Melancholy

Somehow the words around me assault my ears today. The conversations at work are harsh and coarse – talk of computer systems. Everyone rushing around, loud phone calls, group meetings nearby, a sense of urgency and discord. Somehow I feel as though I sit in a bubble in the midst of all this pandemonium – I hear it and see it but am not involved in it. I am disconnected.

Today I just long for silence, solitude and the caressing touch of nature. Soothing noises and calming views. I feel so introspective this week. At times I resent having to work for a living, to work to other people’s artificial rhythms and expectations. In our modern world we seem to have lost the ability or the opportunity to honour our own natural cycles and needs.

My body has been going crazy with longing and desire this week. My mind longs for peace and solitude. Neither are needs I can satisfy and this brings on a feeling of melancholy. How did I go so wrong? How did our society go so wrong? How did the world go so wrong? Why do I find myself acting always against the natural grain?

Again I struggle with the concept of authenticity. Rarely do I feel I live my life authentically – being true not only to myself and my soul but to those around me. Do I truly serve others by living in this cage? If I were to break free where would I go, what would I do?

Letters and messages

I awoke this morning feeling anxious. Still. My meeting with P on Thursday evening was good in that it cleared the air between us and assured him I wanted a similar outcome to our friendship as him. So why didn’t I feel better on Friday or today? Why did I still have anxiety and the sense of unfinished business?

I realised I still had things to say that hadn’t been said. My anxiety stemmed from the fact that despite our little heart to heart, there was still no plan to meet up in the next month!!!! No plans whatsoever, just vague indications that things might be different. Thing is, I won’t actually believe things have changed until they actually do. And everything I said on Thursday reassured P and matched his desires too. No wonder he was keen to agree.

This morning I woke and just thought, there is more I need to say. I am still not happy with the idea of only meeting once a month. I realised I just had to say what I want to P and I had to say it now. Even if it means he will reject my wishes and leave my life. I cannot go on living in anxiety over this friendship. It is better for it to end. And I also need the practise in speaking up when I’m not happy even if it causes conflict. So I awoke and turned on the computer to compose an email. I felt it was the right thing to do, but nonetheless I was a bit hesitant. I am good at knee jerk reactions you see.

In my email inbox were two significant emails. One was a letter from an astrologer friend of mine. He sends regular emails out regarding the significance of current astrological events. One was there this morning. In it he spoke of the need for us to let go of things that weren’t for our highest good. He spoke of the need for detachment and about the impermanence of all things. He mentioned blocks to the flow of life and energy and how we have opportunities to remove them now – even if it means a flood in the interim that can seem catastrophic – ultimately it is for the best. His words comforted me:

“If the Soul is active in a person’s life, then any sort of crisis will tend to draw out that Light and thus exhibit its own special genius or gift for handling adverse conditions. For the person who really seeks to do the right thing by people and to exhibit goodwill, then a way will always be found out of difficulty. That person will have a ‘second chance’ when needed. The higher Self (or ‘The Universe’, as many people are fond of saying) will provide it”.

I read his eight page letter and felt affirmed in my decision. The other significant email was from a tarot site. They email me a random card on a fairly regular basis. This morning the card ‘Strength’ arrived. It spoke of:

“courage, willpower, mental strength and self-belief, and it often appears when we are feeling fearful or afraid of standing up for ourselves.  Whatever challenges you may have to face when this card appears, you must draw on your own inner strength and courage to deal with them”.

So these two messages seemed to show the way for what I had decided to do. I wrote a quite long email to P explaining my perspective, trying very hard to honour his perspective, but saying that I wanted to see him more often than once a month. I told him I had spent a lifetime feeling I was at the beck and call of a man, waiting to see when he could fit me into his schedule. And I can’t do that anymore. This situation feels the same to me and I need to change that or it will eat away at me. So I told him that, and said I needed to feel a more equal footing with regular meetings as well as communication. There was a lot in there I won’t go into here, but I really did work hard to keep it as loving as I could. I told him I respected his passion for his work and how busy that made him; I told him I was honoured by the way he listened to me on Thursday and didn’t try to deflect what I said or tell me it was all in my imagination. I said I didn’t intend to make demands even though it may come across that way to him.

Anyway, the email was sent around lunchtime and then I went out to a workshop at the Theosophical Society. Driving home in the rain, suddenly I saw the most glorious rainbow. It was one of the best I’ve ever seen – vivid and bright and a full 180 degree arc. It stayed in my view throughout the entire 30 minute drive home. It just seemed another message that the world is really ok. I was already feeling a peace and calm and this rainbow sealed the feeling. I felt I had done the right thing no matter what the outcome. I had spoken my truth and stated my wishes. The rest is out of my hands now. But I know I will accept the outcome regardless. It may make me sad but I know I will have tried to make things work in a mutually satisfactory way. It can’t be all on his terms. I feel I am growing so much through this interaction with him; it is more about me taking these steps toward being genuine than it is about whether this relationship continues or ends. Never before have I attempted to negotiate toward an arrangement that suits both parties. Always before I have kept my peace in order to keep the man in my life. I can’t do that anymore. I literally can’t do it.

