Morning Thought

You need no
permission
to love and
be loved.
You are breathing.
It is enough.

Rooted

Some rights reserved by BlueRidgeKitties

“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.”
~Anonymous~

ROOT

noun, often attributive: an underlying support

the essential core : heart

RADICAL

adjective: of, relating to, or proceeding from a root

noun: a root part

a basic principle: foundation

Learning to be in right relationship with myself has been (and continues to be) a very interesting process. Holding my relationship to self in the center of my life can be downright uncomfortable.

It takes more work than I expected to not abandon myself to whim and desire.

Beautiful

Some rights reserved by _twig

crooked: 

1. : not straight 

Synonyms:  bending, crazy, curled, curling, curved, curving, curvy, devious, serpentine, sinuous, tortuous, twisted, twisting, winding, windy


And I've got
No illusions about you
And guess what?
I never did
And when I said
When I said I'll take it
I meant,
I meant as is
~Ani DiFranco, As Is

I am crooked. Scoliosis is a daily reminder that I am not exactly according to plan.

Let me explain.

The Genius of Little Moments

Talking with Alex about relationships via Google chat:

Me:  you know, it can't be forced

i think it's just what you can stand, on a day to day basis, potentially forever

Alex:  haha probably about the wisest thing you can say about a relationship

The Wedding

I officiated my second wedding this weekend, and it was just lovely. Though I do get stressed out about having a big part in a couple's big day, I still love doing the work.  There's no better feeling than a

I did shed a few tears during this ceremony; the bride's friend read the following poem in such a heartfelt way, and I couldn't help but get a bit misty-eyed:

Love
by Roy Croft


I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.


I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.


I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.


I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

To all that risk love and choose to see hope...make those temples grand and glorious!

Thoughts on Intimacy

An adult view of intimacy:  knowing oneself deeply, and allowing interactions with others to have depth without letting oneself be reworked/refashioned through the lens of another's perceptions.

Maybe this is the only way we can truly be in relationship with another...we first have to be in right relationship with self.

You Can't Stop; I Can't Stay

I saw this in today's Sunday Secrets:

I really wanted it to be a statement about leaving T...but it isn't.  I remember being out with him once, early on in the relationship, the first time he got really drunk- he said that he didn't want to "bring me down with him".  I remember my reply was "Don't worry, you won't."

He's slowly but surely fucking his life up in many directions, that's for sure- and it's quite possible that he will sink.  But I'm not afraid of how I could be impacting that.  In a flight emergency, one has to properly secure their own oxygen mask before assisting others, right?  Well, I'm attending to that, and that translates to getting the fuck out and not fighting to get a mask on someone that doesn't want to breathe.  I can't force him into my lifeboat.

It is my job to make sure I take care of myself.  Amen and Blessed Be that I have learned that lesson well.

And now, a bit of the over-personal rambling...

After dating for as long as I've been dating (15 years) I find it tempting to mentally create the perfect partner, to pine for a person who is the sum of all the qualities I can cherry-pick from previous partners. "Eventually, someone will show up that is as kind as _________ and as sexually adventurous as ____________ and as emotionally demonstrative as ___________ and as handsome as ____________ and as interested in spirituality as _______________" etc. etc. etc. and really? It doesn't work that way. Well, I truly hope it doesn't.

This post is sponsored by a very interesting conversation I had with S today over breakfast at Square Cafe*. She and I were having a long and deep conversation about romantic relationships, and she commented about how confident I am about what I deserve and who I want to be with romantically. My off-the-cuff response was that I learned to have high expectations of relationships after living with J...and I couldn't believe I said it, out loud, and that it was true...just as true as all the muck I had to wallow through to get out the other side of the long, dark tunnel of pain that was also our relationship.

Of course, there were many things that were non-optimal about the relationship...but there were good things, too. As with anyone, there were broken things and not-so-broken things and amazing, shiny things. To ignore any of it would be to not experience the full, bittersweet picture. In many ways, I will probably never have as good a partner as J...and in many ways, other partners will far surpass him. He is human, after all, just like me. I (like everyone else) am a piece of cake, a pie in the face, and all the stages in between.

I like my relationships this way. I like complex flavors, the depth created by some darkness, the moon peeking out from behind constantly moving clouds. To use a food metaphor: I find milk chocolate cloying; instead, I prefer the bitter of a good piece of dark chocolate. The taste encourages me stop and think; it gives me pause. I don't gobble it up right away because I want to taste all the nuances.

I think I would be bored to death if I found exactly what I was looking for in any area of my life. I also suspect that my sometimes-desire to find this Frankenstein Monster of Perfection is based in my fear that I won't be able to negotiate the choppy waters of Not Exactly What I Want. In truth, I'm pretty good at determining what differences I can tolerate, but I fear that I will end up somehow compromising on things that really matter, living in the dark tunnel instead of sometimes traveling through it, carrying out valuable lessons learned.

When I let go of that fear, I can see how exciting the unknown is, and how exciting each unknown person can be. What will I learn? What depth will be added to my character from our interactions? How will I be changed?

That last one is a biggie. Allowing myself to be changed...not just by another person, but by the living of life...that's sometimes hard. Who am I kidding, that's most-of-the-time hard. I have a sneaking suspicion that all of this fear is rooted in my denial of impermanence, specifically the impermanence of me, of this construction I call Self, of this shifting dance of I and me and mine. She changes everything She touches, and everything She touches changes...and that, to me, translates to groundlessness.

Scary? Exhilarating? Both?

Sweet Fancy Moses. Now there's the Work.



*Having said all of this, I think this post wasn't only prompted by my breakfast conversation but also by this post. It moved me to tears when I first read it, and has been on my mind for the past few days.

A Proper Update

So, where to start. I guess I'll just start at the beginning, and when I come to the end, I'll stop.

Two Main Areas of Recent Change: Employment, Men-Folk

Employment:

I've been working part-time nights at a local university library, and I absolutely love it there. The environment is laid-back, my coworkers are awesome, and I'm gaining valuable experience in another academic environment. I can't say enough good things about working for this library.

I will be starting a full-time job on April 5th. No, it isn't a professional librarian position...or any position in a library. I will be working for a grassroots mental health advocacy organization as an administrator. Part of me feels weird that I finished a graduate degree in library science and am at another administration job...but to be fair, there are no professional librarian positions to be had in this fair city, employment has been difficult to obtain in other cities, and my heart is really set on staying in Pittsburgh. I feel really good about taking this position because 1) the organization seems interesting and the work is important 2) I will gain valuable non-profit administration and event planning experience, and 3) it's work I can feel good about at the end of the day. When I take my ego out of the equation, I am very pleased with how things turned out.

My overall plan is to keep working part-time for the library while working full-time, which will have me putting in 53 hours a week. This may be too exhausting (the library hours are pretty late) but I'm going to give it a shot, and hope that it is doable.

Menfolk:

After almost 2 years without any serious commitments to anyone, I have a boyfriend. Yes, people, I am exclusively dating someone. It is worth noting that I am not so freaked out by this change, as it is pretty sudden (we only dated for a little over a month before deciding to make it an official relationship) and we both have the normal sorts of baggage that people pick up in the "risking-loving-losing-loving again" game that is part of life as emotional and sexual beings. I suppose I just feel more stable now than I've ever felt before, and that stability is located inside of me instead of being buttressed from without. I'm confident that I'm going to keep to my boundaries and hold to my non-negotiables, and that also adds to my general feeling of calm.

So yeah...again, She changes everything She touches, and everything She touches changes...sometimes slowly, and sometimes faster than one expects. :P