Moving Onward Party!

As usual, my blogging started strong and fizzled out quickly. ^_^

Since the last incredibly angsty post, things have perked up a lot. I decided to replace the fixation on that person with a fixation on a new activity, which worked perfectly. Ditch a man, learn a new skill to make yourself more awesome! ^_^ Nothing will raise your confidence like finding something you love that your pretty good at.

I won't say I'm amazing, but I've fallen head over heels for figure skating. Even to me it seems funny because I'm far from petit, Amazonian is more like it, but it's trilling, and elegant, and burns tremendous calories! It actually inspires me to eat well and drink lots of water so that I'll be better at it. As a result, my singing is working far better, because I'm healthier. ^_^ Hooray for finally feeling the spirit!

I also learned about how shame can be a negative motivator, leading to temporary improvement but eventual failure. After realizing that, I learned that most of my endeavours to change, including exercise and diet, were shame based, so when I messed up or had a bad day, I felt awful about it. That's not how it should work. We should want it for us, work hard for ourselves, and love ourselves so we can learn to love others whole-heartedly. I spout it easily enough, let’s see about the journey to get there.

Taking another step I didn't quite expect to make so soon. Meeting a gentleman for food or coffee... it's looking like food. He... seemed keen on that idea which shows optimism for about the meeting. Interesting for a guy to be interested in more time. *head bobble* Writes back quickly, as if he wants to hear back soon. Or maybe he's just in the habit of quickly responding. Seems odd after all I've just experienced to have a man write back so quickly. Almost like I’m interesting! ^_^ I don’t necessarily expect anything to come from it, but it’ll be good practice going out and meeting someone new! If it doesn’t work out I’ll probably stay out of the market for a while. I don’t really need someone now, but since I had marked this person as an individual if interest, and the day after I reactivated my account he messaged… I thought I’d give it a try. Besides, he has a politely formal writing style, loves to cook, is nerdly handsome and wears glasses! Quite the combo pack. ;)

Enough mischief for now. I should get cleaned up for class and maybe make a house cleaning strategy. While I forgive myself for being messy, there’s no need to stay that way! ^_^

"Making Progress" Party!

Ok, so not everything I intended to get done yesterday got done, but a serious guilt object, scholarship coordination work, got completely caught up! And I gathered the information needed for my acting class which should be lots of fun today. We start learning officially how to study a role! And we don't have a theory assignment due!

Slept funny the other night, jacked up my upper back a wee bit. Got a chair massage from a lovely woman! Highly recommended, chair massages. (Cat says "Hi.") While in the zen-like massage parlour, I recalled my interested in re-exploring my part in the whole cosmic-mankind-whale-tree thing. (Freakazoid, I couldn't have said it better. 0:35. Great episode.) So, I went to the new-agey store downtown. Where the shop keep couldn't care less about you... whatever, I picked up a small hexagon mirror, a lotus candle holder, and a 'healing' chakra candle that smells like rainbows. Soon as I make the time, prayer and meditation shall begin.

For now, breakfast!

"Still Figuring Out This Life Thing" Party

This is not going to be a very white mage like entry. It's a slow process. *shrug*

I’m a surprisingly judgmental and unforgiving person. I’ve known this about myself for ages, but for some reason it still surprises me. Particularly since I know I’m capable of so much love. Why waste time with malcontent and unhappiness when there can be love instead? A conundrum.

For the record, that lack of forgiveness most definitely turns back on myself. Relentlessly so. If there’s anything my time here and in therapy and in schooling has taught me, it’s that in my head the world is frighteningly black and white. Pass/fail. Acceptable and unacceptable. In regards to myself, the range of acceptable is very small, and when I'm outside of that range I eat myself alive over it. When it comes to others, the range of acceptable is really quite large, but when someone crosses into the other realm I have a terrible time bringing them back into the safe space in my head. The space I understand and accept.  When I can’t, I feel I’ve failed, and fall into a sadness. Not good enough. Not loving enough. Not forgiving enough. 

Well, tough junk. Perfection doesn’t come in an instant. Hell, it doesn’t come in a lifetime. Let’s take Candide’s lesson and say ‘we’ll do the best we know’. Do the best we can at the time with what we’ve got, eh?

Got that statement figured out, now if only I could implement it more often…

I’ve been thinking for a long time that I don’t carry nearly as much guilt as I did as a child. Well… lets rearrange that to say that I don’t choose to feel it as actively as I did as a child. Now that I’ve made the choice to feel things more actively again, or perhaps, choose to address how I’m actually feeling rather than fall directly into an inexplicable depression, I find items of guilt everywhere. In no particular order:

- I owe people pictures. Some people, LOTS of pictures.

- I don’t practice nearly enough.

- I don’t keep house like Martha Stewart, and damn would I have more peace of mind if I did.

