It occurs to me that I've spent a good deal of energy talking about what once was, and not enough energy talking about what is. One night last week, in the wee hours of the morning, I held a wonderful woman and whispered words of love and encouragement into her hair while she wept. She wept because she fears that she will never be able to live up to the spectre of what I once had. I have written at length on the qualities in Jen that I love, on the memories that I will hold with me for the rest of my life, and the doubt, the regret that I will have over losing her again. In putting these thoughts to record, I have fleshed out just how high a pedestal I've put her on. In putting her on so high a pedestal, I've guaranteed that the shadow she casts is long. It's no wonder that someone trying to stand by me would have insecurities and fears.
The first time that I met Dawn, I told her everything about my situation. I tried, purposely, to scare her away with the enormity of my emotional burdens. She wept for me then, a stranger across the tiny table of a coffee shop in a bookstore, because I was, as she puts it, "so sad". She became my friend, my companion. Eventually, as I went for days, then weeks without hearing from Jen, she became a part of my daily life, reassuring me that regardless of how I chose to interpret the silence, I was a worthy man. A good man. She began to take note of the little things, and found joy in bringing me joy.
My family loved her from the beginning, because she was so obviously taken with me, and so incredibly good to me. She engages everyone in my family on a very personal level, and has no fear of speaking her mind, no aversion to disagreement. She thinks of them in the littlest ways, just like she does me, and has adopted them as her own because they are mine. "They're important to you" she says "and so they're important to me, too." She makes no effort to hide her love for me from them, or anyone else. I am important to her, and everyone in my life that she interacts with can tell.
We took a good bit of time debating whether and when to introduce her to my kids. She read books on the subject, looked for guidance, and when she decided to meet them, she was as nervous as I've ever seen her. They took to her right away. Cailee, my sweet little Cailee, with so many quirks and funny little rules about physical interaction, asked her for a hug on the first night that they met. It moved her. She understood and communicated with the kids on a level that they couldn't resist. She worries about them, asks about them, helps to provide for them, plays on the floor with them, talks to them like real people, and loves them. She puts them first, which is something that noone else in my life has done before.
She keeps me honest, reinforcing the man in me who wants to do the right thing. She lends me the benefit of her wisdom, her life experience, her generosity, her nurturing nature, and her desire to see us both become the best human beings that we can be. She loves me unconditionally, corrects me with humility, disagrees with me when necessary, and puts herself at my side, to support me, to encourage me, to help me, and to enlighten me. She understands and respects my need for honest, direct communication. She makes sure that I know that I am not alone, that she wants to help me. Her strength, her courage, her joy and her love for me radiate from her like the light of the sun when she is with me, and if any light could have the strength to banish the shadow of what I have put between us, it would be hers.
This is what I have. This is what reminds me on a daily basis of just how incredibly fortunate I am. This love, blossoming from the roots of friendship, has come to sustain me, and to nourish my soul. While letting go of the past has been, and always will be hard, Dawn has committed herself to a life with me. I will do all that I can to keep her from regretting that decision, and to give back as much good to her life as she has to mine. In that spirit, and to ease what insecurity I have it in my power to, I will put no more words to page about what once was. I will give over my energy to nourishing and extolling the depth and beauty of what I am incredibly fortunate enough to have in my life right now. The love and respect of an amazing woman.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Time keeps on slippin....
The last year has seen more change than any other in my life. I ended a toxic relationship that produced my wonderful children. I had no more trust left in me, and she had no real desire to become someone that I could trust. Our partnership was broken, I couldn't fix it on my own, and she saw nothing in it that was in need of fixing. The decision itself was easy to make. It had made itself long ago, I think, and another lie to break the camels back set it in motion. The aftermath was hard, and still is to some degree. I worry a great deal about what kind of effect that decision will have on my children, but my train of thought in that regard leads me to believe that a happier, healthier Dad will help them learn to make difficult choices and take ownership of their own happiness. It's what I hope for, at least.
