Escape

Lying quietly in the cool, damp grass
Still, the wind moving silently in the darkness
Only a whisper of a breeze bushes by
The pines now black juxtaposed
Against a barely charcoal sky
The stars dart in and out of
Clouds moving towards their destination
The moon’s shadows reflect
In the slight movement of the current
A quiet night, a needed escape

Halfway

Meet me halfway between
This moment and the next
Somewhere safe
Between the center of today
And the chasm of forever
Everyplace between the
Here and the tomorrow

The center of nowhere

Compromise has made a quite name for itself
The proverbial savior of difficult situations
Each side forced to give up something
For the saving grace of the greater good
For the happiness of the whole
Each making concessions for
The quiet settlement of differences
Each side obligated to sacrifice
Something precious of themselves

Random inspiration III

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valley, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
- Christopher Marlowe, 1564-1593
English poet and dramatist

I cannot exist without you.
I am forgetful of everything
but seeing you again –
my Life seems to stop there –
I see no further.
- John Keats, 1795-1821
English poet

I have spread my dreams
under your feet.
Tread softly because
you tread on my dreams.
- W.B Yeats, 1865-1919
Irish poet and writer

Loss

When loss comes, it is often unexpected, immediate and heartbreaking. The most distinguishable form of loss is death, losing someone who you love unexpectedly.

When I was much younger, my grandfather was my favorite person. My most cherished memories from that time in my life are from adventures spent with him, at his house, in his arms. I remember being curled up on him watching Bonanza and inhaling the scent of his cigar. Sitting in his lap as the tractor chugged down the back five. Proudly holding my sap-sticky hands up to him after I had spent hours climbing in the pine trees that bordered the house. He died when I was 11. Even if my parents knew it was coming, for me it was unexpected, immediate and heartbreaking. I remember feeling like my world was ending. According to my mom, she saw a distinct change in me after that. A part of me just wasn’t able to recover from the loss of him.

But loss isn’t always so immediate. Sometimes it happens over time. A friendship or love that is slowly extinguished, sometimes so slowly that it’s impossible to see it happening until it’s too late. The pain and the anguish aren’t any less. It just took longer for them to build and for the realization they were present.

It is in many of us to desire to protect ourselves from the pain that comes from extreme loss. What do you do when your heart has been broken, and in a moment of acute anger, you swear to the gods that you refuse to ever expose yourself to that type of loss again. You make this pact in a moment of extreme pain. It comes from a place of darkness, fear, self doubt, tears. A location where little forgiveness for oneself or the offender is found.

But this level of protectionism can’t be maintained if one wants open oneself up to the possibilities that might be, can it? The bonds of the pact have to be broken. It’s the only way to open oneself up to the possibility and promise of future passion, friendship, partnership. This is easier said than done though. There is that small voice of responsibility reminding one of the original pact made. Silencing this voice can be an obstacle, one that at times seems insurmountable.

I find my rationale and emotion dueling between trying to protect myself from possible heartbreak and wanting to be open to the possibilities that may be. I’m hesitant to be the first one to say the things I want to say. I want to be fearless, but I’m reluctant to be the first to take the risk.

All I can do is fight the desire to protect myself and open myself to what will come. Perhaps the gods demand a payment of some pain, reluctance, loss in order for one to fully embrace and appreciate extreme joy, love, happiness. Perhaps I had to feel the pain of one loss to find the joy in the moments that lie ahead. Perhaps the extreme contrasts make the moments of joy I experience now that much sweeter. Maybe it is a lesson to appreciate the now, to prevent me from losing sight of what is cricital to my life, to be aware of my actions and to make course corrections when needed.

Or maybe it's just too much to worry about it all. Maybe it's better to believe that the past is the past. It cannot be altered. To know that regrets are wasted on the present. And the future is the future. You can't force a conclusion or a desired outcome. You can only make decisions for the present. You can hope, but can't control anything beyond the moment you're standing in now. So while the loss of the past occurred, it's the past. I can't change it. My life will be richer if I live unabashedly, passionately in the now, keeping myself open to what lies in the next moments.

Random inspiration II

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. ~Maureen Dowd

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. ~Helen Keller

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading. ~Henny Youngman

Five days a week my body is a temple. The other two, it's an amusement park. ~Unknown

The harder you fall, the higher you bounce. ~Unknown

If you're headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns. ~Unknown

The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits. ~Albert Einstein

You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus. ~Mark Twain

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.