- I’m always waiting until the last minute on homework, and while I do the best I can at the time, it’s not my true best.

- I’m not as good a cat-momma as my fur-princess deserves.

- I’m selfish with my time and feelings, and not infrequently.

- I don’t budget particularly well.

- I choose not to look at things that make me feel badly rather than take care of them.

- I don’t work out enough.

- I’m ignoring my spirituality.

You name it, it can fit in my laundry list somewhere. Oh, laundry. I’m WAY behind on that. Add it to the list!

So… what to do about it? Well, I’m gonna make a very specific list and fix it one step at a time. This junk isn’t gonna fix itself in an instant. Will take out the objects of greatest angst first I think. Surely that’ll help.

Things to try this week

- Working out for at least 30 minutes each day. Gonna start with yoga ‘cause I can get that going with little mental stress and it’s spiritually centering. w00t.

- Keeping up with homework and taking more time on it.

- Making smart, reasonable food choices. Not too hard.

- Meditating on one tarot card a day. How does it relate to the world? How does it relate to me? How can I use its association to become stronger.

- Practice more – Celebrate the awesome privilege of getting to learn amazing music and poetry.

Cool, some reasonable goals for the week.

Now… something I’ve been avoiding stating out loud, but is definitely true. My mind and heart are conflicted about a certain person. I knew there was nothing solid going on once we’d had a chat about uncertainties, and I was OK with that at the time, but now that we had a true argument about it when things got too intense looking for him, and since we opted to step it back 100% to friendship, it feels lost. Part of my heart says that it’s over, give up on it, it’s not worth it, why did you bother? We didn’t decide to trash it completely, just give time for that person to work things out in themselves and see if it was really right for them. Which is absolutely the right decision, no argument on that front. Since it’s not completely dead, though, the part of my heart that runs rampant in daydreams is foolishly hopeful. Thinks that he’ll come back and things will be better than ever. My heart will have a chance to be warm and happy again. Possibly have that hole that was momentarily filled be full for once. For more than just a sliver of time. That he might be a solution for this lonely bitterness, which has for the most part returned. I see happy couples and my dark distrust and resentment of love and couples and mushy crap overwhelms me. (Have you noticed this is a quick trigger subject?) Like it did before I felt things in my heart for someone. I don’t know that what I felt was ever true romantic love, but it felt like an intense friendship love that pushed at something deeper. Wanted to be something deeper. Then I felt like it got rejected. Like I got rejected. It’s not really how it is, but in a way it is. It still hurts intensely. I chose to risk, and as usual I chose to risk on something complicated. Something that was more than likely to end up this way, and now I’m eating the consequences, and at the moment they hurt certain arias for me. Love songs have that same old bitter tinge they used to. The ‘what bullshit’ tinge. It’s sort of nostalgic, really. I understand now why I was unhappy. Why it felt like a gaping emptiness lived in my soul. Having someone there for you, there with you, that makes you want to be a better person, it changes something in you. I felt stronger, lovelier, more intelligent, more capable than I’d ever really felt. Now… I feel like I’m back to plain old me for the most part. Some corners of myself remain bolstered, but…for the most part, I’m the woman who is still waiting. A hopeless romantic afraid to love, because everywhere I look it seems like a lie. A bitter, ugly, beautiful lie.

I want that potential back. My heart screams for it. My body misses having someone to connect to, to seek comfort from and give comfort to. It wants back the first person it felt truly safe to connect to. That safety feels forever lost. Bully for risk and all its benefits and pitfalls.

As of yet I’ve still never had a real, official relationship, yet it burns like I had one and it died. I’m like some kind of magnet for over-complicated human social interaction. Most of that is totally my fault. Additional note, Facebook is like a torture center for the bitter and lonely. The fuck do I keep looking at that?

I think the hardest part is there’s nothing I can do for this situation. I’ve been told I haven’t damaged it or the other party; that it was just not the right time right now. The right time might be later or it might never be the time. So I wait, and hurt, and hope, and despair, and believe, and ignore, and mull over. Some sort of vague purgatory where I’ve given someone else the keys to the doors.  Only they can open the door to great happiness, but they equally have the potential to throw me into a deep, dark pit that I have to slowly crawl back out of. I do have a spare key, but for me that key only opens one pathway. The one to the pit where I mourn the loss of something that was good for a while. Very good. Something I won’t ever see again because no two things in this world are alike. There has been so much mourning recently… can’t something just live for once?

On that note, I’m going to take a shower and probably take a brief nap. Those things tend to banish the gloomies for a bit. If not, what the hell, we move on. Life keeps on rolling and time makes it hurt less. At least things are a hell-of-a-lot better than they’ve been for most of the month. So much better. Hopefully, they’ll soon be much less bitter and guilt ridden. ^_^

I leave you with something you can’t watch and not smile. Well, you can, but it’d be a damn shame, 'cause it's friggin' brilliant.