sueeeus

I’ve been on a home organization frenzy recently, which includes an attempt to organize my photos.  As I browsed through them, I started to see some of them differently.  Namely, pictures of myself from a year ago.  Was that really me?  Who was that?

I’ve been on a journey to find myself for some time now.  I know I’ve been singing that tune for ages, but it’s different now.  Now I see where I’ve been lying to myself for ever, where I’ve disregarded and dishonored the very essence of my self for the better part of my life.  Not that it’s been wrong to put others first.  I’ve done well for others.  I’ve helped others.  I will still do so.  At my core, I’m a helper.

The thing that I noticed today is that I’m no longer hiding behind denial.  I dishonored myself.  I let myself go.  I loathed myself. I don’t know why.  I can’t say.  I can’t see.  Only that I did it.  And even so, when I buried myself so deeply, wherever it was that I’ve been (buried under a hundred pounds of fat), still, there has always been a part of ME, the real, authentic me, looking for a way out, looking for the light of day.  She wanted to live.  All along, she wanted to break free and see the light of day.  So today, with the recognition and acceptance of what I’ve done to myself, I also give forgiveness.  Because I love myself.  I wasn’t loving myself, but now I see that love and forgiveness go hand in hand.  And just like that, I’ve forgiven myself and discovered that I love myself.  I’m coming home to me.

I want to clarify that this isn’t at all about being obese, or becoming obese.  And it’s not at all about losing weight, either.  It’s not about the age old misconception that, oh, if only I could or would lose the weight, I’d be happy.  Losing some weight has given me the courage to look at myself, and to see myself.  So this is about getting lost.  It’s about fear.  It’s about hiding.  It’s about the emotional, not the physical self.  Only the emotional problems had a very physical manifestation.  As they do.

There aren’t very many people (and by people, I mean dear friends) who knew me before I lost myself.  In fact, I can only think of three —Dindu, Suse, and my sister S.  These people have loved me for most of my life (and I them).  It all happened so long ago.  I don’t even know when.  Or why.  I know of times and events that caused things to escalate, but the beginning?  I don’t know.  My sister thinks it started when I had an abortion.  She could be right (she’s usually right).  She used to say, “Sissy, that’s when you lost your mojo.  Where is my sissy?  I want my sissy back.  I miss her.”   She’s been saying that for years.

So I’m coming home to me.  Those words stir the memory of a song from my youth.  In my heart and in my head, I hear Hosea.  Come back to me with all your heart –don’t let fear keep us apart.  Trees do bend, though straight and tall –so must we to others’ call.  Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life.  The wilderness will lead you to your heart, where I will speak.  Integrity and justice, with tenderness you shall know.

I’m on my way.  Home to me.  My arms are open.  I feel the sunlight on my face.

let the light shine on me

I’m like the very hungry caterpillar.  I’ve eaten my way through the difficult parts of my life, and trapped myself in a nearly impenetrable cocoon.  And now, I’ve started to nibble my way through these walls and I can see the light of day.

Some day soon I’m going to find my smile.  I’m going to become a beautiful butterfly.  And then?  Then I will FLY!

The title alone would likely draw all kinds of traffic, if I didn’t have search engines blocked.  Not that I want traffic.  I write for myself, blah blah blah.

I’ve got these thoughts swirling about in my mind that I’ve never had the courage nor taken the time to ponder very deeply, let alone put to paper.  But I think it’s time.  I’m not sure how cohesive it will be, but I’m going to give it a shot.

…why I don’t like …

I don’t like to give or receive oral sex.  In general.  Or at least not much.  Maybe if the moon is waxing gibbous and the planets are aligned just right.  It’s been a matter of contention throughout the better part of  my sexually active life.  Why is this so?  Simple.  It’s because of negative associations that are embedded in the memories of predatorial coercive experiences from my youth.  It’s very difficult to release such associations, and it’s not particularly easy to talk about them.  Why would I want to talk about them, anyway?  Avoidance is so much easier.  Just don’t go there.  I don’t want to think about icky things that happened long ago.

