The One Who Got Away?
Tonight, I did something I don't normally do. I did a name search on a guy that I must admit, I've not really gotten over. In my heart of hearts, I've hoped against hope and against all reason that somehow, someday, things might work out between us. I've wrestled with my feelings a lot over the last three years since things ended. I knew that nothing was possible, but I found this part of me that really wanted it anyway. Irrational, I know. Obsessive? perhaps. But what has intrigued me this whole time is that this part of me connects me to a part of myself that woke up during that time. A part of me that I had never uncovered on my own. A part of me that I really like.
I suppose hanging on to the hope was really my way of hanging on to that part of myself, and of hanging on to something outside of me that had provided such access to the richness inside of me. Honestly, I wanted to uncover more of this inside me. I wanted to find more things about myself that I loved. I know that hanging on to something external will never do that.
My cat has this habit of returning to the scene of the crime. If he finds a bug in the house, even after he has eaten it, he will return to that exact location over and over, as if that location will continue to provide him with new bugs. After all, he loves to chase them, and in his limited understanding of the world, returning to the scene is logical. My hopeful fixation has the same tone. I found a relationship that opened me up in this wonderful new way, and I wanted to experience more of it. So, even though the reasoning was simplistic and inaccurate, I have hung on to the original source. Of course I know that the door for discovering things about myself lies within me. I also know that sometimes, through interaction with others, through the contrast of relationships, I can continue to learn much about myself -- things that I don't seem to discover on my own. Relationships are a path to find the road less travelled. Of course I know that there are plenty of other people in the world that I can share that experience with, and there is no need to hang on to that one. Like my cat, however, I have found myself returning to the scene of the crime, longing for a return.
Tonight, I did a name search on him and discovered that he eloped at the end of the summer. During the time that I was so sick before my surgery, he eloped with a colleague, someone he has known for many years. I feel a mix of emotions. I'm very happy for him, and for them. I want to know what she looks like. I want to cry. I want to write about the wonderful experience I had with him. I want to close the door on my hope.
I don't know what I've accomplished by writing here. Time will tell. But I feel better. Life moves on, whether we want it to or not. For too long, I've hung on to the wrong aspect of that relationship. Now, perhaps I'm free to put things in perspective, and to move forward with my own path of self discovery.
Friday, October 25, 2002
Nightmare
I had a full blown nightmare this morning. I woke up when my mom's assistant arrived at the house today, I could hear them talking. But I fell back asleep quickly. The dream happened after I had been up and went back to bed.
I was living in a condo, but it was much more like the apartment where I lived in Tempe years ago. First floor, single level, plaster walls. I was returning home after being away for a long time, and I was finding all sorts of things wrong. At first, it looked like vandalism inside the house, and then I realized that a group of transient people had moved into my house. They had tossed out most of my belongings. I found my mattress and bedspread outside where the weather had ruined them. At one location along the hallway, I found that someone had written the same two names "Kyle" and "Jessie" in crayon on the walls, all over. It looks like two kids had entertained themselves there by writing on the walls. The rooms were all trashed, the ceilings were messed up, and weird trash was everywhere. I was both furious and scared at the same time. I was furious because it was my Mom's idea for me to leave the house for so long, and it was a BAD idea. And I was scared because there were thousands of dollars of damage to a place that I was only renting. What would I do? I remember feeling so angry with my Mom. I yelled at her, and told her to come and see what had happened, and that if I had been there, it wouldn't have happened. Near the end, I went to another condo complex to find a new place to live, and the manager was not only kind, she was explaining to me that the repairs to my old place could be taken care of -- which is when I was awakened by the phone ringing.
The parallels to my current living situation is remarkable. And I suppose that at some level, I'm really angry with my Mom for some of the things she has done. I don't let myself feel that because I feel so grateful for all of the help she has given me so selflessly. But this help does come at a price, and that is her taking back some control over my life. I didn't move 2000 miles away to escape that, but once I was away, I realized how controlling she had continued to be in my life. It's only one aspect of a very full relationship, and in no way is my realization of this a criticism of her. It's just me acknowledging for myself the realities of the relationship. This is just what I have to deal with.