There has been no response from P as yet, but it is a Saturday afternoon and I only sent the email a few hours ago. He may not have even read it yet. My guess is it will take a few days to get a response, but I hope he proves me wrong and answers sooner. His non answer will tell me every bit as much as his words I believe. But for now I again give him the benefit of the doubt and realise he may need a bit of time to think over what I have said. It goes without saying that I will keep you all posted. I hope I am mistaken, but deep down I have a feeling that this is the end of the affair. Still, better now if it must be, than after another few miserable months. P may surprise me yet and agree to meet more often. Time will tell. But for now I am peaceful. I imagine my anxiety levels will rise as time goes by until I hear his response. But I will survive. And as my friend pointed out in his letter, I will have a second chance when needed.

Patterns

O, my best friend, and I, are always finding patterns in our lives. There is one pattern we seem to have that we neither of us like and would like to change.

It is uncanny the way that only one or other of us ever seems to be involved with a man at any given time. When P and I got together last year, O was single. She’d met a few guys through online dating but nothing came of it. Then, the day after P’s birthday last year, O met a man she liked. Within two days, P and I had broken up and O was on with this new man. That relationship lasted two and a half months. She split up with him the same weekend I started having a fling with S.

Then, back in March, she met her P (yes the exact same name as my P). That was very intense for her and my fling with S had finished and I was feeling very low. When I learnt her new man was a P as well it devastated me. (That was very nearly the end of our friendship I might add as she felt I wasn’t there for her). And then a few weeks later my P contacted me out of the blue (after four months not seeing each other) the very day O was in tears over her P putting himself back on the online dating site. She dropped him the next day and my relationship with P developed.

Now O has just started seeing someone else – but very casually – nothing hot and heavy. She doesn’t even know if it will go anywhere. And then I realised that just as this is happening for her I am suddenly thinking I need to end things with P. Is there some sort of subconscious knee jerk reaction going on?

On Friday night O was suggesting that if I was getting this much pain from the state of affairs with P then I should end it. When I saw her last night I told her I had decided it was over and she recommended not just dumping him but pushing him a bit to see how he reacts. She plays devil’s advocate with me which I really appreciate.

So, in the light of a new day (and it is another beautiful day today) I have decided not to react in a knee jerk fashion and end the relationship with P, without first trying to move things to a level that we are both comfortable with. I am not talking about moving in with him and having his babies I am just going to suggest more communication would be nice. I am just going to suggest we plan when we are going to go for our trip to the sea.

I am going to be up P’s way on Thursday evening for a meditation. It starts at 7pm. I have decided to email P and ask if he’d like to meet for a coffee before hand. It will be only ten minutes from his place, and only for an hour – not a huge demand. Just a little push and then I won’t feel like I am always hanging around waiting for him to contact me. But I need to give him a chance. If he resists all my attempts (and I promise they will be gentle), well then I know where I stand and can let him go. The thing is, currently it is all on his terms - because I let it be – and that makes me feel powerless. If I try to take some control and he reacts against it – well then we are going nowhere anyway.

I need to learn to speak out about my needs. Not demand or rant and rave. Just communicate clearly what I would like. I never do that – I live in fear of confrontation and abandonment. That is no way to live. The one thing I can really take from this relationship is the opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone and talk about my needs. If it leads to confrontation and abandonment then I have to deal with that. But I have to learn about honest communication of how I am feeling. And I need to give the other person the respect that they will listen to what I have to say and respond appropriately. It is not up to me to decide how they might react in advance.

O and I have decided to break this pattern – if it actually exists. We have decided patterns become self fulfilling prophecies because we are always looking for them and finding evidence to support them. So she can continue to see her guy on a casual basis and I will continue to see P on a casual basis. Then we both have men in our lives at the same time. A first step toward having committed men in our lives at the same time.

And you will have realised by now that both O and I THINK way too much… always analysing and digging. We both know we need to let go and flow with life a bit more. And work on being our authentic selves with others.

I just want you to know who I am

I posted some Goo Goo Dolls lyrics the other day:

“I don’t want the world to see me, cause I don’t think that they’d understand”

I think we all have part of ourselves that we hide away for fear that others won’t understand us and will reject us. I’ve hidden and repressed parts of myself for years – those socially unacceptable and politically incorrect aspects. I don’t want to be rejected anymore than the next person.

