Effing irresponsible

You know the great thing about blogs... the irresponsibility.  No one really ever has to answer to anyone.

Fine, fine line...

  At the risk of being repetitive with posting song lyrics, a friend of mine sang this song last night and I liked it so much that I had to share it.  The music is simple and beautiful.  If you're interested, you can listen to the whole song here.  Thank you, Dimples.

There's a Fine, Fine Line

There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend;
There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend;
And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb.

There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.

There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,
But there's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of your time.

And I don't have the time to waste on you anymore.
I don't think that you even know what you're looking for.
For my own sanity, I've got to close the door
And walk away...
Oh...

There's a fine, fine line between together and not
And there's a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what you got.
You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime...

There's a fine, fine line between love
And a waste of time.

  I promise I am still working on my other posts that are coming soon.  They should be up in the next couple days.

The Easy Way or the Right Way.

  I have been thinking about the nature of “the easy way” for the past couple days. 

  Why is it that the hard way and the right way are usually one and the same?  Everyone has heard the expression, “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.”  There have been books written on the subject.  Far greater men than me have discoursed at length on the subject ranging from simple philosophers to God himself.  So, why is it so hard? 

“Now I have come to the cross-roads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew, but I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.”

                                --Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman

Imagine for a second that you come to a fork in the road of your life and you have the chance to choose between two roads.   One is rocky, fraught with danger, uphill and treacherous.  The other is paved, smooth, sloping downward and beautifully manicured.  Which one seems more attractive?  Be honest! 

  Now for some more information… You have to make the decision in your life blind, meaning you do not know the end of the road from the beginning.  You can see a ways up the up-sloping and difficult road to where it bends around some rather treacherous looking boulders and that’s all.  Likewise with the paved, attractive road, you see a ways to where the road banks around a beautiful pond and passes out of sight.  You are free to choose either road, but once chosen, you may not turn back. 

  For a long time I was the type of person who would seek the easy road.  I have, on occasion, known the right path and intentionally turned from it because I knew how hard it would be.  What’s worse is I knew the reward at the end of the right path that I was forfeiting and I still turned from it.  Why?

  I was a coward.

  Well, either that or I am self-destructive.  For a long time I made a habit out of coasting through life.  I considered it a personal triumph to be able to find that beautiful balance point where I would reap maximum reward for minimal effort.  I am told that this is a common trait of the intelligent.  I guess most intelligent people are lazy.  Looking back, I wish I were a little dumber and a lot more hard-working…  I wish I had learned to work at an earlier age.  I may have to write more about the subject of work again later. 

  For now, let’s go back to that fork in the road for a minute.  Now, I said that you have to make the decision of which path to take blind, but what if you knew where you were trying to go?

“Which road to I take?” said Alice.

“Where do you want to go?” asked the Cheshire Cat.

“Well, I… I don’t know.” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the Cat, “it doesn’t matter.  If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

  What is your ultimate objective?  Where do you want to go?  Who do you want to be when you get there?  What do you want to be like?  Who do you want with you when you arrive?  These are hard questions for someone who is directionless. 

  But you know the great thing?  Unlike the choice of the fork in the road, we'll always have a way back.  If you would rather ascend the mountain than coast to the valley floor, you need only make a choice.  Make the choice.  Don't apologize for it, excuse it or call it by another name.  Make the choice.  Own it.  And rise above the easy way.

Funny how things turn out, Part III

  Have you ever been frustrated by something that you know to be true?  You know that something is valuable and meaningful and when you try to tell others about it they just don’t “get it.”  You try and try and change your words and try to explain things in different ways to get your point across but in the end, it makes little or no difference to the person you are trying to tell.  I have felt that way. 

  I consider myself to be fairly eloquent.  I have known the power of the spoken word.  I have known the ability to use words to make others see perfectly in their own heads the idea that you are describing.  It’s really rather gratifying to have that kind of experience.  It’s also really frustrating having had that kind of experience to not be able to bring it about when you want to. 

  My beautiful, wonderful, amazing, stubborn, frustrating dear…  doesn’t get it.  I am falling in love with her and she doesn’t get it.  She is afraid of hurting me and has walked away again. Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool my twice, shame on me.  Fool me three times and I am just an idiot for coming back again and again.  But how can I deny the way I feel?!  That’s right, this is the third time she has walked away.

  After my last update we decided to try being together again.  I told her that I had feelings for her and that I was willing to be patient with her to allow her to sort out the feelings she has for me.  I am a patient man… most of the time.  I know that she doesn’t realize what she feels or maybe just doesn’t want to acknowledge what she is feeling but there are moments when I can see it in her face.  She feels something.  She seems very practiced at keeping her feelings under control.  I can tell that she feels things very deeply but she won’t let me see into her.  She won’t let me know what is going on in her head or in her heart.  GYAAAH!  It’s so frustrating to be THIS close to something you truly want and have the ground fall out from under you. 

