booster rockets

For years, I’ve been thinking about the concept of booster rockets as metaphors for personal and spiritual development – but in the most depressing and isolating way.

This may sound self-indulgent and self-piteous and haughty all at once. That isn’t an apology. Just a heads up.

2019 has been a pretty chill year so far until Friday night. And even that isn’t disastrous. Just inopportune. But even that assessment is a (blessed) shift in perspective.

It’s been chill because there is barely anyone in my life right now–at least anyone constant. It’s very empty.

My relationships with people have been like booster rockets. They’re intense, fiery, and then they drop off and I’m a million miles away from where we started.

And, I’ve been feeling guilty about it. That has never been my intention. I feel like I use people, but in retrospect, it’s typically mutually beneficial.

It goes back to the idea of me being a catalyst in people’s lives and how I don’t like it anymore.

Last year, when so many people dropped away or were cut off, it was really jarring because it was the exact opposite of what I (thought I) needed.

And it’s not just been last year. It’s been years and years of having these really short, intense encounters with people and then the encounter abruptly ending.

And although it would be lovely to go into detail here, I don’t want to, really–and that’s a story in it of itself. It feels tender to try to probe into this space. 

I’ll try a little, though.

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I think (I hope) I’m finally over the incredulity of what happened with my love life last year. It was so absurd and I feel separate from it now. That was another lifetime ago.

And maybe last year has made me able to finally write about this constant loss of people. People were either lost in conflict or lost through consistent absence. Both felt pretty violent.

Now, there’s silence and space. And relief, that the fighting is over and that the battle wounds are healing.

And…there’s a nagging fear that life will always be this way. And another fear: that I will get used to it and become the Capricorn I’ve always wanted to be: independent and needing no one.

But as I’ve watched another perfectly good relationship drop into the ocean and I keep heading towards space, I wonder:

Where am I actually headed?

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Maybe there’s no real purpose to all of this, to how I relate to people. Maybe this period of solitude just is.

I know there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with me. There are tons of people who are complete assholes who have more people in their lives, people who actually care about them and actively love them.

But there does seem to be a purpose, at least right now. And that’s what I feel guilty about. Although, again, as a catalyst, I know I’m serving the same purpose.

I’ve grown so much from last year through learning about myself, what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. And it feels like those lessons have started to stabilized within me.

I’m still here. I’m not dead in any way. I no longer feel brokenhearted. I’m further along.

Also, this time alone has made me realize how much energy and effort I put into relationships and how a lot of times, that energy isn’t returned. It can be the most casual relationship to the most intimate – I am grinding. And frankly, that’s just wasteful.

Part of me is just wired to care for others. But writing this, in my head I sound like a martyr. But that’s definitely not what I want, a cross to be up on and people to pity.

I nurture, I guide, I help to heal. But last year, I saw my efforts hilariously and spectacularly fail and flail.

Even this past weekend, I reached out to a couple of people and they don’t actually need my support in the way that I want to give it – booster rocket style.

Although I’m at peace and am feeling better about my life, I’m no Happy Cappy…at least if I compare myself to what everyone else is doing.

I don’t have friends I text or call often – or really, at all. And that’s really weird to me.

But what’s even weirder: I can’t really think of anyone where we’d talk even every week on the phone or via text and it’d feel natural. I don’t think I’ve met those people yet.

And that’s OK. In fact, it’s encouraging. They’re still out there.

I only start to feel like a complete loser when I look around, I think – wow, if this is it, this is really bad. This is not good. I may have always had some existential loneliness, but prolonging this would be bad. 

It’s not good to be so disconnected.

A big part of this experience has to deal with poverty, which basically makes me a shut-in. But then if I had more money beyond basic expenses and had more the time to be out there again…it’s exhausting to think about.

I have been balls to the wall about people since I got here on Earth and I have very little to show for it except, wow, I know humanity pretty well and I’ve discovered that we don’t vibe that well together. Yay?

I was a lot happier as a misanthrope, back in my 20s. Maybe it’s time to bring that bitch back!

But having all this space now, I can appreciate the good times without resenting they ended. Yet I’m still quite bewildered by where I am now, at my age. And as it is Aquarius season, I feel extra alien and unrelatable.

But who gives a shit? Who really gives a shit?

I do. Thank god, I do.

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And, I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this here or for my patrons, being so exhausted in giving, there needs to be a break, a shift, a disruption in this cycle of outflow and barren reception.

So as I take this rocket ship to nowhere, I believe one of two things will happen, or possibly both.

I will get used to people just popping in and out of my life and just be surprised if someone sticks around longer than a year. Or, more people will stick around longer than a year.

The thing is, too – out of all the people who have ghosted or left or have been cut out by me, I only miss one of them, but it’s not even in a painful way. It’s more like…well, it’d be nice if you returned. But I’m not going to put anymore effort into it because yowsa.

Too. Much.

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To pull back with a wider lens: I live in a society with rampant loneliness, with fragmented relationships, with companies that throw people away like yesterday’s garbage, in a country that has immigrant children in concentration camps.

I live in a land that barely values me as a person with full citizenship – and I mean that in a personhood sense.

