old poem

absence
is to love
what wind
is to fire
it extinguishes
the small
it enkindles
the great

I found this poem when I was in high school and I wrote it out in calligraphy and painted a picture near it of a daffodil. Over the many years I have revisited it and felt that it was an important poem in my life. Now I wonder, does the poem fit my circumstances or did my circumstances come to life from the thoughts of the poem.

How many long distance relationships can one have? I find it rather amusing. In high school, I met Bill. I moved to Bremerton and he lived basically 3 hours away in Mill Creek (I think). This caused turmoil and drama. I meet my son's father, he lives in MN, we don't have a long distance relationship, but our son certainly does with each of us! Next was Justin ~ he was in Portland, I was in Seattle, and then to complicate things, I moved to MN and he moved to CO, after that we were doomed. Zoom ahead several years to Dan, now I am in Portland and he is in Seattle. WTF?

When I went to NZ I never imagined I would meet someone. Sometimes I think it was a rebound from Dan. Sometimes I think it was just some fucked up joke I was playing on my own subconscious to get me to get something that I haven't figured out yet. But in any case when I was there I thought about this poem. I thought, wow, maybe it has been my destiny my whole life to learn to deal with distance so that I would be capable of handling it across hemispheres!

But I have a hard time believing that. I think that I read that poem and it in turn has influenced how I have created my reality. I think I saw something magical about distance and love and what that means about love and I have been inviting it into my life ever since.

But now I expel that belief. I believe in love right here. In my living room please. In my city. I am so afraid of someone else "coming" to me, moving where I am. I want to know someone who lives here. Now I just want to know myself. But I want my future with someone who lives in and loves Portland.

I know that absence can make the heart grow fonder. But I don't want absence in my love affairs any more. I want presence. I want consciousness. I know I will have it.

I think I will vomit

I am so pissed off right now. Tim just got a check in the mail, over $400 dollars and it makes me ill. The fucker never paid for a thing. I called him to ask where to send it and told him he could give it to me to help pay for the wedding debt or the divorce or all the other things i paid for like car insurance, rent, phones, power, gas, internet, basically everything accept food...and the fucker says, "we argued about this once." I replied, "Yes, we did." and he said, "I did get you that nice bedding that one time" and I said, "yes, you did. what is the address to mail your check?"

I can't believe it, he never even paid a penny for the wedding. i hate him. and i hate that i hate him. and he is such a selfish completely oblivious mother fucker. Can you believe he bragged to me that his son got expelled from school, a private school that his mother pays $9000 a year for, and said, poor mum! and laughed! And then went on to blame it all on his sons mother!!!

i know i am glad i am not with this man. i am glad i didnt have kids with this man. have your 400 dollars mother fucker. i will remind myself again that i cut my losses and split with my self and soul still intact. i will remind myself that if his old boss was not such an idiot he may have sent the money elsewhere and if I never saw it then it wouldn't piss me off so badly. so i will pretend this $400 check doesnt exist. and neither does mother fucker.

he just went on and on like always, about him, about how he found his personal legend, about how wonderful his house is with the deck looking over the lake, about how he couldnt believe he ever left this place he is and how he looks around everyday and smiles. i hope he means it. i hope he really is happy in his blind selfish ignorance, i hope he is happy.

god damn it when is it my turn.

why do i have to muddle through all this? i know the answer. i just feel so fooled, and so dragged backwards, and find myself wondering all the time.

i dont want to take care of anyone. i dont want the weight on my shoulders. I AM SO ANGRY BECAUSE NOW I FEEL A SCAR WHERE THERE ONCE WAS NONE. Now i have to wade through this bullshit baggage and process it all and figure it out and deal with FEAR when i once would willingly jump into love no matter what. I want to get back to my favorite place "love like youve never been hurt" but i lost my way.

and then there is the fuck it I want a cigarette feeling. god damn it. i know that is a medicating need for a cig, one that will bury my emotions for the day. blaaaaaa blllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaa bla.