  Part of me is even more frustrated because I had moments when I wanted to be the one to say goodbye.  I even tried a couple of times.  I wanted to be the one to walk this time.  After she backed off the second time I decided that I was done.  But I wanted to be the one for once who did the leaving.  I wrote a letter to her, in fact, that told her very clearly that I was falling in love with her.  It also said that real love doesn’t ask anything in return and I was asking.  I wrote that I had found myself asking her to care for me and hoping she would.  I told her that I couldn’t wait forever and that I wasn’t strong enough to love her from a distance and support her while she found she felt for another what I felt for her.  I wrote those words while I was waiting in limbo for her to decide what she wanted but I never sent them.  My mind was already made up.  If she didn’t want me then I guess I’d be by myself. 

It was kind of surreal actually.  We had seen each other earlier that day and everything seemed fine at first glance, but something seemed off to me.  Now, if you have read any of my other posts you already know that I tend to worry about things.  I could very well have been worrying for no good reason, but it just seemed like she was hiding behind a wall, an emotional barricade, that was designed to keep everyone out, especially me.  It could have been that she didn’t know how she felt.  It could be that she felt a certain way and didn’t want to tell me.  It could be that she was trying to put me in the dreaded “friend zone” and needed some emotional distance first.  After all, if she really cared for me why would she hide what she feels?! 

  Later that night we got to talking and I asked her if she had any more information for me about how or what she was feeling.  She told me that she did not.  I told her about my perception of earlier in the day when things seemed out of sorts.  She said she didn’t feel like things were off.  Now, granted… I may have been pushing a little, but I just told her that I felt like I was the one taking all the risk because I had gone out on a limb and had told her the way I feel.  She didn’t know how she felt, yes, but the fact that she couldn’t tell me what she was feeling left me in limbo for ever.  I reiterated what I had said earlier and told her that if she needed time to sort out the way she feels that I would wait, but if it was different…  If she had already made up her mind and just didn’t want to tell me what it was that she had decided (I fully thought that she was going to break up with me, which is funny because we were supposed to be “just friends”) that it was a different story.  I told her that I felt like I was in a precarious position, trying to keep from falling for her and knowing that it was futile but still not knowing how she felt for me. 

  It was a potent conversation and I even caused her to cry with my words.  Not because I was mean or anything, mind you, but because I was asking and pressing for answers that she didn’t know.  It made her sad and frustrated to not be able to give me what I was asking for.  I again asked if she had truly not made up her mind and she told me that she hadn’t.  I told her that I would go on waiting.

  And waiting…

  And waiting…

  Finally she sent me a message telling me that she couldn’t do it anymore.  She couldn’t continue to keep me in limbo.  She said it wasn’t fair to me.  She was hurting me by not being able to return for me what I felt for her.  –Now, let me go on record her and say that she DID feel something!  I saw it! But still she had decided to walk away, to play it safe.  I just don’t GET IT!  Why would I be destined to feel this way for someone who can’t feel this way in return?!  So, she is gone… again.  But I can’t stop thinking about her. And that part sucks.  Still somehow, I get the feeling that she is still important.  I don’t know.  Maybe I am just going crazy.

The Action Plan part II

Coming soon...

Best breakup song ever

  So, I find it funny how you can find deep and profound meaning in poetry, lyric and music much more at certain times than others.  Often it seems like a song that you have listened to many times before suddenly "makes sense" while experiencing an emotion that reflects what the author may have been feeling at the time it was written.  The voice of human experience often seems to harmonize and resonate with people of any background because emotion is universal.  


  Someone once told me that the way you know you're in love is when all the cheesy love songs on your iPod suddenly begin to make sense.  So too when you feel your heart hurting...


  I came across this song again a couple of weeks ago in a moment of loss and pain.  It made sense at the time.  I thought I would share it.  Perhaps it will resonate with you and your heart will sing it's own harmonies.

"Goodbye My Lover"

Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your hand.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

I am a dreamer and when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bare my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow.

3:41 am

It's 3:41am on a Tuesday morning and I can't sleep.


I sometimes know when it's coming -- what nights I will sleep because I am exhausted, but if that sleep is interrupted for any reason that the likelihood of getting back to sleep is slim to none.  Usually it's on nights where I start thinking about things that need to be done.  I go through my checklist of things that need doing and I check off things that I've done and I go through the things that are next on the list.  The trouble is that there aren't a lot of things you can do at 3:41 in the morning.  You can read, I guess.  You can study, sure.  Or you can type aimlessly on your blog.


  Why is it that we always seem to think of really important things at 3:30 in the morning?  Or, seemingly important things, I should say.  It should work to wake up, write a note to yourself to accomplish something that needs doing in the waking hours, then lie back down and go to sleep, right?  It never works that way, though.


