Category: love

What is this feeling?

A large majority of my time is spent undoing some of my thinking and the subsequent feelings that arise out of that thinking.  Lets call it the self-centered wheel.  It’s mostly comprised of cynical thoughts from feelings of frustration and inadequacy and it loops forever.  Until I get to a “present moment” place of here and now and what’s going on now.  Then I can attach to happy and joy and get out of the wheel.  Sometimes. 

Last Monday night, I married my friend.  And what I can describe adequately as one of the best days of my life.  Yes, there were moments where things weren’t quite right.  But overall, everything was perfect, everyone had a good time and all the planning, cajoling, hysteria went away for this perfect evening.  I followed some friends advice and let it all go.  I took that moment that Kevin walked up to get me to walk up the aisle and looked at him and knew this was all about us and our love for each other.  And that we chose to be with each other.  And that it wasn’t forever.  Life is finite, it can all end tomorrow with a car accident.  I remember everything, I remember each moment, and I had the best time!

It is a beautiful thing.  And I have been feeling and surrounded by this love from everyone.  I have yet to experience something like this and now in this feeling, in this breath, in this time I have right now, I’m choosing to stay here.   In the love.  In the joy.  In the peace.  For as long as I can.

Love, Actually

There is a film with this title and what comes to mind in this movie is the relationship between the characters played by Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, two of my favorite actors.   There’s this moment that breaks your heart, where one spouse catches the other in an almost affair.  I remember specifically the moment, where Emma Thompson all in one small scene shows how devastating love can be, where you are in love with a person who may be doing something horrible to you and yet you are completely in love with them. 

It’s that element of romantic love that fades and what is left in it’s place but the space of time, shared experiences, connection, sometimes children.  What I have experienced in my life has led me to no longer believe in that “fairy-tale love,” the type of love that sweeps you off your feet and leads you down the happily-ever-after path.   That idea in romantic love where you meet your partner there’s this fulfillment that happens.  I’ve seen too many times and been in the position too many times where that person doesn’t meet your needs, falls short or doesn’t want to meet your needs. The last time I got swept off my feet I ended up on the floor with a dirty rug.

What I do believe now is that you are very lucky to have that person in your life that loves you, recognizes you for your worth, values you, wants to be that partner, wants to stay your friend, wants to share their life with you and you return the favor.  What I believe now is that there isn’t just one person who will meet all of your needs and it’s unrealistic to expect that.  This is why I try to maintain my friendships outside of the relationship.  Love isn’t something shared with just one person but your friends and loved ones.  A deeper expression of love is to be able to hold space for not just that person but all the people in your life to grow, evolve and change.  It’s this expression of love, unconditional love, that allows me to freely give, without so many expectations and in that, I can hold space for myself and love myself as well.  To get love, you gotta give love.  

Training Day

So in getting “ready for the big day” there is this urgency or felt urgency to “get in shape.”  And this time of year brings out the commercials of “Get in shape for summer” or “get your bikini body ready.” 
I don’t really feel out of shape.  In fact, I’d say that I’m in pretty good shape.  My love reminds me daily of how buff I am.  But somehow the chord of neurosis is struck when thinking of “fitting into my wedding dress” when, actually, it doesn’t matter what size that dress is, because, I haven’t purchased it yet!  Somehow, the self acceptance and comfort that I have is replaced by the desire to get to my 17 year old self and become “thin again.”  What is “thin again?”  And what does that mean?  To get back to my 17 year old self would be like taking up stretch pants, smoking cigarettes, bleaching my hair beyond recognition and waiting for someone to love me who probably doesn’t deserve my time, energy or my bleach blonde hair.  To get back to my 17 year old self’s weight is like wanting to replace all the muscle that I have with some fat, start eating junk food that will surely send me to the gastrointenstinal specialist and create such anxiety that anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs will eventually make their way back to breakfast and after dinner mint time.  Yes, been down that road thank you.  I have no real desire to get back to that 17 year old self, so why would I want my body to go there?  What “ideal” am I clinging to that makes this somehow desirable much less attainable?
At the end of the day, what truly matters is that the person that I am marrying knows what I look like and loves it.
At the end of the day, we’ll be married.
At the end of the day, ultimately, we need to love ourselves enough to be able to love someone else.
This is the Training Day.  

22/30 April is National Poetry Month

Empathic

 – the ability or capacity to recognize and sometimes share in the feelings of others.

Told by a therapist long ago that I was very empathic.
I feel sometimes, too much.
Sometimes it is too much for me to look into the eyes of another human being and see what they are feeling.
If they are suffering or lost or in pain.

