Tao and Zen

I think sometimes it's easy to draw conclusions about the stuff I post in here if you don't talk or interact with me every day. I don't post here often, and when I do, it's usually the stuff that's deep, deep in my brain, much of which may be negative. If it's your primary source of info, it's going to be very misleading. Actually, that's true of any of my journals, or even all of them taken together.

Most recently I posted about my self esteem, or the lack thereof. I was talking about a conversation I'd had with someone and how this conversation made me realize that I had no self esteem. What was happening was that we were flirting (in amongst some serious discussion) and at one point I was thinking, Oh, he wouldn't really be interested in me, a guy like him, what am I thinking. And that's when it hit me that I have no self esteem.

But that wasn't really accurate, even then. It's not that I don't have any self-esteem. It's that sometimes, when I'm in a situation like that, I get scared. I don't want to get hurt (again). It's easier to tell myself, at those bad times, that some of the things that other people have said are true. And it's easier to blame myself for things that I didn't do or that were not my fault. But would I say that that's how I feel all of the time, or even most of it? No. I mean, there were periods of time when that was the case, sure, for various reasons. But these days? Oh no.

Anyway, the point of that last post wasn't that I have no self esteem, per se. It was that I have no reason for not having any self esteem. This is something I've been thinking about for years and years -- the last dozen at least. I had a conversation with my mother in mid-1995, shortly before my grandmother died, that really had an effect on me. We were discussing something that had impacted me negatively since a very young age, and she said, "But you have to realize that it wasn't your fault - you did nothing to cause it." I drove home after that conversation in a fog of revelation, and even though I subsequently made some very poor choices for myself, that conversation has stayed with me and gotten me through some very dark moments.

At some point after my most recent post here, I was meditating, as I often do, in my bathtub. One of my beliefs is that realizing true unconditional love is the basis for changing the world around you. Ergo, I began to chant the following:


Over and over I chanted this -- murmured it really -- to myself. As I chanted I envisioned a fountain of white light flowing up from my toes, all the way through my body, and out of the top of my head and then flowing down all around me. It "snagged" a bit at my throat, and I understood that I still had some issues there to work on, but still, there was quite a lot of white light everywhere. This was not the first time I'd chanted this mantra, but it was the first time I'd done so and not cried (an expression of the fear that I felt despite the words).

Since that day I've been quite a bit calmer about situations that used to drive me crazy, and I'm very, very happy about that. I'm beginning to think that everything that has happened in my life since that conversation with my mother has been one long lesson in the art of Letting Go. If so, then I think this chapter is almost done, and I am ready for the Next Thing.

I am becoming Love.

I will not be afraid.

I was just talking to someone relatively new, in the sense that he is not somebody I've done a lot of talking with in the past. This is one of those cases that happens fairly often where it's odd that we haven't in fact met in person, and if we did meet in person, we would like each other and want to hang out a decent amount, but we haven't met and we are in fact not likely to do so. And I'm okay with that, but at the same time I'm laughing and shaking my head and wondering why life is like that.

One thing I realized in the course of the conversation, which wasn't really about any one thing, was that I have no self esteem. Still. I have none. And I have to ask myself why this is.

Why do I still have trouble believing the good things about myself, despite the evidence? I'm well perceived in my work, I make a good amount of money, I have a lot of love in my life. While I wouldn't say that I have everything I want in my life - there are always new goals to strive for - I certainly have a lot of the things that people, in general, want. So why would I still assume that I am unattractive or undeserving?

Can I blame the mean things that other people have said to me, from childhood on? There are certainly a lot of those. "You're ugly." "You're fat." "You're sick." "You never shut up." "You're disgusting." Are any of those things true? Possibly, for some value of truth. Should they bother me? No. I know better. With the possible exception of "fat", every single one of those judgments heaped on my head is subjective.

On the other hand, one or two of them were said to me by people whom I loved desperately at the time. Well, that's gotta hurt.

I love you.

Well, you're disgusting.

Yeah, that hurts. Of course it hurts. How could it not hurt? But it's not why I have no self-esteem. It'd be easy to think so, but I know better. 99% of the time, I don't believe those things, even when said by someone who is or was important to me.

Ah, but the 1% of the time that I do...it's a very loud percent. And what I think during those times is this:

- I deserve the bad things that have happened to me, and the mean things that people have said, and the terrible things that will surely happen to me in the future.

- I don't deserve any good things. I don't deserve the job I have or the money I make. I don't deserve love from those poor deluded individuals who love me, nor (god forbid), the interest of anyone not currently ensnared by my evil deceptions.

I deserve bad. I don't deserve good. And I have to say, sure there are people in my life, who knowing that I feel this way, have fed the flames. That's not a nice thing to do, to be sure. But I can't blame any of those people for starting the fire. They didn't. At worst, they fanned an existing spark. They had their reasons, perhaps. That's not important.

What is important is that there was something there to flame: not an actual belief that I am bad, or ugly, or whatever, but a belief that to be called those things, and to be denied happiness, is something I deserve. And furthermore, that I have had this belief as long as I can remember. I simply can't remember a time when I can say for sure that I believed, 100%, that I was not somehow a bad person.

Fairly recently I thought to myself that some terrible thing must have occurred, when I was very young, to cause not only this belief but some of the other things that were attendants of my early childhood: consistently terrible nightmares, a certain type of precocity, a level of dissociativeness, an inability to relate to my peers, and so on. I felt that I needed to know if there was such an incident and what it was, so that I could "break my brain" as it were and try to get past whatever it was so that I would no longer feel the vague horror that I always feel when I think about my childhood.

But even more recently, I realized that whatever might have happened, it doesn't matter. There is in fact one thing that I know about that did happen - the fact that my mother almost died giving birth to me - and while it's true that that is certainly horrible, one other thing is true: it wasn't my fault. And I've come to realize that even if some other horrible thing happened to cause the nightmares and the dissociation and so on, that thing would also be very much not my fault. I don't need to know what happened, if indeed anything did. What I need to realize is that I didn't do anything wrong, and have therefore not been deserving of bad things and undeserving of good things as far back as I can remember.

Or ever.

A little over a decade ago, someone dear to me said something that really changed the way that I look at human interaction. This friend was involved in a sort of self-help/enlightment program at the "Master" level. To get to this level meant investing a lot of time and money, and my friend took his role very seriously, as a sort of sacred trust.

At one point, he mentioned to me that he was having to re-take the "Master" courses, because he had been accused by a student of some sort of abuse of the system. When I asked him, he said that he felt that he had not, in fact, done what he'd been accused of, but he had to recertify or whatever anyway. I told him I felt that this was unfair, if he hadn't really done anything wrong.

My friend's response was that the student's perception mattered as much as his own belief in his innocence. Basically, he said, it didn't matter if she was right or not; what mattered was that she felt justified in accusing him. He said something like, "If she's right, then I needed to retake the training. If she's wrong, it won't hurt to do so anyway; I'll still derive benefit from it, and I'll so obviously be doing the right thing in response to the situation that it will make her feel better and an understanding can be reached." Those weren't his exact words, but that was the gist.

This conversation had a profound effect on me. I was raised as a Christian, and I knew all about the "stumbling block" that Paul presents in I Cor regarding eating food offered to idols. Basically, Paul was saying that eating food offered to idols isn't an actual spiritual problem to the eater, because the idol the food was offered to has no actual power from his point of view. However, Paul says, you shouldn't do it because a person who is less strong in his faith might be confused by what you are doing. In other words, you're not doing anything wrong, but the perception of another that you are or might be doing something wrong matters as much as your own innocence. I knew this, intellectually, but somehow I had never internalized it. I had felt that one's intentions, one's own innocence, was what mattered. What changed my mind was seeing someone who did not, at the time, identify as a Christian, saying something similar to me. This person wasn't, at the time, familiar with the passage of the Bible that I mention above, but here he was saying the same thing to me...and it made me really think.