I reconnected with the first woman that I genuinely believed that I was going to marry, only to see her fade out of my life once again. The euphoria of what a life started over could be was dashed against reality. I became another demand, instead of a release, and when something had to give, I felt the foundation that I had built with every one of our shared promises fall away beneath me. I had given my happiness over into the hands of someone who wasn't ready or able to take on the mantle of that responsibility, and learned the hard way that while we may mean every promise that we make, keeping them may not always be possible.
We shared the most beautiful day of my life, and at the end, I hadn't heard from her in weeks, although she was keeping up her "Facebook face". The last time that I heard from her, she wished me well in my new found love, and said that she would leave me alone. I'm not sure if she understood that she had already left me alone. I learned then, the hard way, that we all ride currents on the river of life, and that we have no guarantee that those currents will keep us close to those that we love. I hope that she finds peace. I hope that someday she finds the love that she deserves, when she finds herself ready. A part of me will always wish that it could have been me.
While I waited through those weeks of silence, shifting between a stoic acceptance of the situation and a pathetic need for attention, a friend stood by my side and waited. Waited for me to come around, to realize that every quality that I was waiting for was already beside me. Waited for me to realize that I couldn't make someone choose me, that I was worthy of being chosen, that I had already been chosen. Waited for me to open my eyes and see that a good woman was devoting her time to watching me agonize over someone who would spare no time, and yet for whom I was willing to give everything. She waited patiently, until I finally let go of the hopeless situation that I was putting myself in, and devoted my energy to building a new life.
While I've known for some time now that I'm a lucky man, I'm still getting used to the idea that I'm a worthy man. Worthy of my own respect, at the very least. This is the year that I begin to claim what I'm worth, the year that I stop wallowing and start moving, the year that I begin to make this new life into what it should be, and stop waiting for it to become what I hope it could be. This is the year, my friends, that I begin to live, to love, to laugh, to breathe, to focus, and to center myself in gratitude for what I have, hunger for what I want, and to test myself in order to maintain the former and move forward toward the latter. I will be no less than who I am, and do all that I can to give those who love me every reason to be proud, without reason to be disappointed or ashamed.
This is my year.
I reconnected with the first woman that I genuinely believed that I was going to marry, only to see her fade out of my life once again. The euphoria of what a life started over could be was dashed against reality. I became another demand, instead of a release, and when something had to give, I felt the foundation that I had built with every one of our shared promises fall away beneath me. I had given my happiness over into the hands of someone who wasn't ready or able to take on the mantle of that responsibility, and learned the hard way that while we may mean every promise that we make, keeping them may not always be possible.
We shared the most beautiful day of my life, and at the end, I hadn't heard from her in weeks, although she was keeping up her "Facebook face". The last time that I heard from her, she wished me well in my new found love, and said that she would leave me alone. I'm not sure if she understood that she had already left me alone. I learned then, the hard way, that we all ride currents on the river of life, and that we have no guarantee that those currents will keep us close to those that we love. I hope that she finds peace. I hope that someday she finds the love that she deserves, when she finds herself ready. A part of me will always wish that it could have been me.
While I waited through those weeks of silence, shifting between a stoic acceptance of the situation and a pathetic need for attention, a friend stood by my side and waited. Waited for me to come around, to realize that every quality that I was waiting for was already beside me. Waited for me to realize that I couldn't make someone choose me, that I was worthy of being chosen, that I had already been chosen. Waited for me to open my eyes and see that a good woman was devoting her time to watching me agonize over someone who would spare no time, and yet for whom I was willing to give everything. She waited patiently, until I finally let go of the hopeless situation that I was putting myself in, and devoted my energy to building a new life.
While I've known for some time now that I'm a lucky man, I'm still getting used to the idea that I'm a worthy man. Worthy of my own respect, at the very least. This is the year that I begin to claim what I'm worth, the year that I stop wallowing and start moving, the year that I begin to make this new life into what it should be, and stop waiting for it to become what I hope it could be. This is the year, my friends, that I begin to live, to love, to laugh, to breathe, to focus, and to center myself in gratitude for what I have, hunger for what I want, and to test myself in order to maintain the former and move forward toward the latter. I will be no less than who I am, and do all that I can to give those who love me every reason to be proud, without reason to be disappointed or ashamed.
