Sage Thoughts

There comes a point in life where relationships as we have known them start to seem foggy and not as bright. A place where the intimacy and connection fade and we are standing there with the one we have loved so well wondering where the meaning of us went.

There comes a time when we have to look inside and no matter how painful the choice is, we have to choose what is best for us and for the path we are walking on. Purging out all the memories of how relationships are meant to go as taught to us by our parents, our peers, society and life. We realize that things do not always work out as hoped.

Midlife is prime time for these kinds of changes in perspective. After all the trappings of the things we thought we were supposed to do with our lives are achieved and or fall by the wayside, we start to move inward in pursuit of our purest passions. Some people can do this by learning something new, taking up a new hobby. Some people need more drastic change like moving to a new place or changing jobs, still others realize the life they have built over the past 20 years leaves them drained and feeling numb, so they leave relationships that were understood to be for life.

As we travel inward everything in our world starts to feel more acute. We listen for the whispers that we heard so readily as children and young adults. The guiding voice of our heart telling us what feels right or not quite. Honesty with self is crucial at this time of life, for what good are hearing your whispers if you deny the message? Courage and faith are paramount to see us through to the next steps, the next phase on the path. Often there is collateral damage; strewn about are empty bank accounts, lost status, dead or dying relationships. It is our right, our choice and our obligation to leave them all behind,  right there on the path, the moment the burden becomes too heavy and the reward too slim. Dragging around dead weight only slows us down, makes us unable to make choices and unable to be our authentic selves. It slows us down like a quagmire, as we trudge along carrying all the extra baggage of past resentments and decisions gone badly.

The only way to move forward then is to lighten the load. If it doesn’t help you, serve you, raise you up, it has to go. Put it on the back burner if you think someday there may be use for it, but forget it for now. Or just plain walk away forever if you see no use for it.

It is like springtime closet cleaning, assessment time. If it works, if it feeds you, keep it and shelter it. If not, release it to the wind. The path unfolds before you and now with eyes and heart wide open you are able to move forward one step, one day, one opportunity at a time. Love will come, money will come, strength will come just at the moments you need it most.  Faith, Courage, Strength, Wisdom are the jewels we pick up as we walk the paths to our true selves. As we share who we truly are with the world and help make the world a better place one interaction at a time.

Relationships have never been easy. They are hardest yet in the 21^st century I believe. For years I have fought to keep my relationships personal. I know that sounds crazy, since relationships are the most personal thing right? Wrong. In this electronic age they are a dying art.

I have left 2 marriages because of a lack of desire and maybe on some level a lack of ability to compete with what is “out there”. My first husband had a video game habit that cast me aside night after night for 16 months, for chasing the enemy, more levels and more energy to defend his world.

My Second husband left me in the dust of the pursuit of more code, more html, webpage design, and eventually chat with anyone but me. I left him in the dust to the tune of losing lots of money in the process just to find a relationship that was once again personal.

Now I sit here with that person, night after night while he sooths his internet surfing, facebook voyeurism addictions. Night after night I watch him scroll and read and surf, if not on the computer, then playing scrabble with people he doesn’t even know via his phone. I have recently gotten to enjoy this at work too with my co-workers . Relationships are hard to come by these days without having a screen of some sort between you and the person you are trying to relate to.

How to handle it? I feel myself withdrawing, thinking of ways to unplug and not even picking up the email, facebook for a day at a time. I don’t have a smart phone and the way I see it sucking people in around me I don’t want one. Relationships are personal, they are meant to be personal. People seem to be filling the need for company, entertainment, conversation, all the things we spent time with other people for in hours upon hours of screen time relating in some way to strangers.

I have watched this phenomenon grow since 1995 when I got my first taste of AOL. So many men complained their wives were boring, I was so much more interesting in chat than their wives were in person. I see now why. They were ignoring their wives, who probably sat next to them naked on the couch without even getting noticed. I see now what this desire for novelty does to relationships. It may not have been the marriages, may not have been my judgement all the while. It was the electronic phantoms that enmeshed themselves where a human connection between 2 people used to be. Just as is happening right now as I write this, sitting on a “love seat” with the man I love, being ignored another night, one of many since he moved in 3 months ago. It seems some sage with a blog is more enthralling than human communication in real time he could be having with me at this very moment. I can’t, I won’t, I should not have to compete with such trivial things.