Obviously, there are things that one can be accused of where the most important thing is to establish one's innocence. For instance, if someone accuses me of a felony, I'm going to care a lot less about that person's perceptions than about establishing my innocence. That's just a matter of survival.

But let's say that what I was accused of is something that is both less damaging and less provable. As an example, let's say that I am being accused of having been less than honest: not in general, but in a specific situation. Now, naturally, I do not want my honesty impugned. And naturally, I am going to feel the situation is black and white: either my accuser is right and I was dishonest, or I am right and I was totally honest. So let's look at the situation:

1. My accuser is right: I was dishonest.
2. I am right: I was totally honest.

Let's stop right there and examine the situation:

1. My accuser is right: I was dishonest.
This is, from my point of view, tremendously unlikely. If I'm a good person, which of course I am, I'm not going to be intentionally dishonest, nor am I going to tend to be dishonest by accident.

But what if I was? What if there was some reason in my mind, some justification for dealing dishonestly in this particular case? Perhaps I didn't trust her for some reason that seemed good at the time. Perhaps she had hurt me in the past, or I had some reason to think that she would hurt me in the future. Perhaps she was dishonest to me first. Perhaps, while I always mean to be honest, I find that the way I look at the world results in other people finding me dishonest on a regular basis, and this is one of those situations from what I can see.

Is it really dishonesty if I meant to be honest? From my point of view it isn't, but my accuser doesn't see my intentions or reasoning; she only sees the result. In a situation where I am dealing with another person, my intentions and reasoning cannot be the only important consideration; the other person's perceptions must matter too, just as I'd want my perceptions to matter in the opposite scenario. In other words, her perception matters as much as my intent and reasoning, and therefore, it makes sense for me, far from becoming indignant about my honest intentions, to find a common ground.

2. I am right: I was totally honest.
Of course I wasn't dishonest! How could she think that! I utterly reject that viewpoint. And well I should: nobody else has ever found me to be dishonest; all my dealings with other people have always been rated as entirely honest; my honesty is in fact the stuff of legends. Well, then, it should be obvious to everyone who ever has and ever will come into contact with me that my honesty in this situation, as in all others, could not possibly be called into question. Therefore, my accuser's words should not matter to me. I don't need to get upset about this, because it's completely obvious that it's not the case. I don't need to attack my accuser or try to show how she's wrong because it's very clear that I was, in fact, honest. If it's not, in fact, clear, then perhaps scenario 2 does not apply.

Any other possibilities or shadings end up being not so different from my point of view of scenario 1. I intended honesty, as my usual mattter of course; my accuser, based on her perceptions, assumed dishonesty; if we communicate about the situation, we can come to an understanding. The only case in which scenario 1 is going to be as black and white as originally stated is if I did, in fact, intend to be maliciously dishonest. In reality it's rarely if ever that simple; even if my actions were wrong, they felt justified to me at the time, and if my accuser and I are both willing to discuss the matter, we can probably come to an understanding.

The next question, then, is whether or not I really want to come to an understanding with someone who has accused me. If I truly believe that my actions are justified, why would I want to entertain her thoughts? If she were really interested in discussion, why would she accuse me?

There's nothing, really, in most situations, that obligates a person to try and work things out with his accuser. In my dear friend's case, he was obligated to do so because he was a teacher, and she a student, in the same organization; by the organization's rules, he had to respond and attempt to mitigate. Outside such structures, however, there is no such obligation. When accused, then, I have to ask myself: is it worth it to me to attempt to mitigate the situation? What are my possible responses?

1. I can ignore my accuser, refusing to address her accusations at all in hopes she will go away. Sometimes this works, but often either the accuser or her sympathizers will continue to accuse.

2. I can attempt to discredit my accuser, not responding to her directly but accusing her in turn to all who will listen. This creates further division and hurt for all parties.

3. I can ask my accuser, either directly or indirectly, to discuss the situation and attempt to mitigate the issues. This will work only if both parties are, in fact, willing to be reasonable and have a calm discussion.

So I have to ask myself: do I think my accuser is willing to be reasonable? There may be some evidence that she is not, since she accused me in the first place. However, given that ignoring often doesn't work and counter-accusations make the situation worse, doesn't it behoove me, if I myself am a reasonable person, to try to discuss the situation with my accuser?

To sum up, sometimes people say mean things, and it's natural for the first reaction to that to be hurt and anger. But when time passes, and the anger doesn't, perhaps then it's time to seek a common ground so that both sides can, finally, have peace. My accuser, in this hypothetical situation, has had her say; what happens next is up to me. It's a chance, perhaps, to show my quality.

I want to talk about forever. You know, it's that thing that people say when they're speaking of love. "I'm going to love you forever."

I don't believe in forever. That sounds cynical, but it's true and has been for a long time. However, it's not a very popular sentiment to express, and so I've kept it mostly to myself. It's only recently, in speaking with a like-minded individual, that I've begun to want to talk about it.

I believe that love never fails. That's part of my personal credo. However, as I've stated in the past, that doesn't mean to me that relationships never end. Relationships cannot live in stasis. They have to "end", if only in the sense of changing into something other than what they were. If X is my lover today, then next week -- or next month -- or next year, we may decide that something different is what's right for us. And I think this is what people have an issue with when they say they want to love "forever".

"If only it could always be just like this." How often have we heard this, how often have we said it? I know I have. When we believe that something is perfect, we want it to stay exactly that way. It seems a harmless enough wish, to hope that something you treasure and cherish will never change. However, it's really anything but.

A relationship is a product of the people who participate in it. If a relationship changes, it's because the people in it change. If it never changes, it's because the participants aren't changing. If the participants aren't changing, it means that they are not growing. If I wish that my relationship with my lover never changes, then I am wishing that my lover will never grow as a person. I can say with certainty that in the past, when I've said "I wish it could always be this way," I haven't meant to say "I hope my partner never grows." But in effect, that's what I'm saying.

So people change as they grow, and that means that their input into relationships change, and that means the relationships themselves change. An end is one type of change that can happen in a relationship. We'd like to think that relationships between loving and reasonable people would never end, but if we accept that the relationship must change due to the participants changing and growing, then we should also accept that ending might be one of the changes that takes place in the relationship. It seems so drastic to think that a relationship might end, but an ending is just another change, another milestone. In fact, I have found that if a relationship has to be utterly and abruptly cut off, it's because one of the partners resisted the concept of change altogether.

It's not really surprising that a lot of people might resist change in relationships even if they normally embrace change in other parts of their lives. Many of us think of certain types of relationships as anchors in our lives. "He's my rock," we might say, or "What would I do without her?" The problem is that when I define a relationship as an anchor for me, I am requiring that relationship not to change at all, or to change very little. If the relationship is not allowed to change, then neither are the participants. Ergo, by defining a relationship as an anchor, I require my partner to remain in stasis and not grow.

Does this mean that we should never depend on our partners? Of course not. What it means is that we should not define the people with whom we form relationships by the relationship type. This only makes sense since the other participant may have a different definition for that relationship type. I can label a relationship as "friend", "lover", etc., but I must remember that my labels do not lock the other participant into a certain type of behavior.

Realizing that my needs do not dictate a necessity for my relationship partner to behave a certain way creates a need for communication with that partner. Most people agree that communication in any relationship is necessary, but many don't have the skills to actually communicate effectively. To communicate effectively, I have to be able to recognize my needs and desires, present them clearly to my partner, and process his responses.

