Archives for posts with tag: love and loving
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Approximately Happily Ever After

May 1, 2020 //
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Not quite a love letter. More like “a moment”. Thoughts about love over coffee.

Back in 2010, this human being (who became, over time, my Traveling Partner) and I began hanging out. Colleagues. Friends. Commute buddies. We became lovers. We became partners. Family. He moved in. We moved on – together. We married in 2011, for mostly fairly practical reasons. Other lovers came and went. Other relationships developed, and failed. We continued (and continue even now) to travel life’s journey together.

Today is our anniversary. I’ve got a lingering headache that has been with me a day or two, and although I took the day off I am awake quite early. He was up later into the evening than I was. He sleeps in. It’s a quiet, lovely spring day, during the time of pandemic. It’s also our anniversary, and I am smiling. 🙂

…I may not write more this weekend. I am more inclined to spend some time just existing, and pausing the routines for harmonious love, and a persistent feeling of joy – and gratitude. This is a pretty special love. If love ever faded, I doubt I’d walk on; this human being is also my best and closest friend. It’s hard to imagine a life that does not include the both of us, generally together.

We have sometimes lived apart, by choice, sometimes by circumstance, and we live together, now. Our choices for habitation have not marred our affection for each other. Actually, they’ve had nothing to do with love, or loving each other.  Love thrives when we thrive. It’s not about who lives where. We’re very human, each struggling with our own baggage. Each having our own experience. Each with our own taste, our own hobbies, our own hard moments, our own private joys. We have individual competencies and individual short-comings. We share the journey by choice. It isn’t always “easy”. I haven’t noticed either of us complaining about the effort that is sometimes involved in lasting love and a healthy partnership; it’s very worth it. (For me, for sure. Hopefully for him, as well.)

I pause and reflect on Love. “Love doesn’t pay the bills.” This is true. I’ve lived without love. Often. Hell, I’ve been in relationships in which “I love you’s” were frequent, but fairly meaningless, or filled with subtext and conditions – looking back, I recognize that those were not honest authentic love, as I understand it now. I’m okay with it; those experiences helped me become someone who is willing to work for what love offers. I learned a lot. I’m a better lover, a better partner, a better friend, having grown considerably through problematic relationships. Long honest looks in the mirror taught me much about the role I play in a partnership, as a human being, and the nature of reciprocity, openness, authenticity, and consideration, and how very necessary they each are to sustaining lasting love.

I’m a better woman – and human being – than I was when my Traveling Partner and I met. I feel less “broken”, and more capable. I am far more willing to “do my share” – and I recognize that an equal partnership does require that everyone involved do the work to create, maintain, and deepen that partnership. I sip my coffee contentedly. Are we perfect? lol Of course not. Is love perfect? Is life perfect? Ever? Hell, is perfect “perfect”? (Hint: there is no “perfection” to reach in life or love. There are processes, practices, experiences, and perspectives – we can choose contentment, and enjoy the journey, or… not. There is no “perfect” out there to achieve. The journey together is the destination, and the goal.)

Yeah. I’m smiling. I’m okay with “us”. I’m okay with this moment, together. I sit quietly awhile longer, before the day really begins. It’s enough. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, Love, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, Spring, The Big 5

That Bad Taste in My Mouth

September 4, 2019 //
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This morning, my coffee “leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth” in a fairly literal way. I’m not sure what I did to ruin a perfectly adequate cup of coffee this morning… good coffee beans, the usual process… Regardless; this is one dreadful cup of coffee. I sip on it anyway, reluctant to wake my Traveling Partner, asleep in the other room. It was noisy enough making just one cup of coffee. Honestly, it’s not that bad – call it “drink-ably terrible”. lol

I woke from what seemed a sound sleep, smack in the middle of dreams of reality, sufficiently plausible that I was surprised to discover myself awaking to the alarm clock. (oh, blech, this coffee!! LOL) The morning has been thoroughly routine, and soon I’ll leave the house, begin the work day, work through that, return home in commuter traffic, relax with my partner for the evening, crash out seemingly too early (it always seems “too early”), sleep more or less through the night, then repeat that for what unexpectedly seems like … a lifetime. There have been years when I’ve felt the experience to be a brutal grind, and my life filled up with petty resentments, other years (like this one) in all practical respects, it simple feels necessary, entirely practical, and if a bit tedious at times, there’s nonetheless no resentment to it. It works – for me, for us, for living life, just generally.