So honestly, it’s a miracle, a remarkable miracle, that any love gets to me, or any of us, at all. 

Even though my life looks like a wasteland of used up people, a wasteland of me being used up, somehow, I have some optimism that this will all make sense later. 

For now, I feel like I need to put this nurturing impulse to better use. That doesn’t mean I have to change who I am. The times are just different now and I need to find out what “better use” means – without rushing it.

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Before I started writing this, I thought, what if I became the object of all this nurturing and care? It’s something I’ve been doing lately, but as I reach out to others and don’t have that effort reciprocated, I need to continue to focus on myself, as awkward and sad as that can feel.

There’s nothing wrong with the path of least resistance. And there’s nothing wrong with learning how to shift my focus towards myself for a while. I need to heal up from the losses, losses and abuses that go all the way back to high school, or even further back than that.

And it’s not that I’m reliving and ruminating over the past. The exhaustion is cumulative.

I swear I’ve written about this before, about how sometimes this feels like this is some cosmic punishment. 

Here is what I hear the Universe say to me (but I am completely mishearing them):

You’re too much for people and We’re putting you on an indefinite time out! Sit here and be alone until you’re ready to play well with others!

🥺

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Some of these experiences, I really don’t understand what it’s for. And maybe it’s as simple as that I’m incredibly unlucky.

But I will not pathologize myself any longer. There’s enough pain with loss without making it all about me and how wrong I allegedly am.

Last summer, there was one person who left kept telling me, as he was leaving me, before it got ugly: “You’re such a lovely person.”

But. (one of his favorite words, by the way)

It was like it couldn’t be that it couldn’t work between us because I wasn’t an asshole. So he became the asshole.

It wasn’t me. It was him. And we both know that.

He’s not the person that I still miss, either.

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My path is strange and there’s still a lot of shame around it. I’m not doing what I consider to be adult mature things that I expect for myself, like traveling, hanging out with friends, being with someone who knows I’m a lovely person and didn’t commit self-sabotage seppuku (actually, yeah, that’s pretty adult, so I guess I’m adulting).

I’ve done all of those things before.

Instead, I’m super isolated. And now I’m mostly fine with it. 

I guess I wish my life wasn’t so weird and unrelatable. It makes it hard to be a writer if no one understands what you’re experiencing (or at least openly says so).

But hey, I feel less crappy about not having anyone local around who cares because I sure as hell fucking tried, for years, to connect.

And as I was trying, I was evolving.

The gazillion dollar question: I really like who I am now, but did it come at the cost of all these people who aren’t in my life anymore?

It’s probably more true that the changes that I went through couldn’t be held within the relationships I’ve had with people. Or the people I was in relationship with were also changing beyond the scope of how we related.

And that is OK. I just want it to fucking stop eventually.

And maybe I finally know and believe that I won’t be poor forever. I know I’ll find the people who will stick around.

But right now, for once, mercifully…I’m really reluctant to open up and get to know anyone new – at least the way that I do it, which is a deep sea dive into one’s soul. I feel like that’s a healthy response! I’m not running headlong into anything, great or godawful. 

There’s just me and for now, that’s all I need. But I look forward to when I have the strength, and the means, and the heart, to open up again, whether it’s to someone new or someone from the past.

So thank you to all the former friends who help me get to this place of emotional self-sufficiency. I literally couldn’t have done it with you.

All through my life there have been
Many rare and precious things
I have tried to call mine
But I just cannot seem
To keep hold of anything
For more than a short time

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really letting things hurt

Yesterday, I went into the kitchen to start my breakfast, and the shut-in roommate that I never see or talk to came out of his room. He’s got a big shaggy beard, thinning pale hair, and thin, pale skin.

“Hey there!” he said.

“Hi,” I said. I was washing my dishes.

“Haven’t seen ya in a while!” he said to my back.

I can’t remember if I answered, or if i said, “Yeah.”

“So do you know if we’re getting a new roommate?”

“I…I don’t know.” I was filling up water from the faucet for my oatmeal.

He was at the table in the dining room, looking at the mail. And then he left for his driving around.

I don’t think I had spoken to him since February, when I had told him about the piece of shit roommate who harassed me and had finally left in July–the one that the shut-in had enabled.

I knew eventually, one day, our paths would cross again, and that I would be mad and hurt about the betrayal.

It wasn’t true that he hadn’t seen me in a while. It was a couple of weeks or more that he was sitting in the living room, talking loudly about the medications he was taking for some clinical trial for something.

I didn’t talk to him, but he blared through the earplugs I still had from sleeping the night before.

That loud conversation was informative–although it wasn’t the first time he had been talking loudly on the phone about his medications and illnesses. Still, I was reminded me that although I saw him as a traitor, I don’t know if it really could have been helped. I’m not sure if that’s an ableist way to look at it, though.

Yet it didn’t really help, and it really hasn’t helped, the feelings I had and still have…the feelings I would rather forget, like a bad trip I had taken, like a disgusting meal I was forced to eat.

I lived in the same house for over a year with a man who didn’t do and still doesn’t do much with keeping this house clean. It’s been up to me. It’s been up to me to make sure that this place is habitable and hospitable. And I’ve really only done it for my safety and comfort, although he gets the benefits.

The shut-in never cleans. A former roommate complained about how it seemed like he had never cleaned up after himself before. And last month, he didn’t take out the trash for whatever lazy reason he came up with. That was actually a first.

I knew I would see him again and be forced to talk to him as if everything was OK. I have never really been one for pleasantries, although I used to have a rule about acknowledging the existence of everyone, friend or foe.

After many foes and not many friends, I had to change the rules, rules that seemed to be about being the bigger and better person.

Being the bigger and better person now is about making sure that I’m OK, that I’m taken care of, that I’m safe.

So by being cold and withdrawn, I was OK with showing, albeit passively, that our warm and amiable relationship had frozen over into cold, forced cordiality.

I wasn’t really ready to face that, that I had one less ally in this place. I wasn’t really ready to also look at my relationship to this place. It’s become more and more like a prison–albeit thankfully less and less like a psych ward…

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There’s been a room in my heart that I can only peek into. I open it a crack and I’m blasted with warm, moist air and the taste of my own tears. It reminds me of that test that Paul Atreides from the sci-fi novel, Dune, had to undergo with his mother and another Bene Gesserit woman.

He had to put his hand inside of a box, a box that contained pain. If he withdrew it too early, he would die. So he put his hand inside, feeling like his flesh was being burned and flayed…and then when he was allowed to remove his hand, his hand was just fine.

That room in my heart is like that box of pain, and I need to go inside. And I’m afraid that I will be burned and flayed. I’m afraid that I won’t survive it.

It’s not even going to be as dramatic as Paul and his box of pain. I know what’s in my room that I continue to avoid.

There have been some miserable failures this summer. But I decided after this sad and bizarre separation I had with someone over a week ago, that it was time to at least tend to my wounds–not just this summer’s, but as many as I can.

I needed to deal with my whole self–nurture it as it hasn’t really been nurtured by me before; nurture it as my parents should have but didn’t; nurture it as if no one else ever will; nurture it as if my life depended on it, because it does.

Part of that nurturing has been taking this 10-day course about returning to myself. And that has been restorative and healing–but not dramatically. It’s been more of the intention I’ve set: to not put so many other people’s feelings and needs before mine.

Part of that nurturing has been letting things really hurt. And it hasn’t been me sobbing on the floor. It’s literally sitting with feelings, the feelings that aren’t so clear-cut or line-bright.

Most of those feelings are grief over things that never got to be or have yet to be–the me that doesn’t live in Florida anymore; the me that got to be with that person; the me who hasn’t had to grind and scrape just to make it month-to-month; the me who actually did have supportive parents.

That last one floats in and out, because I don’t know how to grieve something that I never had. I can only imagine how it could be, to have parents be there for me unselfishly, to not have narcissistic parents. I could base on other people’s experiences, or base on fictional portrayals. I have a feeling that may become more profound and real when I have my own family, or when my parents pass–or maybe both.

The personal losses this summer…the confusing grief has batted me around, flipped me back and forth like I was some rag doll.

How could this be? Is this really happening?

This is happening. This is really happening.

Usually with loss, I never feel so ambivalent. I am quite resolute. With cold, surgical precision, I can amputate people, places, and things from my life and never look back.

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when I do it. It just means that I don’t attempt to reattach. I’ve only done in twice in my life.

The first was with my first love–but he dumped me. The second was a few years ago with a woman I had known since we were teenagers. We just drifted apart and I noticed she had unfriended me from Facebook. She responded that basically she was too busy but that she had thought about me often.

This time, I can finally understand why it takes people so long to get over people, at the very least. It took me years to get over how long it took me to get through college–years longer than most people wanted to know or hear about.

But I knew I deserved the time to grieve a formative time in my life, especially since the people who had wanted me to move on had never gone through what I had gone through.

I needed the time.

But that’s the thing with grief. Grief takes as long as it takes. Grief, especially when it comes to death, is an ever-morphing companion that you will never shake. Some days, it’s a whisper of a ghost. Other times, it’s a monster that will violently shake you over something you don’t even think is a big deal.

Even with this one-month odyssey that I was on…there are times that I question whether it’s really over. And then there are other times that I’m glad it’s over. And then, there are other times that I want to go back, even if there are only ashes and embers left.

It’s weird to go through things that you feel like you should have gone through half a lifetime ago. But now, having gone through these things…I feel a lot more human now. The empathy that’s grown inside of me has stretched me open. I can almost say I’m grateful for the experience, because there’s this whole other part of life that I can’t process through my brain.

I can see how irrational love and grief is now.

---

Yesterday, I knew the shut-in was probably waiting to talk to me. When I left my room, his door, which is right across from mine in a tiny hallway, was cracked with a seam of light shining through–and this usually meant that he was going to leave soon.

I dreaded seeing him, but our meeting was better than I thought it would be…initially. I thought I had held up pretty well, considering.

Seeing him and talking to him reminded me of what I went through, by myself.  And I was tired of going back in the past. And his cheery little performative bullshit was an insult.

Could someone be that far removed from reality, really?