Learning to communicate effectively can cushion the blow when a relationship needs to change due to the growth of its participants, because we can begin to anticipate the need for such changes. Perhaps my friend feels that she needs to concentrate more on her job, and tells me this. If I know that she has such a need, then I will not be surprised when she decides to use instant messaging less frequently during her work day, and I will be less likely to take my decreased access to her personally. If I am not taking the changes my friend needs to make in our relationship personally, then my friend will be more likely to continue to be open to my needs as well, and the relationship will be less likely to terminate abruptly due to the need for change. Ergo, the more we allow our relationships and  partners to change, the more likely it will be that out relationships will last.

Even so, can they last "forever"? Maybe some relationships will last a lifetime. While hoping that my relationships last as long as possible, when I say "forever" I don't really mean that I expect a relationship to last until death do us part, never mind some metaphysical definition of "forever". Rather, when I say that I will love someone forever, I mean that there will always be some reality where I love that person, regardless of our actual relationship to each other. Once I choose to love a person -- in a personal way, not the respect and regard I try to show all persons -- I will always love that person. That love may, due to things that are said and done between us, turn to hate and bitterness for a period of time; I'm not perfect. But it will always turn to love again. I currently love every person whom I have ever loved.

Ergo, if someone asks me "Will you love me forever?" I can truthfully say that I will. But what I can't say is whether or not our relationship will last forever. That's not something anyone can truthfully promise, no matter how much they might wish to. Saying "forever" creates so many misunderstandings, because people need to grow and change; the only way "forever" can work is to agree to feel the love, and let the relationship go.

I've said in the past that I'll generally believe anything that I'm told from a person I love. It's true, too. It's really worse than that; I'm a tremendously credulous person. I don't necessarily believe everything I read, or the words of strangers, but I'll often believe things even people I don't particularly like tell me, if I know those people.

This can be a bad thing. If I believe something that turns out to be a lie, that can be pretty hurtful, particularly if I acted on that information. At the least, I'll look pretty stupid; at the most, other people can be hurt by the actions I take based on the lie. In most cases, though, all that's going to happen is that I look stupid. Saying that I believed something somebody told me doesn't really help that situation, because it's considered smart to be skeptical (and that's not necessarily wrong).

So, in short, I look stupid a lot, because I believe things that people say. Obviously, nobody likes to look stupid, particularly in situations where the lie was fairly obvious to everyone else. I'm no different; in fact, I really hate looking stupid.

On the other hand, I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to believe someone I love, or someone I care about, even when I know that person has lied to me (or otherwise been deceptive) before. Even if I am fairly sure that a person is habitually dishonest, I won't assume that what he or she says is a lie until I've been presented with fairly good evidence, or unless it's otherwise proved to me that this new thing is, in fact, untrue.

Even then, I rarely assume lies are malicious. Very often, I know, a person either really believes the lies he tells, or there is some reason behind why he tells lies in general that I want to try to understand. I have been in relationships in the past with habitual liars, and I never knew it to be the case that those people meant to hurt anyone. They weren't, in fact, dishonest people; it's just that on a regular basis, the things they said didn't fit the actual facts. Not unless or until such people turned on me was I angry at their lying; I just forgave it, every time.

From my perspective, lies hurt the teller far more than the person they're told to. First of all, it's very difficult to recover from the reputation of being dishonest. But more importantly, deception is a trap. Nobody is a villain in his own mind, so the liar must really believe the things he is saying, even if initially he knows he is lying. The more one lies, the more one becomes trapped in deceptiveness, to the point where everyone is an enemy and everything is a bad thing. Watching someone become trapped in deception is tragic; the best thing one can do is just step away and hope that eventually, the person can extricate himself without one's self to remind him of the initial set of lies that led to the spiral.

There are some days when I wish that I didn't so easily believe everything I am told. However, it's my nature, and so I've come to accept it. I think that even though I sometimes get hurt by it, I end up being happier in general, and I am a stronger person for the hurt I've suffered because I chose to believe a lie told me by someone I love or care about. Certainly, I'm stronger than that person, and that's some consolation.

There's a phenomenon I encounter on the Internet every once in a while, and it's something I don't understand. Maybe there's a part of my brain missing or something like that; I really don't know. What I'm talking about is the concept of gratuitously making fun of people you don't know at all, simply because they are different from you.

I'm not going to say that I've never been guilty of being mean to people on the 'Net. I've been a real jerk at times. But when I've said mean things, it's been stuff that was to the point. For example, I was in a situation a few years ago where I stuck up for someone who was being flamed in comments on LiveJournal. It just got nastier and nastier, and I was giving as good as I was getting, until all of a sudden, I started getting comments in my own journal...to the effect that I was fat.

Yup. I'm fat. Oh noez! I'm a fat girl. But being fat had nothing to do with the argument at hand, and has nothing to do with my intellectual capacity or the lack thereof. In other words, these people were just pulling random facts about me out of the air, and using them to strengthen their arguments. Uh...what?

I see this kind of stuff all the time. Person A encounters Person B, who is very different from A. By very different I mean something like, say, being a furry fan. B may not be attacking or bothering A, but all of a sudden A feels he must lash out at B. He makes snarky comments about how badly adjusted B is, and perhaps even posts pictures of B to strengthen his evidence. Everyone A knows joins in the game, making fun of poor B -- who probably wasn't even bothering A in the first place. Why does this happen?

This just happened to me again this weekend. Did it make me cry like a little girl? Oh sure. I hate being picked on. Bugs the hell out of me. I'm very thin-skinned. But then I dried my tears and blew my nose and that's that. What, was this supposed to ruin my life? I don't think so, girlfriend.

But the question remains: why do people do that? What is it about me, for instance, that makes people need to voraciously read my website, download or link to pictures of me that they feel are less than lovely, and make fun of me on their own websites or other fora? What is it about the friends of mine that it happens to? Or...what is it about the people who do this, the "Person A"s of this world?

It's not that I've never put anybody else down. Sure, in specific cases, I've done the old high school game of saying, wow, look at that train wreck, I'm so much better than that. I know what it means when I do it; it means that I'm insecure. It means that I'm not sure I am better than that. Ultimately, it means that I need to take a long hard look at myself and ask myself what's up, and work on improving myself so that I have nothing to be insecure about.

What does it say about the A's who don't even know the B's they're putting down -- who just pick someone at random to make fun of? When I think about that, it makes me even sadder than the original insults did. Because really, if you have to go out of your way to make fun of other people, your life is pretty damn sad indeed. Get a hobby, girlfriend.

I had a mini-epiphany recently. One of my friends recently spoke of someone else he knows, and mentioned that that person can't conceive of [two members of the appropriate sex] not having a [sexual] relationship once the friendship reaches a certain point.

The epiphany came when I realized that I'm like that too, or that rather, I can conceive of two people not having a sexual relationship once their friendship passes a certain point of intimacy, but for me, I do want that sexual relationship. Or at least, I want it to be an option. This has led to me "falling in love" with, and asking for or suggesting sex with, most of my closest friends. I don't assume everyone operates this way, but it's the way I am.

Frankly, I don't think there's a problem with being this way, and in fact, I know a lot of other people who feel the same way, that sex is an entirely natural extension of an intimate friendship. When the movie Alexander came out, a whole lot of little fangirls were giggling over the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion. What they don't realize is that in Alexander's time, such a relationship -- sex between intimate friends -- was normal and expected in most of the civilized world. My world view may no longer be the norm, but it's not too weird either, and as I say, I know other people who share it.