This is my year.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Weariness, closure, and renewal
We spoke again, after the goodbye exchange. She doesn't have the energy to put into returning the love that I have for her. She needs to find her own path, her own joy, for her. She will always love the fact that I will always love her, that I will always be here for her. I helped her to see that she wasn't the cause of the unhappiness in her life, that she is worthy of being loved. It felt alot like the first time that we went through this. And, while I can't say that it made it easier, I felt as though I attained closure. She will never belong to me. The time that we had together was borrowed, and never guaranteed. I can look these facts in the face, and accept them.
I know now, that it wasn't me. There was nothing more that I could have done, nothing that I could have done differently. Thinking of her smile, remembering her voice, while they still hurt, hurt less. The promises, the commitments that both of us made are still bouncing around in my head, and those hurt significantly more. I don't understand it at all, but I've started taking the memories and putting them away, like keepsakes in a box. Through her, I experienced some of the happiest moments of my life, and I will always appreciate that. I found the good man in myself, in part because of her.
For over a month now, I have been growing close to and confiding in a very sweet, very kind, very understanding woman. My family loves her. She takes me to places in the city that I would never have thought of going to on my own, introduces me to culinary experiences that I wouldn't have tried, exposes me to hobbies that I wouldn't have given much thought to in the past. We don't read the same books. We don't listen to the same music (although I've been introducing her to genres that she's never experienced). We don't have a track record of enjoying the same movies (although she's been remarkably patient with my attempts to transform her into a sci-fi geek). We don't have what I would call a traditional "spark".
But she's patient. She's kind. She's sat and listened to me pour out my soul about another woman. She's listened to me profess undying love, devotion, and commitment to someone who has, for all that I know, walked out of my life forever, and she hasn't given up on me. She makes me acknowledge my successes, talks me out of beating myself up over my failures, and puts time and energy into me. She's available to me, knows that she wants to be by my side, and puts herself there. She really has been amazing to me. I don't know what my path forward holds, but I know that she's traveling it with me.
But how, you might ask, can you go from declaring undying love and devotion to someone in one part of your narrative, and then speak of being with someone else in just a few short paragraphs? How can you speak of love as an absolute in the past, assuring us that you don't cut and run, and then just a few weeks later introduce us to a new player in your life as though it were trivial?
Because it's not trivial. Because it took me weeks to acknowledge to myself that it was the right thing to do. Because I gave Jen space, and time, and love, all of me, and she closed the door to her life in my face. Because I deserve to be happy, and because I deserve to know where the person that I love wants to be in my life, where they want me to be in their lives. Because she had no energy left to spare for me, for my happiness, and that's okay. She has to make the choices necessary to make herself happy, and somewhere, somehow, I became a part of the problem, and no longer a part of the solution.
And because I'm not speaking words of love to anyone else right now. And may never, if it means going through this kind of thing again. Right now, I'm spending time with someone who wants to see me happy, and who is willing to put time and energy into bringing me back to that place. I've found in the last week, while beginning the process of letting go, that loving someone with that amount of energy, when it isn't returned with the same amount of energy, is exhausting. I don't know if I can bring myself to ever commit like that again. I don't believe that I will ever find love like that again, and I'm coming to terms with that. Maybe we aren't meant to. Maybe loving like that isn't healthy. Maybe all of my expectations, all of my hopes were unrealistic. Maybe giddy, irrational happiness like that is destined by nature to be short lived. I don't know. I just know that I'm tired, and for the first time in a long time, I have a shoulder to rest my head upon. That might be silly, but it's all that I've wanted for months. I'm finding peace. Finding rest. Finding closure.
I know now, that it wasn't me. There was nothing more that I could have done, nothing that I could have done differently. Thinking of her smile, remembering her voice, while they still hurt, hurt less. The promises, the commitments that both of us made are still bouncing around in my head, and those hurt significantly more. I don't understand it at all, but I've started taking the memories and putting them away, like keepsakes in a box. Through her, I experienced some of the happiest moments of my life, and I will always appreciate that. I found the good man in myself, in part because of her.