When I first woke up, I was in a panic, partly a hangover from the dream feeling, but partly because I worried that I might be actually manifesting such a disaster for real. Honestly, there is a part of me that is worried about being away from my home for so long. I've got people checking on my home every few days, plus the neighbors are always there. What is valuable for me, what provides me with some helpful information about myself, is the realization that fear is playing such a big part in my reactions. Am I pushing to go home because I'm afraid of being away too long? Is that even a small factor? What every happened to trusting, to living in a universe that responds to my desires for safety and prosperity? It's something to think about.
But more than thinking about it, I'm trying to really open up my heart today to remember what it feels like to live inside a safe place. The realities of the world around me are harsh, and there is nothing in the news that would lead a person to believe that the world is safe. But I know better. I know that I can choose to live in safety no matter is going on around me just by keeping my heart open and by focusing on that desire. I know how to do this. I'm going to spend some time today and this evening doing that.
I had a full blown nightmare this morning. I woke up when my mom's assistant arrived at the house today, I could hear them talking. But I fell back asleep quickly. The dream happened after I had been up and went back to bed.
I was living in a condo, but it was much more like the apartment where I lived in Tempe years ago. First floor, single level, plaster walls. I was returning home after being away for a long time, and I was finding all sorts of things wrong. At first, it looked like vandalism inside the house, and then I realized that a group of transient people had moved into my house. They had tossed out most of my belongings. I found my mattress and bedspread outside where the weather had ruined them. At one location along the hallway, I found that someone had written the same two names "Kyle" and "Jessie" in crayon on the walls, all over. It looks like two kids had entertained themselves there by writing on the walls. The rooms were all trashed, the ceilings were messed up, and weird trash was everywhere. I was both furious and scared at the same time. I was furious because it was my Mom's idea for me to leave the house for so long, and it was a BAD idea. And I was scared because there were thousands of dollars of damage to a place that I was only renting. What would I do? I remember feeling so angry with my Mom. I yelled at her, and told her to come and see what had happened, and that if I had been there, it wouldn't have happened. Near the end, I went to another condo complex to find a new place to live, and the manager was not only kind, she was explaining to me that the repairs to my old place could be taken care of -- which is when I was awakened by the phone ringing.
The parallels to my current living situation is remarkable. And I suppose that at some level, I'm really angry with my Mom for some of the things she has done. I don't let myself feel that because I feel so grateful for all of the help she has given me so selflessly. But this help does come at a price, and that is her taking back some control over my life. I didn't move 2000 miles away to escape that, but once I was away, I realized how controlling she had continued to be in my life. It's only one aspect of a very full relationship, and in no way is my realization of this a criticism of her. It's just me acknowledging for myself the realities of the relationship. This is just what I have to deal with.
When I first woke up, I was in a panic, partly a hangover from the dream feeling, but partly because I worried that I might be actually manifesting such a disaster for real. Honestly, there is a part of me that is worried about being away from my home for so long. I've got people checking on my home every few days, plus the neighbors are always there. What is valuable for me, what provides me with some helpful information about myself, is the realization that fear is playing such a big part in my reactions. Am I pushing to go home because I'm afraid of being away too long? Is that even a small factor? What every happened to trusting, to living in a universe that responds to my desires for safety and prosperity? It's something to think about.
But more than thinking about it, I'm trying to really open up my heart today to remember what it feels like to live inside a safe place. The realities of the world around me are harsh, and there is nothing in the news that would lead a person to believe that the world is safe. But I know better. I know that I can choose to live in safety no matter is going on around me just by keeping my heart open and by focusing on that desire. I know how to do this. I'm going to spend some time today and this evening doing that.
Sunday, October 20, 2002
Clenching Resumed Today
I clenched inside today. I was sitting on the bed, mindlessly watching TV because I wasn't feeling strong, just resting, really. And I felt myself lock up inside. A part of me that had been relaxed suddenly went tight. I was thinking about several things, each slightly problematic, each having to do with my return to daily living responsibilities. Medical bills. The problem with forwarding my mail. The fact that I'm not retrieving my voice mail messages. The unwritten letters. Responses that I haven't made. Committments that I've made and not yet fulfilled. Real life stuff.
