Nature vs. Love

So this is happening again. I am writing again. I am sad again. I am in love again.
So here I am again.

This outlet is the next best thing to a therapist and it is free.
Not sure why I am explaining this.

Time to write.

My realization that I have had a need to control this thing has been freeing and torturing. There are so many things that I want to say to her, but I can't. It is a crazy situation because she has always told me to just say what I am feeling, but I don't think she knows how I feel. She doesn't know the way my heart beats because our hearts beat differently. Which, as hard as it is for me to understand, is something that I love about her. I love that she is not like me and that is also the most frustrating thing about her.
I began to question what it is about her that I love. Why am I here?  Why am I putting myself through this?
I don't have all the answers, not at the surface anyway.
But I know now. I know why I am so drawn to her.
I feel complete with her. But that isn't love.
Love is the way she is strong. So much stronger than I am. In that strength, she is vulnerable, but she won't let it show unless she is scared. She loves completely and doesn't judge those she loves. She shows her love in action, not words. She isn't good at words because she is awkward at intimacy when it comes to showing her heart. But when she shows it, it is amazing and beautiful and deep.  She told me once that she doesn't have the same kind of heart that I do. But she does. She keeps it hidden, possibly even from herself.
Just like I do.
She is opposite, but the same.
And it is goddamn frustrating, but that doesn't change how I feel. I do wish she would just say things the way she tells me to just say them. That one Saturday, in that one Starbucks, she did say it. That's how I knew. I saw her heart.
She says she doesn't trust me, but she does.
She is scared.
I want to open her eyes and show her that this love I feel is real. I mean, I have shown her, but I can't make her see. That is where the control thing comes in. I can't control what she chooses to see or what she can see. She needs time and I have to give that to her. And it is killing me, but if I love her I will give her what she needs.
I wonder how. How do I do that which is so against my nature? She has helped me open the box where I keep my heart and now I have to hold it back a little so that she can come around. Or maybe I shouldn't because that might make her think I don't care any more. And I do more than I can say.
And I miss her so much.

This is going to be really hard. I hope I can hold out. Maybe I hope to prove that I am not as weak as I think I am. I hope to prove that I love her to both her and to myself.
I know that I would do anything for her.
That's love, right?

Hammer to Water

Holy crap. I am back again. Once again it is because I find myself in a place where I need to write. I have lost control.

No.

I have been trying to take control. I have been grabbing and grasping and clinging and holding and reaching and running my mind in circles in an attempt to control.  I control because I am scared. I am scared because I can't control.
I have lost sight of the water.
I got a tattoo to remind me of the water, but I still forgot.
Bruce Lee said,

       “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup.     

         When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes 

         the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend."

Become water

Become water

Become water

I have become a wall. A fist. A hammer.

In this lack of liquidity I fear I am pushing someone away.  Someone who is extremely important to me. That importance is why I am struggling to control. The important people in my life always go away, either by my doing or theirs.....usually mine. As I am typing this, I wonder if any of that has to do with my father leaving. There are a lot of deep-seeded fears that reside deep in my soul that stem from that. That could be why I try so hard to hold on to people and at the same time push them away. That may be why I don't talk about the things that are bothering me. Because I have never talked. I have never been talked to. Not about the serious stuff, the stuff that helps mold and hold and grow relationships. My family never really talked. I had no idea that my dad was going to leave until the night I sat on his lap and felt his bearded face when he cried the only tear I have ever seen him cry and he said he was leaving. That was it. No discussion or talking or warning, just gone. 

That's what I did to her. The woman I love and loved. I walked away when shit was tough and I didn't talk or explain or do any of the shit that a man should do.  A real man would talk. A real man would not run away.  But I did run. Like my dad did.

              "All this time I swore I'd never be like my old man. What the hell, time to face exactly what I am"                            Layne Staley

This is not to say that I didn't have reasons.  Shit was bad with us for some time. I had closed off because she had closed off and it was doomed to fail because we didn't talk.  I blame myself because that is what I do. I beat myself up. I go round and round in my head about what I could have done better or how I could have been better and how I am shit and then I get down on myself and it is all a rock slide to hell from there.

That is one reason I love her as much as I do. She talks to me, or at least she lets me talk. And I want to talk.  I want to tell her everything and anything she wants to know.  I want her to crawl inside my brain and walk around because I believe that she won't run away if she does. That she won't care that I am a crazy fuck. 