For over a month now, I have been growing close to and confiding in a very sweet, very kind, very understanding woman. My family loves her. She takes me to places in the city that I would never have thought of going to on my own, introduces me to culinary experiences that I wouldn't have tried, exposes me to hobbies that I wouldn't have given much thought to in the past. We don't read the same books. We don't listen to the same music (although I've been introducing her to genres that she's never experienced). We don't have a track record of enjoying the same movies (although she's been remarkably patient with my attempts to transform her into a sci-fi geek). We don't have what I would call a traditional "spark".
But she's patient. She's kind. She's sat and listened to me pour out my soul about another woman. She's listened to me profess undying love, devotion, and commitment to someone who has, for all that I know, walked out of my life forever, and she hasn't given up on me. She makes me acknowledge my successes, talks me out of beating myself up over my failures, and puts time and energy into me. She's available to me, knows that she wants to be by my side, and puts herself there. She really has been amazing to me. I don't know what my path forward holds, but I know that she's traveling it with me.
But how, you might ask, can you go from declaring undying love and devotion to someone in one part of your narrative, and then speak of being with someone else in just a few short paragraphs? How can you speak of love as an absolute in the past, assuring us that you don't cut and run, and then just a few weeks later introduce us to a new player in your life as though it were trivial?
Because it's not trivial. Because it took me weeks to acknowledge to myself that it was the right thing to do. Because I gave Jen space, and time, and love, all of me, and she closed the door to her life in my face. Because I deserve to be happy, and because I deserve to know where the person that I love wants to be in my life, where they want me to be in their lives. Because she had no energy left to spare for me, for my happiness, and that's okay. She has to make the choices necessary to make herself happy, and somewhere, somehow, I became a part of the problem, and no longer a part of the solution.
And because I'm not speaking words of love to anyone else right now. And may never, if it means going through this kind of thing again. Right now, I'm spending time with someone who wants to see me happy, and who is willing to put time and energy into bringing me back to that place. I've found in the last week, while beginning the process of letting go, that loving someone with that amount of energy, when it isn't returned with the same amount of energy, is exhausting. I don't know if I can bring myself to ever commit like that again. I don't believe that I will ever find love like that again, and I'm coming to terms with that. Maybe we aren't meant to. Maybe loving like that isn't healthy. Maybe all of my expectations, all of my hopes were unrealistic. Maybe giddy, irrational happiness like that is destined by nature to be short lived. I don't know. I just know that I'm tired, and for the first time in a long time, I have a shoulder to rest my head upon. That might be silly, but it's all that I've wanted for months. I'm finding peace. Finding rest. Finding closure.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Goodbyes
I let go today. I said goodbye. By necessity it was via email. She hasn't had the time to talk to me on the phone in quite a while. I tried to call, but it went to voicemail, as I had expected it to. I had prepared myself for it to be hard, and it was harder than I had imagined that it would be. Love is patient, and I will love her for the rest of my life. I can't, however, keep living a life in which I allow myself to be relegated to the lowest priority in her life. I can't keep living a life in which I have to beg for the least amounts of attention. I won't pretend to be a healthy, whole individual, but even I finally came to the conclusion that it was unhealthy.
I will most likely never hear from her again. I'm not okay with that yet, but she seems to be, I can't tell. She's psyched about the possibility of the Rangers making it to the World Series, according to her last Facebook status. I deactivated my Facebook. I honestly have no desire to be around people for quite some time, and I don't have the ability to maintain what she calls a "Facebook Face".
It will also most likely be some time before I update this record. While I recognize that I truly am a lucky man, I have to take some time to internalize this, and move through it. I had never expected to lose her again. I had never expected, from the conversations that we had, the moments that we shared, that she would walk away. I had believed that we completed each other, and committed myself fully to the promise of a life with her. It was supposed to work this time. I don't understand what I could have done differently.
I will most likely never hear from her again. I'm not okay with that yet, but she seems to be, I can't tell. She's psyched about the possibility of the Rangers making it to the World Series, according to her last Facebook status. I deactivated my Facebook. I honestly have no desire to be around people for quite some time, and I don't have the ability to maintain what she calls a "Facebook Face".
It will also most likely be some time before I update this record. While I recognize that I truly am a lucky man, I have to take some time to internalize this, and move through it. I had never expected to lose her again. I had never expected, from the conversations that we had, the moments that we shared, that she would walk away. I had believed that we completed each other, and committed myself fully to the promise of a life with her. It was supposed to work this time. I don't understand what I could have done differently.