Still, it's caused me trouble. I remember a young man saying to me once, "Mimi, you don't have to have sex with all of your friends," when he politely turned me down. I was too confused to answer. I had never been in the situation before where I felt this way about somebody, and knew he was attracted to me too, but where "nothing" (i.e. nothing sexual) was going to happen. It took me a long time to learn this lesson, actually, and the sad part is not that I was hurt in the process; the sad part is that I hurt other people, utterly without intending to. In fact the one thing that I never wanted to do was hurt these people I loved. I think, in the end, that knowing I've done so is a very fitting punishment for my sins.

About a year ago, I had cold water dashed on me by someone I cared about very much, in the form of telling me how annoying was my (in my eyes, very minor) questing for sex in our intimate friendship. It wasn't the first time I'd been told that, but it was the first time anybody had ever put it so flatly. I finally learned my lesson. Oh, it's not the last time I'll ever let someone I feel deeply about know that I'd be interested in sex if they were. But I think I've finally realized -- odd as it may sound that it's taken me so long -- that the way I see things, while not wrong, is fairly unusual. So, I'll offer it as a complimentary suggestion, and if there's no reciprocity, that is that.

Last night I dreamed about someone with whom I have an intimate friendship, and who does look at things the way I do (or at least, doesn't find it odd). I'm not sure exactly why I had that dream, but perhaps it's a sign that I need to say something about my outlook, as both a public apology to those I've hurt, and an explanation to those with whom I'm currently in close or intimate friendships.

So mote it be.

Today I came to a startling realization. I know when I say it, you'll laugh, because it's so obvious. It's one of those platitudes that people recite to each other to seem enlightened or to dispense the wisdom of the ages. It's simple common sense, which is to say that it's not simple or common at all.

It's this: I don't need to compare myself to anyone else in order to feel that I'm successful. No, let me take that further, and make that implied confession: I don't have to put someone else down to feel better about myself.

Okay, I knew this. It's not exactly new news. But it's taken me all this time to internalize it, to put into practice what I could recite till I turned blue. All this time I've been trying, but failing, not to compare myself to other people. All this time I've been glancing sidelong and saying, "At least I don't do X, like Y does." I've been paying far too much attention to what other people do and have and get, and applying myself far too little.

What gets me is that such mean comparison goes utterly against my personal philosophy. In general I try to be true to my principles, and I think that largely I succeed, but obviously there's always more I can do to learn and grow. My guess is that I'm going to slip now and then and worry about what "the other guy" is doing, but that's okay; now that I know how to do the steps of this dance, I can practice them over and over until I get them right.

I'm not absolutely sure what it was that changed, that set that part of my mind that was imprisoned free. I know I was thinking about someone I know, someone I care about but with whom I'm currently in an adversarial position, and all of a sudden I realized that I didn't have any reason to compare where I was and what I was doing to this person's path, that we'd diverged so much that there was no longer any point to a comparison.

The sense of liberation I felt at that point - I'd just begun my drive home - was so exhilarating that I couldn't stop smiling the whole way, even though I'd previously been in a grumpy mood. I feel so peaceful now. I've figured out another piece of the puzzle. I can stop chaining myself to other people, and just be the best person that I can be. And better still, I can simply wish well to people whom I've been wasting time and energy resenting.

I'm doing what I should be doing, and I can just assume everyone else is too and not worry. That's just aewsome.

This is inspired by, but not about, something someone else said.

Not all that long ago I posted about having gained a lot of weight in the last year. And it's true, I have, and it makes me very uncomfortable in a lot of ways. The most immediate problem is that because I have a very tiny frame, I'm more likely to be in pain, and of course, being this fat is just not good for my health in general.

But of equal concern to me, vain creature that I am, is that I don't think I am attractive when I'm this fat. I didn't think I was a beauty queen when I was fifty pounds less than I am now, either, but I certainly thought I was more attractive than I am at this point. I was still fat, but I wasn't horridly fat (technically speaking, I'm once more "morbidly obese"). I could stand for people to see me. These days I get upset at the mere thought of having my picture taken, whereas at the lower weight, while I didn't always like pictures of me, I could at least deal with the concept.

From the above paragraph, one could surmise that for me, more fat = less attractive. How un-PC of me! However, there are some mitigating circumstances here. First of all, as I mentioned, I have a very tiny frame, even for my (short) height. This means that my "fighting weight" is a good deal less than other people's, even other people my height. Ergo, at my current weight I'm actually a good twenty to thirty pounds more overweight than many other people my height. Second, while I feel that I am less attractive when I am fatter, this doesn't mean that I find fat people unattractive. I'm not particulary attracted to fat, and I do have an affinity for thin, androgynous looking people, but fat is not and never has been a dealbreaker for me as far as attractiveness goes (I become concerned only if the person's health is very bad as a result of being very overweight).

Therefore, it's pretty obvious that my issue is with how attractive I feel I am when I'm fatter, not how attractive or unattractive fat is in general. I think I can further break this down into three sub-issues:

1. When I am fat, I feel uncomfortable and am often in pain, which contributes to feeling unattractive
2. It's harder to find really great clothes at this size, so I feel that I can't dress attractively
3. I know that at this height and frame size, I should weigh a lot less, and when I see people who weigh what I should, I feel less attractive

There is also a fourth sub-issue, which is that some people find me unattractive simply because of my fat. However, while I find this annoying, it doesn't bother me as much as it might, because (unlike a lot of people who are as fat as I am now) I used to be thin, and I've had people find me attractive or unattractive for plenty of reasons that I could see clearly had nothing to do with being overweight. I think it's possible that people who have always been fat are never sure, when they are rejected, that they're not being rejected because they're fat, but it's not an assumption I tend to make without some kind of hard evidence. At any rate, this fourth sub-issue is one that I consider less important.

So let me look at these sub-issues one by one:

When I am fat, I feel uncomfortable and am often in pain, which contributes to feeling unattractive.

Being fat means that it's harder to fit into and onto things -- for example airplane seats -- and that makes me feel uncomfortable. In addition, because my frame is so tiny, being fat puts a lot of pressure on my bones and muscles and lowers my endurance. For example, the fatter I am, the harder it is to walk down a flight of stairs. Big-boned fat people, or fat people who also have a lot of muscle mass, don't have this issue to the same degree that I do.

When I feel uncomfortable or in pain, it makes me feel as though I have to work harder to feel happy and attractive. I feel old and sick and ugly. Since being fat means more pain for me and is not good for my health for other reasons (there's a history of both diabetes and heart disease in the family), I feel guilty for not being better about losing the weight, and this contributes to my overall feelings of unattractiveness.

In other words, the issue is not whether or not I am actually attractive; the issue is with how healthy and comfortable I feel. While certainly health often correlates to attractiveness, my fat does not necessarily equate to a lack thereof, except in my own mind. While certainly I should be working on losing weight, I should shake myself loose from the idea that the discomfort and pain associated with being fat makes me unattractive.

It's harder to find really great clothes at this size, so I feel that I can't dress attractively.

Actually, it used to be almost impossible to find decent clothes at the size I am now. However, in the last decade Lane Bryant's selection has gotten better and better, and on top of it, I do a lot of shopping at Torrid, which has even more of the type of clothing I like to wear. As long as I don't get much bigger than I am now I should be able to shop at both places without much trouble, and of course, the idea is to get smaller anyway.

Certainly I don't look the same in my clothes as a thin woman does in similarly styled ones, but I can dress attractively and I certainly look hot in some of my outfits. Therefore, while the situation vis a vis clothing isn't perfect, it's also not something that should make me feel unattractive.

I know that at this height and frame size, I should weigh a lot less, and when I see people who weigh what I should, I feel less attractive.