Then again, that is exactly what I am afraid of.  My heart tells me she won't care.  My ego, that dick, says she will care. She will run as fast as she can and won't turn back. Because no one will ever love me for me.  

I don't love me for me, so why would anyone else?

This is what I am dealing with. 

My brain runs in circles and it makes me crazy. 

As much as I want her to get in my head, I want to get in hers too.  I want to crawl in her head and learn every nook and cranny of the house that is her.  

But she has shut down again.  My god that woman is more walled off than I am.  Well, maybe not, but we are in a close race for a tie.

You may have picked up on the fact that I broke up with this woman. This beautiful, amazing woman that wrote about on this blog some time ago. This woman that inspires poetry and song. This woman....I left. I did what I do and I left. 

Then we talked.  It was a Saturday. We were in a Starbucks.  When we sat down, I was ready to lay my heart on the table and tell her that I couldn't just be friends with her. I have never been more right. The anguish that being her friend caused was terrible.

Something happened at that round table next to the window. She said that she had wanted to start a life with me. She hadn't said it before, but she did then. She said it and my heart exploded in my chest. I felt like I had never felt before because I felt immediately. My usual process of absorbing and thinking and thinking and thinking in order to know what I am feeling was moot.  I didn't need to think. I knew. I knew right then that I needed to be with her.

That's right. I said "needed". I don't need anyone. Ever. But her I needed. I knew I couldn't be friends with her because calling us friends would be like calling the Sears tower a hut.

So I asked her if she wanted to try again. 

She said no. 

My heart broke. 

But I understood.  I was too late. She had moved on. 

And then the rock slide to hell.....

The details are unnecessary. I suffered for a week like I haven't suffered since the infamous "her".

But maybe it needed to happen. It forced my heart open and I poured it all out for her in hopes that she would drink me up.  

And this is where the control begins......

I am so afraid that she will disappear from my life and that I won't get the chance to show her the magic that I know, and I mean "know" like I know that air is life, that we would have. 

This breaks my heart. 

So I try to control the situation because fear tells me that she will leave me. Fear has been telling me that she will leave me for quite some time. 

So I try to control.

And it isn't working. 

So I try harder.

And it works even less. 

Then the hands reach up from the depths of the pit that resides in my soul and they pull me down. They feed on my despair and my failed attempts to control the world I am walking in. So I become a wall and a hammer. 

And it works even less. 

So my friend tells me that I need to remember the water. 

A crack appears in the clouds. 

I need to be like water. 

This is an amazing challenge because I want very few things and her I want in the way I want to know that I will wake up in the morning. 

I also want to stand on a table and tell a room of strangers that I love her (stupid, I know). If I keep on with the hammer approach, I will never have that chance. 

So....I will be water.

 

Shit, that is heavy.  I am amazed that this much shit has come out.  I can't seem to stop writing. Makes me wonder why I stopped. I started again because my buddy reminded me about being water. I thought of this blog. Now I wrote.  I think I will keep on writing.  I forgot how good it made me feel.

Guilt, That Bitch

Every once in a while I am reminded of what happened not long ago.  Or at least is seems like not that long ago.  Almost two years have passed since I threw away my life in exchange for something different.  When I look back at that choice, I don't think it was the wrong one, but how can anyone know for sure?  I suppose the realization is that it was neither right nor wrong.  It was simply a choice.  It hurt people, quite a few in fact.  For that I am regretful and that regret feeds that guilt which comes back to darken my doorstep from time to time, usually when I hear from others things my ex-wife says. 

There is no way for me to know what she went through, but I can imagine it and even though it may only be a spark in an inferno of hurt and sadness, it is almost too much to bear and I am only imagining that which she actually had to feel.  This is the guilt.  This is the repercussion of what I did.  What I did, I can not change.  I know that.  I know that I did what I felt I had to do and can not apologize enough for what followed.  I also know that I did everything in my power to help her after, though I suppose this was mostly to make myself feel better.  It didn't, but there you have it. 

The guilt for what I did tore me down and beat me up for a long time.  I don't feel that pain quite the same anymore as I stop running from it.  I fucked up.  I know.  I can't change it or take it away or make it better.  Part of me rages at the cage bars because of this.  The other part, the part that is growing stronger, knows that I am allowed to forgive myself.  That is the hard part.  If I were on the outside, I would not view myself too highly.  On the inside, I don't view myself from that time very highly.  But I remind myself, I fucked up and I can't change it or take it back.  All I can do is move forward and do the best I can now. 

