Ball and Chain

There are a few friends in life who let you get away with nothing. Sometimes you hate them and never want to see them again, regretting having let them in so far in your life. But just the fact that they have stuck around despite the many flaws they have clearly pointed out makes them the best people to keep in your life. That they keep you on your toes, pushing you to those higher plateaus only they know you can achieve makes them angels in your life.

Every day since writing my long rant on excuses last week, I’ve thought about how harsh my feelings are on this. It’s not really surprising though because at one point, I struggled with the very same issues myself – and so I feel like the knife cuts very close indeed.

Why is it that we judge harder when it’s something we have direct and personal experience with?

At the end of the day, what isn't as imporatnt as how.

I can live through anything as long as it makes me feel alive.

'Indecision may or may not be my problem' - Jimmy Buffett

It's never been mine. For better or for worse I've always known what I wanted and done everything in my power to achieve it. I'm impulsive and passionate about the choices I make, and put 100% of my soul behind them.

I will survive

Today I came across an article entitled, "How to survive today if you're single". I love Valentine's day as much as the next gal when I'm coupled up, but I can survive just fine on this day if I'm single too.

In fact, had I not come across this caption, I wouldn't have even realized there was a reason I needed a staying-alive guide. What with all the ice and snow, I've had more important things on my mind.

So, in an angry huff I clicked on the article to discover that in order to wake up unharmed tomorrow morning I need to listen to some Nine Inch Nails (eh?), avoid trawling the streets for a last minute date (good thing I'm not in that kind of business, seeing as how cold it is), and send a card to my mom. The last point I can agree with, although I fail to see how it's going to keep my pulse going.

I haven't been single on V-day for a long time, but even so I have no overwhelming urges to throw myself off the Key Bridge. To be honest I've had one or two pangs of longing for a special person to share this day with - but nothing more affecting than what I feel on other special occasions. I just wish I didn't see signs everywhere urging me to lament my singleness.

So, though I won't be listening to unnecessarily loud music or begging strangers to take me out, I'll be doing the things that keep me alive everyday: reading, taking a long hot bath, maybe catching a movie, definately catching up with my loved ones.

Something I wrote three months ago:

I've been reading some of my older journals – the ones I've always started and never finished. It seems that all my life I've spent my time hoping I could be better, waiting for my dreams to come true, for my life to start. And here I am today for the first time confident that everything is going to be all right.

Everyday is not perfect, but that's ok. I have ups and downs, lapses in judgment, I make mistakes and take wrong turns. Sometimes I cringe at my decisions. In the end, though, I am happy to be me in my life.

After many years, I feel God again. I believe love will come to me. I have faith in myself and whatever I will become, whatever I am.

I have learnt that the answers always come and that everything makes sense in the end. The important thing is making the moment magical. I know that is the most difficult.

The seven deadly sins: Pride

According to the Catholic Church: Self-esteem that goes beyond limits and places itself above love for God.

- From Warrior of the Light by Paolo Coelho

At first I thought this was excessively harsh. After all, I grew up learning it was important to be proud of myself and to do things that would make others proud of me. Surely, pride couldn't be so bad.

But once I started thinking about times in my life I have been excessively proud, and I was honest about my feelings, I realized that pride is dangerous. It almost always triggers a sense of invincibility and superiority which cause me to close my eyes and ears to advice and warnings. Every time I've reached a level where I was proud of myself, I also found myself at a stand still - a place where I stopped growing because pride created a false ceiling where I felt I had reached a peak and could rest.

There has to be a middle ground between feeling excessive pride and believing you're a failure. But I suppose it's a balance you constantly have to monitor and adjust.

A few weeks ago I started writing down my thoughts every night. At first it was a little bit of a chore, but now I almost can't wait and I find myself thinking about the things that are bothering me a little more completely - so that I have something to write down. It's done me a world of good in terms of clearing out my head and giving me focus.

I’m on a dating hiatus, but I’ve always been a hopeless romantic and a big believer in love. My downfall, if it should be called that, is that I have always struggled with differentiating between a nice person, and the right person. Generally, when I meet someone I like, I start dating them immediately – only to realize later that while I love them as friends, we aren’t a perfect match. The down fall is that instead of getting “better at dating”, I only get more disillusioned, and with each failed attempt the absence of True Love is felt all the more strongly.

The reason I am pulling back from the dating world is because I need to figure out what the difference between "nice" and “right” is, and where I should draw the line. Ironically, I expect I will be more focused on love now that I am stepping away from it. I hope the outcome of this experiment will be a wiser, stronger me with the faith and patience to wait for Mr. Right.

I love my coffee. Without it I can barely function or make it through the day. But it's precisely that fog that induces my most profound daydreams and thoughts - and I kind of like that. It makes me far more creative and introspective, and even if I seem like a half-wit to the rest of the world, inwardly I think I'm brilliant.

Of course there is a catch - no matter how great my thoughts are, I don't have the energy to write them down, and invariably, I forget them. It kind of begs the question, "To java, or not to java?"