This is probably the biggest problem. I used to be thin, as I've mentioned before. My younger daughter, Cherry, actually looks very much like me at the same age. When I look at her, or (less so) at people who have the shape that I used to have, I get upset because I remember looking like that. Looking at Cherry makes me feel old and ugly sometimes for this reason. The funny thing is that she thinks I'm beautiful, and not in spite of my fat, either. I should listen to her more.

So anyway, I think the problem here is that I don't normally feel any particular age, except when looking at my younger daughter or other people who look the same way I used to look throws my fat into sharper relief. Often I think to myself that I'd be content if I lost any weight at all, but looking at Cherry makes me want to look like that again myself. I think it's pretty unlikely that I will ever look quite like that again no matter what I do, but I don't think I've accepted that yet and so thinking about that upsets me. I look at Cherry, I realize how much fatter I am now, I yearn to look like that again, and then I get upset when I tell myself that it's unlikely I will do so. In my mind, I still look like that, so when I subsequently catch my reflection in the mirror or in a window, I instantly feel unattractive. I suppose that if instead of being fat I was thin but had a very wrinkled face (my actual face is almost entirely free of lines), I would feel as unattractive as I do now simply because in that scenario I still wouldn't look as I did when I was Cherry's age.

Looking at all this, it's pretty clear that my sub-issues really have nothing to do with my being unattractive because I am fat. They have to do with my perception of myself and my fat. The fourth sub-issue deals with other people's feelings and perceptions about fat, and that's something that I can't do anything about, so I won't even try. As I said, it's not something that bothers me all that much anyway. But I can certainly do something about my own perceptions.

First of all, I can work on feeling more healthy at this weight. One thing I'd begun to do, as a result of stress, was to eat a lot of junk food. I began doing this while I was on low carb, using "allowed" snacks, and I felt awful because I knew that I was abusing food. Since dropping low carb, it's just gotten worse. I need to eat more healthy items without worrying about losing weight per se, just because they will make me feel better both physically and emotionally, and I need to be more active (just walking around will help) so that I can build up my endurance and resistance a bit better. Even if I stay the same weight, I'll feel better and that will make me feel more attractive.

Second, I can continue to dress attractively. Gradually I've been acquiring some very nice items which I'll be able to keep wearing even if I lose weight (if I gain any I won't fit in them, so I guess I'd better lose!). Dressing attractively will make me feel more attractive.

Third -- and this is the hardest -- I need to accept that I'm never again going to look the way I did when I was sixteen. I might lose a lot of weight and I might come close, but comparing myself to a girl in her teens, or even someone in her 20's, is just ridiculous. What I need to work towards is simply being healthy, and not worry about what somebody else looks like.

In a way, I suppose I'm trying to do something that I always said I'd never do: accept my fat. I don't have a problem with other people being fat, or accepting their fat, but for me it's very hard because I didn't spend my teens and early 20's being fat, and so I think of it as something that I can't accept. However, I think that my lack of acceptance is leading me to feel unattractive and to do things such as abuse food, which is something that I never did until fairly recently. In general I like myself, but I say terrible things to myself about my fat. I'm thinking that instead I just need to accept it and think of myself as a contentedly fat person, and then perhaps I can start to make more healthy choices once more.

The irony of the whole situation is that there are very few people who know me now who also knew me when I was thin; my parents and sibs, my first husband, and one longstanding friend are pretty much the only people who I've kept in touch with who remember me as a thin person. Ergo, the fat me is the me that people know, and in knowing that fat me, they know a person who cannot accept her body and so is a walking set of issues. I'm not sure I ever realized that until now, and I don't like it; I'm cheating everyone who knows me now of the person that I really am, without the body issues, and cheating myself as well in the process.

I need to change my outlook. I need to be a person who is okay with being fat, who is happy in her skin. I need to love the person I am at the moment, fat and all, and then I can perhaps do something about being less fat. I've lost weight before and I can do it again, but I'll never do it while I despise my body.

Food, ha ha, for thought.

Below is a comment that I made in another person's journal, slightly edited for clarity:

M's advice -- "assume good intentions" -- is awesome. It doesn't really apply to me though. I don't assume BAD intentions, per se. I just assume, especially in the last six months (but it's been something I've been learning for years now), that some people, when they interact with me, are not really concerned as much with my needs and feelings as they are with their own agendas. I base this assumption on past interactions with those people, not (just) on cynicism (i.e., I wait for two or three pieces of what to me is obvious evidence, and factor in how much I've felt screwed over lately in general).

Because of that, I find myself less inclined, as time goes on, to go against my own needs and feelings and do things that people ask me to do simply because I love them. In other words, when considering something that someone asks me to do that would be "not good for me", I am less inclined to do it, where once I would have done. In general I feel that were the situation reversed, the person involved would not be doing those things for me. This is not to say that if I think someone wouldn't do something for me I won't do it for them; it's much more complex than that and I weigh in a lot of other factors. For instance, if I know X wouldn't do Y for me, but X is begging me to do Y for him and acknowleding that it's a big PITA but please please please, I'll probably do it.

And sometimes I just do it anyway, because I'm all about the unconditional love. Just, eh, one has to protect one's self too.

I repeat: I'm all about the unconditional love. But I think it's also true that sometimes, you have to take care of yourself. I'm very understanding when someone falls short of what I'd like them to be or do for me, but being understanding doesn't mean that I'm going to just stand there and accept being treated less well than I want to be. When these things happen and I sense a pattern, I step back. I'm still there for the person as a resource, and I'm still loving and giving, but I am more reserved, emotionally speaking.

An example of this is if I'm asked for more than I can easily give (for whatever reason), repeatedly, or if someone repeatedly breaks a promise or commitment to me, even with good reasons each time. After a bit, I will make myself a little less available in some ways, or I will be less enthusiastic when a new promise is made. I still care and I still love, but I become more reserved and just a bit more distant.

I'm not sure if this is a bad thing. On the one hand, I do it to protect myself, just a little bit -- to give myself just a tiny cushion from being hurt by that person in the future, and I do it because experience tells me that that person is in fact going to hurt me, if only in little ways. On the other hand I wonder sometimes if becoming more reserved is the best thing to do. I know there are certain people with whom I can never be reserved, who have only to call and I'll fling myself over whatever emotional cliff may be necessary -- and this may be despite the fact that our relationship is hidden so deep so as to be almost invisible.

So it seems to me that with certain people I distance myself when I am disappointed by them, while with others I am never disappointed by anything they do in the first place. And I wonder if I have done the wrong thing, to ever love people for whom I can't help but reserve myself from a little, if perhaps I should only love the people whom I can always love unreservedly. It's not that I love the former group less; it's that I love them less freely. And I wonder if that is a bad thing.

I was talking recently to one of my colleagues about the trip to Bangalore, India that I'm now not taking, and he was asking if I minded, knowing that I'd originally been quite positive about the trip. However, coming back from Britain I've had a really hard time recovering from jet lag, mostly because I really overdid it while I was there (mostly work-wise).

So I said, "Well, I don't know...I mean, I have no immune system really, and I'm so afraid that I'd pick up something there and I'd be really sick..."

And then I realized what was really bothering me, and I felt horrified, but I said it anyway.

"I've gained so much weight this past year," I said. "And I was so uncomfortable in the plane to and from the UK, and I was just dreading being so uncomfortable in the plane for so long..."

I'd made a commitment to myself, years ago, that I would never let my weight interfere with my life. I've known people who made excuses as to why they couldn't do this or that -- biking, camping, traveling -- due to their weight, and I'd vowed I wouldn't do that. And here I was, saying that my weight made it too uncomfortable to travel someplace that I'd been excited about.

The funny thing is that I'm not (yet) at my top weight. I've weighed more than I do now, at least a little -- well, okay, I don't actually know that because I haven't stepped on a scale, but I'm fairly sure that I'm at least ten pounds under my top weight. However, I feel ickier than I remember feeling when I was at that top weight. I feel enormous and uncomfortable and unhealthy and bloated and...