  I wonder if there is a way to quantify the weight of human thought.


  You know how people talk sometimes about their thoughts being heavy or being weighed down by their thoughts, or of being uplifted by or carried by their thoughts?  I wonder if there is a way to physically measure the process of human cognition... And, if so, would there also be a way to measure the way thought impacts the physical world?  I'll have to look into that one...  Tomorrow...  If I can get back to sleep.

Take the longview

So, I’ve had a collection of conversations with some dear friends recently whom I trust greatly and I thought it would be interesting to see if I could string together some of the conversations.  The purpose would be simply to gain a little clarity or a new perspective on things.

  A dear friend of mine whom I have known for years and years asked me about age differences.  I thought this was interesting since I myself had just asked the question of another friend just a few days before.  You see, having entered our 30’s now and both being single, we both find ourselves asking the same kinds of questions.  Often among the questions raised is the matter of age.  Is age really just a number? 

  She, my friend, is being “fixed up” with a nice young man by a mutual acquaintance.  When I say young, I mean 10 years her junior.  She is a little worried about it so we had a conversation about the subject and here is the question I asked her.  “When you've been married for 55 years and have 8 children, 29 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren, is it going to matter that you're 90 and he's 80?”

  I, as you know by now, am 31 and divorced.  I find myself thrown back into the dating game as a seasoned veteran and as such, find myself much older than many of the other players in the game.  I find that age, sometimes, is a prime consideration of some of the people, especially younger people, who are looking for someone special.  What brought this to mind was an experience I had when I was spending time with a group of single people, hanging out, playing games and telling stories.  There was one younger woman with whom I enjoyed speaking.  I came to find out that we have theater and musical interests in common.  I casually mentioned that I had performed at a local theater and as a result had season tickets to see each of their productions, but my date had canceled on me for their showing of “The Seussical Musical.”  She said she hadn't ever been to the theater but that she had seen the show and liked it.  Before I knew it, I had invited her to come with me to the show and to my surprise, she said yes. 

  Now, I have been included with this group of younger single adults as an equal and only raised the question about age as a consideration to them when I first met many of them.  I was concerned, not for my sake, but for theirs.  It can seem a little strange to some people having an age difference like that and I wanted to be sensitive to their feelings.  It had been something that I had thought about for a moment back then and not thought about since… until I had a date and found out that she was 21.  That story is still in the works and I may write about it later… the fact of the matter is that it shouldn’t even really count as a date.  It’s just two people going to a show together… right?  More to follow.

The reason I raise this question is that my conversation with my dear friend took on a more general perspective after that.  We talked about the idea that no two people are tailor made for each other.  There are many concerns like age differences, social circles, class distinctions, differences in education, religion, upbringing, family.  There are many things that divide.  There are always going to be challenges even for two people who seem "Made for each other."

Look at it like this.

Do you know anything about masonry?  About brick-laying?  Stone work?  ...doesn't matter.

Imagine two large foundation stones.  Place them side by side and no matter how well they have been cut to fit, there are always going to be small gaps between the two stones.  Now imagine taking those two blocks and rubbing them against each other day after day and year after year.  Many of those hard and sharp edges with chip away and smooth out and after a while the stones will become almost perfect for each other.  Now, even still, you can rub those stones together for years and years and years and there will still be gaps between the stones even though they have become a matched pair that works near perfectly for each other.

Love is the mortar.

Love is the fill that makes up for the gaps that are left so that you can build a life, a family and a future on that foundation that you have made together. 

I guess my point is that there is no such thing as a soul mate or rather someone that you meet who is perfect for you in every single way. That is a Disney movie fallacy. The point is that you BECOME perfect for each other.

My question to my friend then was, “Who knows if this younger guy is it or not.  No one can tell.  But if it means that you and he can find happiness with each other, are you going to let 10 measly years difference stop you from finding out?”  Are you going to let that one thing, that one worry stop you from finding something truly great in someone else?  I guess it’s up to you. 

Attitude is everything

  You know those days when you wake up and you just know that today is going to suck?  Like the day where you wake up earlier than normal and can’t go back to sleep, for instance.  Or the time you couldn’t find your keys and you were already late for work.  Or when you found your keys but you realize that you had left them in the ignition of your car.  Maybe it’s when the momentary relief at finding your keys dissolves when you realize that the day before you had left your keys in the number two position of your ignition and that your battery was dead.  So, by now you’re sleep deprived, you’re late for work, your car battery is dead, you’re behind on your school work, you have frustrations, worries and you feel like your day is the microcosm of your life and it is spinning out of control. 