*Be clear about what you're seeking

*Be methodical and intelligent about your practice

*Be creative

*Listen to the experts

*Eliminate what's not working

*Practice patience

*Seek stillness

*Set aside twice as much time and money as you think you'll need

Swinging

I had my first swing dance "lesson" the other night - and I loved it. It's such a carefree, fun style of dancing. The music makes you really want to get up and shake it, and as far as I'm concerned anything you can dance to with a partner is a bonus.

On a semi-similar note, dancing is such a big part of my life that I've often wondered if I could date someone who didn't like to dance. And dancing with other people is so not an option because 95% of the fun of dancing is the seduction... which, obviously, shouldn't be there if your dancing with someone other than your SO.

As a remedy to my frustration, I've taken up solo dance classes like flamenco and belly dancing... But I don't know if I could keep that as a long term substitution. There is something so wonderful in being in sync with your partner both on and off the dance floor that I love.

I am a very different person from who I was last year. While I still believe in love, I advance with a new sense of caution. There was a time in my life when my need to believe in it precipitated feelings for people too quickly, and mostly in a very "smoke and mirrors" way. I created my own version of relationships which had little to do with reality but was thick with the magic of romance. Looking back I realize that not only did I cheat myself out of true emotions, but that in the process I hurt many of those I cared the most about by beckoning them into my dream of love.

I can't take those actions back, but I can say that I have changed. It's almost as if my eyes have opened and I feel capable of waiting for what I've pretended at for so long.

Everything I reach out for becomes within grasping range

Carmen

This weekend I went to the Opera to see Bizet's Carmen. Although this was far from being a great performance, I came away admiring Carmen's character. Known for being a beauty, Carmen arouses men's interests by her playful disenchantment. She is fiercely proud, but passionate to the point of danger. Her heart opens widely to each of her lovers and she is above the scruples of society, moving on once the magic is over. Far from being a loose woman, Carmen is honest enough to recognize the limits of a human heart and refuses to live a lie in any man's arms. She prefers to stay free even if it means pain, disreputation, and even, ultimately death.

I have not made up my own mind on these matters. There are days when I wish to be as free as Carmen: abandoning myself for each love then moving on once the last ember of passion has blown out. And then, quite as fiercely, I crave a stabler romance that can withstand the storms of the heart and conquer time with it's steadfastness.

I suppose that in order to make up my mind about this, I have to define love for myself. Does love, like Shakespeare wrote, look "upon tempests and is never shaken?" Or is it the very thing that creates storms washing away the cares of the world in a violent night of winds and rains before abating at dawn?

Tradition dictates the former. We are bred to aspire to marriage and a partnership with one person. The image of marital bliss is enriched with shared triumphs and surmounted trials. We are taught to see merit in endurance. Those who sing the praises of monogamy speak of family and also of the time freed to seek out wisdom from other sources, to devote the energy we would have spent on amorous pursuit on loftier ideals. I suppose I have to agree with this, seduction is very taxing business and leaves very little time to anything else. Our minds, hearts and bodies, once removed from the game of love, have a chance to grow outside of our relationship. But is this not the very thing that should make lifelong partnership all the harder? Do we not, once we grow, grow apart? It seems to me that the second option of freed passion makes natural sense: for once the love we shared with another has run out, it should push us on to someone more suited to our new evolved personas.

Of course the life of freed passion has it's perils too: it is pock marked with heartbreak and the end could very well spell years of loneliness. But along the way the ups and downs of romantic entaglements color our lives and allow us the freedom to pursue not only our hearts' desires but also the cravings of our minds, souls and bodies. For, which each new love, we are introduced to an entirely new world filled with another's experience and richness.

There is a point in Carmen where she faces this very choice. Don Jose re-appears in her life and begs her to return to him and the life they had together. To her the choice is clear: no matter how uncertain her future with Escamillo, her new lover, is, she prefers it to the predictability of live with Don Jose. So much, that she is willing to die for it.

This is all for the sake of arguement since, I do believe in everlasting, enduring love. I have not found it yet, which perhaps makes me wonder about the merits of passing fancies...

Face au monde; seule.

Je poses la question: “Est-il la, est-il pres, mon prince charmant?”
Et l’Univers me reponds: “Non, maintenant tu dois passer l’epreuve de la solitude.”

Someone told me I was genuine yesterday. Until he explained it, I thought it was just one of those words people use without any real meaning attached to it, sort of how “authentic” is bandied around. I think I agree, now.

If it means that I live my life according to my own rules, that I follow what I love and do only what is real and important to me, then I am genuine. If it means that I can not be a hypocrite and pretend to be someone I am not, then I am genuine. If it means that what I say, I truly mean, then I am genuine. And if it means that my state changes from moment to moment and that I stay true to it, then I am genuinely genuine.

So I love only until it has run out. I study only until I no longer want to learn. I play, I work, I live, only as long as it has a place in my present.

The path is not always clear, but as long as you head towards the light you are always heading in the right direction.

“Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won't suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when the person looks back-she will hear her heart”

“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” ~ Paolo Coelho

PC is the champion inspirer for this point in my life. I am going to stay here, because moving to the West is the easiest thing to do but my heart is not in it. I am going to stay here because this way every decision I make will be my own. Because it scares me - because it makes my heart leap out of it's place. Because it is the only way I can start walking alone, head high, strong.