…keeping numbers low…

I, as a human, am a sexual being.  I, as a hot blooded Aries woman of Asian and Scandinavian descent, am a sexual being.  I yearn for connection, for a fullness that is hard to describe.  And I don’t yearn for variety.  Dear God, no.  I don’t get that, about people.  Wondering what it would be like with this one, that one, or the other one.  As if people are flavors of ice cream to try.  I find it gross.  Icky.  There are many icky connotations when it comes to me and the ideas that are trapped in my mind revolving around sexuality.  So sex as a sport, sex as recreation, are icky to me.  I’m so not interested.  Ick, icky, pfthtft, blech.

I have no interest in the dating scene.  I’ve been terrified of it all along, from the very beginning when I found myself adult and single.  Because, as far as I could tell, dating meant having sex with various people.  It shouldn’t mean that, but somehow I ended up harboring that interpretation.  Maybe because when I was young, it seemed that the male prime directive was to get laid, not married.  They wanted to play the field.  I wanted to settle down.

I don’t want to go on exposing myself to others in the pursuit of Mister Right For Me.  Enough is enough.  I want to keep my numbers low.  Or as low as possible.  There is too much at stake, with such frivolity.  Not just physical, with the risk of disease, but the emotional toll is steep.  And I’ve never been frivolous, really.  Serially monogamous, as they say.  But I suppose it’s all relative.  I suppose I could be considered a trollop in some circles.  Because my numbers…  My number is 13, I think.  (I don’t really want to count any more.  I think it’s 13.)   Anyway.  In my own estimation, I have not been frivolous.  I’ve only ever wanted to be with just one.

…in an ideal world, there would have only ever been one…

My number would have been low, in an ideal world.  My number would have been one.  I would have settled in to life with my person, and we would have learned each other, grown with each other, and built a life together.

I know people, my age, whose number is one.  I applaud them.  It’s hard to fathom how they were able to manage it.

…letting go…

It’s not an ideal world.  I have my issues that constrain the relationships I find myself in.  I have a yearning, a hunger, an ache to let everything go and immerse myself in the moment.  I want to release all the constraints and let them flow away so that I can breathe and move and honor each sensation that my body can feel.  How much of this depends on another?  How much of this depends only on me?  Has anyone ever truly let go with me?  Have I ever truly let go with anyone?

…ripped off…

For so much of my adult life I’ve felt like I’ve been ripped off, sexually.  Negative associations aside, I still have a hunger for intimacy.  The man I married was more interested in who-knows-what-until-3 am than going to bed at a reasonable hour and enjoying some midnight magic with his wife.  I literally had to ask him for a deposit when I thought I was ovulating, and that was pretty much the sum of it.  A deposit.  Pathetic.  But I do have two wonderful children now, so it wasn’t for naught.  And therefore it was worth it.  Worth every miserable minute.

I suppose that most of the feelings of ripped offedness (I don’t care if that’s not a word, I’m using it anyway) stem from the marriage.  He probably felt ripped off too, because I wasn’t into giving blow jobs.  That, and he favors big booty and little bustage, and my endowments are exactly the opposite.

It was a chapter.  I’m glad it’s over.

…surrender…

There is something to be said about surrender.  When you carry the weight of your world on your shoulders, the burden is heavy.  How can you let it go?  It takes a certain level of trust to be able to let go, to surrender.  Such moments, however fleeting, are sweet and glorious.  Like honey, smooth and amber, flowing gently, covering everything with a soothing glow.

…mid life…

I’m no longer young.  These thoughts and feelings have been with me for most of my life.  When better to address them, if not now?  I could rue the waste of years and moments that could have been spent loving more fully, or I could gird up and say it’s better late than never.  So now is a good time to address these things.  Or at least try.  I’m on a journey inward, looking for myself.  Finding myself.  Revealing myself.  Unearthing myself.  Discovering myself.  Healing myself.  I must.  Because life beckons.  And I want to live.

…morality, what is it?…

The question of morality has quite an impact on thoughts and feelings revolving around sexuality.  What is morality?  It seems to vary from person to person, and it seems often to be steeped in religious background or  upbringing.  What is it to me?

Is it immoral to go through life, one partner after another, in a seemingly endless quest for ‘The One’?  I would generally say no.  That is, unless the partners overlap against their will.  In which case it’s unkind and unfair to the  unknowing partner.  In other words, unfaithful.  Not good.  Not good at all.