  To make matters worse, the woman you have been waiting patiently to “figure things out” tells you that “It’s not meant to be.”  You, like an idiot, want to know why and she tells you exactly what’s wrong with you.  It could be any number of things that resonate with your own insecurity like, not attractive enough, or don’t make enough money.  It could be things outside your control like you’re family background, or upbringing.  Or it could be the one thing that makes your confidence crumble completely, like you’re 31, divorced, without a college degree and you have never lived up to your true potential. 

  So, by now you’re walking to work, worried about the wrath of the boss, you have no girlfriend, you’re behind on your school work, you don’t have enough money, you’re not attractive enough, you’re sleep deprived, you’re a failure as a student, lover, man, etc.  Can it get worse?!  …yeah, just then it starts raining.  “God?” you ask, “Why do you hate me?” 

  Sure, things could always get worse, but it’s the mindset I want to point out.  You see, this is something that would ruin most peoples day and would make most people want to curl up into a little ball and hide from the world.  It just seems like circumstances like these would sour your outlook for a while and there would be no recovery, right? 

  Nope.  Funny thing is attitude is a choice.  For the unpracticed it may seem like circumstances dictate the color of your day, but the fact of the matter is that you can choose.

  Now, I am not going to feed you some kind of nonsensical rhetoric like “Choose yer tude!”  or “Attitude is contagious.  Is yours worth catching?”  It goes deeper than that.  It comes down to a fundamental sense of who you are.  “Know thyself.”  When you understand who and what you are, it’s easier to place yourself in the grand scheme of things at take a wider view of any given situation. 

  More to follow later.

Pain

  Yesterday I saw the face of pain.  

  It was sudden, gripping and relentless.  It arrived so quickly as to take me completely by surprise and unaware.  It was not unbearable pain and was quickly stifled, but for a moment or two, it was there.  It left me wondering why this old pain should cross the face of one so full of joy and life.  And why now?  How did I respond?  In that moment I wished that I could take away the pain so completely and totally as to make it feel as though there had never been any suffering in the first place.  Then, I realized what a selfish desire this was.  Were I to remove the pain of this wonderful woman’s life, I would rob her of the experience the pain had given her which had shaped her into the person there before me. 

“Wisdom is simply pain that has healed.”

    --Anonymous

  I have been reflecting for most of the day on the purpose and benefit of pain.  Why do we experience pain?  Well, pain can be beneficial in some ways.  It can warn of danger or injury, i.e. touching a hot stove, a broken limb, a bruise.  In fact, one of the major things that doctors rely on when treating a patient is the pain scale.  If they know how intense the pain is of a patient and roughly where it is coming from they can begin proper treatment.  

  Pain or suffering in general is also one way of knowing that we’re alive.  I remember when I was a young teen knowing in that split second as I was falling off of a fast moving ATV that the landing was going to hurt.  I also remember the terror when, in that split second after landing, I didn’t feel any pain.  I thought for what seemed like a long time that I was dead.  It couldn’t have lasted longer than the space of one heartbeat before the pain rushed in all at once and I let out a primal scream of sheer agony.  It was so intense that I knew I must still be alive. 

“Pain without love,

Pain, I can’t get enough

Pain, I like it rough

‘Cause I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all.”

  --Three Days Grace

  They say that pain is a side effect of the healing process.  The old adage, “It has to hurt if it is to heal” has been used for millennia.  So, pain shows us that we can heal?  Yes, and not just from physical pain.  The pain of experience can turn someone into a very wise person.  Mental anguish can shape the life of a person, family and even a nation.  The feelings of torment and oppression of many can, in fact, shape the course of the whole world. 

  What about emotional pain?  What is the benefit there? 

  I have heard it said that emotional pain exists to teach us the depth of its opposite.  The more pain you experience the more you understand… what?  The absence of pain?  I don’t think so.  Pain, especially, emotional pain can be so intense you feel like you could die—hope that you would die in the moment it is experienced!  The opposite would have to be more significant to be its equal and opposite.  Pleasure, then?  Is the opposite of pain pleasure? Again, I don’t think so, at least not in the sense of opposing the pain I am talking about.  Pleasure too can be intense, but inadequate to explain the opposite of pain and suffering. 

  “People in pain—especially people we love—test that dimension of us. Their need forces us to decide how much of us we’re really willing to give, how much of our time and emotional and physical resources we will sacrifice for them.”

                        --Sandra Strange

  Personally, I feel that the opposite of pain is joy.  “My soul was filled with joy as exquisite as was my pain.”  Therefore, the deeper our understanding of pain, the deeper is our understanding of joy.  Perhaps the converse is also true that the greater our understanding of joy, the greater our understanding of pain.  

  For my part, it is difficult to see others in pain, both for their sake and for my own.  It brings to memory echos of my own secret pain.  Like the itch that you feel over a long healed scar…  The battle wounds that I have gathered from the car accident, cutting words or the heartbreak of loss… Pain is life. 