I knew that was true because of how my mom handled my father when he was mentally ill. I didn’t really get as much protection as I deserved. She was lost in her religion and her god to pay attention to how living under someone who was abusive and neglectful was doing to her and to her children.

So yeah, I’ve been here before. And I thought because it was over, I was over it all.

But then afterward, I felt like someone shoved me in this dark, small room of despair. I felt like I was physically starting to slow down. I just wanted to sleep.

I had some existential fears leap out:

Would I ever get out of this gotdamn house? Would I be stuck here forever? Do I really have people on my side? Will I ever be successful again? Am I always going to have an almost life?

I was really concerned that I was becoming depressed. I was sleeping more during the day, but it was also because I had some major insomnia (thanks, full moon). I still have a bit of a sleep deficit.

I did a lot of talking and praying with my guides and angels…

And even typing this, about guides and angels…somehow it’s a little embarrassing, like I’m one of those, one of those weirdo woo-woo women…

Then today, I was back to my normal self.

So maybe yesterday, I had a brief moment in that room of grief that I keep avoiding. It was a little scary, but I made it through.

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And before this, last week I was really angry, angry that life had been so disappointing for so long. I was and am so fed up. And that anger can be a catalyst for change.

I still believe that this is my time.

What’s really interesting about all this is how these feelings of sadness and grief are on the heels of things getting better for my business now.

Shameless plug for another business – I do tarot and astrological consultations!

It’s like when you’re about to hit the finish line, after having run a long race, and you have the freedom to slow down.

I don’t have to be tough anymore. I don’t have to gut it through. I don’t have to have it all together. I don’t have to be “right.”

I can be hurt, disappointed, and angry that a fellow human being whom I live with didn’t stick up for me while I was being abused.

I can want to have someone back in my life that I’m not entirely sure is good for me.

I can mourn all the fabulous selves I didn’t get to be because I have narcissistic parents.

I can let all of it really hurt as it should, and then move on.

But it doesn’t have to be all sad.

I can choose to nurture myself instead of waiting for someone else to do it.

I can get lost in novels like I used to do when I was younger.

I can continue to explore what brings me pleasure even if I feel like that’s a short list right now.

I can check in on myself much more than I check in on others…because people will be just fine without my care.

I can continue on the journey of not letting my circumstances define me.

I can also be thankful for what I have.

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My ungratefulness is what prevents me from opening the door to my grief.

Somehow, embracing amor fati has felt like a death.

How can I be grateful for all of this, every last thing?

By being grateful, I feel like I have to give up my fight for justice for myself, for making things right. It’s like letting everyone off the hook–even myself.

But to really be grateful, I really do have to reckon with my losses, all of them. Yet I’m not sure what that looks like practically, besides being more intentional about caring for myself.

How can gratitude and the comfort of justice intersect? Or will they always run parallel?

I know that to live the full, joyous life that I want–beyond what circumstances come my way–I have to accept this invitation to gratitude.

I feel impermeable to this kind of all-encompassing gratitude. All I want to do is to have yet another internal temper tantrum. I don’t feel holy or wise enough to do this. I feel petty, bitter, and small.

But that’s at least a place to start–with some honesty about where I am and where I want to be.

When I took a little vacation from my normal life by meeting new people who didn’t know me or my life story, including the one that I can’t easily forget, it was great to be seen for who I was, outside of all I had been through. So I can live that life where I’m not all the things I didn’t get to be, but all the things I already am and will be.

So this isn’t some fantasy. This can be my new reality.

I just have to stop acting like some indestructible robot and let it hurt so I can feel better. Let myself be confused so I can find better answers. Let myself really rage with anger so I can find the peace and calm within.

Let myself be so I can emerge into a more authentic self.

I can’t really solve the puzzle of being grateful for all the bad things I’ve gone through just this summer: of being called racial slurs in my own home, of having a terrible landlady, of not being able to move yet, of losing a biz opportunity because of things outside of my control, of getting so close to finding my person and seeing that chance being thrown into an abyss…

I’m just too human and short-sighted to see the good in any of this right now.

It’s so tough to override my humanness right now. When things are bad, we focus on them so we can fix them. But when we can’t fix them, we suffer. If we decide not to focus on them, then it seems like we’re abdicating our duties of being good people.

And I’ve said all this before. But the struggle remains to create meaning and good from seemingly meaningless, terrible things.

All I can do right now is to be at least grateful for the good, in a way that isn’t performative or hollow. Maybe that can create space for the impossible–being grateful for all of it.

At least I can say that I am grateful that I am still here, that I have survived the unbearable, the unfair, the bizarre, the disgusting, the absurd. And that as long as I’m still breathing, the life that I want and deserve is still within reach.

ETA: this song has been haunting me.

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are you ready for the good?

Sometimes, I feel like an alien species, here to learn some things about the human condition. There are some heartaches that I’ve collected that many people won’t go through. But then there are others that others go through that I haven’t been through yet.

Friday night, I learned how people can want and need good things and people in their lives, but may not be ready to receive it because they don’t feel worthy. It baffles my mind, but this happens so often–often on a subconscious level.

I’ve been writing about this more in detail for my $10+/month patrons. It’s been an exciting and excruciating month, of goodbyes that don’t seem to stick.

