Random Thoughts at 3am

I had to make that meme above.  I suppose it's just that one goofy part of me (sense of humor) that refuses to buckle under the health issues.  Yeah, I'm just ninja like that.

ANYHOO....Insomnia is a fickle bedfellow these days.  Incredibly unpredictable, I never quite know what it is I'm facing when I get into bed each night.  There's something triggering me to wake up when I go to bed, but I've yet to pinpoint exactly what that is.  Even nodding off on the sofa prior to going to bed doesn't guarantee I'll sleep once I get there, and in fact... it's almost a given now that I'm going to be waiting up, tossing and turning, until the wee hours of the night.  And what does this do besides keep me tired and exhausted?  For one, I get strange dreams, ones I really could've done without.  No, not nightmares... just dreams.  But still...

So it's 2am, 3am.. and stupid, random thoughts pop into my brain, which triggers more thinking, thinking, thinking... blah blah blah.  Damn.  Seriously.  WTH?  Most of it isn't even worth thinking about, I promise.

Okay, so falling back asleep this morning in hopes of getting about 5 hours I had a dream, and one that puzzles the crap out of me.  Well, I suppose most dreams don't make sense, right?  They're usually random babbling and broken intel of things we are either not dealing with, dealing with poorly, or unaware that we need to deal, you know, with those things.  But what about those dreams that aren't as chaotic and confusing?  What about the dreams that leave us thinking.. "Wow. That was so REAL!"  What about THOSE dreams?  You know the kind I'm talking about.

If your dream makes sense, what's the message?  That's the big question, isn't it?

I'm not sure what to make of my dream.  The content, which I'm not wanting to talk about, I think I understand, but my REACTION to it is yet another thing entirely.  It made me sad, seeing what I saw in the dream, though the actual thing happening wasn't a sad thing at all.  So.. wth gives?

Sorry to be vague about the dream itself, but some things are just TOO revealing of my own thoughts and feelings, feelings I'd rather keep to myself.  I'm trusting my instincts on this.  I may actually talk about this stuff in detail at some point, but I prefer to wait until I'm ready.  Hope you guys understand.

The other crazy thing that's happened today, post-dream, is that I feel a little anxious about my future.  It's like I'm being forced to assess what I want and how I plan to go about getting what I want, in terms of my future, happiness, health, and so on.  I don't have the luxury of being on auto-pilot, so introspection and continually assessing where I am and where I'm heading is really important.  T is more of an auto-pilot type, and it's not always easy for someone like me who's trying to take the wheel of my own life to be around someone who's just, well, letting life happen to him.  Not to say that his life is bad, because he's really chill and content most of the time.  I like to see where I'm heading, though, so laying back and riding the current isn't going to work for me right now.  Not sure it will ever work, to tell you the truth.

I wish I knew what my subconscious was trying to tell me.  I have a guess, but I don't LIKE that guess so am keeping an open mind and hoping I'm full of it. ;p

That's a lot of writing for someone who's as tired as I am.  Sheesh....

Getting My Attention

So, first of all, my blogs are about my life, my seeking to understand where I am and who I am in the midst of a few unpleasant truths.  Be it a past filled with abusive relationships, abuse of other kinds, living with and around controlling people, my health.. it's just me here trying to work things out in my mind, spirit, body, and my life as a whole.  Every now and then I'll indulge myself in other topics, but my goals are to REALLY work though some things that are, frankly, long overdue when it comes to 'dealing' and 'preparing' the broken, jagged pieces of who I am.

There will be times when I speak of things completely outside of myself, and when my focus is on me.. it's not because I WANT to be in that inward place so much.  Actually, where I want to be is healed enough on the inside, both physically and emotionally, that I can turn my attention further outward and away from that inner ground zero.  I'm not comfortable in this place and want a way out. THAT is why I talk about what I do and from a place that is centralized and within.  This is how I'm dealing.

And I make no apologies for how I choose to work through the matters that demand my attention.

Peace.  Joy.  Happiness.  Comfort from within.  Hope.  Freedom.  To have wings again... to live, to breathe freely, to seek more time in that outside world... I don't think my dreams or goals or wishes are that much different from others.  Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think most of us would like those things I listed to be the foundation for everything else.