Yesterday I added some work tools to my personal device in preparation for my trip to “the home office”, which will be next week. A plane flight away, to “a far away city”, and I admit I face it more eagerly than not. I enjoy this job, and feel appreciated, purposeful, and prepared. My Traveling Partner doesn’t do things to hold me back or discourage me; it is a healthy partnership. I feel supported. I sip my coffee, and ask myself an important question: am I providing adequate reciprocity with regard to work, to life, and to ensuring I encourage my partner, and nurture my partnership? It would be a poor choice to nurture my career, while leaving love to whither. I’m not that woman, as I understand myself… So, I take time to consider my words, my actions, and how I prepare for this couple of days away. It matters so much to ensure Love itself is treated with consideration and high regard. What could matter more? 🙂

Staying on the path is a choice, and there are verbs involved; the journey is the destination.

My brain attacks me briefly over a perceived “funny vibe” I thought perhaps I may have picked up on, briefly, last night. It’s not a very effective attack, and I grin at myself over my coffee. Questions work. 🙂 Like a beam of light shining into a shadowy corner, a non-confrontational question seeking clarification on an assumption, a subjective experience, something vague and unconfirmed becomes… just an answered question. lol Most of the uncomfortable weirdness in life and in love are “shit we made up” that only exists in our heads – until our own anxiety and stress causes us to make it real. 🙂

I continue to sip my dreadful coffee – really let myself down on this one – and allow myself to briefly consider uncomfortable moments and “funny vibes” that have occurred in various interactions with an assortment of other human beings, and then let each one go. I breathe, exhale, and relax. No need to make up imagined stressors – real life will make sure I get a fair share of real stress, no problem. LOL

Life is not about perfection – and imperfect things are often quite lovely.

I sip my coffee thinking about sky reflected in water. No reason, it just seems something lovely to contemplate. I consider small lovely moments, and recent achievements, and brief unexpectedly deep connections, and enduring love. Love matters so much, on this whole other level. It still feels unsettling and a bit strange that it had to begin with me – with the woman in the mirror. I struggled to find real security in relationships while I struggled to “love myself”, and once I sorted that bit out reasonably well, it seemed to strengthen other relationships, most particularly my relationship with my Traveling Partner.

…Funny… I’m the one traveling in the world, this time…

…Omg, this coffee is just the fucking worst. LOL

I finish off my coffee, grateful to have it, grateful to finish it, and still thinking about how to deepen and nurture love. Love matters most. 🙂

It’s time to begin again, right here, with the love I know. 😀

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, Summer, The Art of Being, The Big 5

A New Dawn, A New Start

August 17, 2016 //
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Begin again. Seriously, whatever it is that’s just not working out well, take the morning as a starting point, and begin again. Do over! Be the person you most want to be – today. Now. The very next conversation. It may go very well, it may go very poorly – it may take practice to be who you most want to be, as a human being. The distance between one human being and her goals varies by human being. We are each having our own experience.

Begin again.

It may go well, it may go poorly – you can even begin again tomorrow. Again. Don’t like who you are, when you think about the person in the mirror? Make different choices. Use different words. Begin yet again. Do you. No one else can be the person that you are, yourself. There is so much more to being and becoming than school-job-car-career-marriage-house-children-retirement-death, isn’t there?

What about that story you want to tell?

What about that place you yearn to go?

What about that idea you have?

What about that skill you want to develop?

A novel doesn’t write itself when I am not looking at the keyboard. The beautiful poem in my  head doesn’t make it to the page without assistance. The walk toward the distance on which I might see many things isn’t going to unfold ahead of me without my also taking the steps. The painting I can see in my thoughts won’t hang on my wall – on any wall – unless I paint it.

