentions.

This is not to say that I want to be married anytime soon. To say never would be a lie... but I believe in marriage. I believe in the sacramental. When I love someone, it is a sacrament. When I make love - at its best, it is a sacrament. I am at my best when I live a sacrametal life and try and remember that I live in a sacramental world. I think this is true of all people.... and its sad to me that we live in a world where the bad guys have grabbed all that is holy, and left the rest of us so bereft of our beliefs in magic.

Optimism

Ale and I were talking about our relationship one day.

He asked me why I wasn't an optimist.

Here is the sad truth: I don't think I can afford optimism.

It is somehow easier for me to live in the unhappiness of always expecting the worst, than to believe everything is ok - everything is great, and then have that shown to me as a delusion. That almost killed me once, and I don't think I can live through it again.

I think I need to look really hard at this. This is not something I care to teach my little boy.

"An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be.”

changing cognitive states

Are feelings thoughts? Because these days, I am having very sad thoughts, and very lonely feelings, and unlike higher intellectual pursuits, I don't really know how to "change my mind".

I know that thoughts create reality. I know that my experience of reality is largely formed by the things I think nd feel.... but I am never sure what comes first; chicken or the egg. Am I in a relationship that is never going to go anywhere, or am I creating a situation, through my beliefs - where I will only see something "wrong" when everything is just as it should be?

OR.... are my beliefs causing me to select people where a future is simply not possible? Am I finding ways to repeat a past situation in hopes of finding a different outcome (or simply to confirm deeply held beliefs?) AND, if I change my mind, do I get a different outcome? (I guess it depends on if I have chosen someone who cannot love me, or if my negative thoughts are creating a situation where love will not thrive.... or if I am simply percieving it thusly)

Are you confused yet? Welcome to my world. Living inside my head is a real joy ride.

Here is the current situation - or rather my perceptions of the current situation.

I am currently involved with Alessio, and have been for nearly a year. He is wonderful, and I like him so much. We compliment each other, in both our strengths and weaknesses. We are both, in many ways, children. Touching his body is like touching my own. I feel like this could be my best friend, and that we could have an incredible journey together.

I wake up thinking of him, and I fall asleep thinking of him.... and I always wish he were here with me.

The problem is he is holding out on me. He is careful of his independance, and is afraid to lose it. He is very deliberate about relationships, weighing all very carefully. I have given him my heart, but I do not have his in return (leaving me heartless?)

This is, of course, completely freaking me out. It is a replay of so much of my life, where I have loved with my whole heart, but have not felt loved in return. I know the price of ultimatums - of forcing this issue. Nick gave me false compliance - and maybe he really DID love me; but the fact that he was forced to it made him always doubt it. So, he stayed with me, with his fingers crossed.

Sometimes Ale thinks he loves me. But he is not really sure. I don't know why he is not sure.... mostly because he fears that love is a forever commitment I think. And he is not sure that I am the right woman for a forever commitment.

Part of me is grateful that one of us is thinking this through, being cautious and being careful. I do not need another train wreck in my life.

On the other hand, I have all this love to give - but I need reciprocity. I say "I love you", and sometimes I see joy in his eyes, and sometimes I see terror - but I feel like I am in this love affair all by myself, and it hurts and I hate it. Being lonely in love is a terrible thing... and here I am again!

But, am I choosing this? Of course I am choosing this. I must be choosing it, or I wouldnt be in this recurrent theme. How do I choose something else?

For comparison and contrast, life brought Lisandro back - someone who I loved before I was ready - someone who I probably selected because a future was not possible. We had lunch and hung out yesterday.... and there is no question that this is someone who loves me... and who I will always treasure.

This is not a question of "who" to choose, or of going back to Lisandro... we are temprementally too different, and I am done hurting each other - we have done that enough. The issue is more about what it feels like when someone really does love you. If feels good... even though, in this case, it is sad because it wont work.

I want that from Ale. I want to know I am loved. I want the possibilty of a future. I hate the feeling of being held out on. I hate the feeling of lonliness when I say "I love you", and he can't say it back.

If I change my mind, can I change his heart? How much of this am I causing by my beliefs? Or have I simply, yet again, chosen someone who cannot love me?

Seriously, the whole "cat lady" scenario is sounding better and better, all the time.

Siesmic Shifting

Even though I am right in the middle of some of the nastiest blues I have experienced in quite some time, I think that I am - ultimately an opitimist. Or at least an idealist.

I believe in such things as true love, soul mates, magic. I believe in tribes and families and home. I think that people can love for a lifetime, and that true joy and happiness are real possibilities.

I also think that maybe I have a few intimacy issues, and I choose others who have the same.

My friends (male friends - I might add) - who occasionally talk me through me relationship woes, always get to the point - "What do you WANT"? If I tell you, please don't laugh at me, because it sounds really really stupid.

I want to love and to be loved, in somewhat equal measure. I want to be with someone who feels like he is my home.

Truth be told though, I think that this will never happen, because I think if thats what I really wanted, thats exactly what I would have. Maybe next life? Are all my love affairs this time round going to be "almost, but not quite?" I've been greatly loved, by people who I just couldn't love enough in return. I have loved greatly, but only people who are just not quite... available.

What happens when an optimist runs out of hope?

The maddening, infuriating thing about the current romantic speactacular is this: On those few occasions, where we really touch - I feel like I have woken up. And then I am furious, because I don't WANT to go back to sleep.

I know the rain clouds will eventually disperse, and I will find myself again. But I don't have time for this sad stuff right now... it's a luxury I cannot afford. This happens EVERY time Nick comes to visit. He leaves, and I feel like my soul has just been sucked out again. I hate myself, my life, and I doubt everyone and everything in it.

Perhaps I should go back on anti-depressants, just for when he is here.

On Being an Ice Princess

For some reason, its been a troubling week or so for me. My mind is running at full bore, refusing to be disciplined, refusing to concentrate at given tasks that I need to do. Sometimes this is just neurosis, but sometimes it means I need to pay attention. Often, I am avoiding something important, and becoming upset with situations that have little or nothing to do with what is actually "wrong".

A few weeks ago, while playing in the personal dramas inside my mind, Mama'Laine said something important to me. She said... and I paraphrase, that I cannot really begin something new until I have resolved the old things that are running my life. In this case, she was speaking of Nick. That somehow, I need to come to terms with the dissoulution of my marriage, and for the sake of Spike - we need to be friends.

She accused me of being outraged. Of being angry. But - I swear, my anger is not the cause of my behavior. When I am angry, I'm pretty loud. What I am is this: I'm frozen.

Freezing is what I do when I am afraid. I go cold. I turn to stone. I become an ice princess. Remote, arrogant, immovable. From the outside, its very fearsome - like the way a cat, when threatened, can double in size by puffing out its fur.

When I was younger, this was my perpetual state. I remember the first time I was told that others believed I was arrogant and cold - and how shocked I was. Because I was never really arrogant, I didn't have that much self-esteem. What I was was simply terrified. Fortunately, I rarely treat strangers this way any more - I save it now for people I care about.

I even know the origin of this. Blame Simon and Garfunkel.

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window
to the streets below
On a freshly fallen
silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock, I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship;
friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.

I am a rock, I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber
of feelings that have died.
If I never loved
I never would have cried.
I am a rock,I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry
to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room,
safe within my womb.
I touch no one and
no one touches me.
Iam a rock,
Iam an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Now, only a rather romantic teenager could adopt this as a life philosophy. But adopt it I did. It got me through ages 11 and 12 and 13 and 14 - all the way into 44. And bless me, it worked. It kept me safe. I stayed behind my walls, and I felt nothing, for a very long time.

Sometimes, someone would catch me off guard, and they could come in - but for the most part, I stayed numb and frozen. I did learn to love, but it took a lot to gain my trust. I did make friends, but honestly - they were only guards whom I trusted to protect the fortress walls.

Then, I met Elaine and Rhoberta. Slowly - ever so slowly, I came out of my tower, and mostly I got better. I stopped being always afraid of everyone and everything... I started making genuine freindships that weren't between the adored princess and trusty servant.

But, when I am afraid, I go to my tower and I hide. I go numb. I become imperious and demanding and cold, and unapproachable. What can I say? It works.

But you know what happens if you are an ice princess? You can't MOVE. You're STUCK. It's uncomfortable. Nothing changes.

Now - why am I so afraid of Nick? Well - he betrayed my trust. He rescued the princess in the tower, but he did it not for true love, but simply to get the jewelry. He hurt me as much as any other human ever has, and more than I will ever allow another human to do again. (thats a pretty promise now... isn't it?) It's NOT about the anger. If I wasn't frozen, I could process the anger. It isn't about the outrage... though his actions were pretty outrageous.

Its really about the fear that I trusted him once, and he nearly shattered me - and if I let him in, even an inch, he might find a way to do it again. He has proven himself dangerous, as well as disloyal and untrustworthy. I'm not sure how to keep myself safe, and still let him back into my life... it is better to feel nothing at all... unless... unless... unless.....

I change the paradigm. I re-imagine the mythology. I find a better philosophy than one written for an adolescent girl.

I know what I NEED to do, but I do not know where to find the courage. I need to allow myself to remember, that despite the fact that he is a complete fuck, I did like him once upon a time. The fact that he was a complete fuck wasn't hidden from my view for the entire 18 odd years that I loved him... I knew he was a jerk, and I loved him anyway. He has many good qualities, in and amongst his dysfunctional and narcississtic personality disorders. We were, even when I was an imaginary princess - really truly freinds (or I think we must have been....)

He's smart. He is capable of stunning acts of kindness. He really cares about things that are paramount to me; social justice, helping the helpless, the plight of the worlds children - and most importantly - he cares about our son.

Somehow, I need to be able to look at him again, and remember and value the things about him that are really truely admirable, and have compassion for all the places he is broken and unhealed.... and somehow let this soften and open my heart, instead of freezing it and making it smaller.

Because as much as I like it, being a princess in a tower just isnt working anymore. It still hurts. I don't feel safe, no matter how high these walls are, no matter how many guards are at the door. And living in a tower isnt really a life anyway, not when I need to move on and see the rest of the world.

Love or something like it....

I think it is time for me to give it all up. Stop shaving my legs and underarms, find a good store that carries sweat pants and caftans, and adopt a few dozen cats. This whole love and romance thing is simply beyond me.

When did this all get so hard? How is it that something so primary and joyful as love is so fucking difficult? What happens between first love, when you wake up every morning and your beloved makes your entire world a better place - to now, when the thought of loving someone makes your stomach hurt and makes you want to chuck the whole thing and become a crazy cat lady instead?

And if its this hard.... can it possibly actually be love? Isnt the whole love thing supposed to be like a hole you fall into? Of course, by the time one reaches a certain age, one has experience of just falling into that hole a few times, and finding that the hole is not just a hole, but a trap - and getting back out of it is way harder than falling in.

So, you stand over the hole, weighing the pros and cons - deciding whether or not its OK to jump - all the while, popular culture is telling you that if it IS love, you'd already be in that hole without thinking twice.

Am I even making any sense here? Maybe some context would help.

I think I love someone. He thinks he loves me. If I knew he loved me, I would stop thinking about it (I think).... but we are both of an age where we both have some experience. And both of us are alike in this.... we don't want any repeats of past failures.

I don't want to love someone who doesn't love me. Been there. Done that. Yet, here I go again, loving someone who isnt sure he loves me. And I gotta ask myself.... do I love him (or think I do) just because he isn't sure? Am I, yet again, trying to fix the things that hurt me in the past? Is there a hurt little kid inside, reaching out for something out of reach, trying to make an emotionally unavailable person finally love me? Am I trying to force something here to counter some deep internal fear that I am unlovable and undeserving of real committed love?

I profess to him, in my oh-so-wise ways, that this releationship is REALLY something new and different. Is this the truth? or is this just me repeating the mistakes of the past hoping for a new and different outcome?

Oh lord, I am pathetic. God, why did you have to go and give me a female brain? Is this overthinking your punishment because Eve decided to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Isnt this just a little bit unfair?

Now.... lets go back to the world of observable reality, instead of all the tapes and monologues that play inside my febrile female mind:

Ale and I had this wonderful time in New York. We really like each other. Its fun to be together. We respect each other. We are careful of each other. Both of us are behaving with integrity and honesty - I am really proud of how we are behaving. This is a good man, and this is a good relationship.

Last night was the first time I had seen him since the trip. He was strange and distant. Something seemed "off". We made love, and though the physicality was as wondrous as always, it was distant.

I asked - "hey what's up?" To which he replied that the whole 'love' thing scares him. Now, I dont really know if this means that his feelings scare him, or that my stating my feelings is scary. I assumed the first, but now I am not so sure. However, now that I think of it, I would bet that its a bit of both.

(Hey - Ale, if you are reading this.... would you REALLY prefer that I not have these feelings for you? Scary though they may be? Nah, thought not.)

He also told me he tells everyone about me, that we are fine, and that I shouldn't worry. Do you know what this means in 'man speak'? That he is really taking this seriously, that I am important to him, and that I really shouldn't worry. (this is what I really like best about men.... they aren't that complicated.)

But worry I do. Because I want us to put our pro con lists aside. I want to just jump in that hole together, and find out if it's yet another trap - or if it might just be the rabbit hole into wonderland. I want to chase the white rabbit, and see if there is a whole new world to explore. I want to stop weighing what is right, and what could be wrong, and just revel in loving someone, and in knowing I am loved in return. I want to wake up to a world that is a better place, just because Alessio is in it.

Of course, I am also the type of girl - who when she is reading a really scary mystery story - skips to the end of the book to find out what happens, just to make sure that there is a happy ending after all.

"it is hard to be brave," said piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're
only a Very Small Animal."

A. A. Milne (1882 - 1956)
British writer
Winnie the Pooh, 1926, "Kanga and Baby Roo"

Losing Mama

I remember, once upon a time, having a mother. I remember being taken care of - at least a little - and, if not ever feeling secure - at least loving my mother passionately.

Then, I remember a man coming along and taking my mother away from me... and no matter how nice he was to me (and he was nice to me when I was very very little - at least from time to time) I remember the horrified feeling I had when they phoned us one day and announced that they had been married.

Shortly after this, I remember the hugs and kisses from my mother stopping, the bedtime stories stopping, and his turning on me - and his turning my mother against me. I went from being her dolly (it wasnt good, really - but it was something) to being a "spoiled brat".

I didn't lose my mama all at once, but over time. Not a long time, it was a pretty fast seduction and abandonment - and I never really understood how it could have happened. How could a mother leave her own child for a man?

Does my past control me, or simply inform me? Am I making decisions that are based on the fear of repeating my mothers mistakes, or are my mothers mistakes giving me wisdom - and how do I know the difference?

As important to me as the concept of home, love, and family are - I have pretty much decided that I will not marry again. Or - at least, I will not live with another man. Spike has a father,
and no matter what my needs may be, I will not subject him to a stepfather. I would like a life partner, but Spike's home is with me.

I am, for the moment, secure in this decision.

However, now I am finding myself in a very difficult situation. I am beginning to love someone - and even beginning to trust him. Needs I have supressed for a long time are being met, and he makes me really happy. Most of the time.... but...... I am a package deal. He is not entirely comfortable with this.

I feel that sometimes, in order to get what I need or want, he wants me to choose between him and Spike. Not out of maliciousness, or evil (he is not my stepfather) - but because he is not quite ready to be involved with my son. He feels, I think, that it is important for us to have time together to be established, or not, as a couple. Also, I think he is frightened about getting involved with any one's child, for reasons I don't quite understand.

Now, honestly - he may be right. He has been right about a lot of things so far. He forced me to take this slow. He has balanced my impulsiveness, and I think that maybe this has not been a bad thing. That he cares for me I do not doubt. That he is taking this all pretty seriously is clear.....

I would like to believe that the issue is that he doesnt want to play musical chairs with Spike's affections, and that he is simply being cautious and taking the whole subject of commitment very carefully - and this may be some of it. But also, he simply is just uncomfortable with children in general.

This is a very very very bad thing.... and it scares me deeply.

This is going to be the thing that ends it. Is this my fear speaking? Or is this Wisdom? And how do I know the difference?

And in his case.... is it fear, or wisdom? How do I know, and what do I trust?

I do not like compartamentalizing my life, nor can I tolerate the sensation of needing to choose between a man I may love, and a child who is my life. And more than anything else at all... I never ever ever want my baby to think I have left him for a stranger. To betray my child in such a way would be something I could never live with.

Big Girls Don't Cry

Give me a crisis. I like emergencies. When something is really wrong, I am the coolest cat around. Focused, intent, calm. I thrive in extraordinary circumstances. I NEVER panic, I never get hysterical, and I pretty much always know what to do.

The "hassles of daily life", however, well... I don't do so well with those. Laundry stresses me out - and balancing a checkbook? Feggitaboutit.

Now, of course, the why of this is obvious... I grew up in a war zone. I'm good at it. But - 25 years now and counting, I still do not know what the appropriate emotional response to life's normal stressors are. I try and ask others "what do 'normal' people do in this situation" - but, they really don't even comprehend my question. I know it comes off as whining, this search for how I am actually supposed to be and feel in 'normal' situations, but its not whining. I REALLY don't know.

My friends, particularly my single mother friends, view me as a paragon of strength. "You're so strong" blah blah blah. I've been hearing some variation on this my whole life.

NO I am not. I simply don't know how to show my emotions, until the internal pressure reaches a boiling point .... at which point I simply become morose and depressed. Being 'emotional' is bad. Its feminine. Its unstable. And honestly, I don't actually know how to be emotional.

Case in point; someone broke a date with me. I was really upset. REALLY upset. Feeling kind of fragile, and believing I had shared that fragility, I was over the top.... or so I thought. So - I apologized for being so upset and being a ball buster. To which he said "Huh?" (Okay - I might be feeling morose right now... but that's really kind of funny.)

When the big Ms. A decided to attack me in public, over how I made her "feel" - all I could do is sit and listen while she hurt me. I was unable to defend myself, because I was trying to be rational with someone who was being completely irrational. I jumped through hoops in my head to stay cool and try and logically see what was wrong.... the appropriate response was to fight back. But when faced with that sort of irrational rage, I simply didn't know how.

I can be very passionate when it comes to politics, ideas, intellectual pursuits. When it comes to things like that... I can fight, argue, defend myself - using facts, rationality, intellect. But when it comes to my emotional life, feelings, interpersonal communications - things where facts and logic don't apply, I am simply retarded.

I wonder what it would feel like to be outraged, and EXPRESS it clearly. I wonder how my world would change if - just every now and then - I could bust someones balls, attack someone just because they were being horrid to me, feel unfettered joy and show it.... throw an irrational temper tantrum.... or cry, just because I am sad?

How do men achieve this, limited as they are to only being allowed to express anger? Of course, being female - I am forbidden this as well. So, somehow I have managed to limit not only the allowable range of female emotions (lest I appear unstable), but I am culturally cut off from my anger too.

Now - of course I FEEL these things, and I feel them deeply. I feel love, and hope, and joy, anger, rage, and despair. But I don't show it. (And, honestly, I try and avoid joy.... because that is something that can be taken away....)

So - when I feel real fear I call it "nervous". When I am deeply miserable - I am "unsettled" or "sad". When I am outraged, I show concern and am usually apologetic about it. Anger and outrage are the worst for me, because those are dangerous, and they can get you hurt.

So, when I cry, I spill out my words. But only here. Well crafted and well thought out as they are... each word I type today is one misplaced tear.

And each tear makes me feel ashamed. Because Big Girls Don't Cry.

I love mama 'laine

Any one who follows my posts knows that I was raised by jackals. Fortunately, in this world, you are not limited to your family of birth. Just like a baby duck, you CAN imprint on other parents.... just because you were born to jackals doesn't MEAN you need to be a jackal yourself.

*In this case.. jackal is a metaphor. I am sure that the use of the term jackal to describe a low life form of humanity is based on unwarranted prejudices.... I am sure that jackals are very nice animals as far as vicious scavenging beasts go. I apologize to all jackals every where for the disparaging comparison to my birth parents.

So, anyway, I have gone out and found my own family.... and I really lucked out.

Without permission, I am republishing our last communications about this blog and my current unsettled state.

Mama,

I know you are with the Dalai Lama today - but when you get a chance.... and after you've looked at my blog entry.....

Could you explain what the "poof" thing is about?

When Ale and I are IN EACH OTHERS PRESENCE - there is no doubt in my mind that love - or something like it - is there. We are really really happy and really like each others company.

Within a few hours of being apart... it really IS "poof" - like we don't exist at all for each other. Both of us experience this sensation.

Is this entire relationship nothing but biochemistry?

Okay - I know... it is completely pathetic that I sound like a teenaged girl writing to "Dear Abby". What can I say? I am kind of a teenaged girl. I have lived my life in reverse. By the time I am 75, I assume that I will have returned to full infancy.

Dear Shaun,

Friday we spent the whole day with the Dalai Lama. Yesterday in my shower (where I sometimes do have big epiphanies) I received the message that instead of going to spend the 2nd day with the Dalai Lama, it was imperative that Rhoberta and I attend the Workshop on the Transformation of Negative Thought, for this semester's Advanced Meditation Class, something that I had opted us out of so that we could spend the 2 days in the presence of the Dalai Lama.