Is it immoral to have sex outside of marriage? I’m thinking along the lines of damage control, rather than religion.  Generally, religion provides rules, guidelines and boundaries designed for our safety.  Not that the intent is never butchered and what results is a far cry from any of that.  The intent of religion is noble.  The execution thereof, not so much.  So I think in terms of damage control.  Sex is personal, intimate and emotional.  It just is.  Well, maybe not to testosterone crazed men.  I’m not a man.  I speak only as a hot blooded Aries woman of Asian and Scandinavian descent.  For me, sex is personal, intimate, and emotional.  To share it with another means sharing intimacy and emotion with another.  It opens a channel of vulnerability.  It seems best, logical even, to keep the impact minimal.  Keep the numbers low.  In an ideal world, my number would have been only one, and I would be married.  But that’s not my world.

Is it immoral to take one’s sexual needs into one’s own hands?  I had a friend who once said, “Better to cast your seed into the belly of a whore than spill it on the ground.”  I’m surprised at myself that I would actually remember a statement, verbatim.  I generally only remember nebulously, without the clarity of detail.  Yet I remember that particular statement.  Distinctly.  Probably because I wholeheartedly disagree.  One, because the attitude propagates a profession that is demeaning to humanity, and two because in so doing, more than one person is involved, hence the possibility of hurt or anguish is amplified.  Masturbation makes complete logical sense.  Nobody is hurt, nobody else’s emotions are involved, no diseases are spread, and a physical need is addressed.  It’s merely taking care of business.  There is a physical need, a tension that grows and can lead to distraction.  Best to nip it in the bud rather than let it lead to something destructive.

That said, I sort of struggle with my Catholic upbringing and the sense of shame associated with such unmentionables.  Masturbation.  It’s hard to even voice the word in thought, let alone write it down.  Religious upbringing aside, it still makes logical sense to me, so truly, at the end of the day, I have no problem with it.

…loving…

I think about loving.  About making love.  I imagine two people, fully immersed in each other.  Skin on skin.  Touching.  Tasting.  Nibbling.  Fingers gliding gently and slowly along curves of limbs.  Bodies tangled up in each other.  Breathing each other’s air.  Feeling everything.  Every point of contact a distinct sensation.  I imagine drifting off to sleep in the warmth of each other’s presence, waking, but only barely, and moving again with each other, tangled up again in semi-consciousness.  Loving each other in waves.  Surrendering completely to each other.  Falling asleep in peace.  Comfort.  Safety.  Waking up in harmony.  Warm.

Smooth.

Honey.

Love.

Is such a thing possible?  If I can imagine it, it must be so.  It must.

…running out of steam…

As is so often the case with me, all these thoughts that are milling about, that need to be sorted and pondered and placed, are sketched in outline and I find myself winded, unable to think further or write further.  All these important thoughts on the verge of clarity.  Lost again in the quagmire of my harried mind.  All these words penned, and yet no epiphany.

At least it opens a door for more thoughts to process.  At least I’ve mustered the courage to mention the unmentionables, so maybe next time, when I can put some thoughts to form, I just might get somewhere.

But not tonight.

My body is changing.  My physical form is occupying less space in the universe, and with this slow transformation there is a new self-awareness dawning.  How can I explain this?  It’s almost as if, for all the years –so many years!– that I’ve been taking up so much space, there was a gaping chasm separating my self, the real me, from my self, the physical me.  Maybe I wouldn’t, or maybe I couldn’t look at the latter.  Maybe it was just too much.  This is not who I am, I’d say, and I’d turn the other way.  But the problem is –was–, that we live in a physical world, so there is no escaping the physical self.  That is what manifests.  And what of the inner self?  Where did that one go?  That one who might have been beautiful, smart, capable, excellent.  That one is smothered by the shell that is manifested in the physical.  I spent years struggling with self-acceptance.  The dichotomy between who I was and who I appeared to be was too great.  E R R O R.  C A N N O T   C O M P U T E.