The more I find my health failing, the more I reach for what was, could be, and has been.  Why not return and see a better past and hope it can be again?  Why not remember when life was, while not easy, at least more like LIVING?  It only makes sense to me to make that a focus.

I've turned away from my own needs for so long that I was lost to everything completely outside of me.  I disconnected from my own personal truth, my dreams, even my own body, and I paid a terrible price for that, a debt I'm still paying as of today.  And all because my core belief hinged around making sure others had everything they needed first, that they were happy, and by God if I had to change who I was completely to make a loved-one happy, then by God I will do it!  What the hell was I thinking?  No!  That's NOT the way it's supposed to be, and yet I wasn't ever taught to take care of me.  Life was always centered around pleasing someone else.. all of the time... beginning with my mom.  This is repeated in nearly every relationship I've had.

I was told in a past relationship that I was self-centered.  Words like that hit me pretty hard and a reaction is always immediate.  Self-doubt steps in and takes over, pushing reason and logic aside to wither.  Having spent the better part of my life as a chronic people-pleaser, because God forbid I risk anyone's ire by disappointing them, I've attempted to 'reinvent' myself to a point where I've come dangerously close to losing who I am.  I know it's the inner machine working and grinding to reconcile this new and "selfish" idea that I should, you know, maybe start taking care of myself with being that person who was always, always putting everyone and everything else first.  And yet each and every time I try to do something for myself out of self-respect, logic and reason, I get a hard flash of guilt that makes me question why I would bother [doing anything for me].

Why I listened to anyone who didn't have my best interests in mind (to say the very least) is beyond me still.  If I ever finished the therapy I began at the end of the last relationship I probably wouldn't be wrestling with this right now.  I will say I learned much in the few short months I did see a therapist, one I was seeing because I DID recognize the damage that was done to me in the last relationship.  Beverly taught me a lot, and not just about myself but about the other person involved.  And I cried the day she told me, point blank, that I'd spent far too much time in my life focusing on the happiness and needs of others, and that it was time to accept that I needed TLC as well, especially from myself.  I had this sense of surrealism, and it was very strange to hear someone say those words to me in the way she did.

And yet I thought.... 'What's the catch'?

That's the real issue.  I don't trust easily now.  And I used to be a subscriber to complete and total blind trust.

No more.  I can have a healthy amount of trust without all the blindness, but it will take time.

And the guilt, the constant guilt whenever I speak about my problems here, whenever I do something positive or uplifting to my spirit, my soul, whenever I open up and speak from the heart about what's going on with me, my life.. that guilt cripples me, and the ugly voice of the past speaks up and tells me I'm selfish for doing anything at all to make my own life better.

...... more later.....

Crave

I do, but I don't know what.

Dammit.

Never mind.

A Beautiful Mess

I often think; here is this unrecognizable person in a completely unrecognizable life.  What do I do about finding my place.  Dear God, but this is a common topic, isn't it?  There's a reason for that, and that reason is quite simple; I've yet to know the answer.

Monday-Friday are the easiest days of the week, the best days really.  I'm alone, but that gives me a moment to take a deep breath and try to navigate on this crumpled map whose lines and defining points have faded or become too abused to be read anymore.  If I'm to find my way it will require intuiting and an enormous amount of courage.  Without a sense of direction there's no telling where I'll end up when I reach the unknowable destination.  I guess I'm okay with that, though.

One thing I can say is that I can clearly see my destination.  Well, okay.. most of it.  But I see enough to know where I should be.  And isn't that really what we need to know?  Isn't that the most important information of all?  I certainly think so.

So many plans; so many thoughts and dreams colliding all at once.  It's a beautiful mess.

The Spaces Between the Seconds

Seems a common theme, doesn't it?  That most of my entries are about being lost, confused, and simply just not knowing where the hell I am or even WHO I am sometimes.  I've been here before, having lost myself completely in another situation.  And there is really nothing at all good about being in this place at all.  No.  Not at all.  But it's a lot like being in quicksand--knowing if you move at all in any direction you're going to sink even faster.  Crap.  Crap.  Crap.

I don't mind being lost as long as it's beautiful where I am.