... I got on the phone to our teacher Sylvia,
who in a delighted voice encouraged us to come ahead.......

As usual, being us, we were a few minutes late to the morning session. We arrived just in time to hear Sylvia speak these words..."If you had a bad taste in your mouth, you would quickly, without thinking about it for a second, spit it out."

She then continued, and I paraphrase: The same thing when you have a negative thought in your mind, and you can identify it as that, just stop it. Just get rid of it like you would something foul tasting in your mouth. It is just that simple. The hard part is to identify what is a negative thought, especially if it has become automatic for you, so that you can no longer easily perceive that it is negative.

It strikes me that the "poof" is as simple as this direction given by Sylvia. The 'poof' is just the 'emptiness' (especially when it feels like it's out of your control) of what is in your relationship when you are not together.

When you are together, and unstressed, and creating harmony, and happiness, that's what fills the space, and that's when you are relaxed and can feel love and loved...stressed people usually can't be that creative about their ability to be there for each other, and interpret not only how they themselves are feeling, but also especially, how anyone else is feeling, too.

When you're apart the 'poof' can represent the 'emptiness' or the empty page on which you could write volumes, good or bad, depending on the taste that you like to have in your mouth, and how being alone and out of control, has occurred in your history (perhaps even a mutual kind of history). I think I know by now that you know by now, that there is nothing that you can do or say that makes another person 'change' until they can identify, whether it matches something that they themselves can 'see' that they want to change too.

You have the choice however, when you're apart, to make up volumes about what their silence, or indecision means. If we could look at what causes your own ambivalence; right off the bat, you know that you're worried that you are going to get hurt, once again. So sometimes when you are in a place where the 'other' is missing too, you fill in the silent spaces (because they are silent) with your own anxiety. Anxiety that you developed, which was fostered usually by the 'quiet' before the 'storm'
that frequently was between you and your parents and turned out to be painful and dangerous. When the lack of contact begins to trouble you, is when your imagination can also run rampant, and all kinds of doubt can enter the picture.

When you are apart, there is an opportunity for you to create nothing during those hours, however. Neither 'good' nor 'bad', nothing to do with that emptiness except to just let it be.

I know, there's the rub, and that's when patience becomes more than an enterprise that's about 'waiting for the other to make up their mind', and becomes one about you and your ability to not tinker with their machinery, and to be mindful of your own machinery and how it hates a void, and the machinations it will provide to fill that void. The soapy soup of our eternal, internal dramas. On blank pages we usually weave yarns.

My advice is to learn to enjoy the silences, and the indecisions they might represent that are not punitive, and fill that time by putting a 'good' taste in your mouth about what can be coming your way that will be pleasurable. Methinks you already are doing that when you write your impassioned, and gorgeous, and searching, and brilliant, and well crafted blogs.

(*ed note: See? I told you my mama'laine is a genius :))

...Love and hugs, Elaine

If you didn't struggle so much, it wouldn't hurt so bad!

You know, sometimes I really should write when I am feeling happy, because I am nearly certain that both my readers are convinced that I am constantly miserable. I'm not. Its just that when I am happy, I am busy being happy. When I am unhappy, it means that life is trying to teach me shit.

Life is busy with me these days.

Today's lesson is patience. The problem with this is that I don't seem to have the foggiest clue what patience means.

To my knowledge, what patience means is that you wait around for other people to decide what they are going to do and how it is going to impact your life. It means giving all your power and self control to another human being, and hoping against hope that you are going to like what the other person decides to do.

Now, with this point of view - I guess it is absolutely no wonder that I have no patience. When someone says to me "please be patient" - I am filled with anxiety and despair. It means I have no say, no control - and the only thing I can do is wait, in this state of utter terror.

So, obviously, I've got this whole thing wrong - because otherwise, wise people wouldn't say things like "patience is a virtue". And, obviously I have it wrong because if I understood it - life wouldn't be beating me up with a "patience" stick.

So, I guess the question for me is to how to learn patience, without being so completely fucking disempowered. And how to know when waiting is pointless, and to just move on.

Ok - I just looked patience up in the dictionary.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
(v 1.1)Cite This Source
pa·tience –noun
1.the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation,
annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.
2.an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or
annoyance when confronted with delay: to have patience with a slow learner.
3.quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence: to work with patience.

Synonyms

1. composure, stability, self-possession; submissiveness, sufferance. Patience, endurance, fortitude, stoicism imply qualities of calmness, stability, and persistent courage in trying circumstances. Patience may denote calm, self-possessed, and unrepining bearing of pain, misfortune, annoyance, or delay;
or painstaking and untiring industry or (less often) application in the doing of somehing: to bear afflictions with patience. Endurance denotes the ability to bear exertion, hardship, or suffering (without implication of moral qualities
required or shown): Fortitude implies not only patience but courage and strength of character in the midst of pain, affliction, or hardship: to show fortitude in adversity.

Can I state that this definition is not particularly helpful?

Some people seem to be born with natural equilibrium. I think I am not one of those people. I CAN live in a state of gray - things do not have to be black and white... But the notion of having to wait while others decide what they will or will not do - and to do it gracefully and without terrific anxiety is so hard. How do you know when to cut your losses and just walk away?

In my life right now, there are 2 situations that are BIG to me, and both are about patience. Both of these situations require calmness and fortitude and grace. I cannot move these rivers - my only choices are to wait until the river water subsides and I can cross... or to walk away and find a new path. And I am suffering - but the situations themselves - though difficult, are not the cause of the pain. The cause of the pain is that I am trying to move the rivers. If I didn't struggle so much... it wouldn't hurt so bad!

Situation one involves someone whom I once believed to be a freind, and whom I care for. But, she has a lot of problems, and it seems that I get pinned with those problems. To preserve this freindship, I have exhibited an extraordinary amount of patience - I have changed my behavior (even though I don't believe - in retrospect - that my behavior was really my problem) - I have allowed her to "put me in my place" (my rightful place in her point of view). I submitted to all she asked, and more - and as long as I was submissive, kept my head down, kept my thoughts to myself.... she seemed OK with me again.

But now, her partner has become jealous of me. Because of this, he doesn't want us to be freinds. He doesn't want her to see me anymore. How this particular delusion on his part came to be - I have no fucking idea. It is so bizarre, and so childish that I have no words. So I am now the "cause" of her pain again. I am being impacted, and worse - my son is being impacted, by her lack of responsibility and personal ownership of her own life. She has asked me to be patient while she sorts this out.

This is causing me pain. I cannot move this river. I don't want my son to suffer because of this. If it were only me, the answer is clear. I have been committed to this freindship, and willing to supress my own personal best interests in order to BE her freind, but this is just too much. But it is not just my life.... my son's best loved freind is involved in this mess too. These boys love each other, and I do NOT take my son's feelings so lightly.

Situation 2 is different, but is again causing me great anxiety. I have been in relationship with a very wonderful guy for about 10 month. He adores me, I adore him... but.... but.... Why on earth are there buts here?

We both sit on the fence. I sit on the fence because I don't want to get hurt. I don't trust my feelings entirely. But, there is a connection here that would be foolish to walk away from. There is something special and irreplaceable here.