What is love now? Is love and having a successful relationship learning to surf the web next to the one you love, conducting your relationship in chat boxes side by side? If that’s it, maybe I was wrong to leave my last marriage, we had that down to a science.

I am moody, I am lost in thought. I am contemplating if I want to go forward living my evenings this way, living my life this way with a man who can not put the internet down. I guess maybe I need to find an old fashioned man, someone who would rather talk, play scrabble, write love songs than read over and over the trivialities of “facebook friends”. That phenomenon in itself, the virtuality of it becoming reality for many is just plain sad. I don’t want to fit in to this. I don’t want to be overcome by this. I am too real for this virtual planet. Only nature and god are real, the rest like words on a page are illusions, creations of our own minds to occupy the hours we should be spending going inward and preparing for better things.

How deep does the heart go? Like a well is there a point where no more love can be drawn? Some days love flows thick like sap from a maple tree in March, sticking to all it touches, but moving ever so slowly into the realization of warmth. Other times it flows fast and hard like a river overflowing its banks in the spring… as parts of the source are melted by unexpected joys or sorrows. These moments bring life. Infusions of feeling heighten a pulse.
Some relationships make us dig deeply… finding one more morsel to offer to our beloved in hope that they offer us another morsel of their own to hold dear. We love, we learn, we give, we grow… and so it goes… with each step, without notice we delve into ourselves.
Then suddenly, one day we awaken. The fog lifts and we can see that though we thought our love was as deep as it possibly could be, we realize that our love has grown even deeper seemingly over night. Our heart more open and touched with a warmth and desire never imagined possible.
This is when we hear the crackle of the thin ice beneath our feet. We realize we are in too deep. We see in little things that our beloved will not match us, can not accept the love at this level. Suddenly it all starts to fall away as they turn to look around. Fear in their heart of the unknown depths we have reached. As they take the first step to walk away we can almost hear our heart breaking, the ache of loss unmistakable. The tears are almost uncontrollable. Something in that second breaks… the detachment process begins in spite of any reason or logic. In the language of the heart, it is the subtle movements, the tone and inflection, the intent not so much the words that it hears the most.
There in this moment suspended in deafening achy silence we realize that love can walk away. Love will walk away. And when it does, we must honor that and let it go where it needs to be to feel alive again, unrestrained, unafraid…. as we will be, the next time love comes around close enough to touch.

So here I sit, rainy, darkish day, but warm inside. I have a candle burning here on my desk and the whole room smells like apples. Songs have been wafting into my mind today as I drove around town on my errands. Songs about love and longing, about the powerful pull, almost like the moon has on the tides, that love can be in our lives. Why is that pull so strong? Why do we seek our whole lives to find that missing piece? Is it a memory from the womb, when it was warm and we were tethered there floating happily connected to our placenta, all our needs met and our hunger satiated? My mind wandered to connections, how everything in the universe is connected. I have known this innately for many many years now , plus I have studied interdependence and symbiosis in depth in the life sciences I have chosen to pursue in my past lines of work. But I also feel it spiritually too and recently I am  learning ever more about the interconnectedness of our thoughts, our feelings and how much power these things have not only within ourselves but on everything around us.

Connection. Ever just think of that word? It is a large force in itself. Is connection the counterweight to balance? As we walk the tightrope that is our path, it is almost as if our connection to our higher self, a higher power is the golden lifeline that keeps us there upon the line we walk, centered, balanced and ready to take the next step. Without some feeling of connection, some sense of belonging we drift aimlessly. Goals are harder to discern. Our true selves are harder to see without mirrors. So maybe it isn’t just about love, as I have always imagined. Maybe just as big a motivator as love is connection.

When we find a special connection to a place, a person, a thing we call it a passion. Passion then might be the desire to connect. The desire to relive the intense feelings of connection that cause us to be centered and balanced and allow us to freefall and open our hearts to love. So often love and passion go hand in hand. Why have we forgotten connection? It is the missing ingredient in so many relationships. Unfulfilling work is work without passion, doing something day in and day out that you feel no connection to. Unfulfilling relationships are relationships without passion or chemistry… living with and for someone day in and day out with whom you do not have the necessary connection. Unfulfilling food, something you eat just because it is there. No passion for it, no connection to it… it does not nourish you on all levels. So just as passion is the presence of  a strong connection….so unfulfillment then could be seen as the lack of connection.

Have you ever truly felt connected? To yourself, to nature and the earth, to community, to other people, to your family, to that one special person who makes your heart sing? Connection draws you closer, pulls you in, gives you joy beyond measure. When you find the work you are connected to, every day is a chance to get up and learn more, do more, enjoy more of that connection. When you make time to buy and prepare the food your body loves most, every meal is a celebration of health and connection to the earth. When you find that person that you connect with on many levels, intimacy flows freely as you create a sacred space around your hearts of saftey, warmth, trust and love. You feed one another, you grow together, you lift each other higher every chance you get. It comes naturally. This connection spurs passion. The need and desire to feel that connection make you want to be where your love is. This connection is the force that drives the acts of love you hear about… writing love songs, love letters spanning years, driving across the country to meet him, picking a flower to put in her hair. Feeding the connection, the purpose of passion… which in turn leads to intimacy and love. Love is the culmination of both people feeling, responding to and enabling that connection with passion, warmth and desire.

When we are connected we think nothing of dedicating our life to that connection. Life work, hobbies, interpersonal relationships, all come easier when the connection we need is present.

Think of how life is without connection. What do you feel when you lose your internet connection? Your love connection? Your work connection? Your connection to the beauty of the planet, nature, the universe. Frustration, sadness, drifting, lack of motivation, anger, stress of all kinds…

Connection… its a big deal. Lacking it is the cause of most ills. Being open to it and finding it is the cure.

Sometimes in the general scheme of things the first step is the hardest. For every mountain that appears before us the decision to climb it or go around it lays at our feet like crumbs in the trail. The courage to take the first step in either direction is liberating and lets the mind soar. It’s the hovering , the indecision that can make the mountain seem higher than it actually is. Once that first step is taken little by little the steps fall into place.

The application process for a job or to a college seems daunting. As does that first step down the isle when your feet feel frozen to the earth and your heart races and your dreams fly high.  It’s not the words or the procedure that makes it so, as much as the commitment and emotion, the meaning that taking action in that direction brings.

So too with leaving someone you love behind. Having to walk away when your heart wants to stay. That first step is almost paralyzing. Moving to your first apartment, lovers parting, putting your child on the school bus for the first time, filing for divorce, watching your grandparent die…first steps in the process of letting go.

I guess life is a series of first steps in new directions. First steps we take alone, like we did on our first birthday…. Or with others hand in hand like we did with our first love walking along the peaceful path in the woods. Life is a series of mountains to climb, first steps lifting us up the mountain with confidence and accumulated experience.

At the top of the mountain we look back. We see our steps, we see the marks they have left on our lives, our personalities, our souls and we know that each step was taken in exactly the spot it should have been. We learn that all things are for a reason and each first step is just one in the series that amount to where we are now…. Taking one giant leap of faith into the future…trusting the universe, our intuition, ourselves… one step at a time.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could consistently recognize our mistakes as we made them?

See ourselves clearly in the present without the fog of motives, agenda,worry or needs. How often do we look back at the stages of our lives and think… If I had only been stronger, that decision would have changed my life.

I see now how dysfunctional, immature, unyielding I was in that situation or relationship.

Wouldn’t it be great if every time we made a choice we oculd mentally see a red or green light, a sign that we are on the right path?

Crossroads appear. Who we are at that time in life determines the road that we take.

What if SHOULD did not exist. And all we had to work with was want. Doing only what we want to do? What would happen? How would life be? Would what we want change when it became the focus and not just the stolen thought or moment?

I guess it’s all in our perspective. Today might be a good day to try to see in a different light.

What does it take to commit? To throw yourself wholeheartedly into something.

Trust, Faith, Desire to be one with the thing you commit to. For some, commitment is a trial. A struggle to stay with the program. It can be as simple as finishing what you start. Seeing a project to fruition. Getting to that last page in a book.

