No Carry-On Luggage

Relationships are an odd sort of dilemma in the realm of human interaction.  We meet, we decide whether or not we like the other person and would we like to see them again.  There is a lot of measuring and estimating and second guessing involved.  There is also a lot of judgement, not only of the other person, but of ourselves.  Do our ideals match theirs?  Are we compatible?  Do we like the same things?  We spend time shaping parts of ourselves to appeal to them if we decide we like them.  We get in and out and back in the dating scene as we search for someone who "gets" us.  A few people are lucky enough to find someone on the first try.  Most of us look for a long time, however, and it is such a crazy process filled with anxiety and promise, fear and joy.

A challenge I have always faced is stopping myself from attempting to foresee the future.  If I am truly interested in a person, if we click and find that strange rhythm that carries two people into the "more than friends" zone, I have a tendency to critique her and me and find the things that we share and what we differ on.  I then make little judgements about what will work and not work and whether or not we will last.
This is a terrible and ridiculous habit that is destructive and I am not entirely sure why I do it.  Is it a defense mechanism?  Am I setting up a bomb shelter before I even know that there will be a bomb?
It seems so.
When I was teaching, it was important to leave my baggage at the door so that I could focus on the students.  Maybe that is a tactic that should be employed as we enter new relationships.  Leave the stuff from past loves at the door, both the good and the bad.
I say "the good" because bringing the wonderful memories of a past flame into a new relationship places an invisible burden on the target of your affection.  They don't even know it is there, yet they have to carry it around.  It seems just as unfair as dumping the bad baggage into their arms as well.  The way a person used to look at you, or the way they fit in your arms, or a kiss, or a smell.  I think we take pieces from each person and create a perfect image of love for us, which does not make anything easier for us or for the people we are attempting to fit into this image.  We subconsciously create our own Frankenstein of love that smashes any hope of really enjoying the person we are with.  How can a person unknowingly meet the checklist of qualities that we are, and are not, looking for in a companion? 
They can't.  By setting this perfection in our mind we are being unfair to others and to ourselves. 

I keep catching myself watching for traits in my newest relationship that I have to be wary of.  It is a somewhat new thing, but I am scared of women now.  I have a hard time letting go and enjoying the time with them.  It's like having your best friend watch your house for the weekend while you are on vacation.  You hand the keys to them, but have a hard time just letting them go because the thought of coming home to the remains of a party you didn't get to enjoy is too traumatic.  But you have to let the keys go and you have to trust them.  If you don't, any chance of relaxing and finding the joys of your trip are wasted.
Isn't that what a relationship is?  A journey?
Going to Cozumel would lose some of it's flavor if you spent the whole time remembering how awful the flight to Mexico had been or how amazing the food in Italy was.  Why not just enjoy the trip you are on?  If you don't, it will suck.  That much can almost be guaranteed.

I am currently boarding the plane for another trip of my own and I have all the butterflies of excitement as I step into the cabin.  The one thing that is holding me up is my personal debate at bringing my carry-on luggage with me.  Really, it would be best to throw it to the tarmac and find all the wonderful things my new destination has to offer.  It is a struggle, but wouldn't it be for the best?  Wouldn't we all benefit from leaving behind the weight we always bring on the plane with us?  Hell knows we can always use the extra leg room.

Pathetic Heart Stuff

There are times when the crap floating in my head needs to be dumped.  This is one of those times. 