He sits on the fence because he just doesn't see a future with me. Or see's one and doesn't like what it looks like. I don't know what he see's - but I think he looks down the road, and I am not there.

Some of his fears are reasonable. A commitment to me is a commitment to a family. He doesn't know if he loves me. I am not what he had in mind. These are big things - and he is right to be careful.

His other concern is our lack of a common tongue... but honestly, this is one of the things I love best. We must communicate very carefully... and neither one of us can use words as a weapon. This is one of the greatest gifts I have ever recieved.

We are happy when we are together. So, when we are together there is love - or something that feels a while lot like it. When he see's me, his eyes light up - its so wonderful! And no matter how anxious I have been feeling, when he walks into the room, the anxiety dissolves..... and I relax. With him, I am "sweet". I really don't think anyone has ever used that word to describe me before, but, he "sweetens" me. And that's a really nice thing.

When we are apart, it all vanishes. Poof. Like we have never known each other. He is doubtful, I am anxious... and I feel his doubts all the way across town.

My answer is, of course - so, lets be together more. (* Being a rather practical person, as well as an ardent fan of mind altering chemicals, I figure if something makes you feel good... more of it is always better than less.)

Neither one of us wants to walk away.... but both of us think about it every day. Me, because I cant stand the uncertainty. I would rather take the risk, and be wrong, than to wait and be "patient". He - on the other hand - takes his time always. 3 years for his thesis. Never been married and never wants to be married - or even share a home. MAY want a family - when he is 45. I think maybe he is not great at commitment.

I don't want to get married right now. I love having my own home. I am in no hurry to marry again, and I am in no hurry to share my home with another person - because my home is with Spike. But - I DO want a partner. I do want to be committed and in love. I do want someone to belong to, someone with whom I have a sense of "conivoligmento". I want to share my life with a person I love. And I could love him. He's lovely. So.... my only choice here is to wait. And see. And it is taking every ounce of self discipline not to walk away.

I cannot move this river either. I think there is enough here to see it through - enough passion to stay put for a while. I am willing - for now - to sit tight and see what the future brings.

And... I think this is a good relationship for me. He is teaching me patience. He calms me when he is with me. And, I think he could learn something about commitment from me.... I am NOT good at patience, but I am terrific at commitment and perseverence. And I am really good at loving.

I have no answers. Only questions. Elaine says that patience isn't about waiting. It is about acceptance. And I think it is also about trusting in the universe, trusting in serendipity.

I wish I were better at these things. I hope with all my heart that I learn these lessons this time.... because I am truely getting tired of getting hit with the "patience stick".

Chinese Horoscope

Ok - this is tooooo funny. And not just a little bit spooky.

Characteristics of a Tiger

Passionate and dynamic, the Tiger is a stick of dynamite waiting to go off. They are born leaders and usually have the charisma to cause people to naturally follow them. Yet, they have a sensitive, even artistic side as seen in the passionate dancer, Rudolf Nureyev. They are also nurturers, and the Tiger lady makes a great mom. The downside is they are often hot-headed and foolhardy and may not always justify the faith we place in them to lead us. Their fault-finding and rebelliousness can be almost unbearable at times. Still, we love the excitement they bring into our lives and their redoubtable accomplishments.

Positive Traits:

Adventurous, affectionate, charitable, colorful, courageous, dynamic, empathetic, exciting, humorous, optimistic, playful and resolute.The adventurous and courageous Tiger is a born leader. You are not afraid to blaze new trails, and, given your independent streak, you are more than willing to go it alone if necessary. Your firm determination also makes you a fierce competitor.

Your passion also gives you the potential to be a star performer. Colorful and dynamic, you have a commanding presence before any group. Yes, we can count on you to command our attention and generate excitement.

Interestingly, you have another side, that of the playful kitten. It is characterized not only by youthful innocence and optimism but also a playful sense of humor. You enjoy telling jokes, which are all the more funny because people usually see your serious side and are caught off guard to see you out of character.

Your kinder and gentler side also includes a genuine humanitarian streak. You are empathetic and keenly sense the emotions and feelings of others, to which you respond with compassion and a sincere desire to help when needed.

Negitive Traits:

Anxious, argumentative, authoritarian, critical, domineering, edgy, impatient, impulsive, narrow minded, rash, ruthless, self centered and temperamental.

The downside of the Tiger's passion is that it can lead to emotional distress, especially when frustrated by people or events. You have a tendency to be anxious and edgy. This uneasiness of mind could come from brooding fear about some contingency or simply a feeling of being tense or on edge.

Your high energy level fueled by passion often makes you impatient. You want to do things right away and can become deeply frustrated with unplanned delays. Your rashness sometimes manifests itself as impulsive behavior. There is a bit of the fools rush in mentality in you. In other words, you do not always think things through before you act.

You have a tendency to be self centered; so, this hasty action occasionally fails to take into consideration its affect on others. Your focus on yourself can manifest itself in a form of narrow mindedness as contempt for the interests of others. You also can hurt others by being overly critical and argumentative when they do not perform up to the high standards you set for yourself. And, you almost demand that they do. Your sign is a strong one, and it is not surprising you have a tendency to be authoritarian and domineering. At your worst, you can even be ruthless. It is not wise to cross you deliberately.

Qualities Admired: Forthrightness, sincerity.

Pet Peeves: Boastfulness, pettiness

My little girl is growing up...

...Or Life, the Universe, and everything.

I need to preface this post with what I believe, or the rest makes not a lot of sense.

Though lately I have been writing about Buddhism, I am not a Buddhist. What I know about Buddhism would fit in a teaspoon. I am - for want of a better description - a Christian. Though I believe that Christ was a Buddhist.

The "church" would tell you that I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the resurrection of the body, I do not believe in only one life, I do not believe in the virgin birth, nor in the communion of saints. I doubt that Jesus died for our sins - I think he died because of our sinfullness, and that he died a political prisoner, just as we continue to kill political prisoners to this day. I do not believe in hell, and I think heaven is right here on earth. And I do believe in reincarnation (that being the resurrection that the bible is actually referring to...)

So - I am heretic. In the very strictest sense of the word. On a bad day I believe we are biological accidents formed in the randomness of the universe, and that we simply get born, we live, we die - and we assign spiritual meaning to this because we cannot face the existential void.

Ok - now why I really came to write.

I am in a new relationship. Its about 8 or 9 months old at this point, but its moving along sloowwwwllllyyyyy. Its still all about date night, and being on best behavior. No keys have been exchanged. We don't leave stuff at each others houses. I have yet to meet a single one of his friends. I have never been in any thing quite so slow before, and it bugs me - but I'm riding with it. I'm kind of bothered by it, actually. But I'm sticking it out for a while because this is something quite new to me....

I am having a relationship with someone who I have never known before. There is no karmic history. There are no past life entanglements. I do not recognize him from anywhere else... I dont feel as if I have "known him all my life" - and I must say, I am more curious than afraid, and that is new for me too.

With each man I have loved, we had loved each other in some other life. I had memories of them, or I could see clearly what the future would hold. I "knew" them in some inexplicable way that went deeper that dinner, dating, and sex. In Nicks case, we been around the block so many times before that I knew what would happen when I finally had a child - because I had memories of it. I knew Lisandro, I knew Marcello - I "recognized" them. Even my entanglement with A, even though it came to nothing, was sparked because we had known each other - I believe the whole entire thing about "soul mates" comes not from necessarily "belonging together" - but is rather based on this sense of having been around lifes wheel a few times together.

