Being so in, being so low

Noone was hurt in the making of this story….but…well, actually…I was.

There is a reason its called being ‘in love’ and not being of love, or loved by or having love with another.
Its in love. Being right in it. In the moment. Consumed in. Given in. Falling in.
Its all so…..in. I didn’t know how to be out again.

Do we ever really feel the love from another long enough to know how changeable and conditional it is? Or do we feel enough of it to then run around consumed in our own interpretation of what their love means, what it could be, what opportunities it holds, what dreams it can aspire to.
Are we ever in love with another or in love with our idea of being in love with another?

Right now I am heartbroken. I had a three day love affair. It was the most sensual love of my life. It bloomed from a place of long friendship, mutual intrigue and respect. From a place I have held treasured in my heart for so long. It took my breath away.

Being a couple of souls recently broken up from another love, we were super aware of all our fallibilities and the risk for emotional attachment and relationship centric issues. I thought I did a good job at keeping my expectations and attachment issues in check. We had a wonderful time in the moment of three days of sharing, laughing and sensual moments. It was the most beautiful thing I have felt in years.

Sadly it was to end. We both were not quite ready. There were feelings of guilt and pain threaded through some of the after effects. The timing was not right.

In that moment, we felt compassion for our healing selves.

In the discovery of how much we wanted to give ourself to another, we found we had not fully given into ourselves, and reached ourself fully. We still were unsure of ourselves, and needed to heal our doubt.

The power of such an intense lesson, to better yourself through the visions of what you want to be to another, to be the best version of yourself in the here and now, is a beautiful thing.

It made me sad because in all its intense beauty, it was there to remind me to slow down, find my inner self love. But I did not want to stop being in the moment with them.

Look forward, don’t run.

October marks the month when I thought I would be walking away from my current job and into a new life, and a new position in a beautiful company. I have wanted to get out of my current job for years, I am putting myself through part time study to qualify in a new vocation to do just that.

But this time last year, I didn’t think I could cope any longer and put feelers out, to move on.
I found an amazing opportunity to work with an inspiring individual in an ethical company.
But as time moved towards the decision to stay or leave, and as I weighed up all the pro’s and con’s, I got more messaging about my path, than I have ever received about a single choice I must make...
Those messages said - just be still.

Its a concept I have never applied in life. Not really.
I am a total go getter and problem solving activist.
But at that point in my life, every time I asked for guidance, the answer was - slow down and just be.

It has taking some effort to apply this to my life, at all. But the area I needed to apply it most, was at work.

I turned down the job offer and stuck my head into my studies.
As disappointed as I was, it felt right.
After all, I had a plan in place to get out. Just one more year!

Eventually crunch time came at my work. It became unbearable. Isolating. Unrewarding.
Yet rather than punish myself with feelings of dissatisfaction and the pressure to move on, I made a hard move to be honest with the bosses about my perception of the job in hand. I confronted their pace of progress verses my productivity. I explained my sense of deflation and frustration with the job.

Surprisingly, I was heard loud and clear.
Suddenly the job changed and it became something tranquil, slow and steady and dare I say it...easy?  It became the one area of my life where I could tick jobs off and find satisfaction, if I just re-framed it differently. It was all about how I looked at it, appraised it and approached it.

I still want and need to get out. I cannot maintain this approach whole-heartedly forever. It would be dishonest. But I totally appreciate that in my current time span, the job I am in, is doing what it needs to do, for me. It is straight forward and easy to complete.
It is, in honesty, a place of calm if, I let it.

I know that the end is in sight. I am months away from completing my studies and hopefully not that long away from selling my property too. Then, to coin a phrase, the world is my oyster!

I am a little sad as the marker passes by this week, but I cannot help reflect that all things considered, I am, exactly where I am meant to be right now.

After all, I have a huge amount of final study papers to submit for my university deadline of the 31st January. I also have six weeks of group work to deliver and write up, presentations to create and present, weekly classes to attend until mid December and a house to sell.

If I was starting a new job now, I would have added stress, deadlines and train travel into my depleting capacity.

So it strikes me. By not running towards my perceived destination, I have ended up there anyway. Or at least in touching distance of it. It is so close its palpable. Exciting. Enticing.

All I need to do now is continue the pace and cross the finish line and finish my own race with grace.