I love the fact that I am finding a semblance of balance in my life.  Truthfully, I feel better now than I have in a long time and for a while there was a feeling of invulnerability to the shadows that haunt the back alleys of the mind.  I have felt like a veritable superman with the bullets of life's issues deflecting harmlessly off of my chest thanks to my newly found ability to step back and breathe.  I could leap over emotional hurdles in a single bound and have felt like I was flying over the vastness of my psyche, seeing everything from a whole new angle.  And, much like Superman, I have my kryptonite. 
I can't imagine that it would be a surprise to anyone, but my green stone of weakness is a woman. 
I know, right?  Who would have guessed?
The frustration of that statement makes me freaking crazy.  It's like a damn broken record of cliche and I am shaking my fist at the sky.  Why, when I find a semblance of balance, must I allow a wonderfully curvaceous woman with beautiful deep brown eyes to step on the scale and throw everything askew? 
Is it because I am a straight man, damned to libidinous driven decision making for the rest of my life?  Is it because I am a sad, pathetic romantic who feels shit deeply and can't help but hope for some kind of meaningful relationship with a member of the fairer sex?
Both.  I think it is both. 
So, what the hell is the issue this time?
I have mentioned a woman a while back that was with someone and I would have to deal with that and blah, blah, blah.  Well, she is no longer with that someone.  Jubilation, right? 
No. 
One issue lies in my tenacious ability to find an angle that will keep me emotionally safe while allowing me the freedom to pine.  When she had a man, I could control my emotions, I could maintain my cool.  Now that she is single, the cool is harder to hold on to.  My heart wants to leap from my chest and into her arms.  Stupid heart.  It doesn't seem to realize that the way to get the girl is to play it cool.  If you pour it all out, they tend to shy away, especially if they have just gotten out of a relationship.  Right now my heart is a massive dog pulling on a leash after a bunny.  If I let the dog run it might catch the rabbit (but just to play with, no blood or death), or said rabbit will freak out and be off like a shot never to be found. 
When I am away from her, thoughts are controlled and feelings are containable.  I can practice my breathing and meditation and detachment to look at what I am feeling.  When I see her, all bets are off.  What can I say?  I am weak. 
Another side of this story is the recognition that I am a bit lonely and she has shown interest.  I also realize that it has been a while since you-know-what and she can be a sultry vixen.  I see all of this and I swirl it all around in my head so that I might find all of the colors.  I feel confident that it is not just hormones driving the car.  They are involved, sure.  Aren't they always? 
But sometimes I look at her and I just want to pull her in and feel her near me.  When she leans against me, things seem right.  I don't know if she is just being flirtatious, or showing real interest.  This is how she tortures my idiotic self.  If it's a woman I just want to sleep with, no problem, but I am really dumb when it comes to women I like.
Cynical me shakes his head and knows that she doesn't want me in that way.  Optimist me says very little at this point, and what he does choose to add to the conversation is said rather meekly.  My head is full of this shit.  This is why I have to dump it out.  I can't tell the reasonable from the irrational amongst the maelstrom when it is all locked up.  For that matter, I can't seem to pick the two apart after writing it down. 
Just breathe.  Try to focus.  Remember that each moment is all I have.  Remember to observe.  Remember to chill the fuck out. 
This situation is a little bit ridiculous.  I can see that, at least.

Stupid women and their stupid....stuff.  Damnit.

Another Year Young

It's my birthday.  I had forgotten when I woke up this morning.  Thankfully facebook messages reminded me or I would have gone the whole day without realizing that I am older.
Funny thing, I don't feel older.
I used to believe that when I was an adult, I would "feel" like an adult.  I would look at parents and couldn't help but get the impression that they feel as old as they are.  Even now, I look at people older than me and can't help but to think that I will "feel" 40 or 50.  I kind of think this is not true.
I often pass for 28.  I usually feel 25.  My hair is graying, but my heart is still young.  I believe that age is a state of body, not mind.  The mind has no age.  It may mature, but it is always as young as you choose it to be.  There isn't much we can do about our bodies falling apart, but we can do anything we want to keep ourselves young.  For me, feeling old tends to mean feeling slow and boring.  It means not enjoying life.  It means not feeling like you used to feel when you could burst through the front door, leap off the porch steps chased with peels of laughter when your friends came flying off the porch after you. 
It means feeling the weight of the world.
I may not be throwing any doors open so that I can leap off of steps, but I feel like I want to sometimes.  Being young means wanting to play, for whatever that means to you.  It means laughing from deep down.  It means not taking things too seriously all the time.  It means looking outside, seeing the sun and thinking how beautiful instead of "dear lord, I have to mow the lawn."  Being young means seeing promise in every day. 
At least, that is what it means to me.