And the thing is, I've wanted to keep on my plan the whole past year. The one thing that is true about me is that I don't deal with stress well, in terms of diet, and 2004 was a very stressful year. Ultimately it was all good stress -- any learning situation is good -- but it was a lot of stress. It began with recovering from major surgery, and it ended with my leading a major initiative at work. In between the two, things just went nonstop. And I just kept gaining weight. It's the one year since 1999 when I didn't lose any weight all year -- I just gained and gained and gained.

The other day I said to my partner Chris, "Everything about my life is absolutely wonderful. Absolutely wonderful -- everything except my weight." But you know, I can say this but at the same time I know that if I've gained all this weight there is something going on in my life that is not good.

When I look back over the past year, there was one thing that fairly consistently influenced me in a negative way. It's not the only thing that caused me stress -- there were several different things that did so, in both positive and negative ways -- but it was the one thing that pushed my buttons all year long and was behind a lot of the less pleasant things that I had to deal with. I hesitate to name it because it would sound as if I were demonizing someone, and frankly, that's never been my intent. But on the other hand, to say "there's something that's on my mind" and then not to name it...that's not right. So here I go.

My issue this year has been my ex. Not him personally, but my need to get past the things that, from my point of view, happened in our relationship. For various reasons, and I don't blame him for this, it's been difficult. It's not worthwhile to go into all the ins and outs and recriminations and misunderstandings -- that's not the point. The point is that, for various reasons, I found myself very concerned, over most of the last year, with what he had to say about me.

And that's not useful. My opinions, feelings, and beliefs about our relationship are mine. His are his. We have our own truths, our own realities. We have our own lives. He's doing some really awesome things with his. I am doing some really awesome things with mine. But we're involved with each other in a way that we shouldn't be. We care far too much about what the other person says, or might be saying, about us. We haven't let go.

I can't make anybody else's decisions, but I can make decisions for myself. I have to let go. I had succeeded in letting go, actually, to a large degree, but then I made a decision that resulted in my getting re-involved, emotionally speaking, and I can date the worst of the weight gain -- the last six months -- from then. And that's just wrong. It's not his fault; it's mine. I am responsible for my own life, my own body, my own health. And what's right for me is to finally just let it go. I was with this man for seven years, and some of it was great and some of it wasn't, but I am in a fantastic place, I have a truly beautiful life, I'm really happy, and nothing that he thinks or says about me, or that I think or say about him, should matter to the other.

When it's all said and done, we're both people, nothing more and nothing less. We love, we live, we make our way through the world. Whatever happens to us in our lives will be what we've made of them. And that makes it all good.

I think once I've finally walked away, without looking back, I'll have leapt over the last obstacle in my path. It's not him. It's me. I am the obstacle.

And I think that at long last, once I have leapt it, I can be happy, and healthy, and wise.

Last Thursday, while I was recovering from the class I'd just delivered in the UK, my boss called me on my mobile phone. He asked me if I'd be willing to let him pull me off the training I was scheduled to give in India next month, and then he said, very quietly, "I need you." If I hadn't already been ready to say "yes", that made up my mind for you. "I'm yours," was my reply, as it always has been when I'm needed.

This is why I do what I do. Obviously I need a paycheck, and obviously I need for it to be "enough" by whatever definition I'm using at the current time, but since I started my tech career, my main motivation hasn't been money. In fact, though I'd always like to be making more, I have to say that if I didn't love what I was doing, no amount of money would entice me to keep doing it.

I do what I do because I have a passion for it. I have a passion for providing good technical answers to customers who need them, and I have a passion for "getting it right". I have a reputation for delivering excellent technical support, and I come by it honestly, with hard work, long hours, and an attention to detail that my customers really appreciate.

I don't martyr myself. I feel that it's important to kick back and relax now and then, to play, to take time for myself, to rest. If I put in fourteen hours one day I'll put in only five or six the next. I flex my hours as much as possible. I work from home when I can.

But I do take an immense amount of pride in my work. There is nothing I hate so much as doing a half-assed job, because even if nobody else notices, I sure do. I've always been unhappy in situations where nobody around me knows whether I'm doing a good job or not. I hold myself to a standard of excellence but I also need others to hold me to that standard. And I feel that no matter how excellent I am, there is always room for change, for improvement, for growth.

My career isn't the only thing that gives me satisfaction. I have a lot of hobbies that take up my free time, and a wonderful partner and children. I am not "married to my job" or buried in my work to an unhealthy degree. But I really believe in what I do and I take it very seriously -- much more seriously than I take myself. And I believe that this is why I'm successful, why I'm valued, and why at this point in my career -- after a decade of very hard and rewarding work -- I can pretty much write my own ticket, including a possible transfer to another country if that's what I want.

I am the can-do woman, and I find it very, very rewarding.

A few years ago I came to the conclusion, though I forget exactly how, that there's no such thing as "right person, wrong time". My feeling is that if it's the wrong time, it's not the right person, and if it's the right person, there is no wrong time.

Actually, let me explicate, because that's not exactly what I mean. I'm not saying that it might not be the wrong time to get involved with a person you've decided is right. I have decided, at different times, not to get involved with a person who I think is the right person. What I mean is that if a person is the right person, they will still be the right person later; missing an opportunity now doesn't mean it won't be there later, if the person is truly the right person. And if missing the current opportunity does mean that, then it's definitely not the right person, in my opinion.

That's what most people mean by "right person, wrong time". They don't mean that a later time they'll think about this person again; they mean that they might have considered this person at a different time, but because this person doesn't fit into their life now, bye-bye person. A friendship may be attempted, but even if later on that person might fit their life, said person will not be considered.

I find this outlook well nigh incomprehensible. I have lots of people in my life, and at any given time it may or may not be "right" to be involved with any one of them. For instance, I went through a six-year period where I practiced monogamy, even though it's not really my nature, because my partner wanted me to do so. During this time I met or already knew any number of people with whom I might have wanted to become romantically involved, but because I was practicing monogamy, it wasn't the "right time". I didn't think that it would never be the right time, so while I didn't string anybody along, I never assumed that I had a "right person, wrong time" scenario. Now that I am no longer with that partner (his decision), it may be once more the "right time" to be involved with some of these other people.

I wonder if it might be because I am, by nature, polyamorous, that I have this outlook. I have a life partner, but I don't have to exclude the idea of romance with anybody else from my life simply because of that, and so I don't need to worry about whether or not someone is more "right" for me than he is or whether or not it might be the wrong time. My feeling is that I will get involved with the right people when the time is, in fact, right.

Originally posted in my LiveJournal.

Here's the part where I'm supposed to reminisce about 2004 and make resolutions for 2005. Mm whatever.

2004 was an interesting year. Some bad things happened but in pretty much every case they turned into something good, and I learned useful lessons. I would say the only lasting damage from a bad thing that happened (the car accident) is that I'm still somewhat traumatized about driving. But that's pretty minor and I've managed to avoid situations that stress me out. Of course, given that the whole thing is still under investigation by the insurance company, I may see further damage from that in the future, but you know...I'm just not going to worry about it.

I saw much evidence during the year that trusting my instincts is a good thing. This directly contradicts things I'd been taught from early childhood on, so I really need to work on honing said instincts and learning to follow them. However, it's also true that I have to temper that with logic -- I can't just let the instincts go nuts, either. It's not going to be easy but I've already made a start on it, thanks in part to some wonderful people I've gotten to know in the past couple of years.