            “Life is pain.  But joy may be found from the willful participation therein.”

            --Buddha 

  What about the pain of rejection?  Everyone can relate to this pain on one level or another.  This is the pain of loss tied together with the fear of inadequacy and insecurity all rolled into one.  The human heart is an interesting thing, emotionally speaking.  We can feel something that makes no sense at all for someone and, knowing that it will result in nothing but pain and frustration, throw ourselves willingly into misery simply by exposing our vulnerabilities to each other.  

"Suffer love!  A good epithet! I do suffer love,

indeed, for I love thee against my will!"

  This may, in fact, be the worst kind of pain because there really is no recovery.  They say time heals all wounds and for some this may be true.  Time offers a healing salve over the scars of yesteryear and sooths the pain of memories long past.  The fact of the matter, however, is that the pain is still there; the wound is still there, though it has been covered by layer upon layer of time.  Some pain stands in constant danger of being revived, as though a wound  is reopened.  

The Mama Award

  So, in honor of Mother’s Day I thought I would tell the story of the Mama award.  It has been dormant for some time now and I think it’s time to revive the tradition. 

  Ask yourself who has been influential in your life.  Is there a woman in your past who has been a mentor, confidant, teacher or friend to you?  She doesn’t have to be related to you at all.  She simply has to have had an impact on your life and its development.  Let’s face it, mothers are invaluable to all of us and not just the ones in our immediate family but all the mamas who helped raise us and shape our lives. 

  When I was a teenager I would spend long days and even longer nights with wonderful friends who were awesome just to be around.  We would laugh and play and be goofy all the time, especially during the summer months when 3 and 4 in the morning were the normal bedtimes for us.  I don’t remember ever feeling unwelcome in any of my friends’ homes during that time, even that late at night and a lot of it had to do with the quality of parents each of my friends had. 

  Now, it wasn’t always the case, but sometimes when you befriend someone you also take that persons mama to friend as well and just by sheer association they have an impact on you.  Now that I look back, each of these wonderful mothers was making sure that we as teenagers always had a safe-haven to go to, even at 2:00 in the morning, where we would always be welcome.  We never had to worry about outside influences or the teenage tendency to find mischief late at night because we had these different places to go.  We would rotate the location of these gatherings regularly, but we were always cared for and always safe because of the homes provided by these different families and, most especially, these wonderful mothers.  Now, I am not talking about 3 or 4 kids…  I mean a group of about 15-20 kids. 

  Once when we were over at my friend’s house on a Friday night, I said something to someone referring to my friend’s mother and simply called her “Mama Doxy.”  Several nights later we were over at another friend’s house and I referred to his mother as “Mama Buckner.”  It kind of grew out of that, as most good ideas do, and turned into what it is today.  Now, I have certificates and plaques that can be presented to different mamas in recognition of who and what they have been to me.

  Traditionally in German culture there are two ways of addressing people.  There is the “sie sprache” which is the formal way of addressing someone and there is the “du sprache” the informal or intimate way of addressing someone.  You would always use the sie sprache with people above your station like your boss or an older acquaintance but you would also use it when addressing your equals, i.e. your colleagues at work, your casual acquaintances, people you are meeting for the first time.  The du sprache, or the intimate form of address was reserved for dear close friends, little children, family and, wonderfully, when addressing God in your personal prayers.  According to German tradition, when you had known someone long enough and you had developed a bond of friendship, you would meet at a tavern, you would get several rounds of schnapps, you would toast each other’s health and would agree to use the du sprache from then on.  After that, you were friends for life. 

  The Mama Award is similar to this idea.  When a particular mother shows herself to be of the kind of quality as to be influential in guiding your young life, caring about you, worrying about you, advising you, holding you accountable, raising you, teaching you… When a woman has done this and you take a moment to recognize it, you agree to drop the “Mrs.” or the “ma’am” and just call her “Mama.”  It doesn’t matter what age she is.  It doesn’t matter if she has kids of her own or not.  She becomes another mother to you and you honor her with the title of mama. 

  They say it takes a village to raise a child.  In many ways this has always been true.  So, I invite you to take a moment and honor your mother.  But also pay homage to all the “mamas” in your life, as well. 

Happy Mother’s Day!

When does choosing not to worry become foolish naivety?

  There are times when you hope for things and they come true and you’re ecstatic because you realized your hope.  There are times when you try not to hope for things because they don’t come to pass and you were expecting it.  Then there are times when you think you have what you were hoping for and you worry constantly about losing what you have.  But you know that worrying about things falling apart often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy and so you do your best not to worry.

  So, how do you tell the difference? 