Monday, October 18, 2010
If you love something
In keeping with my recent tendency to examine trite phrases that seem to end up in motivational conversations, I've spent some time thinking about another classic.
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it was yours. If it doesn't, it never was.
(Okay, so I paraphrased. And inserted things like commas and periods. Google that phrase, and you'll find that it just can't seem to help but come across like it was written by a semi-literate teenage girl.)
Setting something that you love free is incredibly hard. It means letting go. It means understanding that they have their own life to live. Their own choices to make. Their own path to take. Their own challenges. You may be asking too much of them. They may love you, but they just can't be what you want or need them to be. Whatever the case may be, you accept that it's outside of your power to do anything more to change it. In fact, by trying too hard to keep that love in your life, you could suffocate it. In the immortal words of .38 Special, "if you cling too tightly, you're gonna lose control".
If it comes back to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was always yours, or that it will stay in your life from that point on. My joy came back to me after 16 years of darkness and loneliness for both of us. And now it's gone. I've found the hard way that things don't happen according to our wishes in life based on the desire that we throw at them. If this were true, we all would have gotten the puppy we wanted for Christmas when we were kids. I've also learned that life isn't anything remotely like a romantic comedy, or a sitcom from the 80's. Telling someone that if they really, really loved you, that they would find a way to be with you doesn't result in a montage of two people crying alone and then inevitably finding their way to each other at the hour of their greatest need. It breaks things.
I am in love, for better or worse, and will be for the rest of my life. At this point, I don't know if I will ever have her in my life again, but I have to let it go. If this love was meant to be, it will. If not, I'm left with memories of the happiest moments in my life, outside of the birth of my children. I was lucky enough to have reached out to the most wonderful woman that I have ever known, to have given her all of the man that I am, and to have been the recipient of her love, for however brief a time. How many people can claim to have been so fortunate? If I should never hear from her again, I was still lucky enough to have had her in my life. Even in this, of all things, I find that I am an incredibly lucky man.
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it was yours. If it doesn't, it never was.
(Okay, so I paraphrased. And inserted things like commas and periods. Google that phrase, and you'll find that it just can't seem to help but come across like it was written by a semi-literate teenage girl.)
Setting something that you love free is incredibly hard. It means letting go. It means understanding that they have their own life to live. Their own choices to make. Their own path to take. Their own challenges. You may be asking too much of them. They may love you, but they just can't be what you want or need them to be. Whatever the case may be, you accept that it's outside of your power to do anything more to change it. In fact, by trying too hard to keep that love in your life, you could suffocate it. In the immortal words of .38 Special, "if you cling too tightly, you're gonna lose control".
If it comes back to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that it was always yours, or that it will stay in your life from that point on. My joy came back to me after 16 years of darkness and loneliness for both of us. And now it's gone. I've found the hard way that things don't happen according to our wishes in life based on the desire that we throw at them. If this were true, we all would have gotten the puppy we wanted for Christmas when we were kids. I've also learned that life isn't anything remotely like a romantic comedy, or a sitcom from the 80's. Telling someone that if they really, really loved you, that they would find a way to be with you doesn't result in a montage of two people crying alone and then inevitably finding their way to each other at the hour of their greatest need. It breaks things.
I am in love, for better or worse, and will be for the rest of my life. At this point, I don't know if I will ever have her in my life again, but I have to let it go. If this love was meant to be, it will. If not, I'm left with memories of the happiest moments in my life, outside of the birth of my children. I was lucky enough to have reached out to the most wonderful woman that I have ever known, to have given her all of the man that I am, and to have been the recipient of her love, for however brief a time. How many people can claim to have been so fortunate? If I should never hear from her again, I was still lucky enough to have had her in my life. Even in this, of all things, I find that I am an incredibly lucky man.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Serenity
At one point in my life, every time that I heard someone reference or repeat the Serenity Prayer, I would roll my eyes, or at the very least, get that feeling inside that you get when you roll your eyes. I think that we all know it, but just in case we don't, here you go:
There is so much that I want to change, and that I can't. My mind honestly works at the insurmountable things in my life like it's trying to solve a Gordian knot. Accepting that I just can't change them, that there isn't always a bold move to suddenly make them right, is really very hard for me. In my mind, letting go of something is tantamount to admitting that you failed at making it work. It's one of the reasons that my marriage lasted as long as it did. I didn't want to admit that it had failed, even though the evidence was all around me. I need to learn to visualize the weight that I feel from these things as rocks, and to just drop them instead of carrying them with me everywhere I go.
I could be spending as much time battling with these issues as I do because I lack the courage to just change the things that I can, and should. It's easier for me to tell myself that I don't know what to do to fix something than it is to accept the solution that would fix it, because I want a fixed outcome, requiring the serenity to accept that I can't change the outcome. There are times when I will worry at something into weariness, exhausting every possible outcome, just to avoid accepting the fact that I have to make changes, like ending my marriage.
Having the wisdom to know the difference isn't the same thing as the intelligence to recognize the difference. I'm intelligent enough to know, for example, that I can't force some things to happen in my life by my timetable. I can't, for example, force someone to choose a path in their life that leads them to immediately to me simply because it would make me happy. I know that. I'm not, however, wise enough to assimilate that into my day to day hopes and fears. On a certain level, I have this childish need to have my own insecurities and doubts allayed constantly, and I should probably see a therapist about that.
The rest of the 12 Step version is what really drew me in, though. Because I need the patience to realize that not all wonderful things in life germinate, take root, and blossom overnight. Roses may smell sweet when they're budding, but if we pick them too soon, they'll never attain the potential that they could have had if we had left them there until they were ready, yellow, and inviting. I need to learn to appreciate what I have, and not just yearn for what I don't. I need to learn that what I'm going through isn't what everyone else is going through, and that the people around me are struggling with their own problems. I need to learn to forgive myself for the things that I've done and can't change, and to forgive others for things that I'm still angry over.
The loving part I've always been good at. It's one of the reasons that I've learned over the years to be selective about the relationships that I engage in with people. Everyone deserves to be loved, at least a little, but the people in my life that I love, well, I never love in half measures. I do need to learn, though, that the strength to get up again doesn't always have to come from inside of me. I have a hard time reaching out to people when I'm in pain, a hard time admitting that I need help, because it's always seemed like an admission of weakness. When I do reach out, I need to learn when to stop asking for more than someone can give, because the world doesn't revolve around me. Well, except to my babies.
Which brings me back to my need for this whole philosophical lesson in the first place. I'm in a place in life that's unstable. The plans that I had made with the mother of my children about their future have changed a few times. I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was, but I allowed myself to think that it could all work out in the end. My faith was misplaced. I'm still not sure what's going to happen, but I know that I need to take steps to take care of it, so that it doesn't take care of itself without my input. My energy needs to be spent on securing what's best for them.
I feel like a man who's been handed a painting by Monet, while his house is in smoking ruins around him. Before I can figure out where to hang it, I need to, well, rebuild my house. Sure, I could just throw up some joists and sheetrock and then hang it on my impromptu wall, but if I don't have a house built around that wall, it's eventually going to fall. As much as I hate to, I need to stop admiring the beauty of the Monet, put it down, and get to work on rebuilding the house, making it stable and secure, a warm and comforting place for my children to grow up, admiring it's beauty with me. It's not going anywhere. It's still my Monet. Unless the deliveryman comes back and picks it up, because it wasn't supposed to be delivered to me in the first place. See? See how my mind works? This is why I need to work on this whole thing.
Next time we'll talk about the classic proverb that begins with "If you love something, set it free..."
Or maybe we won't, I don't know, I've got to shop for sheetrock and lumber first. Does anyone have nails? And maybe a hammer?
- God, grant me the serenity
- To accept the things I cannot change;
- Courage to change the things I can;
- And wisdom to know the difference.
- God, grant us the...
- Serenity to accept things we cannot change,
- Courage to change the things we can, and the
- Wisdom to know the difference
- Patience for the things that take time
- Appreciation for all that we have, and
- Tolerance for those with different struggles
- Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways, the
- Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other and the
- Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.