For a moment, if I could just lose myself to something bigger, magnificent, taken to a place that feeds my soul.  Life is just too short to settle for mediocrity, and yet that's exactly what I've done.  And I really don't think at all that it has anything to do with being led, blindly, into the abyss, but rather than I've forged ahead on my own while my eyes were closed, shut tight against what might be.

The mundane features of every day life are what we exist in, right?  I mean, we can't avoid it for the most part...unless we're filthy rich.  We do our own laundry, wash our own dishes, clean the house, the dog, and so forth...

But it's what happens between the seconds that count the most.

That's where I lose myself, in those places between the seconds.  It's not easy finding my way in there right now.  I truly believe, though, that the happiest people are the ones who live in those tiny moments, because it what connects everything else.  Every.  Thing.  Else.

So what do those seconds mean to me?  What are they?  They're different for everyone, but for me personally they're little sparks of time that shine brighter and warmer than the sun, yet are as calming as they are invigorating when you submerge yourself in them....

Since moving here a year and a half ago I've lost every one of those seconds.  Prior to that...I was fairly good at finding the little sparks and allowing them to ignite what flows through me---my wants, dreams, wishes, illuminating all that inspires awe.  Those were what fed the creative side.

Now, when I reach for life in those potent places I'm yanked back into the more stagnant parts of life. I don't thrive there.  I don't think anyone does.  But when you're with someone who ONLY lives in that inert place... it can drag you down like an anchor.  And no, I'm not speaking of being anchored as in grounded.  I'm talking purely of something that takes you under the water and drowns every vibrant part of your being.

That's where I am when I'm lost.

Like now.

Drowning.

What comes naturally to me is to exist in beauty, surrounding myself and shaping my environment so that it resonates with what's inside of me.  I think this is what everyone does, even if they're not aware of it.  But it's something I need to do to be healthy!  No amount of explaining to T has made him understand, nor has it inspired him to take the initiative to FIND understanding.  He doesn't understand me.  At all.  And, sadly, he's chosen to be an anchor in my life that's keeping me from seeing the sun... or breathing.

The only way I can survive is to pull away and do what I have to do, risking his disapproval, ire, or whatever.  But you know what?  I've done things his way for some time now, and it's killing me..slowly but surely.  Not just who and what I am inside, but they physical body as well.  The way I will choose to live my life from here forward is to save my life.  I have to.

My needs aren't being met on any level.  As a human being I feel shackled.  As a women I feel dissected.  What I need to do NOW is change my feelings and life.  Period.

I don't recognize my surroundings or myself.  My bad health is making things far worse, too, and.. well, I'm working on that.  Those chains are what they are, but they will be shed far faster than the ones inside my soul.

I can't breathe.

It's just time is all.  I will change my own environment because I have to.  My spirit longs deeply and wholly to explore beautiful places, to see what I've not seen, to submerge each and every sense I have into being alive!  I need travel.  I need to experience something else.

I need my life back.  Again.  So I'm taking it back and making my own experiences based on what I need.  The time has come to actually live my life and feel complete, whole, invigorated....

The Art of Self-Preservation, Control Freaks, Indifference, and Mastering Compassion

Been there, done that, and doing it again.  It's built-in now, I suppose, that automatic retreat/withdrawal to assume the emotional posturing of protectiveness.. of self.  I'm fairly sure that it's just one of those things that are an integral part of me now, a learned response that I've had a few years to become quite proficient at.  All said, I don't see it as a bad thing.

Weekends are hard now, difficult in many ways because I can't retreat so a safe [physical] place so I can catch my breath and find my bearings.  Maybe it's for the best, really, because that would give me far too much time to contemplate the questions I believe I really don't want the answer to.  Such as.. why do people do the things they do to someone they claim to love, and why remorse, apologies, and just simple human kindness is lost on people now... my better half included?  That's definitely a rhetorical question, because that question most likely doesn't have an answer.  Not a all-inclusive answer, anyway.  So be it.  Maybe it's just one of those unpleasant phenomenons that you just learn to cope with, or not, depending on who you are, your past history, etc.  Either way, I don't cope with this sort of thing well, and its effects on me.. suck in every way imaginable.