This is my life. There are verbs involved. Every day, every moment, every choice, becomes an opportunity to be and to become more the woman I most want to be. I may never be a well-known author; I write nonetheless, and it is part of who I am. I am unlikely to be a famous artist; I paint, a lot, and the joy in it is the painting, itself. Over time I have come to accept as a given that it is the journey itself in which the value lies; destinations being so finite and limiting, are of far less importance. When I become focused on an outcome, committed to a result more than an experience, I lose my way, mired in bullshit, drama, and tedious details – and forgetting this is my life, worth living.

Is love a journey or a destination? Or... is love a verb?

Is love a journey or a destination? Or… is love a verb?

I spent last evening wrapped in love. I’m still so soaked, so saturated, so imbued with sacred sentiment it’s harder than usual to use practical language, clear simple words, sentences with proper grammar and form; my heart soars, and my thoughts are poetry. I love. I am loved. It’s so much more than enough…

…I am not so easily able to love like this, fully, reciprocally, tenderly, openly, and with great consideration, without loving the woman in the mirror, first – and with a very similar enthusiasm and passion as what I might show a lover. Of course, there’s always more to learn. I reach for “How to Love” for today’s studious reading, and “More Than Two“, also. Today seems a good day to study love, to give it the serious support and earnest dedication to learning that one might give to a college course needed to graduate. What could be more important to study than love, and loving? It’s certain that I could be better at it, however good at it I may be in some one relationship, or some one moment.

Today is a good day for love, for loving, for being the woman I most want to be. There are verbs involved. My results may vary. That’s all okay, too; love is enough. 🙂

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Categories Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Magic Doesn’t Just Happen

July 21, 2016 //
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I’m sipping my morning coffee later than usual, after sleeping in a bit, unexpectedly. It’s too hot to drink. I’m okay sipping it carefully, “testing it” for future, safer, drinking. There’s no rush. The sun is up, the morning is unfolding into a new day. I feel rested… and eager. It’s Thursday! (Date Night) Magical.

Just a cup of coffee and some lens flare; we bring the whimsy, the poetry, the music. Magic moments are created by our perception, and acceptance.

Just a cup of coffee and some lens flare; I bring the whimsy, the poetry, the music. the joie de vivre. 

When I first met my traveling partner, I already understood my role in making the magic of things like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and after many years, I still happily and enthusiastically throw myself into the whimsy and fun of making that magic happen. I didn’t recognize, strangely enough, how much went into the magic of love and loving, and still held onto expectations that somehow it just happens. I over-invested pretty heavily in peace-keeping endeavors any time there was any hint of conflict or difference, fearfully driven by old baggage, chaos, and damage. I was generous, hospitable, and kind (if rather cluelessly so), but those behaviors were interspersed with some frightful (sometimes symptomatic, sometimes just nastiness born of having been permitted to continue with bullshit) bad behavior. Chaos. Volatility. Tantrums. I’m a fucking adult. It had to be hard for people loving me. Hell, it was hard; I was there.

Today, I make magic. Small magic, but nonetheless, magic. I’ll tidy up, and make a point to do some things I know matter more to my partner than they do to me, just because they do matter to him. I’ll put extra time and care into how I feel, myself, and how I look – it is ‘date night’, after all. 🙂 I’ll make a quick trip to the store for a handful of things I just don’t keep in the house, generally, that I know he very much enjoys, so those things are here for him, and I’ll double-check for pantry and medicine cabinet items he might need, and ensure I haven’t run low. All very practical stuff. I’ve learned some excellent practices for nurturing love’s logistical needs.

I still have so much to learn about love! There’s magic in intimacy, in connection, in touch… those are trickier, and rely on verbs with real nuance, requiring greater awareness, more sensitivity… I am regularly challenged to the limits of my current understanding of love, and still eager to take another step, love more deeply, love more intently, love with more skill… and we’re not even talking about the sex piece, yet. LOL So much to learn to love truly well.  There’s patience, and perspective, and listening deeply, and speaking gently, and making room for strong emotion, and surrender, and honoring the sacred ‘other’ that is my partner’s tender heart… So much to learn. I stay it’s a lot to learn less as a statement of frustration, and more like an eager student, opening an enormous text-book for the first time, and looking at the table of contents in awe. Every lesson is worthy. Every lesson builds on the lessons already learned, in anticipation of lessons to come. It’s big, “the book of love“, and I don’t expect to finish it cover to cover even in a lifetime.