  I think I may be a worrier.  I tend to play out situations to different conclusions just because that’s the way my mind has always worked.  I play the “what if” game with myself until I think I have covered all the possible scenarios.  At least that way I have a fair idea of what to expect so I can prepare myself for the outcome regardless of whether it’s good or bad.  I don’t believe I worry unduly, I just think a lot because I’m usually pretty good at it. 

  What happens when all the advice in the world is telling me not to worry so much, but my instincts are telling me that something is wrong or that something unpleasant is coming?  My instincts have proven to be right most of the time when it comes to people.  When I say most of the time, I mean that about 80% of the time I can figure it out before something bad is going to happen.  I’m less accurate with when something good is coming, but still up there. 

  I can see in others when they are about to draw close to each other and when they are pushing each other away.  Even worse, I can see when one wants to draw closer and the other wants to pull away.  It pains me to see it.  Or rather, I feel pain for the one who is being left behind but I also understand the pain of the one doing the leaving.  I have always been blessed (or cursed) with the ability to see more than what the average person thinks they are showing the world and as a result I can generally tell what is going on with a person emotionally through body language, verbal intonation and most especially through the eyes.  The eyes give it all away, especially when the person is thinking about what they are feeling, thinking or worrying about.

  I can see this in others. 

  It’s a different story when I look at myself. 

  When my own emotion becomes part of the question it becomes more difficult to “see” what is going on.  Things become subjective rather than objective.  I begin to project my own feelings onto others and see reflected in them my own worries.  I see questions that I am asking myself reflected in their eyes and my judgment becomes clouded.  It becomes more difficult to see things, but it’s not impossible.  Then again, I have a tendency to “borrow trouble.”  So I try not to worry so much.  But where do you draw the line?  When do you stop and think?  When does it become foolish not to address the proverbial elephant in the room?  When do you finally ask the question? 

  I just… I hate being right about things like this.  

A Letter to my Ex-wife for Mother's Day.

 Dear C,

  Its Mother’s Day tomorrow and I just wanted to say thank you; thank you for our boys. 

  I don’t know exactly what happened between us to make the love of man and wife die, and at this point it doesn't matter anymore.  But, I wanted you to know that I am grateful for the time we did have and I am incredibly grateful for the mother you are and have been to our sons.  Through high times and low times, just by looking into their faces, I can see that they have been very loved by you. 

  I still remember when D arrived.  We were living in that tiny but beautiful apartment in Mira Mesa and he couldn't decide if he was going to come or not.  You were having Braxton Hicks contractions for 2 ½ weeks before he finally decided to make his debut.  I remember being so unsure of anything.  And I still remember the faces of the nurses in the triage ward at the hospital that we came to know so well with so many "false alarm" visits.  I remember hearing D cry for the first time...  I knew beforehand that I loved him, but it was the moment that I heard him cry for the first time that I knew I would do whatever it took in this world to keep him safe.  I remember cooing at him gently and shhhing him and having the nurse tell me that this was wrong -- that they wanted him to cry.  I knew that we would do anything at all to make him know and not just believe that he was and is loved. 

  I remember the look of sheer joy mixed evenly with exhaustion that you wore when you held D for the first time.  There we were, two kids really, now with a kid of our own and not a clue in the world…  Do you remember putting together the crib?  Or that infernal car seat?  Maybe I was too tired to think straight; maybe I was too overwhelmed with “new father syndrome.”  I remember being so frustrated with that stupid car seat and not being able to get the straps to adjust for that little boy. 

  Do you remember that wicker bassinet that we got to go on the king bed between us so that we didn’t have to keep getting up to get D during the night?  Do you remember that time when I had been working such long hours and was soooo tired that I reached over to pick up the baby when he was ready to nurse, not realizing that you had already picked him up and ended up picking up just the blanket?  I remember that snap moment of horror and realization right after I had plunked the bunch of blankets down on my chest and began patting them when I thought I had lost the baby.  Well, sure it’s funny now.

  Even with the colic and the lack of sleep and the frustration of not knowing what we were doing…  Even when “tag teaming” wasn’t working to keep our sanity and we thought our heads would explode, I still knew that we loved that boy and that we always would.  So, thank you. 

  And, look!  It got easier.  E was a breeze, wasn’t he?  We learned from the experience with D how to handle E’s delivery, and it was a cinch… comparatively speaking.  Do you remember right after E was born when D wanted to hold him right away?  You never were much for emotion, but it looked like you were moved close to tears for that moment.  You know, I still remember the day I came home from work and D came running to greet me with a little white, peed-on stick in his hand…  I bet you still have that pregnancy test.  I remember the look on your face of impish delight at your clever “reveal” of our next boy.  And thank you for your understanding and reassurance at the range of emotions that surged in that moment which ranged from sheer joy to utter terror (terror at the thought of repeating the lessons already learned from a hormonal wife, Couvaud Syndrome and a colicky baby). 