The tolerance to Commitment varies.

Some avoid it their entire lives. Moving from one unfinished project, relationship, idea, to the next.

Others dive in sure they can remain consistent… only to fail.

Then there are the ones who breeze through. Starting, finishing, building, giving all to the one goal. The end product, the result. They get the fruit.

Can there be fruit in your basket without the ability to commit to the harvest? I guess that is the question we all struggle with at one time or another. Is there a shortcut to happiness, to validation, to meshing with success?

Does it make it harder for the peach to ripen uncommitted or is time more influencital than commitment in bringing things to pass?

Maybe those of us who shy from commitment, in the end, find that time and patience can get us the prize too? Or maybe just being there, present, over time is the magic.

Without the word, or the promise of Commitment, are we committed anyway…but see it only in hindsight?

Maybe with this as in all things, it’s the actions, not the word.

Ever notice how once someone breaks your trust it becomes very difficult to believe anything they say.  Every action, omission, moment out of sight becomes suspect. This is so unhealthy and a very good way to drive yourself crazy. I have been driving myself crazy and I have decided it is time to stop.

My task today is to practice having Faith in the people I love. I have to realize we are all only human and as humans we do on occasion do things that are not for the best. I have forgiven but now I need to reach inside and find a way to believe again. The best way I can do this is to believe in myself. To believe with my heart that all is right in my world and all things at this time are exactly as they are meant to be. All is as it should be.

Autumn is a great time for clearing out bad energy and bringing in new wholesome and good vibrations into our lives to perk us up and prepare us for the long winter. I will focus on this. Putting broom to closets and sweeping as best I can all the dusty intentions and ideas that have held me in a spin cycle for the summer. Spinning, though thrilling at times is exhausting and it’s time to truly be free.

Ever notice that making decisions is freeing in itself. Just deciding to do something, or be with someone, or take a new path is exhilarating. The moment of choice though sometimes nerve wracking is one of the moments that propel our lives forward. Each choice is a step in a new direction and each choice we make either enhances or detracts from our lives. Maybe that is why choosing can be so difficult. On some level our course is changed by every option.

To be free is the goal. Free of doubt, free of suspicion, free of fear….

All the tools are in my hands and I accept the challenge.

I come to you as a middle aged, married American woman. My original dating history spanned the late 80’s and early 90’s as PCs were just coming into their own and the internet was a fledgling communication device used mostly by geeky guys I knew who had Apple computers. It was message boards and forums… my how this has evolved.

I am no stranger to online dating. In fact after my divorce from the husband I acquired through traditional methods I met my future husband on Internet Relay Chat in 1996. This fact turned heads and many people did not understand. Only about ½ or less of the population was online back then.  We are currently married with children and living the American dream.

The internet, the access, the ability to be plugged in no matter where we are these days is  totally mind blowing. Is it healthy to be receiving texts from someone who is on the throne? We have become a society that is never alone. It seems all boundaries have gone out the window with the complete immersion of ourselves in this culture.

It is a blessing and a curse. Through these now common place means of communication we are now able to meet people who never would have crossed our paths in the “old” days. The pool of selection has widened to an unbelievable scope. With so many ponds to fish in… OKC, POF and I’m sure you know many more than I do, I’m old and married after all, how can anyone possibly focus?

The immediate gratification and validation you get when you get a message on your phone, your blackberry, your Ipod, your yahoo, your AIM, one or all of your email accounts is a rush and a thrill. It is easy to become addicted to all that New Relationship Energy (NRE).

It used to be said, again back in the old days, that women are like buses, one comes along every 20 minutes. Well now it seems here in the 21^st century women and men come along every 5 minutes. Again I have to wonder how do we focus.

We meet people, pretty often and regularly. Some there is a chemistry with others not. The ones who are common, don’t move you much,  are easy, you catch and release. But what about the ones that get inside, that touch you just right, that you seem to have a connection and chemistry with. What do you do with those? How can you focus for more than a week when you are being constantly bombarded by new potential best things that ever walked into your life?