Friday night’s kiss off is probably going to stick.

It wasn’t gracious. It wasn’t kind. It was brutal. And it hurts more on a philosophical level now.

My sojourn here in Florida, which this blog chronicles, has been exciting but mostly excruciating. This journey has been about following my dreams, but also how I’ve grown as an adult and a spiritual being. Most of that experience has been unglamourous and gut-wrenching.

So when something or someone seemingly good comes along, I pounce on it like a kitten playing with a toy mouse. I’m not going to let go easily.

I understand and yet I don’t fully understand when people reject the good that serendipitously comes into their lives.

Friday went from a tenuous reconciliation to laughter that made my stomach hurt to being rudely and forcefully shoved out of someone’s life.

And because I’ve been through so much, I can see through feeble attempts to let things and people go, self-sabotaging behavior. And I withstood it for a while, earlier…but Friday was so full of desperation and pain, the hatchet job that was done to sever ties was complete.

Unless there’s some (miraculous?) transformation, this door will remain closed, by me.

It’s something I had never gone through before, irrational arguments with someone I cared about. But I have gone through the self-sabotaging behavior by someone who was afraid by what they were feeling about me, because of me.

I know I elicit some pretty strong reactions from people, and most people can’t seem to handle it. And this may sound haughty, but most people are not ready for me, for the level of honesty and integrity I demand and require.

A lot of people want to hide in the shadows of illusions of their own making. But I have the knack of seeing people as they are, where they are–and accepting them.

And that feel like blessed relief…or it can create a growing sense of self-loathing.

—

So the attacks definitely hurt. I’m human–I’m tough, but I’m tender, too.

But since they were so out of character and so ludicrous, I just wanted to know where they were coming from. When the attacks got more intense and focused on me as a person, it was easier to let go–of course, that was by design.

As a double Capricorn with a tender Cancer moon heart, there’s only so much understanding and patience I can have for someone wilding out in pain. You wound my pride and honor, on purpose, then your wish can be granted: I will let you go.

And what I discovered from a restless night of sleep talking to my guides and angels was that this person resented that I didn’t really have much wrong with me. I was a little too perfect in their eyes. So they invented a dealbreaker that we both couldn’t abide by. Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t separate.

I demanded that this person be accountable for their words and actions, which they would twist and turn in at their convenience–probably as a defense mechanism.

I’m still in shock that someone would go to such lengths to push out of the good that was happening in their lives.

And, as a woman, I have to say here–this isn’t me looking at someone’s potential and living in the future. This is me, seeing someone in the now, with what they were offering now, with what we were now…

It’s like looking at a puzzle, with all the pieces there, laid out, some parts already put together. Not many pieces were left to put it all together. You can see the picture forming. You know what it’s going to look like. It looks like the picture on the box. There’s no reason not to finish the puzzle.

That’s how good and easy it was and felt. All that had to be done was keep going.

So this was no project. That’s what kills me the most. And that I’ve been here before, where everything is laid out and it only takes a little bit of effort to make things really real, whole, and complete.

But this good…it was a good that required them to change, to make space, to grow.

And, they didn’t want to–not now, not like this.

But that’s what love does. That’s what love requires. That’s what love demands.

I get it, though: change is scary, and so is truly being vulnerable, letting someone else in to see who you really are. Will you be embraced or will you be rejected?

There’s something about being close to people, where you start to see how your actions affect others–many times for the worse. Will you choose to change your behaviors or will you “stay true to who you are” and remain frozen?

But because of this terribly painful journey of failure and loss I’ve been on while living in Florida, I don’t have the luxury of cowering, of pushing the good away because it’s too scary, because it demands too much.

I have to leap forward and embrace the good or…? I don’t want to say “die,” but it feels that desperate, that crucial, that detrimental.

There is no room for fear to rule me here.

So now, as my own paper cuts on my heart recover and scab over, I am just sad that anyone is in so much pain, they have to pick fights to cause drama, and then tire of the drama they created and blame the other person for creating it or being a co-conspirator.

Love can do so many things, but it can’t untangle webs of self-deception like that.

And even as I write this, I don’t think of this person as a villain. I don’t hate them at all. And that, in it of itself, is a miracle, because grudges can come easily in my territory.

Instead, most likely…there will always be a part of me that will love them and hope they find the peace that they keep pushing away.

But that hope and love will be beamed from a safe distance.

They said, over and over, that I deserve better. And I agree. I just wish they saw the better in themselves, fully embraced it, and lived it out. It was a cognitive dissonance they couldn’t really reconcile within themselves. At least not yet.

But whether they ever realize it, or never realize it–that’s not my job to do. It’s theirs.

So, I hope through this unnecessary disaster, they can walk out of the ruins of this thing we were trying to build and find the courage to do the work–to start sealing up those broken places and spaces, to become a living kintsugi.

The Universe has been calling out to them, too. Transformation is coming, even as they resist it. And I just hope that eventually, they’ll heed her calls and accept the spiritual gifts they have.

—

What do I want and need, though? I need someone who is brave, someone who is ready to be seen and loved for who they are, someone who isn’t going to harpoon their own good chances…someone who isn’t blinded by their pain.

Sometimes love can be so hard. But sometimes, we make it harder than it needs to be.

But to me, love is worth the risk, every fucking time. What else are we here to do?

And I don’t want to sound like some cliched love song in this post, but I also understand them more every time love gets thwarted like this. It’s a part of the human condition that I had been preventing myself to feel.

It sucks to feel like you can’t do anything, that you can’t fix what’s irreparably broken.

And like I said in my last post, I’m beyond wanting to get some lessons out of this. I already have them. I will probably get more. That’s the beauty and glory of hindsight.

I don’t care about that anymore.

What I cared about was that a person who made me happy wanted out. What I care about is how I handled myself as I knew this person–I’m really proud of myself, even if I may have been a little too permissive. What I care about is that I know that I am not some broken person, attracting emotionally unavailable people.

What I know is that there’s a lot of brokenness in the world, and a lot of it is unavoidable. But to get the love that I need, I have to be even more brave while reminding myself that I can’t take on other people’s burdens as if they are my own.

—

Last night, in my journal, I yelled at the Universe in 48pt font about what I wanted, after years of languishing and “hanging in there.”

After Friday night’s melodramatics, I was done. I’m done being shit on by life in general. I put that all on the Universe, asking her to stop treating me terribly.

And Friday night, I yelled back at them, about how the names I was being called were bullshit, about how obstacles were being created for no reason, about how this was being broken when there were no cracks in the first place.

I never yell, but my patience and grace broke open into fiery, righteous anger and frustration…when I finally realized what was happening and why…and how I couldn’t stop it from happening.

I know I was being provoked to anger, and I hated that I couldn’t be cool, calm, and collected anymore. Things were becoming absurd–and I wanted to scream some sense into the conversation.

But my yells and screams fell on a deaf heart.

Something that came to me after journaling and talking about this with a couple of friends about free will choices…and how I may be trusting the Universe too much in certain ways and not enough in other ways.

We may try to do root work and other things to influence each other, but eventually–a lot of what’s happened here on earth is about what people have chosen to do. It’s not even about the Universe allowing it to happen. But it is about the Universe being there to provide support–especially when there are choices other people make that adversely affect us.

But I had to say the impolite thing, that the Universe needed to apologize for this mess (and she did, even though this is probably not her fault). I needed to lose my fucking cool about the way my life was going. I felt like I didn’t look like I was giving a shit about how disappointing things had been, especially this summer.

Even though I’ve been exhausted emotionally, I certainly do give a shit. And I know the Universe knows–but it was important to say what I really felt, not giving the spiritual pat answers about why bad things happen to good people.

And I know those are my evangelical roots showing–God as a psychotic, untrustworthy, capricious deity.

Why would the Universe allow me to meet this person and then go through all this heartache? Is this for some greater purpose, for my spiritual growth?

Life is probably a lot more neutral than that, though.

But what if I’m more of the lead author of my story, even with all these uncontrollable consequences and circumstances?

What if this is really about just doing the best you can and infusing meaning when you can, however you can?

Life may not be that deep.

There can be signs and synchronicities (and we’ve had a plethora of them), but we still have to acknowledge and incorporate them. We still have to say yes. And yet, we can still choose to say no. And sometimes, we’ll disagree about these choices, and then we’ll part ways.

But then there’s also fate. How much do we have control over that? It’s hard to say from here except to say life is a lot like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. You are presented with choices, and those choices have set consequences.

And maybe, this is where spirituality comes in. We can give and receive guidance to make better choices, and thus, create better outcomes…

—

So now, I have a choice that I need to make. What narrative am I ascribing to the last month? That the Universe is a sadist? That I’m a masochist? That this person/relationship was some test or lesson?

What’s harder to accept, but what is more likely to be true is that the Universe gave us a nudge to come together, but it was up to us to determine what would happen.

And what happened, after that divine nudge, was a rollercoaster ride of emotions which is now over. And I have no regrets about it. It definitely inspired me to look at my life with more purpose and scrutiny–because someone was possibly going to be a part of it for a while. And that’s important.

And of course, in all kinds of relationships, we learn about ourselves the most. I learned that I was tougher and yet kinder than I thought. I learned that I wasn’t identified to the struggles that I’m still entangled in.

And that means I’m not as doomed as I thought.

But even still, sometimes we can get adrift in the questions about meaning when there should be more questions and statements about acceptance.

What’s in front of you right now and what are you doing with it?

One thing I know and about the state of my heart: so many people have left this year, people I wouldn’t ever think would leave; but my heart is resilient, strong, and open. And I refuse to keep my heart shut just because there have been issues with alignment and timing.

Eventually, those puzzle pieces will fit with ease. The timing will be perfect. And there won’t be anything, or anyone, in the way.

—

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the weight of being too flexible

I’m trying to play catch-up here, from the three posts I didn’t write from July 22nd to August 5th.

This is post #3.

It has been a time.

Like I said in a recent post, a lot of it was working. And I wrote about one particular thing that’s still unfolding in my life for my $10+/month patrons on Patreon. Almost 5000 words of personal examination which may be mixed with copious amounts of sunny-day optimism.