It’s so very easy to soothe this unrest, this distress, with all manner of deflections and cover-ups.   Fill one’s every moment with something, anything, so that you don’t have to think about yourself, and the Grand Canyon that separates your self from your self.  Be a super achiever.  Move mountains.  Consume mountains.  At the end of the day, though, there remains a deep and aching sadness, because you can’t really cover up the Grand Canyon.  It’s still there, and no matter how hard you may try to justify or explain or deflect or deny, the truth of the matter is that it is still there.  You can’t escape from yourself.

Grand Canyon

What I’m beginning to notice, as I sit for a moment and gaze down at the legs folded beneath me, is that the chasm is closing.  Ever so slowly.  But it’s closing.  Because when I look down at my physical self, I see my physical self.  And I recognize a faint glimmer of my self.  I can look at the legs beneath me and say, “Oh!  That’s me.  I’m sitting here.  Those are my legs.  They are attached to my body.  They are a part of me.”  And that is the beginning of acceptance.

Two things come to mind as I reflect upon these things.  Why does it take a lifetime and a radical change to deem oneself worthy of one’s own acceptance?  And why is there a chasm at all?  It’s clear to see how the chasm has grown, but not so clear to understand where or why it began in the first place.  The whole matter is tragic.  Such a waste of life.  Such a waste of beautiful moments, beautiful thoughts, beautiful breath.  Such a waste.

I don’t know who will emerge once the chasm has healed, but I do know that I will embrace her, because she will be whole.  She is who I am.  She is the real me.  Hello, old friend, I will say, when we meet.  I’ve missed you.

I’m beginning to unravel and better understand certain things about myself.  I’m naturally forgiving.  I don’t hold resentments and grudges.  I think I used to.  I must have.  Maybe it’s something that develops with age.  Maybe it takes a certain maturity to face oneself in the mirror and take responsibility for all things.  Things didn’t happen to me.  Life is a compilation of experiences, and those experiences have to do with choices I’ve made along the way.  Sure, they intersect with choices that others have made along the way as well.  But I”m the captain of my own ship.  I don’t have to react to anybody.  I can choose my course.

Maybe it’s more simple than maturity.  Maybe it’s just sheer exhaustion.  One reaches a point, swimming against the current, so to speak, when one can no longer go on.  So we just stop fighting, start treading water, and simply try to stay afloat.  Maybe it’s just survival.

Whatever it is, I am glad to let bygones be bygones.  There is peace in doing so.

In all of this, however, I recognize the need for vigilance.  Forgiveness is one thing, but it’s also critically important to learn from one’s mistakes and not go on repeating them, time and time again.

I’m in a healing mode.  I don’t know what the future holds.  I don’t know much of anything.  I do know that the life I’m leading consumes my emotional, mental and physical resources.  Treading water, staying afloat, is all that I can do right now.  One day at a time.  One step at a time.  One minute at a time. I’m doing what I need to do.

I will say this.  I love being a mother.  Love, love, love.  I may be barely afloat, but when I think of my kids, I feel a smile steal over my face.

How I love them!

They are my everything.

How’s that for a title?

I had quite a bit more stuff written here, blah blah blah, but I think the title pretty much sums it  up.

a bit morbid, yet a bit brilliant, and a bit apropos as well

be still my bleeding heart

My life has been a road of many twists and turns.  The paths I’ve traipsed over the past few years have led me to face some of the most arduous challenges of my life.  I’ve made hasty, monumental decisions.  I’ve put myself into difficult situations.  Backed myself into corners.  Wasted time, wasted money, wasted emotions, wasted life itself.  I could say, “Hello, my name is Regret.”  But I won’t.  No, because I’ve been thinking about the wasted time, the wasted money, the wasted emotions.

I’ve been thinking about the ripples.  All the ways that lives have changed because of the roads I’ve traversed.  Good things come!  Good things happen!  It’s absolutely concrete.  While I could say that I wish I never wasted so much of my life chasing a mythical love, and I might wish I’d never said those two fateful words (“I do”), I have two vibrant and beautiful testaments to the perfection of that journey right before me.  Every day I am blessed by the wonder of these two human beings entrusted to my care.  And they would not be, had I not walked down that particular path.  And since then, for all the painful twists and turns that follow divorce, I can see how other people’s lives have changed for the better, all because our lives intersected at some point along that path.  This isn’t to say that I take credit for anything; it’s only to say that providence allowed me to be in a particular place at a particular moment in which I could (and did) do something that would (and did) help another.