I have seen this phenomenon first hand. At first I thought it was my marital status, then I started to wonder if hey maybe I am just an intense short term thing to most people, a flash in the pan of the psyche so to speak. But I have just come to the realization that it is not me. It is the culture and it is the nature of people. The forever chasing the brass ring, the grass is always greener, maybe I am missing something if I am relating just with this person. It is the nature of us, both men and women to want the best, to seek the best, to always be looking for more. Never satisfied, never able to satisfy. I guess it keeps us on our toes, gives us a reason.

So along these lines of thought then I have to voice my concern for marriage. I have to admit that I am not the staunchest defender of the vow of marriage. I believe people choose to be together and they can choose the terms of that togetherness. It comes in all flavors and styles and none are more right than the other. We are bound, for life, but we must continue to grow in ourselves no matter what avenue that takes.

That said I am wondering if marriage will become extinct in the 21^st century. Or will it mutate to incorporate the changing needs of a hyperactive, multitasking population of human spirits who are generally restless. What if you meet that person, the rightness you have searched for, the one who compels you to say I DO. What do you do with all the ponds? Do you roll up the piers, pull the plugs. Do you close down your accounts, your yahoo goes silent? What happens? How do you transition from a fun-loving adventure seeking single- most -wanted man/woman alive, to the lover of just one special heart and soul.

This was always hard enough. As proven by the sheer number of people who do not and can not remain faithful. But how do you get past this when temptation is only a click away. How do you slow down the hamster wheel of the search and focus only on one. And without the ability to do this, do your relationships risk becoming superficial flings, nothing more deep than a passing in the night every now and then. A meeting of the minds for a few brief minutes between instant messages?

I have gotten to know many men in my time online. Some deeply. I worry about them and their 1 week cyclic attention spans. I worry about the women who they date and the turmoil in all these hearts who are out there looking for a clue. And I guess my biggest worry is for my 2 sons. This is the world that my little boys will be growing up into. How do I help them learn to focus, learn to look into a woman’s heart, one woman at a time to find the one they want to be with long term. How do I teach them about the distractions and the dangers and the difficulty dispersing all that energy can cause in their lives. The constant roller coaster of emotions, hopes too high, rejections too low, over and over again on a weekly basis. It is more than a loving soul should have to bear. It has to be destructive in its own way. Do you feel jaded before your time? Will my sons be jaded before they find someone worth it?

The internet itself is addicting. The dating scene is addicting too. I guess like with all other addictions to guide them,  I have to make sure they have good self esteem and they know the pitfalls. Maybe that is why I was drawn explore dating and social networking sites. To learn the pitfalls first hand. My head understands it all, but my heart just refuses to catch up. In that respect I will one day communicate my lessons learned here to my sons.

Wondering about Wandering

Relationships… what do we truly want from them?

Can one person be all we need? Is it even fair to ask one person to try to be all we need?

There has to be diversity in life, changing scenery, something to compare things to. How would we know what we truly have if we never experienced anything else. Would vanilla truly be vanilla if we never tasted spice upon our tongue?

I guess these are questions of a mind that wanders, a seeker of truth and excitement, and more.

It seems most people live in the cradle of their making, with one other person for years and years on end. Why is that so hard to fathom for me?

I have tried it, I have lived it… but eventually discontent. So far no strategy to combat that.

Is there one special man out there for me that would make all these desires go away, that could fulfill me enough that the grass around our love would always be the greenest?

How do you hold  love together when both he and I have these same issues? Trust is the victim having been slaughtered over and over in our minds and in actions that set the dominoes tumbling every time. Same needs, same obsessive thoughts of wanting more, more, more, all the time. Intensity junkies wanting the thrill of the chase, the allure of seduction, the primal beat of lust and love coursing through our veins… can we sustain that? Wouldn’t it be fun to try? Are we strong enough to try, to risk it all for our love?

Is it really a case of not appreciating what you have, or is it more not being able to fulfill some vague need within. Something probably that should be filled by the self and not the other?

So many theories exist on this. Lot of books about it… lots of marriages and relationships fail because of it.

I have to wonder… can a soulmate cure wanderlust? Can a twin flame light the way so brightly that all else pales in comparison.

Am I ready to find out? Are you?