Tears slide down my face – the weird happy/sad tears of profound joy experienced fully and also in the context of how fleeting joy must be, just to be joy. (Tears that actually become tears, because my TBI can be a major impediment to the sort of emotional regulation most people take for granted.) Then I laugh at myself – tears in the sunshine. I have this powerful love for this singular human being, without any real understanding why I feel the way I do, or whether it will outlast this fragile vessel, or even if the feelings I feel are ‘real’ – I mean, as real as this table top, or this sunny morning. We’re both so very human, dragging our own customized baggage all about everywhere we go, and sometimes sharing the load. Are the things that fill me up from the inside as real as the struggles that impinge on my joy from external sources? Maybe? Probably? Does it even matter? Maybe love is a placebo… would I suddenly stop loving if it were? (No. No, I wouldn’t…I’d probably use the powers of the mind to intensify the experience. lol) The tears don’t last – they’re more a moment of appreciation that became too visceral. 🙂

I sit smiling, sunshine spilling over my hands on the keyboard. I sip my coffee contentedly. It’s a lovely day – and a good one for love and loving. A good one for sex, too, sure, but that’s not the point – and as much as I want all that, too, I want to be clear (even with myself) that it isn’t ‘about’ sex. I conflated sex and love for much of a lifetime, and it’s hard to sort out all the baggage from that mess, but it’s a worthy project; the love matters most. Real love. Adult love. Romantic love. Sexual love. It’s just that the intimacy leads – not the other way round, that much I’ve learned. Without a foundation in intimacy, and an emotional connection (of some kind), sex seems (to me, at this point in life) repetitive, physical, distant, and somewhat peculiarly unsatisfying, however good the sex is technically, and suitable only for breeding. A bit annoying, really – I used to be good at sex. lol In my twenties I wasn’t even emotionally capable of actual intimacy, embarrassingly, obviously so, when I recall key moments when one lover or another with a deeper understanding attempted to get more from my heart that I knew to offer; I was still too broken for any of that.

I listen to love songs in the sunshine. I let the smile on my face become a slow groove that sends love-chills up my spine and butterflies to my tummy. I love Love. 🙂 I have a near infinite capacity for it (you probably do, too) – I’d happily love everyone good and decent and loving with all the infinite moments of love my heart has to offer… if only I knew how to connect deeply with each one, on their own terms (and mine), in an authentic and intimate way. I’ll keep practicing – there’s too little love in the world as it is. Practicing love more often is a goodness. Every moment we practice to treat those we love just a bit better than we did before really matters; from there we can learn to love the world. 🙂

Today is a good day to practice loving. There are verbs involved. Today is a good day to be love. I think I’ll grab some verbs…

 

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Categories Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, women, Words

Love Songs

April 15, 2016 //
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I am sipping a delicately fragrant cup of tea this morning, and lingering over the recollection of a lovely moment with my traveling partner last night. He put on a love song with a beautiful tender video for our shared enjoyment. It was a simple connected romantic moment, and very much worth remembering. This morning, with headphones on, I listen to it again…then play a favorite that makes me think of loving him. Suddenly, it is a morning filled with music – love songs, mostly, and uplifting songs of pure joy. “Love songs” to life and self – don’t those matter just as much? Sure – that’s part of the point; I matter. To me. No argument, defense, or justification required.

I find my way back to romantic love songs, of course, it’s that sort of morning. 🙂 I “miss” my traveling partner as fervently and with as much yearning as if he were away, instead of sleeping in another room. Sometimes love is funny that way. I let him sleep; I love him such that it matters more that he rest well than to risk waking him with a touch or a kiss. I’ll see him later today.

Love matters most.

Love matters most.

Today is a good day to be love.

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Categories art and the artist, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Love, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5
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