wonderful

...and it is wonderful to have a life blessed with so many joys.

hard

It is really hard to feel so brokenhearted...

Reframing

I've been known to remark that change is how we know we're alive.  That having been said, I can't say I really anticipated the change that happened this week.  After just over two years, a very deep love relationship has ended.  It ended over our separate and collective unhealed pain.  It ended over confusion, loose ends and the complications of life as adults.  There is no telling what the love will become from here. It is and was dear.  It was, at times, lovely.  But to put it simply it couldn't continue as it had become.

Single, married, divorced, widowed, single... I've been them all.  I've been having what you might call serious relationships since I was 16.  Since then, if I count them, there have been 8 in these 28 years.  That's an average of 3 1/2 lovely years with some very wonderful men.  It is so strange to think of this particular end and us embarking on our individual journeys of healing and becoming well.  I think about how often people heal together but in this case, at this point in our individual lives, it could not be.

Still, this fork in the road has left me wondering, how does love fall apart?  It falls apart when people find resonance within each others pain.  Either deliberately, through habitual patterns, or a lack of harmony in life styles we might find ourselves facing love loss.  It often isn't simple, but it is caused when one person steps into the other person's field of pain in a way that brings that pain forward. We simply found ourselves stepping in each other's pain too often. We found ourselves needing our individual space to continue to heal.

This separation is punctuated by my leaving my job to pursue work that is more about nurturing, healing and celebrating joy.  This time I have set aside for myself is one for introspection and contemplation about who I am, where I am going and whom I wish to become.  It is a time for reflection on a life: past, present and infinite future. The fact that the future is beset with infinite possibilities for joy is one beautiful thing that I have learned in this relationship.  I recognize I need to also consider this for myself if I am to be a good lover.

Two years ago, I was told, "I want to love you for a long time."  Although, that is clearly true, the love has taken a different form.  It deeply saddens me to see that we have found ourselves here in our separate worlds, but I understand.  I also know that now isn't the time to predict the future of something that is so independent from me.  Although I participate in where this goes, I cannot solely determine who we become.  I can only participate in becoming...myself.

How do I go about finding that kind of joy?

I look back on my early loves and in particular my earliest love -- innocent and joyful. Yes, that ended, but the end was more of an immature whim than working within the shadow of an entire adult life.  And so I look back on that, and find the key in finding that joy is in honoring my maturity while celebrating shared gifts and dreams.

It seems to me that the answer is in the rejuvenating moments of peace and love.  It is looking in amazement through someone else's eyes at the beauty of the world and acting in harmony to celebrate that.  It is creating safety and nurturing care.  When love becomes the business of the day; when it becomes a competition between lifestyles, ideals, goals, knowledge bases; when we get set on our way of doing things or become afraid or distrustful; we lose the ability to nurture and create that place of safety and healing.

Every step forward into the future opens up infinite possibilities if we are truly awake to them. So, in this space of emptiness and loss, I recognize that it is not loss, but an opportunity to become right with myself. This space of emptiness is an opportunity to celebrate impermanence. This space of emptiness is an opportunity to reframe what I want for myself; who I want to be with a lover. I want to offer a place of nurturing safety, of kindness; of compassion.  I want to create a space of beauty that reflects the beauty and joy in our lives and the soft buoying support that moves life forward.  I want it to be a dream space, a learning space and a sharing space.

That's a gift I can offer to myself and, through joyful love, offer myself to this world.

untangling

It's amazing to me how quickly we can become entangled in all of the hopes, dreams and desires of our lives.  Then, when something shows itself to be undesirable, we have become so involved in all aspects of its existence, we lose the ability or maybe the objectivity to see our way to change. 

I think about this when I think about the everything I went through after my husband died.   Undoing all the choices we made together so that I could survive on my own.  Changing jobs, moving back from DC.  Getting sued in the process and giving up a wonderful opportunity that no longer made sense. 

I think about this when I consider what I must do now; no longer with OSFC and stepping slowly out of the field to move toward another that I resonate more strongly with at this point in my life.  I think about the two houses I own, the collapse of the housing market.  I think about my friends here and my friends there and I consider what choice I would prefer to make.

I think about this when I consider my body; my health.  I haven't taken care of myself as I am used to doing.  I haven't been a runner since before my back injury in late 2006.  I haven't done yoga since Mike died in 2007.  I haven't focused on eating and diet and balance in food.  I've regularly had too much to drink since living by myself.  

I think about all of these things for my life and I know that the solution is found in taking it slowly. 

The only way to handle truly freeing yourself is one step at a time.  It's like untangling a fine gold chain that has been sitting in a jewelry box getting knotted into a lump as other pieces are moved in and out.  Take out your tweezers, your magnifying glass and take a look at it.  Start at the knot that is easiest to untie.  You will see the chain slowly unravel, lengthen, regain flexibility and find a new life.  Even if the chain breaks in a weak spot, it can be soldered back together; better than ever. 

And before I know it, I will be stronger than ever. 

Can't

I can't help you if you won't help yourself.

if you destroy what is good
if you push away what you love
if you settle yourself to being in the place
           where everybody else owes you a solution to your problems

where you lose your sense of what is real
to feed the world as you think it ought to be.

I can't help you.  I tried and it didn't work.

That goes for both of you.

44

I had a birthday last week.

If you read my blog, or follow me on Twitter, or are a friend who sees me on Facebook, you might be aware that it was a big birthday.  I gave myself "freedom" for my birthday -- the intent of the freedom was freedom in work, but it seems to be freedom from many things and I think the freedom may be more multi-dimensional than I could have imagined.

At 44, I am stepping out on my own.  I in metamorphosis.  I moving with,  listening to and feeling the cool spring earth.  I'm tentative.  Tentative but clear.

I look forward to the next 44 years to be a spirited existence where everyone and everything I have in my environment lifts my heart and brings joy along with them.  Anything else is and will be unacceptable.  I look forward to getting to know everyone better.  I look forward to weaving our continuum of support, friendship, love and joy.

Consider yourself welcome.  I hope you welcome me into your heart.

Meet Me in the Forest

First step in adjusting to this new world: get out into nature.  So, yesterday afternoon, I went out to Mohican State Park to spend a few hours in nature.

I felt this tired and embarrassingly little-used body begin to spring back to life...a new shape taking form in the old.  I felt the earth beneath my feet and the urge to walk to the end of what civilization and bask in everything it means to feel human.

My greying hair blowing in the breeze, longer than it has been in years; the smell of pines around me.  I laid down in a secluded part of the woods and began to feel renewed.

You remember that feeling when you were a teenager, finally escaping from the confines of your world, stepping out into the woods...brave, unsupervised; naive and sweet.  I felt alot like that, but still carried the wisdom and experiences of these nearly 44 years.  Lying  in the grass, considering every opportunity, every adventure, every experience I want for my life.

I felt peace, stillness and the infinite possibilities that the future brings.