That is all any of us can do.  In our lives we will hurt and be hurt and make poor choices and make good choices and life will continue to move on.  Guilt will haunt us, that bitch that it can be, and though we should be cognizant of where it comes from and why, we can't live in it.  Happiness lies in the now and it is in the now that we can make a difference and make a choice to be better.  It is all we have and is far more precious then the negativity that some of our past would allow us to believe. 

I am rambling now.  I am sorry, truly for any pain I have ever caused.  I am and will be better than that.

Love is Free(ing)

I watch the Vampire Diaries on Netflix.  What can I say?  I like supernatural stuff and I got hooked.  Don't judge.  Anyway, there was a scene where two of the characters have this long awaited passionate kiss because they have lived with unrequited, forbidden love and don't want anyone to know and blah blah blah.  The thing I realized while watching it was that I once thought of that as love.  That tension, that feeling that you want to touch that person and kiss that person and feel their body and breath in unison with yours. 

But it's not.

That is passion and lust and desire from a physical attraction fostered by a rush of emotion.  That is chemical.  This is not to say that it is not real and that love can not live in the cadre of feelings that are involved in the heart pounding kiss in the rain.  Love makes those moments better, as it does all moments, but it is not intrinsically love.  I think this is a message that young people get and are able to relate to, so they fall into the stream of consciousness that love is hot and heavy and is a rush of adrenaline.  I would imagine that they do relate so well because being young is like that, too. 
Alongside these powerful chemical reactions comes a feeling of possession.  How often do we say that he or she is "mine"?  I mean, there is a valentine heart that says "be mine".  Most of us know that loving a person does not give you ownership of them, some people don't and that is a totally different conversation.  But I digress.  We don't own the people we love.  We have no say in their lives except for what they give us. 
There is a quote that says that love is when another person's happiness is more important than anything else, even them being with you. 
I believe this. 
The hardest part of that kind of love is the attachment we develop with the people in our lives,especially those who become lovers and girlfriends and wives.  But think about it.  When a friend of yours gets a dream job and moves away, you are sad to see them go but are overjoyed at their opportunity for happiness.  That is love.  When a son or daughter grows up and moves out and on into the world there is a sense of loss, but there is so much joy and pride for them pursuing their happiness.  That is love. 
Love is not the clinging.  It is not the need.  It is not the sweaty nights (sometimes days), it is not the rush of emotion in your chest when you see them.  It is not chemical reaction in the brain.  It is not jealous or needy or selfish.  
Love is kindness and giving without need to receive.  Love is wishing only joy on another.  It is the realization that, even when you think you are at your worst, they are by your side holding you up.  Love is putting another first.  It is unselfish.  It is seeing the beauty in someone even when they feel that beauty has washed away with age.  Love is free and freeing.


Good wine is better with age, being allowed to breath, and when shared with friends.  So it is with love. 

"We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it."

Rainer Maria Rilke

"Lovers never surrender to each other, lovers simply surrender to love."

Osho

Come What May

I feel like I write a lot about fear.  How can I avoid it?  Fear invades every aspect of our lives and can be overwhelming when not faced head on.  When one wall breaks, fear oozes in the cracks and begins to take over.  Fighting it is damn tiring sometimes.  How do you keep up when your heart feels like it will bear no more?

The fear I am talking about now is the fear of the possible unknown.  Anything is possible and it is possible to be afraid of all of it.  The things we tend to fear the most are the things that will cause us the most pain.  I have little fear of heights, though a fall could break every bone in my body if it didn't kill me.  The most pervasive fear for me is the fear of a broken heart, though I doubt that will kill me.  I am always willing to climb a tree, lean over the edge of a building to see the street, go rock climbing or skydiving, and their is little hesitation.  The thrill is wonderful and the adrenaline is almost addictive.
I love in much the same way.
I will climb the mountain with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.  When I get to the top, however, I hesitate.  One unstable foothold and I am backsliding out as quickly as I can.  My heart seems more fragile than my bones.
When my trust is broken, my heart breaks too.  I feel the pain in my chest and it permeates every part of my body.  When I want to trust, there I am, staring at the rock face again willing myself to climb.  But each time I take that handhold to begin climbing the desire is weaker and the fear is greater.