Besides learning that I am really a human after all, I’ve been learning even more (always more) about healthy boundaries and what I tolerate from others.

And the two are related.

I was talking to a friend today about how having gone through a lot, my limits of compassion are wide–but maybe a little too wide. And that can cause me to overextend myself, to start taking responsibility for things that aren’t mine (to take care of).

This is definitely #CapricornProblems and this tweet from astrologer Annabel Gat sums up the dynamic I have within myself.

a capricorn will encourage boundaries or steamroll over them

— Annabel Gat (@annabelgat_) August 9, 2018

Sometimes, I’m steamrolling over my own boundaries.

One thing I’m learning is that although I can see through most bullshit, it’s necessarily my job to clean it up. At best, I should point it out. But that’s it.

There’s a bit of a fear as I start to really keep these boundaries and shed this extra weight of other people’s problems and issues that rejection will happen.

It’s certain to happen. It’s happened before.

There’s a certain situation that I’m going to probably get some major clarity on by the end of the weekend that’s in this realm of dividing my stuff and theirs. And what pains me is that it’s the repetition of a particularly painful pattern with people that I have to stop–where I keep taking more of my fair share of responsibility to make a relationship work or happen at all.

And people keep letting me take their fair share. But I am tired.

What’s been hiding out and fueling this pattern is a fear of being alone…but also a fear of being really seen–and then, rejected.

Sometimes, I feel like my perceptive gifts end up backfiring on me.

Seeing through to who someone is so easily doesn’t mean they can see themselves in that same way. Seeing through situations and being able to solve them doesn’t mean it’s my job to solve them.

And one way I have to keep learning these is in relationships, of all sorts. In all my 40+ years, I’m surprised at how much more I have to learn.

How do I deal with this tension of perceiving, my willingness, and my caring?

You’d think after living with this guy and giving him one too many chances, I would have learned.

But I love people. And I love the human potential. I love when lives are transformed and when I’ve been the catalyst of those changes. And I love when people have sparked positive change in my life–well, most of the time.

If I really love people, though…then I have to also love those immaterial barriers that keep us separate–our free wills, specifically.

Lately, I’ve been learning how pedantic and know-it-all I come across sometimes. Meanwhile, I see myself just sharing some information.

🤦🏾‍♀️

What’s cool though is that all the grace and compassion I give to others freely, I can give to myself. I’m starting to accepting things like that I talk too long to people I care about. I told my friend today that I gorge on people like I’m some emotional zombie. 🧟‍♀️

But there’s still that fear…and it’s a common one. I’m “not enough” or I’m “too much” for people. So then I will mitigate risks. I’ll meet people more than halfway.

It’s like how I have hypermobile joints, which used to make me look like a circus freak because I used to be able to take my arms and pull them all the away around my back.

But hypermobile joints makes one more susceptible to strains and sprains. And I’ve been in physical therapy way too many times for my shoulder, knee, and ankle.

So sometimes, you can be too flexible.

I was just making a joke on Twitter about how fixed zodiac signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius) are hard to convince and are hard-headed in general. And I don’t really have much of that energy in my own natal chart.

Maybe there’s something I can learn from that naturally inflexible?

Even me writing about this semi-publicly is strange, about the secret people pleaser who adores humanity. I naturally have an all-business, misanthropic exterior, so to let my mushy homebody personality out is bewildering.

But here she is, like some lost, lovesick puppy! 🐶

I’m too old for this shit, for hiding parts of myself…

They say as you age that you start to care less about what people think. Here’s something that Death Cab for Cutie’s frontman, Ben Gibbard, who is about to turn 42 on Saturday, said about aging in this Noisey interview:

At that point in my life I was probably focusing more on the people who didn’t like me than the people who did like me, which is all part of being in your 20s, right? There’s that saying: You spend your 20s thinking everybody’s talking about you, you spend your 30s wondering why nobody’s talking about you, and you realize in your 40s that no one was ever talking about you. So for me now, I realize how super-sensitive I was that people didn’t like me. Like, “Oh, Pitchfork doesn’t like me, a weekly said something mean about me.” Looking back on it now, who fucking cares?

So, what if I started to consciously care less about rejection? It’s hard because self-acceptance does not occur in a vacuum. Gibbard went on to say that he focuses on those who bring positivity in his life, and I’ve been leaning towards that golden path lately–sheerly and merely out of necessity.

Part of the process of finding who is on your team is finding who is not on your team. To fully accept that no matter how I contort myself, I cannot please everyone.

Everyone can’t be on my team.

And this is all conventional wisdom, but when it starts to crop up in your everyday life, it starts to look like it’s not all that obvious–it’s not common sense.

It could be the Capricorn nature of conquering everything. But people aren’t meant to be conquered. D’oh!

So out of weariness, I am just trying to find out who is on my team.

So maybe, during Leo season,  I can let the same sunshine that falls on other people fall on me. Maybe I don’t have to cower in the darkness of my fallibility. Maybe I can be bolder and stand up for what I really believe in–maybe with fear, but with bravery and courage.

It’s really the only way to find who is truly for me.