But now, I am with someone who I have never known before. I have a clean slate. Its fresh. But - can you REALLY love someone who you have only met in this lifetime? Can you ever really get to know them without a few lifetimes of prior experience?

Do I love him? Yes, freqeuntly. Am I "in love" with him. Sometimes. These are things I do not say, because I do not know how they will be recieved or understood - nor do men seem to really understand that love is taking out the trash and doing the dishes at the end of the day. Plus, just because you love someone doesn't really mean you have a lifetime to spend together - nor that you are even remotely compatible. Plus - I don't really KNOW how I feel, because - I have no experience with this man.

Having no frame of reference, no past life, no common mother tongue... it is like staring into the abyss. I have ALWAYS known the future. Now, I look into the future, and he is not in it. Yet, I find that unimaginable. There is something so "right" in what's happening here. But, I dont think he loves me, and I don't know that he ever will. Because like me - he has no frame of reference either.

The day he leaves my life and my bed will be a very sad day indeed. I like him in my life and in my bed. I like him. I think of him and feel very warm inside, but I also feel very anxious, because I don't know what will happen next.

But, I know he will still be here tomorrow. And I will just have to content myself with that. At least until that is not enough.

An overdeveloped sense of justice

Generally, when I write, I am unconcious. These writings write themselves in my head, but by the time I appraoch my keyboard, what comes out of my fingers is something entirely different. Todays particular writing is different, because I am concious, and I am embarrassed for myself and by myself - I feel "wrong" - "bad" and a certain amount of self loathing for it. At the same time, I have great pride in my point of view - and I feel a deep sense of confusion.

The wide variety of methods that kids will find to survive a really horrible childhood are astonishing. I deeply admire my child self for the path to survival she personally took - yet it is this same path that is now, for me, a source of suffering - and a fault I have that frightens others and causes difficulties in my relationships. It is a very tangled web of "good" and "bad" - lacking clarity, and one of those places where my very strengths are my greatest weaknesses.

As a child, and living in a family of - well - troglodytes, I turned to books, education, ideas, and God. I developed this incredible sense of justice, ethics, a habit for trying always to take a higher path. Though I would be targeted by other children for it, I always stuck up for the underdog, whatever kid was being picked on - and I defended myself in my own heart by feeling my own "self-righeousness".

So - how is trying to be 'good' and 'just' - always striving to do the 'right' thing - wrong? Well - its all in the language I just used, even if it isn't in the intentions I have. As a child, I desperately needed to defend and seperate myself from the people I lived with. These were really bad and scary people who really were out to get me and who did thier best - for whatever reason - to hurt me. And even though you can have compasion for a serial killer, you don't meet him in a dark alley after midnight. I LIVED in that dark alley in perpetual nighttime.

An overdeveloped sense of justice, and an ability to articulate and distinguish right from wrong was the only defense I had, and out of all the alternatives out there - the most blessed tactic I could have taken. It allowed me to grow into a decent human being, when I had no role models of human decency in my own home. It helped me to create a higher standard to live up to, when those around me were defining me as a whore, a liar, a thief and trying to create a little monster of thier own. This same weapon that served to save me as a child is now hurting people I love, - but it worked so well for me, that I don't want to give it up for good!

As an adult my sense of self-righteousness has become a habit. This habit interferes with my ability to communicate, and it seperates me from others. It is not, necessarily, that I always think in terms of right and wrong and good and bad, because I do not. However - when I speak, I often speak in a way that sounds so "certain" - and my point of view is often so clearly articulated, that other people do not feel like they can talk to me, or that I can listen to them. I often seem to lack any doubts whatsoever. My way of speaking frequently shuts other people down... and that is certainly not my intention.



Now, I don't know exactly what to do about this habit - because at times being able to speak with certainty and authority is a great gift. It can inspire others to share in my visions, can motivate others to reach further, and can serve myself and the world well. However, in my personal relationships - this is proving to be disatrous, by making others feel like they cannot articulate their points of view, as if I am so certain of everything that there is no room for them nor thier reality.

I am not always certain. I am not always right. But while I can communicate my certainties, I do not know how to communicate my uncertanties - and sometimes, I cannot always tell the difference.

Also, I fear that if I change thse habits, I sacrifice some of my greatest gifts.

How do I get over my own "self-righteousness" while still distinguishing right from wrong and good from bad. There is no moral relativity in things such as child abuse, slavery, war, and murder. There is no moral relativity when examining the evils our government is perpetrating across the globe. There can be no moral justification for adults who rape children. While I can certainly feel compassion for the conditions that create monsters, and while I can pray that these monsters recieve healing to return to a state of grace - I do not know how to NOT judge thier actions, nor how to feel 'oneness' for such as these.

How do I get off my right/wrong good/bad absolutest ways of being in this world - and make room for the realities of others, while still preserving my ethical sensibilites? How do I preserve my own voice, while encouraging others to speak back just as forcefully? I can see the pain my way of being can cause to others - but I can also see the good my way of being can do in the world. It is not possible to change a world that you float above, and it doesn't serve God if I constantly seperate myself from others.

Just how do I balance this? I do not know yet. But my way is NOT always right, and more to the point, it is not always effective. Other people do have great contributions to make, but if the timbre of my voice shuts off their ability to speak, I weaken the world with my own aspiration to make it a better place. And I weaken my own ability to create change in the world by frightening others.

I have no answer to this problem at this point. I can see where my judgementalism closes rather than opens my heart, and I can see where my own way of defending myself can cause me to be attacked. How do I express myself authentically, without stopping up the hearts of others?

Reading over what I have just written shames me, though I am not exactly sure why. My sense of hubris? My arrogance? My self-defensiveness? Out of all the things I have written about myself, what I write here might be the most shaming of all - because I AM arrogant. I am prideful. But my emotions and my intellect are at war over this, because though I feel ashamed of myself, and though I see my faults illustrated in this essay - I do not feel that my sense of truth or justice are wrong!!!! Worse still, I am teaching myself an important lessson here - but it is as if I am teaching myself trigonometry. My own inner teacher is doing her best, by my own inner student just doesn't understand.

Is Peace a Goal?

My friend Ale got me thinking about this issue. During one of our better Italio-Inglese conversations, he said that what he sought most in this world is "peace". His own peace is what I assume he means.... inner peace. I must own that such a desire has never really been on my list. Yes, I would like to more comfortably rest within myself. Certainly I would rather not be so subject to my swings of mood and emotion... but to seek peace, in and of itself, is somewhat foreign to me as an idea.

Is peace a goal in itself, or is peace a by product of a just world, a just life, or of changing your perception of reality? And, is peace truly a desirable thing?

For the last 6,000 years, we as a people have evolved an entire civilization based on war and struggle. Empires have been built, art has evolved, literacy is rampant - as a result of these struggles. Certainly, at the pinnacle of our cultural success we are on the brink of destruction - but even in facing this impending doom, we are discovering an ethic to face it and recreate our lifestyles to foster our own survival.