One thing I learned, from a couple of totally unrelated situations that I was in, is that it is never a good idea to confide in one person about another. It doesn't matter if the person you're confiding in is really close to you, and/or you both appear to agree about the person who is the subject. It doesn't even matter if the confidence is about positive stuff (i.e. your postive feelings for the person who's the subject), beyond a simple "X is nice". It's just never, never, ever a good idea. This is something that's really difficult for me because I tend to talk to people about my feelings about other people, for a sanity check or whatever. This relates to the whole "trust your instincts" thing I guess. I need to learn to do this and just never, ever talk about people to other people, no matter who any of these people are. If it's about personal feelings, good or bad, about a person instead of primarily about a situation...no talking. My intent was never to gossip but I think that was the end result, and it bit my ass both at work (that last friends-locked post I made was a result of that) and in personal situations.

I think those are really the two big lessons from this year, and they've both really changed my life, for the better. In both cases I have a lot of work to do.

I also accomplished quite a lot this year, both personally and professionally, and I'm very proud of these things. I didn't finish my Infosec book (I'd still like to do that, and I do have a rough draft) and I didn't lose weight; both these things are things I'd like to work on. We also didn't move, but I am not sure I want to anymore. I still hate my commute but I have a lot more freedom about actually going into the office so that may not matter. While the place we were moving to is nicer than where we live in a lot of ways, I like living in LA itself and this place has a lot of advantages too. So I don't think of that as an anti-accomplishment, really, even though for a while it was very important to me.

In balance, while I don't think I enjoyed a lot of it at the time, it was a positive year. Next year is going to be very exciting at work; for personal things, my hope is that I will rewrite and shop my 2004 NaNo entry, rewrite and shop my Infosec book, and get on a working weightloss plan (I'm still into low carb but I have not been working out and I need to start).

My other big desire is to do some traveling next year. I still want to pull off my Fabulous East Coast Tour™, which was supposed to happen Autumn 2004 but didn't (mostly due to my having cashed in my vacation days). So we'll see about that. I will definitely be doing some traveling for work but I am not sure how much of that will involve places where I have friends/family.

Merry New Year, everyone. I know from some it's not the "real" New Year, but it's the end of the calendar year 2004 and beginning of 2005, so.

Originally posted to my LiveJournal on 5/4/2003

I am never going to be content with less than everything that I can be.

I am never going to accept limitations. There may be setbacks, and there may be changes of plans, but there are no no-win scenarios. I will never accept defeat.

I will never believe that I can't have something because I'm not smart enough, not young enough, not thin enough, not talented enough, and not male enough. I am a woman in a man's field, and I am going to keep doing what I am doing until I don't feel like doing it anymore. I may never be the best that there is, but I will make my mark, and when I'm done, it's going to be obvious that I am damned good.

I will never let anyone tell me that what I am is wrong. I can make mistakes, and I can stumble, but I myself am not wrong. I carry myself like a banner, and I will accomplish what I set out to accomplish because I am good at what I do and what I am.

I am one hell of a: mother, cook, friend, lover, writer, security engineer. I'm a night person but I can get up while it's still dark and do the job of at least three people. I'm chronically ill but I have never let that stop me. I'm not afraid to cry, and I'm not afraid to get angry, and I'm not afraid to bleed.

I give as good as I get. Treat me like dirt and I'll give you mud. Treat me like gold and I will shine on you as brightly as the sun. Hurt my children and I will turn on you. I am your mirror.

I move like the wind. I like my habits but I change them without warning. I talk to animals and trees. I sing to the stars. I dance the patterns. I can be like a breath of fresh air, or I can be like a sudden summer storm. Don't underestimate me.

I will never be content to sit still. If I am not discovering something new I will die. There will always be new territory to conquer. I will die with my boots on, if only figuratively. I will never sing a swan song.

You can't tell me that I shouldn't do something. I've never been afraid to do the things I shouldn't do. At times I am cautious, but I am never feeble. I have my phobias but I shall conquer every one. I have my dislikes but I am never afraid to try something new...and then try again later to see if I've changed my mind. And I change my mind a lot...because I can.

I'm not afraid to love, and not afraid to admit to it. I'm not afraid to dance in public. I'm not afraid to try something even if there's no chance of it working; the attempt itself is my triumph. I'm not afraid to be mistaken because I'll never be wrong if I'm not afraid.

Did you lose me? You didn't deserve me. Did you miss me? You didn't even see me. Do you hate me? It's because you fear me. If you knew the truth, you'd be as free as I am, free to dance through the grass in the starlight, in the sunlight, in the rain. Do you love me? Then you know.

I'm never going to step back because someone told me it wasn't my turn. It is my turn. And I won't stop turning. If you're smart, you'll follow and you'll turn too. Don't lose sight. Don't give up. Don't underestimate. Don't let go.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear. It's me.

Originally posted in my LiveJournal on 4/26/2002

It's time for one of my philosophical treatises, wherein I blow smoke out my ass and everyone skims over the entry. This is not a problem for me as I write mostly for myself, just as I talk just to hear my own honeyed tones. Whatever.

I've been doing some thinking about life. Over the years I've often said that life is what you make of it, and then of course I get arguments from all sides about how sometimes you can't help the things life throws at you. And of course, that's true. You can't. Sometimes it's just beyond your control.

But I will repeat this till I get hoarse, and then I'll put up little signs: How you feel about your life is TOTALLY up to you. You can take one hell of a good life and paint it to look like pure misery; likewise, you can take disaster after disaster and still answer "Never better" when someone asks you how you are. It is up to you, what you make of the circumstances that life will throw at you.

One morning I was in a terrible funk. I kept repeating a certain thing over and over to myself. It was something that wounded me so deeply, that not only made a fresh cut but that opened up every single goddamned wound I'd had from babyhood on. Every rejection, every taunt, every time someone let me know that I wasn't, in some way, good enough -- it all came to the surface. I felt like the most worthless person on Earth.

And then, all of a sudden, I had a flash of insight. Nobody was doing this to me. I was doing this to myself. There was nobody in my life who even wanted me to feel this horrible. Only I did -- because painful as it was, it was easier than believing in myself.

In the film Pretty Woman, Richard Gere tries to tell Julia Roberts that she doesn't need to be a hooker, that she is much more intelligent and talented than that. She replies, "When you start to believe in yourself, people put you down. The bad stuff is easier to believe." It is, too. Believing the "bad stuff" allows you to avoid responsibility for making your life everything it could be, because when something goes wrong, you can just shake your head and say, "Well, I suck, that's why."

I'm going to really go out on a limb and say this: anybody who can read this has a good life. OK, wait, before you scream at me -- yes, I know, the specific circumstances might suck. Please believe me when I say that I have been there. I have, at the beginning of many months, questioned whether we should pay the rent, pay the bills, or buy food. I have been homeless (though never, thank god, actually on the street). I have been too sick to move. I've been jilted more often than I can count (literally -- ok, maybe I can count that high but it would take a while). I've been a single mom without a job...and so on. And I know that it's very, very hard to take those lemons and make lemonade when you don't have the money for the sugar.

On the other hand, while it may help, having disposable cash, good health, and great sex doesn't automatically make your life perfect, not if you're still believing the bad stuff. How happy you are about your fortune or lack thereof is directly related to how you feel about YOU. I believe this because I know that circumstances can change in the blink of an eye. Right now I have money, relative good health, and lots of love in my life. I could lose ALL of that tomorrow -- hell, I've been closer to the edge than I'd like to think several times in the past year and change. Even just a month or so ago I made tentative plans in case we lost our ability to pay rent and had to live out of our cars (see, we're lucky, we have two and his is paid for). I was tremendously cheerful as I did this, because I really didn't see the point in panicking and getting depressed about it. We've been up, we've been down, and we'll probably be up and down again. I've done the panicking and the despair and I just can't do it anymore.

