Backpedaling

To Have Without Holding
Marge Piercy

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again. It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing
me, but you thrive, you glow
on the street like a neon raspberry,
You float and sail, a helium balloon
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

I stole this from Oh the Joys. It was just too beautiful not to share and every time I read it, I speaks to me differently.

Yes indeed it is hard to love wide open. To have and not to hold.

Perhaps I was scared and went looking for trouble.

"I believe it is possible for two people to look at the same thing and see things completely different."

Everything ends badly otherwise it wouldn't end. -Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything

Make sure you all have your bio-suits on and splash guards down. Because, for the next little while, and because I have surrendered all dignity, I intend to bleed all OVER the damn place.


So. Over the last year, I loved somebody. HARD.

I did it without regret.

I can only think that in the clichéd way of someone suffering unrequited love, that he won’t realize what he’s lost until I’m long gone.

But bottom line is he didn’t think I was worth it.

The sooner I realize that, the better.

And it was not all about me.

"When life doesn't seem like a bed of roses remember who wore the thorns." -Unknown

Ok Brad, here ya go. I don't have much that doesn't involve a whole lot of sighing but I'll give it a shot.

It's been a long time since I've publically counted my blessing and the small things that help me put one foot in front of the other. It's about time though.

1. My beautiful, smart, funny, sensitive and thoughtful babies.

2. The craptastic mommymobile. And it's bald tires, and scraped paint and leaky radiator. I've driven a minivan for more than 10 years...my dues are paid.

3. My patients who remind me to slow down and bring me roses from their garden even when they yell at me. We all have challenges and I don't get to see many folks on their best day. But sometimes I do.

4. Fritz's lowfat ice cream.

5. Reunions

6. CO2 cartridges. I had a flat for the first time out on the road and I walked down to a park to change it and happened to change it right next to a friendly triathlete. Her presence may not have helped much aside from significantly reducing the amount of cussing that usually accompanies my tire adventures.

7. Wednesday nights. Silly songs. Beer.

8. 10th row seats at the Brooks and Dunn concert. Blake Shelton is hawt.

9. Vacation.

10. The babysitter/second mom my girls had the good luck to spend time with the last 6 years. She's moving and I am realizing that I didn't show her how much I appreciated all she's done for our family. It is beyond words.

Please share your list...if anyone is still out there. I'm not packing it in yet. I just haven't been inspired lately. I think that it requires a certain amount of balance to be able to organize thoughts into something meaningful. I am the opposite of balance. I am reeling... stumbling, really. But I haven't fallen yet. And if I do, I have to trust that the inertia of memory will not allow me to quit. Even scraped knees and elbows bring with them a good story.

Day 19 (this shouldn't count though): My hero

To check out a REAL writer....go

HERE

Hey, I get to say I KNOW him [squeal!] when he gets a rich and famous and I have to stalk HIM instead of Jen Lancaster at a book signing.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. -Aristotle

Wow. My last post was a month and 10 days ago. And yet my counter continues to go up. How very cool is that?

So, where in the world have I been? WELL...

I will tell you.

But first I will tease you.

It involves hardware and Harleys and catholic school girl outfits and birthdays and wayfaring strangers and weddings and miles.

My 35th year was the hardest so far. But look at me. I'm still here.

Laughing.

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on. -Bob Newhart

Orf, you're the man. Thanks for this.

THIS

So I'm reading this book. Off and on while in the pool trying to keep the skin from actually melting of my [big-boned...what?] skeleton. It's hot here.

Book is called "Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch: Tales from a Bad Neighborhood" by Hollis Gillespie. I know. Not everyone is as amused by colorful language as I am lately. It's just a silly memoir that helps me remember my life is not the only one that borders on the absurd and pathetic on a DAILY BASIS. And a lot of finding blessed humor in it is really just paying attention.

The book itself is not all that great or I would have finished it by now. But I'm aware that my maybe unusually, to quote a friend, cryptic (?) and darker posts may have rang some alarm bells. I am fine. Just finding my way after a whole lot of changes in the past year. There are no regrets, even after having my heart handed back to me on a platter. Even though I ignored the warning signs that in hindsight are unmistakable.

Anyway, I've been paying attention. To every feeling instead of pushing them away and hoping they'll either go away on their own or allowing distractions to lull me into believing I can deal with them later. I believe this is something I need to work on and it has not been easy. At all. Struggling with anger and honest sadness is not something I'm very familiar with. But I could never give up the comfort of words. And I read this: "I sensed then that later I'd become familiar with how painful it is to bleed life back into an atrophied part of yourself, to come alive after the comfort of deadness." And it made me sigh, "Huh. Ok then. Not just me."

Alright, enough already. I'm pretty sure, that one of my favorite sources of giggles (if he read my blog, which I'm sure he doesn't) would remind me I am way too Emo, he's sick of me bleeding all over, I'm a loser and that not even Jesus loves me. And then I'd call him an a**hat and remind him I embrace my loserness. And life goes on.

Thank you friends.