It’s real.  It’s tangible. I can name names.

A child in Bali.  A village in Cambodia.  A single mother with two young children.  A battered wife.  A young mother with four children.  A woman.  A family.  A man (or two, or three, or seven, not that anyone’s counting).  If I even start to dwell on why or how I am here , in this country house so far from the madding crowd, I can turn my thoughts to any one of these people and quiet my anxious heart.  I don’t care how much money is gone.  I don’t care how many days, months, years have passed.  I don’t care how many tears I’ve cried.  Lives have changed!  Even one of these would be well worth any of the suffering I’ve put myself through.  I won’t dwell on the pain.  I won’t entertain regret.

True, I’ve been losing myself all along the way, bit by bit, so that I don’t even recognize myself any more.  I do wish I’d been vigilant from the start and given my self greater care.  I’m recognizing this now, and slowly but surely I am taking steps to restore myself to my self.  I’m going through the fire.  The refiner’s fire.  I’m going to be shiny and bright, when I get back to me.

Hello, my name is Hope.

I’m glad for this journey.

I wonder at what point in my life I became a be-yotch.  My boyfriend says that I am.  (Sometimes.)  I generally don’t think of myself in those terms, but I was looking through pictures of myself recently, and the face looking back at me doesn’t look all that nice.  I’m not quite sure how I’d describe her.  She doesn’t look very happy.  The smile doesn’t look very convincing.  If there’s a smile at all, that is.  I scrolled through my Facebook pictures, months, years back, looking for a reflection of happiness.  There are some photos where I’m snuggling with my kiddos.  Those photos show the me that I think I am.  So many photos I thought were pretty when I posted them now look empty and frayed.

He often says that I’m mean to him.  It always baffles me that he feels that way. He says that I should be nicer.  Again, I’m baffled.  Well, maybe not so much.  I’m finding myself once again at a distance, behind a safety wall that continues to grow.  So I suppose it’s not a stretch to say that I should be nicer.  I would very likely be nicer if I weren’t hiding behind that wall.

I would like to figure out how to stand tall with no walls.  To move about freely.  This is who I am.  I am standing here, in this space, right now.  This is where I am.  I can be here.

Ugh.  I’m so exhausting!

I had a dream last night in which I was single, and was attending some sort of work-related social function.  It may have just been a lunch break.  I was seated at a round table with two guys.  We are all professionals, but I’m not sure their respective fields, but they are friends.  One guy is doing most of the talking.  We are having some sort of conversation, but he is doing most of the talking.  He’s very smart (or at least he talks a good game), and he’s not bad looking either.  We’re wrapping things up, and I say to him, “You’re smart.  You’re young.  You’re cute.  I like you.”  I thought I was complimenting  him and letting him know I’d be interested in seeing him again.  I followed it up with, “Normally I’m not so direct and so succinct, but I’ve got so much to do and have to be going…”   …his response took me by complete surprise.  He was offended and said that the way I spoke to him was abusive.  I was remorseful for my abruptness.  The thoughts that spun through my mind were along the lines of regret that what I said had ruined any chances I might have had for a future with that guy.

Crazy.

Now that I write it out, clearly it’s a rehash of my boyfriend’s sentiments.  And mine too, I suppose.

I got sick this morning, on the way to drop off my kids with their dad for the weekend.  My chest was tight, my stomach was hard.  I’m not sure, but it seems to be psychological.  I’m reminded of all the  tummy aches and headaches I suffered as a child.   I’ve been going through all sorts of things recently and everything seems to be stacking up, so much that I feel like I’m close to a breaking point.   I even called my mom to ask what age she went through menopause.  Looking for explanations.  I’ve been perusing and contemplating anti-depressant options.  Again.

It’s an hour drive to drop off or retrieve the kids.  I stopped by the Home Depot on the way back for a couple of items, and barely made it to the loo in time. I called D and told him I don’t feel well,  so maybe he could go on a motorbike ride with one of his friends instead.   He said he could stick around and be with me, but I said I’d rather be alone.  Why is it so very hard for me to say that?   It’s true though. I  absolutely need some time alone, and I get so very very little of it.  It’s a shame that my sense of self-preservation would make me physically sick,  just to buy myself that time.