My planning ahead is finally coming to fruition. It proves to me...

Look forward, don’t run.

Attachment issues

It took me two days to get over the feeling of loss from the person who turned my head and, for a short while had all of my heart.

Two days.

An impressive feat I feel. 

Two whole days of feeling heart broken and distraught. I had to cut all ties and hide.

I know it doesn’t seem long. Just two little days. But it felt like forever.

I went through a process of assessing my life traps. Searching and finding patterns. I reviewed my options. My short, medium and long term perceived reality. I didn’t want to hide from a truth. 

But then I realised, I was hiding from myself. 

Hiding from what I should have seen coming and knew all along. 

It was not now, nor ever how they would feel about me. 

Is this a classic case of, they are just not that into you?

I realised a number of things about myself...

I am not fixed in what I am capable of reaching for. On one hand I wish to be smitten, involved, adored, intimate, affectionate, desired and ‘wooed’. I imagine walks in the park, romantic meals for two and surprising that special someone dressed as their naughty fantasy. Yet on the other hand I want freedom, independence, sexual expression and poly adventures. I imagine myself doing all this with male and females partners, sometimes aaaaalll at the same time and still coming home with the person who wants to snuggle into a spoon and slob in bed all day on a Sunday with just me.

Also, in consideration of the entirety of all my relationships, it was clear that my desires, exploits and interests have not been evenly reflected back at me by those I have loved. I have experienced passion and great love but even greater pain and disappointment. Is that my expectations or their levels of love capability? I cannot help but fear that I must be difficult to please, too complicated and dare I say it...high maintenance? 

I also had to admit that I had been in love while in a loving relationship in the past. And upon reflection, from my two day duvet fort, I realised that deep down I’ve always known I can love more than one person at once. The challenge now, is to learn how to navigate carefully through the necessary information and confessions towards finding other like minded people to partner up with. And how to do this in a timely fashion, before I fall in too deep. 

In love and relationships I have standards that I won’t compromise. 

Yet I have so much to give. I love to connect on many levels. I love lots of adventure, sex, affection and having someone to spoil. Which made me think. Is this just my attachment stage? Am I pushing myself to discover what it must be like to have boundaries to parts of my heart or dare I say it life? 

Am I just repeating the same old pattern of relationship norms? And if so, what the fuck is my pattern?

When I poked my head out from under my clouded blanket I was able to see the lesson. 

Its an old one. Attachment. I still need to learn to be 'free from attachment to others.'

It’s a Buddhist saying I’ve known for over 20 years. I’ve always pondered it cautiously. Admiring it, yet not quite believing it can be possible to love and not be attached. But there it is. 

Are Buddhists right? The root of all suffering is attachment. 

In those two days I felt like I was suffering from a bad break up. Not a small realisation. I was in pain because I had grown attached. Yet it was a familiar pain. A sense of loss. 

Boom. All my previous relationship feelings and lessons brought me right back here. To the same spot. To a painful truth.

Regardless of my new outlook of openness and honesty. I was attached.

What followed was an uncomfortable silence with myself as I acknowledged a shocking, truth. 

I have attachment issues.

I decided to turn that into something that will now keep me on my toes and in check of my propensity to throw all my energy into another and obsess over the beauty and wonder of good loving. Am I just a hopeless romantic? Or hopeless at being unattached?

Is this a modern phenomenon of, they are just not attached to you? 

To stop the cycle my suffering I had to free myself of the attachment. Easier said than done. 

And swiftly on the back of that I was shocked to consider... I am really breaking my own heart. 

The heart doesn’t care for questions or considerations though does it? 

It just goes after what it desires. 

Based on all the amazing evidence I have given it to hang its hang ups upon, I don’t blame it. Ultimately I am glad it is still working. I know I can feel deeply about someone. I have not lost the ability to love wholeheartedly. For passion to influence my every breath. For excitement to course through my body in anticipation. My heart is working, halla-fucking-lullah!

I am still in the process of my unattachment, can you tell?

And as painful as the aftermath is, I have found one last single, simple truth. 

I have but one friend who really see's all the parts of me, both bright and blue and loves me in all my single embodiment of confusion.

One single friend left who really loves me like no other. 

Me. 

And for now, thats all I can be attached to.