I, want to tell you it’s going to be ok,
not because I am a pollyanna and believe that it’s all going to be ok,
but because I want to relieve your suffering.
I know it’s deep.
I know that you’re at the bottom of that pit of dark ocean and you can’t breathe,
your life boat sank,
There is no rescue coming.

I look around lately and see sinking ships,
not because I have a skewed view of doom and gloom and looking for bad things in the world,
because that is another disorder and I have gone through that one thanks,
but because I recognize the pain and suffering in others as not something “temporary” or “passing”
because although I know “this too will pass”
it’s the equivalent of a avalanche of boulders falling on too precious, fragile shoulder blades,
clipping the grass with fingernail clippers and tweezers trying to make the yard in the prison
look pretty for someone…..

It is not the sky falling,
nor the dark side of the moon,
nor the world ending
but all of these things and more
happening at once to people,
not just good people but all people,
at the same time breathing the same air and breath and life,
wondering who is punishing them,
who makes up these stupid rules,
who will finally make it stop.

There isn’t any one being creating this tidal wave.
There isn’t a judge that decided it was your day, your time, your life
it is not your turn, your choice, your mistake, your stupidity
and even if it was all of these things
there are others that didn’t decide to get up this morning,
pour themselves a cup of coffee, eat their breakfast, take the car to work and get shot on the way from another person who decided breakfast this morning was bullets.
 Still more that decided today was going to be the day to do something about it,
to take that time off, take that vacation, go see the folks
only to get that call that the person they want to see the most just didn’t wake up this morning.

This morning is no different from any other mornings
and yet boats sink,
tides come,
people fall away,
and never come back.

When the rip tide comes and washes you away to sea,
remember to swim across.
Swim across.
You make no progress up or down as it drags you out,
you’re going out, all you can do is swim across,
paddle, breath, paddle and breath, and wait until you cross the tide.
The tide will take you out,
it’s what it does.
You will get back to shore.
It’s just going to take time.

21/30 April is National Poetry Month

It is not enough to have known you.
It is not enough to have the shared moments with you.
It is not enough the brief sprinkling of time and space that held the words spoken between us.
There is never enough time and space for that.
You, funny, witty, own sense of humor and timing,
not reluctant to reach out, be a friend, help someone out,
honestly with your own shortcomings, failures and successes.
Your time was way to brief.
Your touch was so deep.
You will never be forgotten by those who loved you and those who had too brief an encounter.
You probably know this.
You may have even planned it this way.
But know, that if you come around this way again
we’d all like you to stay a while longer.

20/30 April is National Poetry Month

Nineteen

“It’s the last year of your teen-aged years” she said,
I was going to marry her son
Thirties, two children and a drug habit that would take him from everything.

I didn’t know that.
I also didn’t know that love didn’t come on the end of acid filled tongues,
rageful fits of thrown items across rooms,
squeeling tires peeling out of driveways,
in other people’s beds one did not belong,
and violent threats against my family.

I did not stay.
I eventually left with nothing,
a car that didn’t work,
no money, no self-esteem,
but you can’t compete with cocaine and sex-addiction.

I wonder sometimes how many are nineteen,
and leaving the best of their teen-aged years in the hands of those who don’t care,
don’t feel enough,
don’t really want anything but to control them,
only to give that up in the end when something else catches their eyes.

What I would say to them?
You are wise beyond your years,
your eyes, your lips, your smile, your heart will move mountains,
but I know how deep that hole runs in the center of your soul,
and that no one ever told you how much you are really worth,
and I know their voice speaks louder than any god,
and how waiting for them to say magic will take up most of your time,
they’ll never say it, I can guarantee that,
coming from one who waited for years until she realized she had to say it to herself.
So if you find yourself unable to wait any more,
spent most of your time on tears, empty promises and scar tissue,
Happy Birthday,
It’s going to be unbelievable. 

17/18/19 April is National Poetry Month

17.  Why?
Why did I decide that writing a poem a day would be a good idea?
Why did I decide to embrace my creativity instead of stifle it?
Why did I decide that 3 yoga classes in one day is a sane thing to do?
Why did I decide to do yoga again the day after?
Why did I decide to get another crazy cat?
Why did I decide that I liked cats?
Why did I decide to eat a whole bag of chocolate covered gluten free pretzels?
Why did I decide to continue to eat afterwards?
These are the questions….

18.  Haiku for the day:  Cats

Sharpening your claws
testing, preparing, killing

thanks for the flat tire

19.  Love

Love is when you don’t kill the cat
who used your bike tire as the sharpener for his claws.
Love is the when you don’t kill the boyfriend
for losing his wallet/phone/fill in the blank and ask you for the millionth time where that might be.
Love is when you don’t kill yourself
because you are lucky to have any of the above items and they mean that you are lovable.