P.S. A great parting thought about letting people do their own healing work from the IG account @mindfulmft: https://www.instagram.com/p/BmR74JqAe6S/?taken-by=mindfulmft

—

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Thanks for your support!  💘

what we’ve got here is failure to communicate

This week, I wanted to share a deep, personal lesson that I’m in the middle of learning. It may be an obvious one to you. It’s even obvious to me, but I’m seeing it from a different angle.

Sometimes people just want to talk and to be heard.

I’m used to understanding this as the person who just wants to be heard, not fixed. Now I’m looking at it as the fixer.

Lately, I’ve had some ongoing instances where my communication style–of being curious, engaging, and seeking the truth–doesn’t really mesh well with others who take it as questioning their authority.

(I believe I’ve spoken about this before, or I may have written about this in a blog post I decided to jettison because it felt too close to home.)

I haven’t gone through this communication jam before in a long time. But at this point, I’ve come to loggerheads with at least a couple of people. And, at the time of this writing, silence seems to be the only way out. I’m not sure what the outcome will be, but the immediate outcome seems to be peace.

The typical conversation where this communication logjam occurs goes something like this:

1. Someone says something pretty definitive and absolute for them, but I find factually wrong.
2. I, not really believing in absolutes anymore, counters with some questions or with a statement that actually summarizes what they’re saying, but may have skipped a step or two.
3. Defensiveness rises on their side, with a reassertion of facts, and I think I’m trying to get to a place of clarity or greater understanding.
4. A polite, but not very useful, argument ensues. We’re talking past each other and not to each other. Condescension rears its ugly head because now, it’s about defending a position, or trying make a point, or trying to win.
5. And because I hate arguing when there’s no purpose, I usually call it quits.
6. Repeat steps 1-5 if you’re a masochist.

Many times, my intention is to get people to clarify what they’re saying, to be even more true. It may be an editor’s default position, or just a well-worn character trait.

And I know it’s not easy to have someone challenge parts of who you are, especially as they are forming. It can be kind of obnoxious, I get it. It’s not fun to be interrogated, to be in my hot seat.

Where I End and You Begin

Here’s the real kicker: in my older age, I’m realizing how overly emotionally involved I am in so many things that really shouldn’t personally matter to me. It’s a little alarming as I start retracting and retreating from people’s lives and agendas.

So maybe I should give less of a fuck about what others believe, especially if it’s not harming me. And this has been part of a lifelong lesson for me–maintaining healthy boundaries.

And this lesson definitely gets back to my #CapricornProblems🐐 post. I may be completely right in how I see a certain situation or life event, but we’re all on our own journeys, learning things at our own speeds.

It is not my job to illuminate that path for everyone. And to even think that is beyond arrogant. I could stand to be a little more humble and focus that energy on helping myself!

And this is where my own Capricorn stubbornness can get in the way. It can be a little (OK, VERY) paternalistic. I want this person to see things the right way so that their lives can be better! But then they just sound wrong all the the time! 

It can honestly be deeply infuriating.

Also, it can be quite hurtful, especially if you get in a merry-go-round of arguments, and you never seem to get through to each other.

Maybe sometimes, it’s just best to not only end the argument, but end the relationship–or at least take a long pause.

It could be that this unique interpersonal dynamic has turned terminally toxic.

One reason could be is maybe the other person just doesn’t want to hear from you, and all you’ve done is try to hammer home your points to an uninterested party.

And that’s their choice, one I can honor and respect.

I may have control issues as a Capricorn, but the flipside is that I can’t be utterly detached from people either.

We do speak into each other’s lives. We need to.

There just needs to be some balance about my level of involvement.

Straining to Hear

Even without my being a perpetually strident know-it-all: if someone doesn’t want to hear what I have to say, then I can stop speaking.

I can listen more and get curious in other ways.

What is this person really trying to say? Maybe the execution wasn’t to my liking, but what’s the bottom line here for them? And even if they’re wrong, do I need to correct them?

As I learn and continue to extract myself from being overly concerned about other people’s lives, I know I can still be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger.

I can give more latitude and breathing room for people to just be–to be “wrong,” to be “right,” to be misguided, to be on the right track.

Bearing witness can be so much more powerful than giving (unsolicited) advice or input.

This lesson has been really acute on social media. I feel like a kid with what I’m about to say, because it seems really obvious, but I am clearly getting a late lesson.

A lot of people don’t actually want to engage. They may not even want to be heard. They just want to speak.

And this is where I’ve started to really disentangle myself. It seems rude, to ignore someone who is talking. But people do this to me all the time–I’m sure on social media and I’m definitely sure offline as well.

And, well–I could just be not someone’s audience, even if I’m viewing or hearing their words, even if we’re friends.

Even more–they may want the audience and advice of someone else. And that’s definitely not worth fighting over.

This has been a really strange and rough journey, to choose different ways to express myself and to show my care for others. And I don’t have this issue with everyone–actually, I have it with very few people.

But again, the lesson is that sometimes, before I get caught up in some neverending conflict, I have to remember that don’t have to give my two cents on everything.

Sometimes, people need to vent. They need to express themselves, to declare things about themselves.

Every word spoken or written doesn’t need my engagement.

Sometimes, people just want to talk and to be heard. 

—

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