But until that moment, I didn't even realize that I wasn't clenching. And then I felt it. And now, I don't know how to undo it. I realized in that moment that I had been carrying around a lot of clenching before I got sick. In fact, I suspect now that much of my reaction to life involves clenching, preparing myself for an incoming punch. Is that really the way I see my life? Is that really how I feel about the nature of the universe? My mind says NO, but my body says YES. And since my body has been doing some pretty loud talking lately, that YES has my full attention.
One thing I've learned during my recovery time is that there is an opportunity for me to apply what I've learned about my food/weight change to other areas of my life. Here, I've created a vision, set a goal, and then made decisions to implement that goal. I've been wildly successful -- I'm not finished with this area, but WOW have I made a lot of progress. But the same technique needs to be applied to how I spend my waking hours, to create a daily routine/schedule that really allows me to get the most important things done, and eliminates all of the time wasters that keep me from doing those things. In other words, it is time to get serious about how I live my life.
Some of what has been driving me has been this incredible sense of fear. Since I got sick, I've had to walk through so many fears, almost like passing into the dancing flames of a fire. I was paralized, for the most part, and at some level, I just stopped fighting the forward motion that was already in place. It's like I was in a tractor beam at some point, and these experiences of the ER, surgery, and even the post-hospital IVs and recovery, were unfolding before me, without letting me have any say in what was going to happen. The best I could do was relax a bit, and allow these experiences to happen, allow the motion forward to happen, and do my best to be conscious -- sentient -- in the process. My heart was broken open in a new way, and my emotions were on the surface, so I felt so much. I allowed myself to cry with sadness, laugh with joy, express gratitude, guilt, remorse, and more. I even spoke up to protect my true feelings at times when it would have been easier to stay quiet, and told people how I really feel about things.
I think today's clenching was triggered mostly by two things: knowing that the hospital bill is enroute to me, and the distant reality of me purchasing a home. I've been in a sort of "ignorance is bliss" stage, not knowing the size of the medical bills, not knowing how much I would owe, and feeling like a new home was only a few months away, once I get back to Phoenix. All of these things came crashing in on me today. And really, there isn't any good reason for these things to change -- just my HABIT of clenching and reacting with fear. I can feel it in my stomach right now as I'm writing.
I want to find the key to this inside of myself. I want to be a person whose heart really does fly free, soaring with new ideas, and creativing looking for the positives in each situation. I want to be a person who uses the contrast of any present moment to help me to clarify what I want and determine to have it, to set my course looking forward to a happy future, believing that I can have what I want, making it happen through allowing it to unfold.
Oh, Great Spirit, source of wisdom within me, show me how to unlock that part of me that is so used to clenching. Show me how to choose thoughts that allow me to avoid the place in the road where clenching naturally happens for me. Show me how to listen to my heart exclusively. Show me how to make a happy daily life for myself. Show me how to prioritize what is most important to me right now so I can start living this happy life RIGHT NOW before I go to bed, and each new day I face. Show me how to heal my knee and the rest of my body. Show me how to keep my heart open and trusting. Show me. I'm watching with my eyes closed. Tell me. I'm listening for your soft voice.
I know that I can be different. I know that I can change. I choose to be different than I am today. I choose to be the person in my heart, the person I dream of being. A person who may feel fear but choses a course of action. A person who puts her cheeks into the wind and enjoys the breeze. A person whose heart leads her from one miracle to the next. Yep, that's who I want to be. Yep, that' who I'm becoming.
I clenched inside today. I was sitting on the bed, mindlessly watching TV because I wasn't feeling strong, just resting, really. And I felt myself lock up inside. A part of me that had been relaxed suddenly went tight. I was thinking about several things, each slightly problematic, each having to do with my return to daily living responsibilities. Medical bills. The problem with forwarding my mail. The fact that I'm not retrieving my voice mail messages. The unwritten letters. Responses that I haven't made. Committments that I've made and not yet fulfilled. Real life stuff.
But until that moment, I didn't even realize that I wasn't clenching. And then I felt it. And now, I don't know how to undo it. I realized in that moment that I had been carrying around a lot of clenching before I got sick. In fact, I suspect now that much of my reaction to life involves clenching, preparing myself for an incoming punch. Is that really the way I see my life? Is that really how I feel about the nature of the universe? My mind says NO, but my body says YES. And since my body has been doing some pretty loud talking lately, that YES has my full attention.
One thing I've learned during my recovery time is that there is an opportunity for me to apply what I've learned about my food/weight change to other areas of my life. Here, I've created a vision, set a goal, and then made decisions to implement that goal. I've been wildly successful -- I'm not finished with this area, but WOW have I made a lot of progress. But the same technique needs to be applied to how I spend my waking hours, to create a daily routine/schedule that really allows me to get the most important things done, and eliminates all of the time wasters that keep me from doing those things. In other words, it is time to get serious about how I live my life.
Some of what has been driving me has been this incredible sense of fear. Since I got sick, I've had to walk through so many fears, almost like passing into the dancing flames of a fire. I was paralized, for the most part, and at some level, I just stopped fighting the forward motion that was already in place. It's like I was in a tractor beam at some point, and these experiences of the ER, surgery, and even the post-hospital IVs and recovery, were unfolding before me, without letting me have any say in what was going to happen. The best I could do was relax a bit, and allow these experiences to happen, allow the motion forward to happen, and do my best to be conscious -- sentient -- in the process. My heart was broken open in a new way, and my emotions were on the surface, so I felt so much. I allowed myself to cry with sadness, laugh with joy, express gratitude, guilt, remorse, and more. I even spoke up to protect my true feelings at times when it would have been easier to stay quiet, and told people how I really feel about things.
I think today's clenching was triggered mostly by two things: knowing that the hospital bill is enroute to me, and the distant reality of me purchasing a home. I've been in a sort of "ignorance is bliss" stage, not knowing the size of the medical bills, not knowing how much I would owe, and feeling like a new home was only a few months away, once I get back to Phoenix. All of these things came crashing in on me today. And really, there isn't any good reason for these things to change -- just my HABIT of clenching and reacting with fear. I can feel it in my stomach right now as I'm writing.
I want to find the key to this inside of myself. I want to be a person whose heart really does fly free, soaring with new ideas, and creativing looking for the positives in each situation. I want to be a person who uses the contrast of any present moment to help me to clarify what I want and determine to have it, to set my course looking forward to a happy future, believing that I can have what I want, making it happen through allowing it to unfold.
Oh, Great Spirit, source of wisdom within me, show me how to unlock that part of me that is so used to clenching. Show me how to choose thoughts that allow me to avoid the place in the road where clenching naturally happens for me. Show me how to listen to my heart exclusively. Show me how to make a happy daily life for myself. Show me how to prioritize what is most important to me right now so I can start living this happy life RIGHT NOW before I go to bed, and each new day I face. Show me how to heal my knee and the rest of my body. Show me how to keep my heart open and trusting. Show me. I'm watching with my eyes closed. Tell me. I'm listening for your soft voice.
I know that I can be different. I know that I can change. I choose to be different than I am today. I choose to be the person in my heart, the person I dream of being. A person who may feel fear but choses a course of action. A person who puts her cheeks into the wind and enjoys the breeze. A person whose heart leads her from one miracle to the next. Yep, that's who I want to be. Yep, that' who I'm becoming.
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
What Goes Around...
Tonight I spent some time around my sister and her newish boyfriend, someone she is pretty serious about. I vaguely know him from high school, more like I know about him. I didn't really have an opinion of him back then, and now, I think he's a pretty good guy. He seems to care about her and treat her well, and he's fit into our weird family dynamic quite nicely. He's pretty flexible, a quality I admire in people.