No one said life was going to be easy all of the time, and those of us with open minds and hearts know all too well how the hard parts serve to teach and strengthen us.  I'm no exception.  I know the value of lessons learned, very much, and they've changed me along the way in my life.  They had to.  Anyone who doesn't change in the process of growing is just spinning their wheels.  I mean, how do you expect to move forward and become the person you are meant to be if you're sitting stagnant in some kind of fairytale land of your own making?  And you guys know that place---we all do--- and it's often a place people retreat to rather than facing and dealing with a situation.  I've never lived in that fantasy world, and I never will.

But there are those who make it very difficult, the people or person in our lives that attempt to micromanage ever move we make, the way we think, and what we do.  Too often those people (or person) attempts to filter our lives through their own.  What I mean by this is... those people who filter who and what you are, your life choices, your wants, needs, passions, wishes, dreams, philosophies, even your decisions through themselves, thus trying to force you to be, think, act, and feel just like them.  If you allow someone to do this to you, I promise, you will lose yourself along the way.

As you lose control, and this can happen in a slow and insidious way, you will see the negative effects in your life, your person, you body, and even in your spirit.  It's a lot like being crushed from the inside-out.  It's damaging.  It's dangerous.  And it will wreck you in the end.

Who wants to be disassembled piece by piece?


On the flip side of these controlling people is the indifference.  It shows itself when you try to be who you are, live like you're in YOUR life and not anyone else's.  Their response can be anything from being flippant to utter indifference.  The latter is often the case, I've found.  I guess it's just easier for them because it requires very little effort.  But that indifference is felt in every core of your being when it happens, doesn't it?  I know a few of you guys have felt this.

Not to say that indifference doesn't happen in normal situations, because it absolutely does!  And even the controlling part.. it's there in all of us, but not to a harmful degree like in those who succumb to it on a regular basis.  But they're there, because we're human.

There's a reason they refer to this as "Cold indifference."  There's nothing warm or loving about it, so the phrase fits like it was tailor-made.

Sure, people can feel indifferent to things, places, actions, laws.... and the list goes on and on.  But that's not what I'm talking about here.  I'm talking about the indifference to a person, the dehumanizing, demoralizing, and hurtful manner in which one displays their lack of compassion.  It's not hard to understand, really.  I mean, if you've felt compassion for anyone or anything in your lifetime, you know what I mean by this.  And if you've never felt compassion.. then, well.. let's just say I'm not here to discuss sociopaths and leave it at that.

Compassion comes easily to some, and not so much in others.  Duh, right?  But I have to state this clearly because there are so many people out there who REALLY don't get it, that there are folks who have to struggle for compassion and don't understand that it is sometimes something you have to actively practice to master.

But we feel it when it's absent, don't we?  We know when someone lacks compassion, because it displays prominently in everything that person does and doesn't do.  And when we're met with it in a personal way...it hurts.

Whether it comes easily to you or not, always practice compassion.  Never ever allow yourself to sink into that cold place where compassion dies.  Feel.  Love.  And never allow yourself to sink into indifference.  Because indifference may or may not change that other person, but it will ALWAYS change YOU.  Fact.

I'm no expert.  I am flawed.  I am not better than anyone else.  Nor do I see myself as 'enlightened.'  I do, however, know that I leave my heart open and exposed to others... because you have to risk yourself a bit to feel compassion.  You guys know that.  It's risky.  Always risky.  But oh so worth the risk.  Because I believe with all of my heart that if you open yourself up..that love and energy flows both ways.  Yes, you risk being hurt, but you also risk being loved.

So, what exactly does this have to do with me?  And yes, I realize that I often choose to talk in generalities to tell you what's going on in my life.  I'm not fighting that approach to exposing my life online, because that's where I am right now.

Indifference.  Lack of compassion.  Losing myself and reaching in the dark to find 'me' again.  It's just where I am.  I make no apologies for this, and I won't ever.

Dealing with illness is hard.  Dealing with not having much control in your life is hard.  Dealing with the knowns and unknowns with health issues is hard.

I will keep on reaching in the dark as long as I have to.

No one said life was going to be easy all of the time.