Time as a measurement is made up.  It's not real.  Therefore, I can be as "old" or as "young" as I want.  I would like to believe that, even when my teeth are falling out and I can barely walk, I will always be young.

Emotionally, Like Icebergs

I have a feeling that your stereotypical straight man would have a hard time admitting to it, but the moments most deeply missed are the tender moments.  Those memories of falling asleep with her head on your chest.  Coming home to a meal being cooked while Frankie plays on the stereo.  The timeless evening spent sitting on the rocks, holding her while the sun went down over the water.  Lying in the light of a single lamp, naked and completely vulnerable and knowing that there is nowhere you would rather be than wrapped in her listening to her heart beat.  It is these moments that remind you of a relationship that was more than just words, but a real connection.
For all the pomp and bragging that men do, I think most of us want those moments.  Perhaps men and women are not as different as we think.
The difference between men and women may be that men don't know they want those moments until after they have passed, or maybe that we don't think about them until they are happening.  We don't hope as openly.  I wonder if the nature of women allows them to seek out times like these while men are too wrapped up in surface level kinds of thoughts.  Men and women may have different methods and priorities, but all we really want with a relationship is that connection.  We are like icebergs, not cold and ship sinking, but we keep most of our emotions under the surface.  We are not as emotionally driven as the fairer sex, so being open to the times when we are sitting with someone and our hearts feel bigger than our chests is a big deal.  It means that at that moment that woman was able to break through and take a hold of something we keep under wraps.
Our hearts hold on to those moments, though we may never speak of them.
The women that really get us won't have to hear about them to know.

Don't we all just want someone who gets us?

Self-Righteous Douchebaggery

I am guilty of doing what I hate.
Judging.  Self-righteous thought.  Being a hypocritical douche bag.
I fall into this little trap a lot, I think.  Being a self-proclaimed "raised Catholic" person, I tend to project those feelings onto Christians as a whole.  I hate that I do it and I apologize.  I have found a path that veers off from the religion that raised me and I think that I look back with some disdain.  Perhaps there are feelings of betrayal and disappointment that bring these thoughts to the surface.  I am disappointed in Christianity for not giving me what it seemed to promise.
Answers.
I took physics in High School because I thought it would give me answers to things like "how does gravity work."  It didn't.  It gave me a bunch of numbers and equations that, to me, were nothing more than numbers and equations.  My mind doesn't easily work that way.  That doesn't mean that physics doesn't provide answers, it means that it didn't provide answers in a way that made sense to me.
In the same sense, Catholicism failed me.  Yes, I realize the pompousness of that statement.  At the time that I began to turn away from the church, that is how I felt.  I know differently now.
For nearly 13 years I was a solid Catholic boy.  I went to a Catholic school where I was an altar boy.  I read the bible cover to cover multiple times.  I prayed at night.  I asked God for strength and prayed the rosary.  I believed.  I had one day of anxiety and doubt and I needed guidance, I needed God.  I rode my bike to the church hoping to sit and listen to whatever message he chose to give.  Reaching for the door to my salvation and it was locked.  I was crushed and angry.  I couldn't get in to the one place I had been told I could really talk to God.  Even though it wasn't his fault, I blamed him.  How could he lock me out? 
The next time I went to church, I looked around at all the people praying.  I could hear the drone of the voices as they followed the instructions of the priest like robots.  How many of them believed what they were saying?  How many would go home feeling better while they proceeded to sin all over again?  And so it went.
I began to try and find my own answers.
For me, Christianity has not been one.  Perhaps it is because I am not open to it.  Perhaps our minds accept answers that we want to find.  We stumble upon a book that on Monday we would not have taken a second glance at, but on Tuesday we are in the state of mind that makes us curious.  So, I have come to a pseudo-conclusion that there are no right answers.  Assuming this statement is true, than what the hell makes my truths any better than anyone else?
So, as I read about Christian groups attempting to use religion to enforce their beliefs and politics on others, I struggle.  I struggle because I know that what I believe is not what everyone else believes.  What I believe is not better than what anyone else believes.  I judge the news-worthy Christians condemning gays and lesbians to lives of inequality.  I self-righteously believe that I am better than Rush Limbaugh because I feel he is ignorant.  I am hypocritical because I do the same things to those people that they are doing to others.
I am no better than they.  They are no better than I.
It really is a struggle for a couple of reasons.  One - not all Christians are like that.  I am judging the group based on a few people and it is difficult to see the trees amongst the forest.  I have a feeling that most of the people who use the religion to pass judgement are not really all that Christian.  Two - I am in no position to see myself as better than anyone else, yet I feel like I judge them in order to make myself feel better about my choices.  It is a source of validation to see that the Buddhist thoughts that I am reading are enlightening and full of hope while the words or these Christians are negative and hateful.  It helps me feel like I am making the right choice.  I use my new beliefs incorrectly.  Instead of just using them to lift my own spirit, I am guilty of using them to justify my prejudice.  That is not right. 