Oh Lord in Heaven, I really needed it.

I’ve had a good day. I  didn’t get as much rest as I’d like, but the sickness has faded.  My chest is no longer constricted.  My bowels are no longer  churning.  I was able to write a bit and unload some thoughts.  Just getting them out of my head helps tremendously.  My head is no longer whirring with so many unprocessed fragments.  I  feel much better.

home alone

I’ve been resting outside, listening to the musical whispers of my wind chimes, breathing the fresh country air.  I think I’m ready to face the world again.  At least for a little while.

I wish I could remember things I’ve written, wisdom I’ve learned, conclusions I’ve drawn, resolutions I’ve made, acceptance I’ve granted myself.  I find myself in the same place, time and again, struggling to put a finger on just what it is that I’m going through, and I browse through my blog and find that I’ve been down this road before.  Time and again.

My life seems like another version of Groundhog Day, only my reset is a bit longer duration than 24 hours.

Will I ever learn?

I am happy to bid adieu to 2012.  I would say that 2012 took me for a ride, but it would be more honest to say that I let 2012 take me for a ride.  I could call it the ride of a lifetime.  Woohoo!  Put a bright spin on it.  A ride indeed.  I think I may have experienced some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life in good ‘ole 2012.

It’s all good, really.  My life is full.  My children are happy and healthy.   We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food in our bellies, and warm beds to sleep in.

There is beauty and wisdom in all things, no matter the circumstance.  It just takes a certain perspective to be able to see it.

I won’t say that losing one’s children to the slaughter of a mad man has any beauty in it, but the shock and the horror force (some of) us to take note of our family circles, be more vigilant, hold our children more, and be more grateful for every little moment, and embrace it all.  Even when we’re at our wits end and drowning in frustration.  All these things are trifles.  I want to drink it all in.  Treasure. Every.  Moment.

The time that the children are children is fleeting.  I blinked my eyes and see so many of my nieces and nephews and my friends’ children are already grown.  Grown!  Where did the years go?

My hair is turning (more) gray.  My skin is starting to show its wear.

Professionally, I did well in 2012.  I had some lofty goals and I had actually admitted defeat to myself as well as my boss that it was unlikely that I’d be able to finish the super project before the end of the work year.   I pressed on, and somehow (by the grace of God and the skin of my teeth) I did it!  I felt like a superstar, and it was a great sense of accomplishment.  I don’t think it really mattered much to anyone but me, that I finished by the deadline, but it did matter to me, and I was/am pleased with myself  –pauses to pat self on back.  I suppose I ought to acknowledge that being a superstar for a moment barely compensates for all the days that my performance was distracted and disjointed from the emotional fray that I was buried in for the better part of the year.

Spiritually I’ve had some growth in 2012.  Not the sort of growth that a mainstream Christian might acknowledge or agree with, but I’ve learned some things and for that I’m grateful.  I thought that I wanted to settle into a church family, but realize that I’m truly not drawn that way.  I love the people, I love the worship.  But I belong to a church that is not made with hands, and that church is my home, wherever I am.  I don’t hunger for the company of a congregation, and I’m secure in the knowledge that I am a child of God.

This year has been a rough ride for me emotionally.  I’ve endured much.  I’ve made my loved ones endure much.  I tried so very hard to do more than I am able to do.  Like that image of a circus performer spinning plate after plate after plate.  I had so many plates spinning, but I just couldn’t keep it up, and they all came crashing down.  Lord, how I tried.  I gave it a good shot, though!

Physically, the twists and turns and ups and downs have taken their toll.  Whereas I’ve maintained my weight for most of the year, the past few months have seen a dramatic change in overall physical well-being.  From the moment that I made the decision to re-find myself, I’ve put on weight and my blood sugar has climbed.  Something’s got to give, I suppose.  I’m trying not to panic.  I’m attempting to take it in stride and breathe deeply, knowing that things will settle once I get a stronger grip on the emotional side of my life.

So where am I now?  I don’t really know.  In transition, I suppose.  I’m not settled.  I’m not where I want to be.  But I’m changing and standing faithfully where I need to stand.  I tell myself not to be afraid.  I tell myself that everything will be okay.  And it is.

adieu 2012