For millions of years before this, we lived in relative peace. But... there is no record. We lived in isolation. We hunted and gathered and lived and died, but there is no record that we ever before became like the gods themselves - creators of our own universe.

In the world in which we live now, the concept of world peace is based - I believe - on justice. Peace and justice are different sides of the same coin, according to Benjamin Franklin. The only way to achieve justice is to fight for it. Fighting is anathema to peace.

I am in essence, a warrior. How does one become a peaceful warrior? I hear the term, and it appeals to me - yet I can make no sense of it! Sometimes, in my childish imagination, I see 'peace' in the same way that I see 'heaven' - portrayed in the Renaissance; an endlessly boring harp playing song singing nowhere land.

It is said the angels feel nothing but endless joy - I DO NOT WANT TO FEEL ENDLESS JOY. I want to feel the whole range, joy and love, despair and longing, sadness and heartbreak - because if I never suffer, how do I know what joy feels like?

If one lives always in a state of peace, a state of grace - how does one grow? If we had no obstacles, we never would have grown legs. If there were no trees to climb, we wouldn't need our arms. Evolutionarily speaking, without the struggle for survival we could have remained peaceable single cell amoeba, happily munching on each other in the primordial ooze.

It is not that I do not want the world, ultimately, to be at peace. I would like to see, in my lifetime, a world without war and injustice. But a perfect world might not have a place for me in it... revolutionaries must be shot the moment the struggle is over, or else they do nothing but create trouble!

And I wonder, because there MUST be something here, like algebra, that I just don't understand!

Dear God

Dear God.....
.I know that right now I am supposed to be working on the whole compassion thing - learning that I am not so seperate from everyone else.

I have been working on it, I swear .... praying for others when I am angry or sad, attempting to breathe in pain and breath out healing and peace.

I know, also, that big obastacles and challenges are a teaching tool - and how it is easy to pray and have compassion when nothing big is on the line....

But please God, slow it down a bit. I'm quite new at this compassion work, and I think you may be throwing the hard stuff at me a little too fast.

Love,

Shaun

Lives of Quiet Desperation

When you are a child you think: "When I grow up, it'll all be different." As a young adult, you think: "In a few more years, I'll get it together." In your mid thirties - you are still hopeful: "When I get the raise, when I find true love, when X finally happens... it will all fall into place."

We always believe, that with just a little more time - a little more work, we are going to finally "Get it together." All we need is more time, all we need is more wisdom, we just got to stick to our diet and follow our exercise plan - and freedom will be right around the corner.

This is not to say that we cannot elevate our life through conscious endeavor, that we cannot change, transform, or grow. The problem is that we believe that change comes from someplace outside... that we will have what we seek when things change. Things do not change - we change. Furthermore, we tend to seek an illusion - something that not only cannot be had, but should not be sought - not, in any case, head on.

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”
Henry David Thoreau

What is it we are all looking for? A pain and trouble free life, an escape from suffering, to be different than what and who we are. We look at other people from a distance, and we somehow believe they do not suffer as we do, and if we simply wait long enough, we will enjoy the easy life they seem to be living. Of course, their lives aren't simple nor are they free from suffering - The reality of course is:

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation . . . . A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind."

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
Henry David Thoreau

It could be those who seem to simply float through life are just better at the games and amusement.

If you seek only to avoid suffering, and to shelter yourslf from pain, then your life will be worthless. A life that is worth living is hard. Just as you cannot have a strong body without physical exerciseyou cannot have a strong spirit by living a life of ease. Dreaming is easy, but striving to achieve those dreams requires work, risk, passion - and an open heart. According to Thoreau, building castles in the air is what one should do, but after, you need to place the foundations under them....

I know many dreamers - it is the thing I think I love most about my current boyfriend. But I also watch him and I think he expects the foundations will build themselves. He speaks as if he will finish his thesis, and this will make him into a responsible person who wakes up in the morning. He talks of perhaps being 45 - and that he cant love me now, because there us a possibility that he will suddenly want a child of his own because he will be "grown up" enough.

It makes we want to shake him and yell - "You are 36. This is IT. Things won't change - only you can change. Be or don't be - but waiting is a waste of time....." We have the now... it is all God gives us! I would want to love him more, but his world is built in shifting sand, and I fear that if I love him too much things will fall on my head. Being in relationship with hm makes me a bit unstable, because his world seems to shift under my feet... while he changes not at all.

Then there is my friend - in our imaginary play world, she has dubbed herself "Agent Why / Why Not". She dreams, she's smart - but doubts seem to paralyze her. "Slow Down - its too fast! We don't know each other well enough! It might not work!"

And again, I want to shake her and yell - "Too fast? Our lives are half over! If not NOW, when?" and "Of course we don't know each other - none of us, not one of us - really truly ever knows another person. We build a life together over time, and as we build we grow, and we begin to understand" and "It may not work, its true - but we will never know unless we begin...."

I am like everyone else, in that I want to avoid suffering. I do not wish to be in pain. But to strive is to risk, to love another person opens your heart - and open hearts are innately vulnerable. Those I do not love cannot really hurt me, and risks I do not take have no chance of failing....

And there I am left - living a life of quiet desperation, relying on the amusements of mankind. Suffering all the same, yet never having achieved, loved, fought - nor ever having given myself a real reason to cry. And that, I think - is the real resignation, and where despair and hopelessness abide forever.

(ed. Special thanks to Henry David Thoreau - who helped me think today. )

PS

Just a thought.

Instead of being all evolved and forgiving and trying to meditate and have compassion for everyone....

Why can't I just be pissed off?

My mother was a horrible person, my stepfather was a pychopath, my brothers were turncoats, and my family - in general - behaved in a way that was more or less unforgivable.

So .... isnt there a good reason I can't just be angry at all those folks who should have taken care of me and didnt?

Just wanna know.....

Family, friends, and tribe

Christmas this year was wonderful. A miracle. It was affirmation of family and tribe - and a needed reminder of how blessed my life is.

It had been about 4 years since I had returned to San Francisco. The last time I left home, it was pretty terrible - a very sad and confused time. I was still halfway between my identity as Nick's wife and remembering my self. My identity wasn't firmly established, and the whole time home, I felt like a ghost.

After 4 years, however, I was as much myself as I was ever going to be, and we needed to see our family.

What did I learn? You can go home again, if the people there are really your home. And more, that these people I call my family now are extraordinary people - and they love me!!!! More than this, they really like me. They think I am extraordinary too.

As wrapped as I was in my illusions of identity, I never really understood the blanket of love and affection I was always wrapped within. I never believed that anyone could love me. I believed the stories others told me about myself. First my mothers stories, and then Nick's stories. Without knowing my own story, all I could do is fight to prove those stories wrong, but I never really believed it.

My journey of the last few years has been in remembering myself to me. It has been hard because I have so many confused and unclear memories, where I have memories at all - but finally, this year I was finally able to feel and see what others saw and felt about me. I finally know that I am, indeed, well loved.

Then, another Christmas miracle happened. I got a letter from someone I went to school with. Someone who loved me and had taken care of me - someone who had been my friend. The sad thing was that I had virtually no memory of this person, he had been wiped from my mind as I have wiped so many other memories.