Maybe that is why people judge others.  We need to look down on people to raise ourselves up in our own eyes.  Are we all really that self-doubting?
It seems like I am.

So, how does one change that?

I suppose it involves believing in oneself, confidence in what you are striving for and a realization of modesty and humility.
The question then becomes, how does one get those things?

A Vanity Thing

It has been a long running joke that I am constantly checking myself in mirrors.  I have to laugh, because it is true.  I am very self conscious of my outward appearance and it is a source of some stress for me.  As of late I have been thinking about my body image a bit more often than normal.  I am in a show coming up where I will be half naked on stage....in front of an audience.....under lights and scrutiny.  I have been working my ass off, almost literally, to put myself into a shape that I won't be embarrassed of.  In mentioning this to a friend of mine (who is 6'7", 375 and has always been a big dude), I got a dose of reality.  When I told him that I was doing P90X so I could be confident on stage he laughed and said, "oh, it's a vanity thing."  I had no response because I knew he was right and that vanity and being conscious were not issues for him.
He has never had body image issues and he is always been a large mammal, in his words.  There is a self confidence that resides in him that is largely unshakable.  It is as solid as it is because it comes from within him.  He doesn't base his self-esteem on what other people think.  He is a rare case, I think.  His confidence is something that I strive for, but will only hope to achieve by letting go of a lot of years of conditioning.


