Elephants and Tea Cups

I’ll admit it; I’m easy.

Elephants are a favorite metaphor here…

Seriously, I am actually committed to gentle harmony among peers that allows jovial good-natured fun, shared humor, and fosters shared pleasures and nurtures personal growth. I dislike hostility. I especially dislike the sort of hostility between lovers that immediately results in all parties feeling like they are confronted by an adversary.  I don’t at all concede that passion must be paired with contention and anger, or that good conflict management within relationships must involve frustration and grief.  I admit that my feelings on this topic may rise to the level of a ‘religious conviction’ in the sense that I am unwilling to be swayed to another point of view, and feel quite convinced I am ‘right’.  It sounds like an awesome environment to build between lovers, and consistent with my ‘Big 5’ relationship values: respect, reciprocity, consideration, compassion, and openness.  If those 5 characteristics define a romantic relationship, it seems unlikely that the participants would feel ‘adversarial’ or ‘hostile’ toward each other, even when they disagreed. Sounds like a good goal, if nothing else.

There’s another side to “I’m easy”… it has regularly stopped me from taking care of me.  I’ve often chosen to compromise beyond my values, my boundaries, or my limitations, to achieve harmony with a lover or partner. Or said “I’m fine” or “nothing’s wrong” or “I’d love to…” choosing to be ingenuine or evasive for the sake of keeping peace, rather than connecting more intimately by being who I am in a frank and compassionate way. Hell, I’ve even gone years without listening to even one piece of music I really loved, rather than fuss over it with a partner who found my taste in music unpleasant. lol.   That’s probably OK, now and then, but I’m beginning to recognize that as a pattern of behavior, as a methodology, or a routine practice, it results in resentment over time, because my own needs don’t get met, or because I perceive a lack of reciprocity in the relationship when others are unwilling to similarly compromise beyond their values, boundaries, or limitations. Seeing it in print underscores what I have begun to understand – that resentment directed outward toward partners or lovers when I over-compromise isn’t appropriate, however unhappy I may become.  The better result is to be had by understanding my own needs, boundaries, values, limitations and then communicating them explicitly, setting reasonable expectations, and being willing to ‘take care of me’ – honoring those values, and myself, rather than tossing myself onto a sacrificial fire. (Seems a pretty simple idea now…it didn’t until recently; if I am being overly obvious, I laud your wisdom!)

A vessel of great beauty and value is best handled with care, cherished, and filled with great love.

I’m getting better at taking care of me. I’m getting better at stating boundaries, and recognizing my limitations. I’m still easy…I still want harmony in my relationships.  My Big 5 make sense to me, for my relationships, to meet my own needs in my living environment.  It is a little scary for me to understand that taken together, these understandings lead gently to acceptance that some of my relationships in life didn’t ‘make the cut’ …that some of them likely never could have… and that some of them, in the future, may not meet my needs over time.  As with a precious porcelain cup, I really can’t afford to be careless about what relationships I fill my life with.

I’m easy. I admit it. I am also living more mindfully, and embracing a genuine experience with who I am. Changes are scary… I would love my heart to float like dandelion fluff across the tops of life’s challenges, as if challenges were meadow flowers – my heart untouched by hurts, my challenges bending to my will like flowers in the breeze… but I don’t have that strength of will, or that certainty of what is and what is not… Aristotle lost my attention when I discovered S. I. Hayakawa and R.A. Wilson, and the world is too rich and wonderful to divide neatly into is/is not; there are some damned ‘maybes’.  🙂

For now, ‘easy’ is observing, accepting, experiencing, and waiting for events to unfold as they will. I can’t force the world, or love, to be what I want, I can only enjoy what it is, and be who I am… hopefully becoming, over time, the woman I most want to be, embraced in love by the lovers I cherish most beyond all other beings, with values I respect, who treat me well, and a lifetime ahead of us to share who we are.

Another sunny day in my garden…