work

So I am pissed off at my work. It seems that our place of business is not welcoming to new coming employees, and a few have quit. We got a nasty email from one of the bosses at which time she said to us she would provide us with examples if we chose. I asked for some, but instead of an example she cited my personality. I know she didn't mean for it to be bad, but it really pissed me off. Everyone who is new is going to feel new. I did. When I started everyone I worked with had been working together FOR YEARS! Theses guys don't have to deal with that, there are only three people left who have been there for more than a year. In any case while I want to make new people feel welcome I also don't feel like i should have to change my personality. part of the allure of my work is that we are all happily our individual special perfect selves and when you get to be your special self without putting a mask on like in a corporate environment you also have to accept others for their individual selves. this is what i like about my job. but i don't like that all of a sudden there is an assumption that we are treating people poorly and when I inquire about I am not given a time when I have ever done such a thing, because i have not, but i am told all the ways that i might "come across" or "appear abrupt" to a new person. i already know that about myself, and while it is not always ideal i am not sorry for it anymore. for all the ways that it can be a disadvantage it is also and advantage. not to fucking forget to mention that the person who told me this is just the same. she has her moments just like we all do. new people and old people alike. lets buck up here. we are here to help and love each other and make our place a cool place to work, not to be afraid of each other. i know that it is hard to be new, but that is part of the uptown test, not for us to make it hard for new people but for them to find their own way, not my way, not her way, but their own way. can they say what they think? it takes awhile to feel comfortable doing this but it is necessary and nobody held my hand until i figured it out and I personally like where I work because everyone is capable of communicating for themselves.

i am additionally pissed that the owner seems to be inquiring into how things are for the new people but not with us older staff. seems to me like there is a lot of one sided review happening. i will be interested to see how it turns out when they decide to share with us. until then, venting over.

Never made it to day 2

While I was not entirely successful in my fast, the one day of not eating was enough of a distraction to keep me from smoking. So, here I am a week later, and only cheated once. In that one cheat I found out how much it makes it worse and decided again what a great decision it is to be not smoking. I am going to attempt a different kind of cleanse. I am going to stop drinking and smoking for awhile and see how that makes me feel. (smoking forever)

tired. sad. and under a rock.

I have very recently been spending so much time at home that I am shocked in myself. Yesterday with company over, I spent almost the remainder of the day alone and today I never left the house. I never left. I feel like shit. I have been bombarded with memories of Tim and all the feelings of maybe if I did that, and maybe if I did this. And I told a friend that I feel like my emotions with regards to my marriage ending are like the tides, accept there is no tide schedule. So, for the first time that I can ever remember I have found comfort in television. I have been trying to discipline myself, I don't want to medicate with it, but it is so nice to lose myself for an hour or two and just zone out with the TV guiding my attention. I never want to leave my house. and randomly I must say that even though I am hiding under my rock, or TV if you want to be literal, I do love Portland, my neighbors, my incredibly beautiful and amazing and supportive roommate, and when i do come crawling out again I know I can see all the awesome people in this town running about! but for now...my cat and I are moping in my big empty king size bed.

wedding ring

It doesnt work. I am not a lier. I tried and I feel like a fake. I have to learn how to say no. Plain and simple. Thank you I am flattered, but I am not dating. No thank you. Gee that is really nice, but I am not available. Thanks for the invitation but I can't. I wish it could be that easy. But sometimes they persist....like, why not? and then try to convince me. fuck. it fucks me off. and i get flustered and completely stupid and say yes to something i am completely uninterested in. then what. i think i am going to just stay home forever in my cozy room with my remote control and all will be well.

Day 1.

No food. No cigarettes. No bread. No french fries or tatter tots. No chocolate. Just lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. And I am bored. I should have a million things to do. I can sit here and list them out. I have several assignments to do for school. I have reading to catch up on. But all I can do is sit here and space out, and think, gee, I wish I had something to do and especially someone to talk to. I don't want to watch TV or play games. I don't even want to pick up the phone for my usual call to my girls. I want to be productive. I want to be a good student. Someone who gets her work done in advance and can relax and enjoy life and learn more from doing it because it isn't rushed. Why must I always wait until the last minute? And why is it that when I have a hunk of time - like right now - that I would rather sit and do *absolutely nothing*???? One little reflection, shit I don't even have to think that much, just blurb on about my feelings on a different web page other than this one.....jeez

wedding ring

I have decided to start wearing my wedding ring again. I think it invites less attention. I won't lie if someone asks me directly, but I like the way it closes me off to many at the moment.

a dream poem. a wish if you will.

