Primary colors

There's a quasi-brilliant line under the emotions entry on wikipedia.org: "Similar to the way primary colors combine, primary emotions are believed to blend together to form the full spectrum of human emotional experience."

We can all attest to the blending of our emotions. I might just be a textbook study in this over the last couple of years. I can confidently say I’ve hit most of the negatively associated emotions – anger, disgust, frustration, hostility, regret, loneliness, rage, depression, jealousy, fear, remorse, contempt, sadness. Many of these emotions blended on a regular basis in the last days of my marriage. They tended to run my life. I wasn’t able to see beyond them. There were days that were so dark that I wasn’t confident I would see the next sunrise. I lost confidence in the ability for another person to love me completely and unconditionally. And I lost the confidence that I would be able to again love completely and unconditionally. Fortunately, in the end we were able to part as friends with acceptance and forgiveness.

Now that I’ve celebrated my one-year anniversary of being on my own again, I can only say that the days where I feel these negative emotions tend to be farher and fewer in between. When they do pop up, I try to keep them in check and within a manageable realm. My days are now more consumed with trying to find the treasure map that will help me figure out again who I am and what I want from the rest of my life. Seems I previously lost sight of me, lost the memories of the things that were most important to me.

My todays are sprinkled with moments of intense joy, thankfulness, hope, fun and even a little bit of love. I’m not saying every day is ideal, but more are closer now then they’ve been for longer than I can remember. Regardless of what my life ahead holds, what adventures I will face, I’m striving to never again lose sight of the possibility of joy. When I face challenges, I want to be able to confidently face them with a realistic perspective, without them consuming my life. When love comes my way, I want to be open to it, able to fall into it, but without losing sight of myself. I want to be able to continue to enjoy the primary colors, the blended colors and everything in between. A prayer to the heavens, fingers crossed.

Separation of church and state

Besides the division in goverment branches, there are few demarcations in our democracy more clear than the separation of church and state - though as a nod to my democratic-party tendancies, the lines have been blurred just a bit (can you hear the sarcasm) with our current presidential administration. So maybe I should clarify, there are few supposed divisions in our democracy more clear than the separation of church and state.

So in my life, the separation of church and state should be the division between my emotions and my ability to logically reason. Sterotypically, it is the female gender that tends to blend emotion and logic, rationalizing that one directly affects the other. And while I purport to try and behave anti-sterotypically, this might be one cliche I've fallen right into.

Likely my biggest issue is that I typicaly don't do anything halfway. It's either all or nothing. Why do it halfway when you can go completely over the top, right?!?! When I've made a decision, I want the resulting action to happen immediately. When I feel a certain way, the affected person has to know right now. When I change my mind, I want any resulting action to happen at the snap of my finger. This default in my personality may also be the reason I often have very little patience. It's also why I seem to have little ability to separate my emotions from reason. Why one bleeds over into every aspect of my life.

I like to think that I'm in control, so this loss of control or inability to make this clear separation frustrates the hell out of me. So anger, passion, indifference, worry, empathy, frustration, love, distress, fear, delight, calm, guilt, elation...I'm in the zone in 2.5 seconds. And since I tend to lead with my emotions rather than reason, the best is when it's a lovely combination of divisive emotions - passion and frustration, or elation and distress. They sure pack a one-two punch. Add in my tendancy to overthink everything, and blessings to the lucky person on the receiving end.

At the same time, my all-or-nothing, passionate approach can't be all bad. It's what makes me fight for what I want. It's what makes me a loyal and dedicated friend. So I guess I'll just keep wrestling with my multiple personalities, since it seems to be a daily struggle - one that I don't particularly feel like I'm winning on this random Monday. Every now and then, I would love to model some of my guys friends who seem to easily be able to separate the emotion and the reason, keep apart the personal and the professional.

Ahh, I'm just an ongoing, never ending work in progress, irresistible to the masses. I'll never attain perfect separation of church and state. Maybe making the separation would make me less of who I am. And hey, who would want that?!?!

So now that I've wasted 20 minutes of my life composing this ridiculous post...and taken up vital space out in the netherworld...I just made a spontaneous decision to go buy a new carpet for my dining room.

This moment

A constant journey
Pilgrimage, quest for the
Perfect moment, partner
The perfect life, future

Always looking to tomorrow
Next week, next year
Unable to see the moment
Immediately in front

Desire to appreciate
Fully take pleasure in the
Perfection of this minute
This moment, this embrace

Intangible faith

If you were to ask me, I would tell you that I tend not to deal well with things that are intangible. I want to see it in front of me, be able to touch it, to physically feel it under my fingertips.

But if you really think about it, the most important things in our lives are comprised of the intangible. Belief in God, friendship, love – all of these are intangible, you can’t hold them in your hand. They are possible because we take a leap, a leap of faith.

They all ask for a belief in a greater power, confidence in another. While I like to classify myself as fearless, I can't always be. Sometimes it's fear - or at a minimum, doubt - that keeps me from making that leap of faith, jumping into unknown waters. I don’t want to pose a question if I’m unsure of the answer.

I’m a work in progress, trying to live aware of the past and hopeful for the future, but with a tighter focus on the moment standing immediately in front of me. I can’t change the past. The future will unfold as it will. So this moment now is all that I can affect. I have to be ok with the intangible and not having everything always figured out. Besides, if I did…what fun is there in that?

This time is the next time

While most times I like to think of myself as a put-together kind of girl, there are those moments that make me question my own sanity. And I'm sure they're moments that make others do the same.

So when my friend Kat answers the phone and I'm an emotional wreck on the other end, she doesn't question my sanity, not even for a second. This is one of the reasons why I love her. But she's known me practically my whole life, so that has to be taken into consideration. She's seen me at my best, and at much, much worse than today was. In her brilliance, she instinctively knows that my present moment will pass and that my furious anger at myself will dissipate.

Here's the problem, I can be emotional and difficult. I can be impatient and unreasonable. I don't do anything half way. With me, it seems to be all or nothing - friends, love, family, work. I am also fiercely passionate about the people I love and care about. But as someone smarter than I at this exact moment points out, these things are also what make me a strong and loyal friend, partner, sister, daughter.

Though at this exact moment, I feel like my own worst enemy, and my inability to react with a clear head may just have cost me someone I really care about. I’d like to say that I’ve learned my lesson, but I’m pretty positive that I told myself that last time. It just feels like I'm sabotaging myself right now. So today, I feel no moments of brilliace, no peace with my ability to just be. But as with these moments, it will pass. And in a couple of days, my head will be screwed on straighter. It's just too bad that I can't hit rewind and start this day over...and do it differently.

Relinquished

A forever, promised love forfeited
Relinquished from what was
Assumed to be constant

Coexistent one day, absent the next
Two moving past one another
Inattentive of promises made

Affirmations forgotten, occupied
Daily distractions, details missed
Victim of neglect, unrecoverable

Falling into

Is it possible to fall into another
In steps, in phases
Rather than all at once
Like the fairytales espouse

With consistency of passion,
Possible for love to be fluid
Moving in and out of
Tender, stolen moments

Possible for the heart
Hesitant, cautious
Standing on the brink
Protective of being shattered

Possible to risk loss
Wary of destruction while
Desiring reciprocation
Another soul juxtaposed

Possible to know
Uncertainty the next
Venturing, uncharted
Desiring to be caught

Random inspiration

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.
- Henry David Thoreau

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
- Henry Miller

Go for long walks, indulge in hot baths. Question your assumptions, be kind to yourself, live for the moment, loosen up, scream, curse the world, count your blessings, just let go, just be.
- Carol Shields