Monday, January 6, 2014

Some thoughts about life and love

I am feeling quite well today. A couple of nights of getting to bed before 12 AM and helpful "Nootropic" herbs have gone a long way towards a feeling of well being.

This is the first day back for a lot of folks in my office from the company shut down, the beginning of the year and an opportunity for change. Over the years I have set goals and I have protested setting goals. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by what I want to change, I write everything down and then shrug my shoulders in despair. I believe that massive change is impossible in the short term, but that smaller changes, made over a longer period of time add up and get you to where you want to be. So in that spirit I am continuing on my health journey, continuing to look for ways to eat well, exercise, sleep better and have better relationships.

To that end I recognize that my personality has been that of a quite observer. I've not always played the most active role in developing my relationships, and I've let other peoples will dominate my own at times. This has been a product of genetics, nutrition and the native home environment that I grew up in.

I'm making a concerted effort to change, to connect with my children, to be a strong guiding factor in their lives. When I had my first child I was 17 years old. I didn't know what I was doing but I did know that I wanted my son to be proud of me, to look up to me. I've grown up in a lot of ways, along side my children. They are wonderful, cheerful and helpful for the most part but I can give them even more to think about now that I have found answers to many puzzling aspects of life that I didn't know before.

One of those puzzles is love. The meaning of Love has developed and changed for me as I have changed and developed. When I was young, I thought love was a burning attraction to someone. That it would overcome all differences, all obstacles, and make everything that was wrong, right. I thought that being devoted to someone meant that they would be devoted to you.

I had heartache from unrequited love but I never realized how much the heart could break. I never realized how much that heartache could teach me, about life and change. I never realized how much death could teach me as well. For you see, love and heartache are like birth and death. The beginning of love is  new hope, new possibilities. So much is expected from love, so much hoped for. Love blossoms and becomes a beautiful thing or else it is poisoned, by pain and circumstances. I never realized how many different levels there are to love. "True love" a phrase uttered in fairy tales as proof that the lovers were meant to be together forever in blissful eternity. True love means something different to me now it is a belief and love of someone else, their essence, yet it is a recognition of circumstance and a refusal to shutter my soul in an attempt to fix someone else. True love means standing fast to the right course of action, letting go when need be, but never forgetting what someone's love has meant to the heart of the loved one.

My early years as a young wife and mother taught me so much. I learned about perseverance through desperate times. I learned about loving through heartache. I leaned about determination and faith. I don't regret loving my husband as I did at that time, I did what I had to do and well. I paid a price for that love, eating into my own reserves and strength to keep going. I have keenly felt the heartache of having to break my marriage off but I remember the day that I was able to grasp myself in a well deserved hug and feel that I was whole again.

Loving someone from a distance was different and required different reserves of strength. I was taxed mentally, emotionally and culturally trying to maintain a connection with someone millions of miles away. It was hard to tell people I was in a relationship when I couldn't grasp my lovers hand and go out on a date with him. It felt duplicitous in a way. When I visited him in Australia it was a different story. I felt parts of my spirit and personality that had been hiding away since I was a teenager blossom as we interacted each day. Getting back to my distant and busy life disrupted that feeling though and it was hard to hold onto. I let it slip away.

Such is life and such is love...

SG