Smile
The contagiousness of your eyes
Is dreamt of
It is like my heart just lay down on a pillow and I am surrounded by softness
It is like my soul reached out and grabbed you because
It knew that you would see my soul and who I really am
The wings on my back can only take me higher
I close my eyes and
Your eyes
Your eyes
As my belly tingles
My mind wants to reason me backwards, to kick in and cool me off,
Throw cold water on my spirit
I just sit and let myself revel in the beauty of the moment
The moment of you
Whoever you are
You are in this moment a treasure to my heart
And a gift to my soul
The instant I didn’t need to see another
You appeared at my door
Magically I will bloom into this new self I found
Maybe I will get to share my journey with you
Only time will tell.

1995 I think.

I received this letter sometime in the past. It has no date. It has no to, and no from. But it holds eternity within it. It holds my heart too. It is as if my whole life has been preparing me by teaching me patience. And it is funny, for when you decide you are going to be patient, there are always things that seem to pop up that challenge it. In these past weeks since I have decided to be in solitude with myself, to find my own way without needing a man to help, men seem to be everywhere. At first I thought it was a challenge from the universe, and maybe it was. But now it is like a game I play with myself. An internal challenge to see how long I can wait. I have not been in this state before and it is so invigorating, informative, and enlightening. My senses are spot on, I am more in tune with my feelings than I have ever been. In all of my relationships I am able to see how I feel, instead of what I want. And in this I know almost immediately who is healthy to be around and who is not. I have stopped looking at individuals qualities, and what they have that fits in my little picture of what I want. I have instead created a picture of what I want with me when I am around others. Since this perspective has shifted my eyes have opened. I can see now so clearly my past and how often I have turned away from my own feelings, my own warnings, thinking "I should" like him, her, that or whatever. We have no control over how we feel. We only control what we do about it and with it when we feel it. While it has been a challenge to say "no thank you" or "not today" or "this doesn't work for me" or "I am not in the same place as you right now" I have done it. And it is as if there is no stopping the momentum now that it has started. It feels extremely selfish on so many levels. Shouldn't I care more about these specifics that others hold? But I do care, it is a different caring. I care about how they affect me. I have always known that any relationship, with friends, family and lovers is a give and take of energy. I have always said that I don't want to give my energy if I am not getting back. But this has taken on another meaning to me now as I realize so clearly the exchange of energy literally while paying attention to my own. It is selfish. But I believe it is healthy and is taking me for the first time in the right direction.

So here is the letter. Here is my long lost love. I have held you. Breathed you. Dreamt you. Known you. Even though you have been lost to me. I know you will come again. Love that is.

I write you a letter, because
I can think of no other way
to convey my thoughts to you.
Just a few things I thought
you would enjoy knowing.
Call it, and open letter.

I have no pictures of you
yet I see your face at will
I hold nothing from you
still
I carry you with me
always
I do not sleep with you
but I can see you
on any night
I hold you in my mind
I think of you
close my eyes
and you're with me
again.

new game called "not telling the other person what they should or should not be doing"

I had to learn that game a long time ago. Tim sucked. He was actually cruel. Nothing I ever did was good enough. I felt useless and as if no matter what I tried he would want the opposite anyway so what was the fucking point. It was funny that that exact expression had come from A when we dated about me. I don't have a vision of myself that way, but I was once. It made me remember how everything was so much about me that there was never time for anything to be about him. And when I was with Tim i realized that there was no me. only him. the world existed for his pleasure, fear, love, play, happiness and sadness. And if whatever was happening to me did not coincide with how he was feeling then there was something "really" wrong with me. after awhile you stop trying. i enjoyed the opportunity for reflection that it game me to see how I played that role to someone else. and i enjoy knowing that it won't happen like that again for me.