  I still remember you coming to retrieve me from work while you were in labor with J.  You were smiling!  Smiling… while in labor!  You were smiling when we checked into the hospital.  You looked like you were checking into a resort.  “Yes, I’ll take the epidural, the chicken marsala for dinner and I’d like turndown service at 6:00 after my tennis lesson.”  Then again, third time’s the charm, I suppose.  The epidural was in before any difficult pain started.  We watched Look Who’s Talking that afternoon right after you got the epi, do you remember?  I think it was that movie that made you decide to stop speaking “baby talk” to the boys.  Do you remember the look on Dr. G’s face when you went from 7 cm to 10 after one contraction?  It was two pushes and Dr. G was saying, “Whoa!  Hold it right there… I have the head.  Just wait a second, now.” 

  You are a good mother.  I want you to know that I know that…

  It doesn’t matter what happened between us or why.  I will always be grateful to you for our three boys and the love that they receive from you.  I will always be grateful for the men they will be, because of you. 

Thank you for our boys.  Happy Mother’s Day. 

Sometimes I wonder...

So, for no particular reason at all I thought about Tiny Dancer a few days ago. 

Background:  I met TD as a freshman in college.  Actually, come to think of it, I don’t remember how we met, exactly.  We didn’t take any of the same classes (she was a theater major and I was a Psych major).  We weren’t in the same ward (I was in a student ward and she was a local).  Hmmm… that’s going to bug me.  Anyway, we met, is the bottom line, when I was a freshman in college at Ricks.  We dated for a while and there was definite chemistry but there was something standing in the way: my mission. 

For those of you who don’t know, it is customary in the LDS faith for young men, usually 19 years old or older, to postpone schooling and relationships and such in order to perform a religious obligation of missionary work for a period of two years.  This time is incredibly impacting on the missionary, to be sure, but it can be highly stressful on those left behind.  I knew I was going to go.  There was no question in my mind and really none in hers, but it still weighed on our minds in quiet moments. 

Now, I am a typical male (much more so back then) and when I realized that she was freaking out about being left behind, I did what all guys do, I tried to “fix” the problem.  I reassured her that everything was fine and that we didn’t have to worry about it for some time yet (I wasn’t leaving for at least 4-6 more months).  That didn’t go over well.  Keep in mind that I was young and stupid and didn’t realize that women tend to react emotionally to things.  This was a foreign idea to me being so young, stupid and male.  When that didn’t work, I put it to her as a simple either/or decision.  I said that we could either A.) Enjoy our time together, be happy for the times that we had and make memories that we could both look back on when we were apart, or B.) Say goodbye now before either of us risked too much of ourselves to really be hurt when it came time for me to leave. 

I thought that it was a well-constructed argument that was based on solid reasoning and logic.  Any women reading this will be rolling their eyes right about now.  Yeah, I was pretty thick-headed back then.  She basically shut down.  She didn’t talk to me, communicate or even emote at all around me.  I kept asking her for feedback.  I kept asking her to tell me what she was feeling and thinking and she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me anything at all.  I, being a typical male, took this to mean that she wanted me to make the “either/or” decision for us.  I elected to end things then and there because that’s what I thought SHE wanted. 

Well, I left her sitting there; staring straight ahead, stone faced, emotionless and non-responsive thinking I had made the right decision.  Then the emotions kicked in.  It felt wrong.  This was new to me who had heretofore been governed by reason and logic so well.  I realized that I had fallen for her which, frankly, came as a surprise to me.  I caught up with her later that night and told her what I had realized saying that I thought I had made a mistake.  When she asked why I told her that I thought I loved her.  She simply said, “Don’t say that.”  I don’t remember much after that, but I know the rest of the conversation was brief. 

She went her way and I went mine now conflicted by the crossed messages I was getting between head and heart.  I saw her now and again and even performed in a play with her in the cast.  That was kind of rough because she wouldn’t speak to me at all and I wouldn’t go to her either, again, because that’s what I thought SHE wanted.  Well, eventually time ran out and I left on my mission.  Time passed, I returned home from my mission and life started.  I met someone, got married, had kids and focused on the future.  But every now and again I would wonder what ever happened to Tiny Dancer. 

Now, I am the type of guy who likes to take what is good about a relationship and hold onto it even after the adventure with that person had ended.  I had enjoyed a handful of relationships before this one, but always when the relationship ended we always salvaged a friendship.  I was still friends with all of my ex-girlfriends; all except Tiny Dancer.  This bothered me for some reason.

Now, fast-forward over a decade later.  My life is now in turmoil.  My 9 year marriage is about to end and Plan A for my life has been shot to hell.  I had spent the past decade focused so much on the “We” of my wife and I that I had forgotten what it was to be “Me.”  Faced with the impending identity crisis I decided it was a good idea to examine my past before I could focus on the present, let alone look to the future.  I looked back at the good times in my past that did not involve my soon-to-be ex-wife and my time at Ricks College stood out against the backdrop of my memory and so did Tiny Dancer.  I decided to try to get back in touch with her.