We tend to judge ourselves much more harshly than others do.  We hold on to this image that is presented to us as an ideal image.  It is not inborn.  It is not our image of ourselves, it is some sort of strange figure that is shoved in our faces on a daily basis.  How many times have we seen a little kid running naked, escaping the hands of their parents who are desperately trying to get them into a diaper or pajamas?  When we are young and naive we don't care about our bodies and what people think of them.  Running around naked is awesome when you are a kid.  If you try it as you get older, it becomes less awesome unless you are a nudist.  Too often we are not comfortable in our own skin.  Too often we are ashamed.
Shame is not inborn.  It is conditioned.  It is set on us, first, by our parents - who got it from their parents who got it from their parents and on and on.  I believe that some of this comes from social mores that were enforced by religion, perhaps.  I don't have proof of this, but I always think about Adam and Eve and the image of them in fig leaves because they shamed themselves in front of God.  It seems that, even in the bible, our body image issues are our own doing and nudity was supposed to be our natural state.
So, we cover ourselves up.  We hide behind style and designers.  We attempt to reach some stupid ideal by dieting and working out.  We hope that the clothes and the muscles will make us palatable to the people around us.  But we don't find happiness this way.  We don't really find confidence.  We continue to stare at ourselves in the mirror each day to make sure our self image stays intact.  This scrutiny of our bodies is based on a bar set by people we may never meet.  This image is further perpetrated by those around us, but not by the people that really matter.  Coworkers, people in the store, some dude or chick on the street, and the worst offender of all, us...these people judge us.  The people who really care about us don't care how we look.  So why do we hold on to this esteem defacing concept that tears us down every day?
I really wish I had an answer.
I refer back to my friend, who I will call Tiny because it is obviously ironic.
Tiny wears sweatshirts, t-shirts, ripped jeans, hats, shorts and whatever else is comfortable.  His comfort is more important than what someone thinks about the holes in his jeans.  The amazing thing is, people are drawn to him, not because of his appearance but because of who he is and the confidence and personality that oozes off of him.  He has dated and "dated" women that you wouldn't think would be interested in him.  They like him because he is kind and generous and sure of himself.  Guys like him because he is funny, confident and loyal.  It seems that, despite the fact that the ads that tell us otherwise, people are drawn to personality more than appearance.
We dress a certain way and try to look a certain way and when it all comes together just right we are confident.  It is that that attracts people.  It isn't the clothes or the hair, it is the confidence that gets the girl or boy.  Sure, someone may comment on the shirt or shoes, but it is the personality that will keep them around.  It is also that confidence that will help find happiness because, like true confidence, true happiness comes from inside.  How often do you meet a physically beautiful person only to find that they are vapid and uninteresting?


So, my challenge is to find confidence inside.  In many ways, I do have it.  When it comes to my body, I don't.  How do I get it?  How does anyone?
With all of the Buddhist philosophy I am reading, it seems that the answer lies in letting go.  Let go of the image.  Let go of the idea that the body is the most important thing.  Let go of the idea that the opinion of others is happiness.  Happiness comes from within and that happiness comes from clarity of mind, not from ripped abs.  I suppose the thousands of years that Buddhists have displayed this is proof enough that it works.  It is the years of modern conditioning that is a mountain to climb.  

One thing I do know is that I like to work out and I like to run, not because I will be an Adonis, but because I like the energy that I get from having a healthy body.  Buddha did say that to have a healthy mind, it is important to have a healthy body.  The struggle I now face is examining the outward desire to be fit so that I might let it go and focus on the inward benefits.  Maybe I will be able to get past my hang-ups and my self-confidence issues before I am on stage.  If not, being on stage might force me to get over it in a quick way.

Fear, My Master

What is fear?

The crushing feeling that stomps you down upon the imagining of any feat greater than the daily routine. 
It is the voice in your left ear telling you about failure and embarrassment. 
It is the stop sign in the desert. 
It is the way we are controlled and prodded and convinced, the Goliath we can't see but know is out there waiting should we stray from what are approved of path.  It is god and dogma. 
It lies in our dreams to show us the shadows that lie hidden in the folds of our right brain. 
It is the maker of laws and the starter of wars. 
It is the loaded gun in a family man's night stand, the motivation to kill, the seed of hate. 
It is ignorance.  It is prejudice. 
It locks us in our houses when we should be out in the world, keeps our hands in our pockets when it should be extended, keeps our money hidden instead of in the hands of needy. 
It is alcoholism and drug abuse. 
It is the roots in our feet that keep us from traveling and experiencing.  It is the closed mouth that hides words of love. 
It is a shield and a sword.  It promotes violence and stamps out compassion.  It is silence when voices are needed. 


Fear is what keeps us from achieving anything.  It is our abusive relationship telling us we are not good enough.  It is the the kick that breaks our ribs when we try to stand, the gag and the blindfold. 
Fear is the shadows and the unseen.  It is the reminder to stay still and hide in our blankets. 

When fear rears its head from the depths, when we are not fighting for our lives, it is death. Fear has become a yoke of oppression that we harness upon ourselves and others.  As animals, fear can save.  As humans, fear only seems to destroy. 

Fear is the cloud that is keeping us from seeing the blue sky.