There is so much that I want to change, and that I can't. My mind honestly works at the insurmountable things in my life like it's trying to solve a Gordian knot. Accepting that I just can't change them, that there isn't always a bold move to suddenly make them right, is really very hard for me. In my mind, letting go of something is tantamount to admitting that you failed at making it work. It's one of the reasons that my marriage lasted as long as it did. I didn't want to admit that it had failed, even though the evidence was all around me. I need to learn to visualize the weight that I feel from these things as rocks, and to just drop them instead of carrying them with me everywhere I go.
I could be spending as much time battling with these issues as I do because I lack the courage to just change the things that I can, and should. It's easier for me to tell myself that I don't know what to do to fix something than it is to accept the solution that would fix it, because I want a fixed outcome, requiring the serenity to accept that I can't change the outcome. There are times when I will worry at something into weariness, exhausting every possible outcome, just to avoid accepting the fact that I have to make changes, like ending my marriage.
Having the wisdom to know the difference isn't the same thing as the intelligence to recognize the difference. I'm intelligent enough to know, for example, that I can't force some things to happen in my life by my timetable. I can't, for example, force someone to choose a path in their life that leads them to immediately to me simply because it would make me happy. I know that. I'm not, however, wise enough to assimilate that into my day to day hopes and fears. On a certain level, I have this childish need to have my own insecurities and doubts allayed constantly, and I should probably see a therapist about that.
The rest of the 12 Step version is what really drew me in, though. Because I need the patience to realize that not all wonderful things in life germinate, take root, and blossom overnight. Roses may smell sweet when they're budding, but if we pick them too soon, they'll never attain the potential that they could have had if we had left them there until they were ready, yellow, and inviting. I need to learn to appreciate what I have, and not just yearn for what I don't. I need to learn that what I'm going through isn't what everyone else is going through, and that the people around me are struggling with their own problems. I need to learn to forgive myself for the things that I've done and can't change, and to forgive others for things that I'm still angry over.
The loving part I've always been good at. It's one of the reasons that I've learned over the years to be selective about the relationships that I engage in with people. Everyone deserves to be loved, at least a little, but the people in my life that I love, well, I never love in half measures. I do need to learn, though, that the strength to get up again doesn't always have to come from inside of me. I have a hard time reaching out to people when I'm in pain, a hard time admitting that I need help, because it's always seemed like an admission of weakness. When I do reach out, I need to learn when to stop asking for more than someone can give, because the world doesn't revolve around me. Well, except to my babies.
Which brings me back to my need for this whole philosophical lesson in the first place. I'm in a place in life that's unstable. The plans that I had made with the mother of my children about their future have changed a few times. I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was, but I allowed myself to think that it could all work out in the end. My faith was misplaced. I'm still not sure what's going to happen, but I know that I need to take steps to take care of it, so that it doesn't take care of itself without my input. My energy needs to be spent on securing what's best for them.
I feel like a man who's been handed a painting by Monet, while his house is in smoking ruins around him. Before I can figure out where to hang it, I need to, well, rebuild my house. Sure, I could just throw up some joists and sheetrock and then hang it on my impromptu wall, but if I don't have a house built around that wall, it's eventually going to fall. As much as I hate to, I need to stop admiring the beauty of the Monet, put it down, and get to work on rebuilding the house, making it stable and secure, a warm and comforting place for my children to grow up, admiring it's beauty with me. It's not going anywhere. It's still my Monet. Unless the deliveryman comes back and picks it up, because it wasn't supposed to be delivered to me in the first place. See? See how my mind works? This is why I need to work on this whole thing.
Next time we'll talk about the classic proverb that begins with "If you love something, set it free..."
Or maybe we won't, I don't know, I've got to shop for sheetrock and lumber first. Does anyone have nails? And maybe a hammer?
Sunday, September 26, 2010
On Love, Again
When I was a minister in training, I would almost always emphasize the love of Christ in my sermon studies. Rather than focus on the post-mortem structure of Peter and Paul that give most conservative ministers license to condemn everyone under the sun to Hell, it was important to me that we remember that He socialized with the undesirable, and that He gave love to those who were judged as unlovable by everyone else. One of my favorite passages in the NT was a definition of what love should be.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.