I found her on Facebook and tentatively sent her a friend invite.  I asked her if it was alright that I was contacting her and she said that it was.  We corresponded for a while and I came to find out that she had never married and really hadn’t gone far from home.  She was working on additional schooling at the time.  Additionally, I came to find out that my version of the events from 11 years before was a little skewed.  I finally just asked her, point-blank, what went wrong back then.  She told me that she had trouble with people leaving her and that it was hard for her to be left behind by someone that she felt so deeply about.  She didn’t want to have to say goodbye and she told me that she had always regretted the way things ended between us.  I was surprised to say the least.

We decided to meet at some time in the future and just catch up.  Several weeks later, I took a long weekend from work and drove up to Idaho with the intention of going to the Ricks (now BYU – Idaho) campus to try to recapture some of what I had lost of myself over so many years.  I called her when I got to her town and asked her if she wanted to go with me.  She was surprised and delighted.  We met for the first time in 11 years and I could tell that she still felt something strongly about the “us” from so long ago.  This was wonderful for me, too, but confusing as well…  It was hard to separate the memories of teenage love with the conflicting emotions centering on my failed marriage. 

The visit to my old campus was great and very therapeutic for me.  I even ran into my old music professor, Dr. Brower.  I love this guy!  He is and has always been one of my favorite teachers of all time.  He was my choir director for the Collegiate Singers, the elite a cappella choir at Ricks, and was also my personal voice coach.  I may have to write about him again later.  I wandered through my old haunts and revisited many of my old memories from that time, all the while talking with Tiny Dancer about the time long past and what had been happening in the interim.  We even visited the sand dunes outside Ricks where I had spent many weekends.  It was a great trip down memory lane and we parted ways hoping to see more of each other. 

Returning to real life and the strain of my divorce, which by now had been dragging on for almost 10 months, I was forced to recognize the jumble of emotions I felt once again.  Tiny Dancer and I had made tentative plans for her to come down and visit me when she next came to Utah to visit family.  She had talked about staying at my apartment with me, which I had initially said okay to, but later felt uneasy about.  I finally called her and told her that I felt wrong about her coming to stay with me and that she needed to make other arrangements.  She was upset and hurt and she asked me what I felt for her.  I confessed that I was a mess and didn’t know what I felt for her.  I couldn’t tell if my emotions for her were based on trying to fill the gap left by my wife or if they were long forgotten emotions from an unfinished conversation from 11 years before. 

Again, being male is a difficulty in communication that I struggle with sometimes.  When I tried to message her on Facebook a few days later and found that I had been unfriended, I sent her an email asking what was going on.  I had no intention of terminating a friendship and that just because I wasn’t ready to pursue a relationship didn’t mean I wanted to sever all ties with her.  This didn’t go over well and I received a very emotional and rather angry response and then, silence.  Silence for a long time.  The silence seemed all too familiar, bringing to mind the echoes of long ago.

Several months later I received a one line email saying that she missed me and that she wanted to stay friends and still communicate.  I’m not sure if she caught me on a bad day or if I was just really in touch with what I was feeling but I responded to her very directly and I didn’t pull any punches.  I told her that I was upset that she had shut me out and walked away, twice now.  I reviewed our history both current and historical and pointed out that I had always been honest with her, even if this meant that I later had to go back and correct something that I thought was true in the moment.  I felt that my honesty was being punished.  I told her that I was done trying to please everyone and that even if my email seemed harsh that it was too bad because I had wasted so much time trying to accommodate everyone else’s feelings for too long and I wouldn’t do it anymore, etc. etc…

Her response surprised me.  She said that I was right.  She apologized again for walking away at a tough time in my life and left the ball in my court.  She gave me the option to try again or to walk away…

That was almost a year ago.

I know I should let sleeping dogs lie.  I know that she has probably put a cap on that friendship and found closure in her own way.  And yet, I still wonder.  I don’t like to have regrets and for a long time, at least as far as people were concerned, I didn’t have any – except her.  Now regarding the relationship with my ex-wife that will be a strained “business partnership” for the sake of parenting at best, I can no longer claim to not have any regrets, so it may not matter.  The question that I am left with is, were I to contact her again, would it be for my sake or hers?  Would it be to ease my own conscience?  This seems a pretty selfish reason to resume contact…  The other question is, to what end?  Why would I resume contact?  I may never pursue a romantic relationship with her, but don't really know.  I’m not sure what kind of friendship we had because I only remember the relationship from so long ago.  Is any friendship worth saving?  Should I just let it be?

What do you think?