“I just want you to know who I am”

It feels very important to me all of a sudden to just be me. This blog is the place I can show who I am – the good, the bad and the ugly. It is a safe place to express and hopefully not spill poison on anyone else. I want to be me but I don’t want to hurt others in the process.

I am honoured to find those of you here who understand and accept me. Thankyou so much. It feels so good to feel I am not alone in this sometimes lonely world.

If you don’t accept me then that is ok too – it is your choice.

Blessings to you all.

(and for once I’m quoting someone a bit more contemporary than Shakespeare )

The path…

I want to express my gratitude to you all. Through my struggles last night and today I have somehow reached a place of understanding. Every time I log on I find yet another beautiful comment from someone. It makes the world seem brighter and I feel the connection between all sentient beings and the planet we live on.

I believe in the soul. I have called upon my soul many times and it has answered. I don’t always like what I hear but I need to hear it, deal with it and let it go. It sneaks in tests and messages when and where I least expect it. It is all aimed at making me grow. I resist this like mad sometimes. I want to disappear in an endless mire of self pity – and believe me I’ve done that many times over the years. That is how I ended up depressed. I want it easy and cushy but once you set foot upon the path it becomes difficult and the going is rough. You have to find your own way no matter how many have gone before you. But it is worth all the effort in the end. Life is about growth and evolution. This is my belief.

Life is about choices. We have endless choices about how we live our lives, what we believe and how we act. My choices are mine, your choices are yours. None of those choices make us a worse or a better person. It just makes us who we are. We all have a right to life on this planet. We all have a right to live our lives as we see fit. I do not like it when your choices impinge on someone elses right to live their life, yet I have to accept that too. I have always believed in fighting for what you believe in, for standing up for your principles against all odds. That is because I believe I have good principles. But that is just my belief. I’m not sure what I’m saying here exactly, but I do think that opposition and struggle make us clearer. We must never stop questioning our own assumptions and beliefs. We must never give in to the ‘I am right, you are wrong’ mentality. Never. Even when all evidence seems to suggest that what you do hurts others. It is karma working itself out. It is the way to learn and to evolve.

I don’t know what the right direction is. All I can do is live my life moment to moment, and make the choices that seem right at the time. I may look back and decide they were misguided, but I do my best in the moment.

The soul is one tough cookie. It is not all sweet and comforting. If you ask it a question it will be brutally honest with you. If you ask for lessons it will throw the book at you. It won’t take it easy and be nice and warm and fuzzy. It will test and test and test again. Until you have shown that you have learnt whatever it is that is being taught. Ultimately there may be bliss and joy waiting, but you have to earn them. You have to clear out all the crap that lies within. You ask for light and it shines in and illuminates all the rubbish hoarded for a rainy day.

We live in interesting times. I think that was a Chinese curse wasn’t it? 

These interesting times are leading us to something better. But we need to clear out our basements first and get rid of years of accumulated garbage. It is hard work but worth it in the end when we see the wonderful space we have cleared out ready to be redecorated.

My first rant as opposed to a carefully considered post

2008 – new beginnings, fresh starts. So what do I find? I find myself already falling into the trap of letting some man mess me around. When will I learn I ask myself? Well the answer is – RIGHT NOW! No more. When I was in India last year I made myself a promise that I wasn’t going to be at any man’s beck and call anymore. No longer would I put up with ‘making do’ with the crumbs. I kept to that promise with the man I wrote about in an earlier post (love and other bruises). I decided not to put up with certain things no matter how much I loved him. Things I’d put up with in the past only to hang on and on with much pain.

It hurt like hell but I decided I had to be true to myself. Now without even realising it a similar situation has crept up on me with another man. This time there is no love involved but nonetheless certain issues seem to recurring. Don’t you just love the way the universe keeps throwing these things in your face to see if you really are going to deal with them? And they test you over and over again until you get it right every time. I am so glad school was never like this!

So I am making a stand on behalf of myself. I won’t put up with crumbs and I won’t slot conveniently into the gaps in someone’s schedule. Ok I might lose out in the short term but ultimately I think I can only benefit by doing this. I want real, committed love with a man who puts me first. And if I can’t have that then I will make do with nothing until he shows up. I might miss out on a bit of fun along the way but I am sticking to my guns this time. I know what I want now – for so many years I didn’t. I do believe in compromise in a relationship but there are some things that can’t be compromised on. There are certain non-negotiables.

So while this decision doesn’t make me feel particularly happy right now, it does make me feel strong. I am woman, hear me roar… (I hope that isn’t copyrighted and I end up being sued by Helen Reddy – think of it as a free plug, Helen). Why do we put up with so much sometimes?

 And hey guys, I’m not on an anti-man rave – I love you really – that is actually my problem – I love you too much sometimes!! I’m sure you also put up with crap from women in your lives. Lets all just try to live in harmony, hey?