Unlike my bones, my heart has been broken in more places than I can count.  I keep moving and keep loving and the heart keeps breaking.  My fear is rooted in the past.  The roots are deep and they are strong. 
I love the woman I am with, but my trust has been tested a few too many times.  I don't know how much more I have to give before I turn away and find something else.  I don't want to do this, but what can a person do.  We are tested time and again and it can often make us stronger, but, I wonder, how many times before it isn't worth it any more?  Anxiety bleeds into my thoughts, now.

What I do know is the fertile soil for an invasive plant.  What I don't know is the water that feeds it.  Its flower is fear.

And so I am afraid once again.  It is a struggle, but I believe that it is worth it.....for now.  I am having a hard time trusting and this breaks my heart a little.  I still want to hold on, though.  I have a little bit more to give before my hands give out and I can't climb anymore.

I believe it is important, sometimes, to pull yourself to the top.  You might not make it, and that may not even be the point.  Maybe the top isn't even there.  Maybe it is the climb that is the point of it all.  As long as it fills your heart and allows you to respect yourself, maybe that is all you need.

"The future will come, come what may. Your fear is that of the unknown and imagined future. Your pain is from attachment in the face of this fear."
samsaranmusing

Four Day Fog

Depression brings with it a fog.  It is a cold gray morning that will not be burned out by the sun, because the sun has lost its warmth.  This is not a fog brought in by little cat feet.  It is a fog that bubbles up from within, pouring from your eyes, ears, and nose and tainting those senses as it goes. It is the voice of the ego made whole and it resonates through everything you do, see, smell, touch, hear. 

For years I was in it thrall, a subject of a Stockholm Syndrome.  So deep was I that I didn’t know any different.  I thought that hole was all the world.

For me, now, the fog lasts a day or maybe four.  It locks me inside my head with a promise to keep me warm from the cold dampness outside. What it has never told me, but what I have begun to realize, is that the very thing it promises to protect me from is the very thing it brings with it.

But I see that now.  I know it to be true.

And when I feel the familiar cold and find that I can’t open my eyes enough to find light, I turn inside and there he is.  Ego.  Smiling like an old friend through soulless eyes he reaches out a cold, long fingered hand and beckons me back to the hole.  But I say “no”.  I reject him. 
I hear his words, I listen to his pleas and I say “no”.  I reject him.

I admit that I am not strong enough yet to be completely immune to his sugared, poisoned words, but I am strong enough that I know them to be lies and that is stronger than I ever was.

So now, after that day or maybe four, I push away the fog and watch it turn in to a cloud in a beautiful, sunny sky.  Ego goes back to whence he came with a promise to return.  I let him know that he is welcome like an old friend.  Now he looks amused and somewhat confused.  He is not used to compassion.  Ego is a part of me and when I bring love to myself I am able to see the light in all my many faces, even that one.  Even better, I am able to see love in the faces of people around me.

That Jerk, Ego

It has been quite some time since I have written here.  That is good because I tend to write here when I am in a quandary.  Lack of posts means lack of quandaries.  It means that I am generally happy and am not confused at the moment.
So, I will post this little tidbit since it is swimming in my mind.


I have a tendency to see a beautiful woman and then want her.
I know, strange behavior for a man. 
My issue is that this draw can seem almost overwhelming and I will feel guilty for that lust.  And lust is what it is.  The guilt is present because I love my girlfriend and she is really pretty kick ass.  I would never want to hurt her and to be honest, I don't act on my feelings for random hot chicks.  I just look and wonder what they might look like naked.  I feel badly when I will think about that woman beyond just the initial first glance.  I worry that I would act if that woman were to approach me and initiate something. 

It has happened before.
It wasn't a good thing.

It makes me wonder about my will power and my drive towards the pull of lust.  Then I remember that all of that stuff is Ego stepping in.  Ego is that voice telling you that you want more.  Ego is the force that pushes you in the direction of harmful action. Ego is telling me that I want to fuck this chick or that regardless of who might get hurt.  It wants me to have more and more and more.
Ego is a dick.

I suppose this recognition is a really good thing and that the the learning experience is the presentation of these women.  Ego is the reason that I place so much value in the attention of women and in the acquisition of them physically.
Now that I have recognized it, I need to let it go.  That is a challenge.