Thank you everyone who may have enjoyed visiting my blog periodically, and gotten something out of it. I certainly enjoyed making it, however it was born out of a sad and difficult time in my life.
Now, however, it is time to start afresh completely and change everything.
When I looked at it all, who I was and who I'd become... I knew deep in my soul where the truest things lurk, that this is a thing I couldn't not do, and keep my heart and head intact.
Some time now down this path I have chosen, I'm now happily going full throttle and sloughing off all that is sad and bad behind.
I am happy now and in a much better place, though of course there will always be challenges... I'm redefining myself and finally listening to that little voice inside we so often ignore, and I quote:
"They too have lain under their beds, knowing that they can't be who they are any more, and that they need to build a bigger boat. They are all in the furious, messy, white-light act of self creation, trying to invent a future they can be in."
I’ll never be someone who had a mother who didn’t fuck with her. I’ll always be a person who had to escape from a crap pile to make her whole amazing self up. There’s a lot of sorrow and ugliness in that. But there’s a lot of beauty too. But we can’t erase our lives. We can’t change what our mothers or fathers or step parents were like or what demons or gods ruled them or when they died or how. We can only change who we are in relation to them. We can revise how we narrate those stories of our lives.
Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus. Ezekiel excoriates false prophets as those who have "not gone up into the gaps." The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock - more than a maple - a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.
I am thankful for second chances. Deserved or undeserved, but truly given without reservation. Given to me and to others, but most importantly, the one I gave to myself.
Inspired by a quote from Charlotte Brontë in "Jane Eyre":
“Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time; my heart was full.
"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”
And of course, String Theory itself:
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. It describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other.
"You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don't need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn't mean you are incapable of real love or that you'll never love anyone else again. It doesn't mean you're morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That's all. Be brave enough to break your own heart."
- Cheryl Strayed: "Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar"
Dearly beloved We are gathered here today To get through this thing called life Electric word life It means forever and that's a mighty long time But I'm here to tell you There's something else The after world A world of never ending happiness You can always see the sun, day or night So when you call up that shrink in Beverly Hills You know the one, Dr. Everything'll Be Alright Instead of asking him how much of your time is left Ask him how much of your mind, baby 'Cause in this life Things are much harder than in the after world In this life You're on your own And if the elevator tries to bring you down Go crazy, punch a higher floor4 If you don't like the world you're living in Take a look around you At least you got friends You see I called my old lady For a friendly word She picked up the phone Dropped it on the floor (Ah, ah) is all I heard Are we gonna let the elevator Bring us down Oh, no let's go! Let's go crazy Let's get nuts Let's look for the purple banana 'Til they put us in the truck, let's go! We're all excited But we don't know why Maybe it's 'cause We're all gonna die And when we do (When we do) What's it all for (What's it all for) You better live now Before the grim reaper come knocking on your door Tell me, are we gonna let the elevator bring us down Oh, no let's go! Let's go crazy Let's get nuts Look for the purple banana 'Til they put us in the truck, let's go! C'mon baby Let's get nuts Yeah Crazy Let's go crazy Are we gonna let the elevator bring us down Oh, no let's go! Go crazy I said let's go crazy (Go crazy) Let's go, let's go Go Let's go Dr. Everything'll be alright Will make everything go wrong Pills and thrills and daffodils will kill Hang tough children He's coming He's coming Coming Take me away!
"I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought into the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives - those fountains of inconvenient feeling - and towards the frantic enticements of what our friends in the Greed Business call the Free Market. We're hurtling through time and space and information faster and faster, seeking that network connection. But at the same time we're falling away from our families and our neighbours and ourselves. We ego-surf and update our status and brush up on which celebrities are ruining themselves, and how. But the cure won't stick."
"The whole process of becoming an astronaut helped me understand that what really matters is not the value someone else assigns to a task but how I personally feel while performing it. That's why, during the 11 years I was grounded, I loved my life. Of course I wanted to go back to space - who wouldn't? - but I got real fulfilment and pleasure from small victories, like doing something well in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab or figuring out how to fix a problem with my car. If I'd defined success very narrowly, limiting it to peak, high visibility experiences, I would have felt very unsuccessful and unhappy during those years. Life is just a lot better if you feel you're having 10 wins a day rather than a win every 10 years or so."
- Chris Hadfield in "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: Life Lessons from Space"
"I think that people live their lives like they drive. Some people can be fluid and see the gaps and instinctively know where to go. Other people stay in the same lane; they stop and start, they're hesitant. They don't have a clear direction."
I gently trace the contours of your face, run my fingers smoothly through your rich dark hair, then follow the curve of your shoulders with my palms.
I describe concentric circles lightly with my nails and fingertips over your back until you're almost in a trance, your consciousness reduced to following the intense points of touch as they move masterfully over your body.
Slowly I start to press harder as my hands begin to move strongly over your prostrate form, firmly moulding your flesh until it relaxes beneath the pressure I exert.
Involuntarily you release a deep sigh, almost a moan, as the accumulated stressors of your life dissolve away beneath my sure movements, like the snow in spring.
I mould your buttocks like bread dough and you feel yourself stiffen as I work above you.
As I slide my spread fingertips up your inner thighs to lightly feel the curve of your swollen balls, you can stand the pressure no longer, you roll over and your proud cock immediately asserts in a full stand.
As I watch the beat of your heart pulsate in the head of your cock I can bear it no longer, I hold your arms flat above your head as I lower my warm slippery pussy gently over your entire shaft, gradually increasing my motions until our movements merge in a glorious explosion of pent-up emotions, and a luxurious release.
Languorously I roll off you and we gently kiss, looking into the pools of each other's eyes, knowing we are merged - heart, body and mind.
"...Every man should be forced to take his 40th year off. The vast majority of men don't have a life - they pretend to have one. In reality they are lonely, emotionally timid, and miserably, compulsively competitive. One of the main reasons they never get out of this tragic state is that they are enslaved by soulless jobs and careers that lead them to put their lives on hold until retirement. Of course, when this arrives it is too late. While they work they are too busy to think and therefore they have empty lives where they never develop a rich and sustaining inner life....'Our marriages fail, our kids hate us, we die of stress and on the way we destroy the world.' "
"His inability to touch me the way I needed to be touched sent our marriage into a downward spiral. I became bitter, I was alone on top of a mountain, completely isolated. Life is too short to feel unfulfilled. My need for touch is the foundation of how I experience acceptance."
Do you remember a guy that's been In such an early song? I've heard a rumor from Ground Control Oh no, don't say it's true They got a message from the Action Man "I'm happy, hope you're happy too I've loved all I've needed, love Sordid details following" The shrieking of nothing is killing, just Pictures of Jap girls in synthesis and I Ain't got no money and I ain't got no hair But I'm hoping to kick but the planet it's glowing Ashes to ashes, funk to funky We know Major Tom's a junkie Strung out in heaven's high Hitting an all-time low Time and again I tell myself I'll stay clean tonight But the little green wheels are following me Oh no, not again I'm stuck with a valuable friend "I'm happy, hope you're happy too" One flash of light but no smoking pistol I never done good things (I never done good things) I never done bad things (I never done bad things) I never did anything out of the blue, woh-o-oh Want an axe to break the ice Wanna come down right now Ashes to ashes, funk to funky We know Major Tom's a junkie Strung out in heaven's high Hitting an all-time low My mother said, to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom My mother said, to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom My mother said, to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom My mother said, to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom
