Conditions

I read in a blog once that the key to a happy marriage is unconditional blow jobs. I laughed and it stuck with me. I think they have a point. A very good point. I think the key to a happy, sustainable relationship is unconditional everything.

I am moody and fickle. I have a terrible time with monogamy. I am simultaneously smothering and distant. I have to talk about everything. Except some things - some things I will not talk about at all. I can be completely mood driven. And then I can turn around and act only on logic. I am difficult to love.

Somewhere along the way, I decided that these traits meant that other people's happiness was more important than my own. That in the case that someone else would incur greater happiness if I gave up some of mine, that I had a duty to do that. Being that I was so difficult to be with. So difficult to love.

So that's what I did. I served. When my partner had affairs behind my back, I felt like I deserved it and we moved on. When people came to live in my house and took complete advantage, I let them. When my family gave me advice about decisions in my life, I made them. Even if I didn't agree with them. Even if I didn't want the life that came with them. Who was I to question that? These people loved me and I was so difficult to love. I should give these concessions. Their happiness trumped my happiness.

Then I snapped. I swore to a period of singlehood. I evicted my tenants. I told my family to keep their opinions to themselves. It was not a nice way to treat the people that loved me. I had a lot of guilt about it. But it was necessary. And then I just sat there for a while.

Take a sledgehammer to your life and destroy everything. Then sit in the wreckage. See who comes to sit with you and I will tell you who really loves you. See who comes to pick through the debris and take what they want and I will tell you the people that you can live without. See the people who do both, take a little and sit a little, and I will tell you the people who love you conditionally.

I am so lucky. I had many in the first category. They weren't the people I had been putting the most effort in with, but they were there. And they stayed. For a long time I have made a social hermit of myself. I only spend time with these people. I trust them.

Now I want to increase my social circle. I love people, I want to be involved in more things and I want to meet new people as well. But there's a lot of social conditions out there. I still have a hard time distinguishing between when I'm giving and when someone is taking from me. I need some lessons in social negotiations. And, more importantly, I need to recognize what my bottom line is. How far I can go comfortably, without feeling like I'm giving up pieces of me. Without feeling like I'm sacrificing my happiness for theirs. Because, no matter how pious that makes you feel, it's not sustainable. I also need to realize that sometimes the price is too high. Sometimes, I have to walk away. This is the part that's hardest for me. To walk away from someone who is willing to love me, even conditionally. Because, as I said, I am oh so difficult to love. Or am I?

The Invitation - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by
Oriah Mountain Dreamer

thirsty

you found me in the most desolate of locations
an arid desert around my cactus heart
sustained from nectar reserved from sweeter times

i've been in pots before
a beacon of strength and survival on a dirty bedside table
easily neglected
eagerly blooming in the humidity of that suffocating place
but winter always comes
and i am tossed with my dead blossoms
only my needles to protect me
sharpened by drought

then you-
a raging underground spring flooding my roots
you didn't dig me up
you enriched the land around me turning my sand to soil
grew for me my own garden
and said in your rich, liquid voice
'perhaps it is time you became a rose'

The top 10 things my bff did this week to make me love my life

The top 10 things my bff did this week to make me love my life:

1. Raved and raved about how delicious my homemade soup was until I blushed!
2. Carved his pumpkin into the face of our cat!
3. Hid behind my car in a parking lot and made me jump!
4. Showed me a hilarious youtube video of a korean interview where the sports star being interviewed kept saying he had diarrhea and wondering why people thought that was funny!
5. Laughed with me (and remained sitting with me) when I was recounting the previous video in a movie theatre and accidentally said loudly "I have staunch diarrhea"!
6. Did the 'Sheldon Smile' when I was stressed and irritated from work!
7. Texted me bedtime stories when I was home alone and frightened!
8. Told the cab dispatcher that his name was 'Elvis' when she asked who the cab was for!
9. Told everyone that would listen that I made his Elvis costume!
10. Reminded me every day that my heart is free and my life is what I make it!

108

Lately, I am surrounded by so many messages of abundance and gratitude. Perhaps it is not so much that I am surrounded by more of it than usual, it is likely that I am thirsting for it and so am absorbing it more readily than I would ordinarily.

I am taking a yoga class with a friend who just finished her yoga teacher training (she's a VERY good instructor, btw and if you are in the Guelph area, you should ask me for her class information). During my lunch break on the day of my second class, I started reading 'Eat, Pray, Love" (hiding in my car, escaping from my work environment, because quite honestly my boss is insane). I read about the mala beads and meditation with a repeated mantra. And there at the end, the last bead, the sumeru, the dedication to gratitude. All afternoon I thought about my mantra. What word or collection of words did I want at my core, guiding my decisions. All the mantras I'd heard (and that was very few, for the record) contained words of peace and comfort. I'm good at peace and comfort. I'm good at lulling myself into a semi-comatose state. Too good, in fact. In some ways I feel like I've only just woken up to my life. I didn't want a mantra that was going to lull me back to sleep. What was it that I wanted? What did I need help remembering? What was my goal? I thought about the things I was afraid to be. The things I wanted but for some reason or another I shied away from chasing. And here's what I came up with. My mantra = (drum roll please)... Bigger, Better, Brighter.

Bigger - Bold, full of life, abundant
Better - Quality, richness, substance, empathy.
Brighter - Dazzling, exciting, adventurous, shining

So, when I got to my yoga class that night and was taught about the Mala beads and their use in meditation, I was ready with my mantra. Bigger Better Brighter.

Then the next day, sitting in a Starbucks drinking a toffee nut latte (om nom nom nom), I look over to see a poster for and event. The title on the poster is '108' and I know immediately what that means. The event is a fundraiser to benefit yogis to meditate on world peace for 3 years - how absolutely inspiring.

I have another friend who is currently in the Philippines involved in an intense daily meditation practice (don't I have the most incredible friends?) who has started documenting his internal findings on his own blog. And they have been coming in waves recently - waves of beautiful findings all about abundance and gratitude. And I am drinking them, like I've been treking across a desert. And perhaps, indeed, I have.

my life's goal

At a surprise party last week, while waiting for the guest of honour, someone asked me what my life's goal was. i opened my mouth excitedly to answer such a grand question - and nothing came out! oh crap! everything's changed and i have no idea what my life goals are anymore. looks like it's time to write a new manifesto!

This resonated...

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.” Tom Robbins