He told me some stories of who I was as a young girl. The thing is, the stories he told me were so different than what I remembered - but so entirely consistent with who I have become that they could not be denied.

I believed I was a wild child with a bad reputation and no friends. The school slut. He told me that boys talk - and when the boys talked about me the conversation was that I didn't put out. More than this, he told me that I wasn't shunned, nor hated. I was popular.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was so convinced of the story that said no one liked me, no one loved me, I was a bad girl and big slut with such big troubles, that the mere notion that I was liked by anyone was inconceivable to me.

Do you know how much of my life I have wasted assuming that I had to try to make people like me, that everyone I met was going to hate me? I made so many of my life decisions, based on a story that was NOT TRUE, NOT MINE - and had never ever belonged to me. I was always fine, I was always worthy of love, and I built a life around a notion that I was broken and unworthy.

Gary inspired me to reach out to the one person who I clearly remembered, and whom I dearly loved. He was there in the worst of it, and wasmy first friend, my first true love, and the first member of my tribe.

John had left me suddenly, abandoned me cold - and I never really knew why. He just stopped loving me. It was a loss that I never really grieved, until now.

I was hoping John would be glad to hear from me - that he has wondered about me over the years, and would be happy to know that I was safe and sound and far away. But - no, I don't think he was. As a matter of fact, he seemed suspicious and wary - the same as the last time I saw him. It made me sad.

Then he said something that literally took my breath away.

"in my defense I was only 17, and I didn't know what to believe... And your mother was very convincing"

I do not even need to guess what she said. I used to hear her drink and dial, listening to the things she told others about me. From the time I was 11, she would call people and tell them monstrous lies about me, that I was a slut, a whore, was sneaking out with boys at night and that I was a compulsive liar. And there was nothing I could do - my mother was so good at playing the victim, compelling people to take care of her. I was helpless to stop her.

She set me up to be a whore for her husband, and even before it happened, she made sure that no one would believe me. She blocked all my escape routes before the fact. It was premeditated.

Yet somehow, I MUST believe that she did this without her own knowledge, because I cannot believe that any mother could do this to a child with forethought. I prefer to believe she was insane, a sociopath with a multiple personality disorder.

She loved me. She hated me. She gave birth to me, then sought to destroy me. I will never really understand in a million years. It was just our karma.

But, the fact remains - if I understand John's meaning, she destroyed my first love, and in doing so destroyed the innocence of a young man who I loved with all my heart.... And it will take all the self discipline and prayer I can muster to forgive her for hurting him.

I wanted to pursue this friendship with John, get his help in filling in the blanks, so I can finally reassemble my memory and make sense of my own story. He was my first freind, and I will cherish him in my heart always.

But John doesn't remember me, he remembers the story my mother made of me. I can't blame him, because I believed her story for a very long time too... Even though I knew better. I would not want someone like that in my life either.....

Now I know what happened though. Now I know what changed, and why love died. I mourn the damage done to that sweet and gentle young man I once loved so very much - my friend and my kin.

So perhaps now that I have the body, I can, at last, bury it.

More things Mamma taught me

Sometimes I break my own heart. Then again, don't we all break our own hearts?

For the most part, I am a pretty emotionally healthy person. I have no obvious scars - I am not a hooker, drug addict, raging drunk. I work hard, I have a good child, I have a good job. My social skills are, more or less, adequite to get by on.

Yet the legacy of my childhood shows up in the most difficult ways, in the most difficult places.

Mamma defined the words "narcissitic", "self-absorbed", "selfish" - especially when it came to me. I existed ONLY as a reflection of her. When I was very little, she dressed me to match her. My hair went through an endless series of Lilt Home Permanants, in an attempt I suppose to make me resemble Shirley Temple. I was sexualized into being a mini-me, encouraged to do strip shows with scarves (I think it was my own idea - but where does a 4 years old get an idea like this?). I even owned, at the age of 6, a garter belt and fishnet stockings, which were purchased to go with a vinyl miniskirt and go go boots - to be worn under my angel costume for my first Christmas Pageant!

However, Mamma seemed to lose interest in me when I was the age that my sister was when she died. Perhaps there is no correlation there - because this was also the time when I started to act on my own, to have my own notions of who and what I wanted to be, when I started to assert my individuality.

But the thing was, from my earliest memories, I knew that I was somehow a dissapointment. Now, I am sure, if Mamma was alive she would protest this - would insist that she loved me, and was proud of me... and maybe, to some extent, that was true. But the reality of this pride was overtaken, I think, by a nearly rabid jealousy. It felt to me, and feels to me now, that my mother spent most of the time hating me. And all I wanted, all I wanted, was her love. I wanted her to be proud of me. I had no understanding that each of my achievments, any light on me at all, made her feel like she was in shadow - made her feel as if I was stealing something from her. How could I have known?

Nearly everything I did was an effort to gain her love and her attention. I was so desperate for her to see me. To love me. To be proud of me, and to stop acting as if i were a dissapointment. Because of this, I became the worlds littlest overachiever.

I was in every school play. She never came. I learned music and singing, enough to be in the band and the choir. She never came. I competed in 4-H, in Forensics, I lettered 4 times. She never came. I was a class officer, a cheerleader, on the school paper, choir president. She never came.

Once, when I was in 4th grade, I won the county championship in Speech, and was invited to the State Championships to compete with my speech. It would have been on the radio! She inspected my bedroom the night before the competition - and grounded me, forbidding me from going.

I was Miss Teen Kenosha. Not only didn't she come that night, but neither did my family, because that night, my mother chose to attempt suicide. So, there I was, on this big stage in a leftover-from-a-wedding bridesmaids outfit - competing against all these girls in new gowns - each would walk on to the stage, and thier families would cheer them. I walk out, and introduce myself - and nothing. No applause. No one was there. I ran backstage in tears, found a payphone, and called - "Mom is at the hospital, don't worry - she cut her wrists, but she'll be fine". All things considered, I think I carried off the rest of the evening rather well.

I think the saddest thing of all was that I was doing this all for her, to try and make her love me. I never understood that each small achievment was, in her sick mind, an insult to her, asign that she was getting old and dying, and that I was stealing her rightful place in life.

Now, though this still hurts - this litany of pain - I have come to terms with it. I understand the pathology. I know that none of this had anything to do with me, and that any other mother would have been happy and proud, and would have been there cheering me on. I just got unlucky.

But, regardless of my understanding, there is a legacy that goes with this... one I do not know how to break. Something I do not know how to change. Because my mother could not freely love me, I do not know how to find love freely given. Time after time, I choose the narcissist, the person who cannot see me, the person who will not love me - and for whom I will strive, fight, even debase myself in order to win.

I know.... I KNOW, in my soul, that a narcissist cannot love... and that if they do love you, it is only the reflection of themselves in your eyes. And, even if they do not love you, as long as you admire and love them, they will keep you around because they LIKE that look of adoration coming back at them. But, they cannot see you.

And in my own dysfunction, I repeat the pattern, over and over.... loving only those who cannot see me, who do not get me, who cannot love me. And I remake myself - into a scholar, a beauty queen, a mother, a sex goddess, a madonna, a whore, a shrink, a friend, a counselor, anything.... anything at all to see if I can make it all come out different in the end.