You may have noticed that my last rambling diatribe of a post has been removed. I removed it because, as soon as I posted it, it felt wrong. It felt self serving, and self centered. It felt as though I were putting my love on display for all to see, and saying "Look! Look at what manner of man that I am, giving all and being repaid with sorrow!"
(edit: I have republished that post. Revisionist historians always bothered me.)
At the end of the day, whether I sleep alone or not, whether I weep or laugh, whether I have peace or my mind refuses to allow it, my life, and my love, are the result of choices that I have made. There is no room in agape for "but...". Love is patient. Love is kind. Love doesn't boast, and it isn't proud. It isn't self seeking. It isn't easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. My last post was the reflection of something that was not patient, that was not kind. It was a boast. It was proud, and self seeking. It was angry. It wanted to keep record of wrongs. It was not protective, it had lost trust, and hope. It had failed. This is not how I love.
I try very hard to be honest, and to remember how fortunate I am. I have the love of an incredible woman, who only asks me to give her agape in return. To give her patience. To be kind. This should be easy for me, because this is how I love.
I am not, unfortunately, a strong man. I frequently despair over my weaknesses. I am going through one of the most difficult periods that I have ever experienced in my life, and rather than face it head on, as I should, I whine about going through it alone. There are widows in third world countries trying to find a way to feed their children on less money a month than I make in a day. There are good, hardworking people going through trials in their lives that make mine look like a walk in the park. I should be grateful that I have what I do.
I have four beautiful children who love me more than anyone else on the face of the earth. I am at the center of their universes. I have a family willing to move mountains to help me do what's best for them. I have 6 friends who love and support me, because when I choose friends I choose the right people. I have a great job, and managers who work with me on trying to figure out what it is that I want to be, and how to get me there. I have the freedom and the resources to allow me to plan a trip to see the most amazing woman on the face of the planet, and she makes as much time for me as she can when I do. I have an incredible woman who completes me, and all that she asks me for is time, and patience.
Who am I, to complain? I should be grateful and glad, to have so much. That is how I should love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails.
You may have noticed that my last rambling diatribe of a post has been removed. I removed it because, as soon as I posted it, it felt wrong. It felt self serving, and self centered. It felt as though I were putting my love on display for all to see, and saying "Look! Look at what manner of man that I am, giving all and being repaid with sorrow!"
(edit: I have republished that post. Revisionist historians always bothered me.)
At the end of the day, whether I sleep alone or not, whether I weep or laugh, whether I have peace or my mind refuses to allow it, my life, and my love, are the result of choices that I have made. There is no room in agape for "but...". Love is patient. Love is kind. Love doesn't boast, and it isn't proud. It isn't self seeking. It isn't easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. My last post was the reflection of something that was not patient, that was not kind. It was a boast. It was proud, and self seeking. It was angry. It wanted to keep record of wrongs. It was not protective, it had lost trust, and hope. It had failed. This is not how I love.
I try very hard to be honest, and to remember how fortunate I am. I have the love of an incredible woman, who only asks me to give her agape in return. To give her patience. To be kind. This should be easy for me, because this is how I love.
I am not, unfortunately, a strong man. I frequently despair over my weaknesses. I am going through one of the most difficult periods that I have ever experienced in my life, and rather than face it head on, as I should, I whine about going through it alone. There are widows in third world countries trying to find a way to feed their children on less money a month than I make in a day. There are good, hardworking people going through trials in their lives that make mine look like a walk in the park. I should be grateful that I have what I do.
I have four beautiful children who love me more than anyone else on the face of the earth. I am at the center of their universes. I have a family willing to move mountains to help me do what's best for them. I have 6 friends who love and support me, because when I choose friends I choose the right people. I have a great job, and managers who work with me on trying to figure out what it is that I want to be, and how to get me there. I have the freedom and the resources to allow me to plan a trip to see the most amazing woman on the face of the planet, and she makes as much time for me as she can when I do. I have an incredible woman who completes me, and all that she asks me for is time, and patience.
Who am I, to complain? I should be grateful and glad, to have so much. That is how I should love.
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