I think that a fine whine should, at times, be enjoyed. I know I certainly do. I love to rant and rave and piss and moan -- my mother used to say that you knew I was ok as long as I was kicking up a fuss, that you should only really WORRY about me if I got quiet. But I also know that sometimes you can forget to see the forest for the trees. You maybe can't afford to buy the sugar to make lemonade from those lemons...but I'll bet you know where to get some honey. C'mon. You do. You know it.

And before anybody kicks my ass -- I'm writing this for ME, too. I never want to spend another morning crying because of the "bad stuff". Life is WAY too short for that.

G'bless.

On my desk I have a coffee cup. I guess it's supposed to be a romantic kind of present to give your lover or whatever, but I bought it for myself because I like to have the words printed on it in front of me all the time. I don't just keep it for show; I drink my coffee out of it. I feel that drinking out of a container imprinted with words that one wishes to follow is a self-actualizing ritual.

The words are paraphrased from Paul's first letter to the Corinithians, Chapter 13, verses four through eight. Without realizing it, many people, Christian or not, know that passage. The cup says:

Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous, love does not brag. It is not arrogant, is not provoked. Love is never rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries. Love does not rejoice in what is wrong, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

This is Paul's definition of god's love for us: unconditional love. As a follower of Dionysos, I aspire to unconditional love, as painful and frightening as the concept sometimes is. So here's how I stack up, clause by clause, to the best of my self-knowledge:

• Love is patient

I am not what I'd call a patient person. However, I'll also say that when I love someone, I am very willing to wait. I may not wait for our specific relationship (for instance, I may give up on a romance with someone who's not ready), but if I have committed to love, I will wait for that person's response indefinitely.

• Love is kind

I feel that I am fairly good at being kind to the people I love, despite the fact that I'm very emotional and do tend to let my frustrations show at the time that I feel them. Where I fall down is that if someone I love is not being kind to me, I will not always be kind to them either. I need to work on this, and on being kind to people in general (even if they are not kind to me).

• Love is not jealous

Jealousy is one of those words that's often misunderstood. In a romantic relationship, the meaning is that one suspects one's partner of infidelity. That would definitely not describe me; I am never suspicious. I am possessive of my lover's time and attention, or at least, historically, I have been; it's something I've been working on and I think I'm better at that now.

Jealousy in general, though, without the extra baggage of the romantic partner, is something that I could probably be justly accused of. When one is jealous the implication is that one has doubts about one's own worth in comparison to another's; I know I've definitely had that problem, so yes, I am probably jealous. Clearly this is something I need to work on, and I do believe I've seen progress in recent months. However, I was accused of it not so long ago (the actual charge was "competitiveness"), so clearly, I'm not out of the woods yet.

• Love does not brag

I think that this is part of the same problem as jealousy. One brags when one is not so sure of one's worth. I try to be proud of myself and my achievements, but bragging means I am not sure of them. I think I don't brag, but I am not sure that I never do.

• Love is not arrogant

Again, it's not wrong to be proud of what one has accomplished, but arrogance implies self-doubt. If I'm sure of myself I have no need to be arrogant. In my loving relationships I think I succeed in not being arrogant. Still, given my tendencies toward self-doubt, this is definitely something I need to watch out for.

• Love is not provoked

I have said many times that if I am not being treated well by a loved one that I will give back as good as I've received. Obviously, I can be provoked.

I think the reason for this is fear (and the self-doubt I've mentioned). If someone in a loving relationship isn't treating me well, certainly I don't have to put up with that; but lashing out in my own turn shows weakness. It's not about high moral ground -- I already have that because I don't strike first -- it's about adhering to one's own beliefs about love. Love is not provoked.

There are certain things I've done -- and I'm not talking about snarkiness, I'm talking about high-level decisions, though snarkiness isn't really great either -- that were done with the best of intentions, that might be seen as a response to provocation. I will sometimes review and question those actions and ask myself, "Was I provoked? Did I do the right thing?" Sometimes I find for myself, sometimes against. I think that this year I've been better about not being provoked than ever before, but I know that not every observer might agree with this assessment. There's definitely still a ways to go.

• Love is never rude

I think what's meant here is that when one loves one does not put one's self forward out of turn. I think that, while I might make mistakes, I'm actually pretty good at this one.

• Love is not self-seeking

This is further to the last. If one loves, one does not do things merely for one's own sake. Now, don't get me wrong, I won't say I'm not selfish or spoiled, but when I make important decisions, I don't do them primarily with myself in mind. I care about my own happiness, and I won't lie about that. But I don't care about my happiness more than that of my loved one.

• Love is not prone to anger

Well, I'll be the first to admit that I have a bad temper. But that's not what this statement refers to. What it means is that when something less than wonderful happens, one should not respond immediately with anger. When something happens that hurts me, I try to understand the other person's perspective, so I'm actually doing well with this one. I'm even becoming better at not being angry or bitter if there's no honest attempt on the other person's part to help me understand.

• Love does not brood over injuries

Ah, well, that's been a problem of mine in the past, I know. I've specifically been working on it and I think I'm better than I used to be. I will, as I mentioned, become bitter if there's no resolution to the hurt a loved one has caused me. Being bitter will cause me to brood. However, I've recognized this as a problem, I'm actively working on it, and I've definitely seen some improvements in recent months.

• Love does not rejoice in what is wrong, but rejoices with the truth

In other words, if one loves, one does not rejoice at dishonorable behavior on the part of one's loved ones or their friends. That's not to say one should always go around being a Goody Two Shoes; it just means that one does not encourage dishonorable behavior. In my mind, this sort of goes along with not being provoked. For instance, if my loved one insults me, rather than insulting back (as I've done -- perhaps not at first but after awhile), I should continue to behave as I believe is right, regardless of what my loved one is doing. After all, my loved one's behavior really doesn't affect me if I don't believe the insults or whatever. In the same way, if my loved one is behaving in a dishonorable fashion, I don't need to take it personally, but neither should I participate in it.

This is really a much more loaded statement, then, than it appears. It's not just saying "don't participate"; it's saying that I don't need to stop loving someone, or separate myself from that person, because he or she is doing something that I consider dishonorable. After all, if I have a strong sense of my own self-worth, their negative actions have no bearing on me.

Hmn. Powerful stuff, if so. And if it's true, then I'm not so good at this. However, I am fairly good at not participating.

• Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things

This is really saying the same thing over and over again. Love takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Love doesn't say "It was too much to ask." Love doesn't say, "I'll wait until X time and then forget about it."

In one sense, yeah, that's me. I won't wait forever for a relationship to happen, or resolve itself, but I will certainly wait forever for love. For instance, if I want to have a romantic relationship with someone, and the timing isn't right, I won't necessarily keep that "slot" open indefinitely. But if I've committed to loving the person, it doesn't matter what "slot" they occupy; I love them. I wish for good things to happen to them. I will be there if they call on me.

In another sense, I do have to say I haven't perfected this. If I'm very, very hurt by someone, and I'm angry and bitter (but see above, where I'm working on the anger/bitterness), I will fail in love for that person until I'm at a better place. I'll wish that person ill. I won't believe anything good about him or her. That's not very...enduring? of me. I get past it but I'd like to handle it differently. Perhaps the fact that I'm working on the tendency towards anger and bitterness will help with that.

• Love never fails

I take this to mean that love, if it is real, never ends. The relationship might end; I and my loved one may never speak again. But once having loved, I will always love.

Again, I fail at love sometimes. But I have said before, and I think it's true, that I still love anybody whom I have ever loved...and it's true sometimes even when I wish that I didn't.