Poetry

Many times in a yoga class I have either read poetry or quotes or had poetry read to me.  I went on Friday to an amazing slam poet Buddy Wakefield whose work really touches my soul.
 The past few days, that experience included, has really brought me into a new frame of consciousness.  I’m shifting paradigms here don’t get crazy about the twenty-cent words, it’s just a new shift and the last time I shifted and felt this sense of awe and wonder and excitement the world smashed and it was a little bloody and broken.  And I don’t think it was that I was in line for the punishment and the karma but the universe had something bigger in mind and I was settling for the great un-great.   If you’ve ever settled for some great un-great, mediocrity doesn’t describe it but good enough with bandaids stuck to it and some toothpicks holding it together with the smiles and nods you’re getting from someone who you want to love you sounds familiar then you know what I’m talking about in this long sentence.  So the rubble which was my house upon the sand became the pathway to the place I stand today.  With the universe saying here’s some new shoes and a key chain and a light, the rest is golden, enjoy the new ride. 

There is a universal song that is being sung in various notes and to various keys.  And I think we’re listening in.  I think we’re tuning in because it plays the chords on the strings that are found in the fibers of our very being and so we know the song to be true. Laugh, breathe, believe…..

Holidays

As the Holidays approach, I am taking the time to think and reflect about the past year before I plunge into the season.  I say plunge because this is such a period of time where I can either be in the happiness or merriment of the season or swim through a turbulent and emotional fraught season of family drama and unhappiness.

I told my now fiance about how I loved Christmas the first Christmas we spent together.  He, did not, which was a problem.   One of the reasons I love Christmas is because I have made it my own.  A long time ago there were some not so pleasant times of Family turbulence and drama surrounding this Holiday.  And when that hurricane blew threw, I made a choice to spend the holiday away from the family for the first time.  I was 18.  It was one of those moments that I cherish.  I remember leaving the traditional family get together and going and spending time with people who were struggling with addictions and had no family to go to.  I was one of them.  And for those hours on Christmas Eve we talked and shared and ate and slept and we all stayed clean together.  And since then I have continued to make the Holidays my own.

I started making my own Thanksgiving Dinner at about 22.  I became an excellent cook and even put on the feast for my family.  I made homemade rolls from scratch, pies from the pumpkin I grew in my garden, fresh cranberry sauce and a turkey that people still ask me how I do it.  I would make dinners here in San Diego and invite people to spend Thanksgiving.  When I became a vegetarian and figured out I was gluten intolerant, I stopped.  And I whined and put on my vegetarian crown and stood on my soap box for a couple of years.  But then someone told me how they looked forward to my Thanksgiving Dinner, they usually didn’t go anywhere.  So I got off the box and shut up and made dinner again.  For some really grateful people.

The first Christmas I spent in San Diego, I had wanted to fly home but couldn’t.  My boyfriend at the time and I waited until Christmas Eve to do our shopping and oops, the stores all closed at 4 pm.  We had no gifts.  But what we did have was something my mother sent to me when she found out I didn’t have a tree.  We call it “Tree on a Wall.”  It’s a tree shaped, light infested artificial hanging that you can plug in and put on a wall.  I have kept it now for 13 years.  And the first Christmas that my fiance and I spent together, I had to convince him to let me put it up.  You see, he didn’t have Happy Holidays.  He usually hid out in his dark man cave until it was all over.  I convinced him to let me put up my decorations.  When I lit it up, he cried.  It was the first time he’d had a Christmas tree in 8 years.  I convinced him that Christmas and any Holiday can be his. 

You see, what I know now is what is missing usually from the Holiday season is love.  And you put love back into the equation and there’s the spark.  It doesn’t have to be family that you spend Holidays with, it can be the family that is around you in your friends.  It doesn’t have to be tons of presents under the tree, it can be that homemade fudge and cookies that you bring into work, and yes, you work on Christmas Day.  You see, even though I can’t eat the cookies or the bread or the cake anymore because I would get very sick, I still make them.  I made a friend’s mom absolutely happy when I made her homemade bread on Thanksgiving one year.  It came out perfect.  I never ate a bite.   But it came out that way because it was for her.  She needed that bread, her family had made it traditionally for years and there were only a few of them left, it brought her back good memories. 

So my message today is to do it for yourself.  Make your own Holiday.   Have your own tree on a wall, make your own Hanukkah Celebration, Happy Kwanzaa!  As I will be working on Christmas, I’ll be seeing lots of people who either are caught up in the happy merriment or pretty miserable.  But regardless, it will still be my holiday.