Turns out, one of his best friends is the first guy to make my shit list. This guy was a from high school, and wanted to date me -- that is -- until he met my sister. My Dad had already told me that "she's the pretty one, your're the smart one..." so the fact that a guy would fall for my sister over me wasn't shocking. And he didn't break my heart... we didn't spend that much time together and I wasn't crazy about him first. So, in the grand scheme of love, this first loser of my dating career isn't a major player. I remember that my sis went out with him for a while, and I remember thinking that if she was crazy enough to go out with a guy who would dump a girl for her sister, she deserved whatever she got. I don't remember why they stopped dating, but I also don't remember any trauma on her part.
My sis mentioned that she and her new guy go out to dinner with my shit list guy and his wife all of the time, and that the wife doesn't know that she and he dated at one time. Just proves my point -- once a shit head, always a shit head. I do wish, for his sake, that he had outgrown such things, but apparently he didn't.
I wondered tonight how I would feel about going out to dinner with that foursome... but there is this wall that comes up in my gut about that idea. It's not that I've nursed a grudge against him all of these years, I didn't even remember him when I was thinking about the people I might see at my next high school reunion. It might be interesting to observe him a bit, watching him squirm, and then for me to publicly remind him of our dating story in the group, in front of the wife, of course. That might be interesting. But overall, my gut feeling is that it just isn't the way I would want to spend some time. In fact, I'd rather play solitaire on the computer than live out that scenario. THAT is saying something.
I thought, too, about forgiveness, and checked my heart to see if I'm holding on to something that I should let go of. I'm still thinking about that one.
Tonight I spent some time around my sister and her newish boyfriend, someone she is pretty serious about. I vaguely know him from high school, more like I know about him. I didn't really have an opinion of him back then, and now, I think he's a pretty good guy. He seems to care about her and treat her well, and he's fit into our weird family dynamic quite nicely. He's pretty flexible, a quality I admire in people.
Turns out, one of his best friends is the first guy to make my shit list. This guy was a from high school, and wanted to date me -- that is -- until he met my sister. My Dad had already told me that "she's the pretty one, your're the smart one..." so the fact that a guy would fall for my sister over me wasn't shocking. And he didn't break my heart... we didn't spend that much time together and I wasn't crazy about him first. So, in the grand scheme of love, this first loser of my dating career isn't a major player. I remember that my sis went out with him for a while, and I remember thinking that if she was crazy enough to go out with a guy who would dump a girl for her sister, she deserved whatever she got. I don't remember why they stopped dating, but I also don't remember any trauma on her part.
My sis mentioned that she and her new guy go out to dinner with my shit list guy and his wife all of the time, and that the wife doesn't know that she and he dated at one time. Just proves my point -- once a shit head, always a shit head. I do wish, for his sake, that he had outgrown such things, but apparently he didn't.
I wondered tonight how I would feel about going out to dinner with that foursome... but there is this wall that comes up in my gut about that idea. It's not that I've nursed a grudge against him all of these years, I didn't even remember him when I was thinking about the people I might see at my next high school reunion. It might be interesting to observe him a bit, watching him squirm, and then for me to publicly remind him of our dating story in the group, in front of the wife, of course. That might be interesting. But overall, my gut feeling is that it just isn't the way I would want to spend some time. In fact, I'd rather play solitaire on the computer than live out that scenario. THAT is saying something.
I thought, too, about forgiveness, and checked my heart to see if I'm holding on to something that I should let go of. I'm still thinking about that one.
Another Sleepless Night
I will be very glad when I can go to bed and fall asleep. I'm not sure what is up with me, but since I've been here, I've not been able to sleep. Except during the day. It's like my usual insomnia, but it is lasting much longer. That usually only lasts a few days at a time. At the same time, I'm trying to keep a schedule in synch with everyone else. Last night, I heard my Dad's alarm going off and I hadn't been to sleep at all. Maybe I'll be luckier tonight.
I will be very glad when I can go to bed and fall asleep. I'm not sure what is up with me, but since I've been here, I've not been able to sleep. Except during the day. It's like my usual insomnia, but it is lasting much longer. That usually only lasts a few days at a time. At the same time, I'm trying to keep a schedule in synch with everyone else. Last night, I heard my Dad's alarm going off and I hadn't been to sleep at all. Maybe I'll be luckier tonight.
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