Stumbling through...
I am: a poet, an idealist, a realist, a lover of life, an extroverted introvert, a seeker of challenges. I don't want to just walk through life but, rather, dance, laugh, cry & stumble through.
Notice the green grass on your side of the fence.
For lack of attention a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.
—Evelyn Underhill
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quote
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Purify, my soul
Things are happening lately that I don't understand
like puddles of rain rising,
evaporating out of
my mouth.
My mouth: coughing up steam, crying out
stories, I'm pulsing with
memories racing
like blood clots through my veins.
They say we store memories in the
body like fat, hold them deep within
our skin.
Past traumas just dormant.
A kink in the knee, an ache in the
back, it's all there, intertwined with
us like colors of paint, swirling with blood,
guts,
oxygen.
They say the mind maps
our response systems. It takes a long
time to rewire a brain, carve out new
pathways for thinking.
This is not easy
to do.
Takes years of hard
work, diligence, commitment.
We are afraid of our own power,
we mute it, dilute it with doubt.
Doubt--
we swallow like pills, keeping us in
our safe little worlds.
Fear--
I throw it up,
shovel it out like rocks
in soil, dig down deep,
purify, my soul.
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poem
Comments [4]
Relationships are scary. Eeeeeeeekkkkkkk!
Relationships are like mirrors. srorrim ekil era spihsnoitaleR
I've heard this phrase before. In fact, I've heard it many times but I never quite got it. Like mirrors? How? You usually don't pick someone exactly like you or you're in for it. At least I would be, there's only so much crying, analyzing, and dancing to old Michael Jackson songs that I can handle.
But then I realized: mirrors reflect, they give back our own image, they force us to see our beauty and our flaws.
Your partner is not your image, they are holding up the mirror, forcing you to look at things you may not want to admit are there.
When a partner does something you don't like, it makes you feel your needs and values. It brings you into direct relation with the vulnerable, soft parts that exists underneath your day to day mask.
I'd venture to say: It's really not about the other person at all
Romantic relationships are scary because they force us to deal with parts of ourselves that are usually not triggered. Those needy parts we are scared will be too much for someone to accept and love.
So, often we run away, avoid the conflict, back off from deep intimacy because we don't want to see ourselves that clearly, don't want to admit our giant fear of being rejected for who we truly are, underneath it all.
We construct grand stories to defend our points, he did this, he said that, blah blah blah. This validates our behavior in the relationship and allows us to avoid looking deeply at ourselves. And because we are creatures of support, we tell these stories to everyone: friends, family members, therapists, co-workers, hairdressers, dentists, so that our 'case' can get validated over and over again.
A good example of this form of validation is the typical 'woe is me' story:
I was having drinks with a dear friend a few months ago, telling him about my latest heart break.
Me (looking down, thumping the curve of my wine glass): I knew there was something wrong. I knew it. But I just didn't want to ask. I didn't want to know. So, I just kept pretending I was okay with everything until it got to a point where it was too upsetting for me.
My friend (sitting upright, chest facing me, head turned slightly): Yeah, so in a way you were as much to blame for the lying and the deceit because you made a silent agreement that you were going to accept that something wasn't right and not say anything. You agreed to the facade, to pretend that whatever it was, wasn't there.
That was the first time someone broke my sob story, stopped petting me on the head and voiced my part in the situation, my footsteps in the dysfunctional dance.
Romantic relationships can serve as a catalyst for self growth and realization. When we own our needs and voice our truths we live closer to the core of who we really are. And, shockingly enough, we are loved even more for the parts we try to keep hidden. Roots are nurtured and cared for far more than leaves.
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relationships
Comments [6]
breathe. gasp. swallow.
Breathe, the voice says, rising through the silence. Rising like steam off water, curling into, out of, the ear, bubbling up, dissipating, disa-ppearing. This is where truth lays, in the silence we can barely hear. Here. Ha. Ear. The silence we mute after childhood.
Running with an Ipod on, volume cranked & booming, we can't hear ourselves: breathe. gasp. swallow. It all gets lost between beats. Diluted moments. Dilution of selves. Dissolution. We're losing the ability to read between the lines because we aren't reading every line. My dad finished a 400 page book in a night and half. A night and a half, scanning through the pages clumsily, half heartedly. We're melting through moments, missing the passion in a bike tire spinning against pavement, tuned out to the way laughter moves and rises, rattling the air above a mouth, below the sky.
We're too busy protecting our hearts to hear the gravity of our words. Someone once told me what he'd miss most about me where the subject lines of my emails. My emails. Where the hell was I in that statement? I. Me. He should have said, I'll miss you never. Never. But those subject lines, man, they stole my heart. Hearts are closed all over the world, clammed up like pearls in suffocating shells. Soon we'll have to shuck them open, pry them suckers out.
I can't tell you how many times I forget to simply listen, too busy trying to come up with something brilliant to say. I can see the person's lips moving, but I can't quiet myself, get out of my own way. And I lose in this, in missing the things others say, all that unheard wisdom drying up in abandonment. If a word is uttered and no one was listening, does it make a sound?
A s-o-u-n-d? A sound? A sea hound?
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personal reflection
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