Hit Me Baby One More Time

Sweet baby Hazel

This song is another in the list of 66 songs that changed everything that I listened to the other day, and so it kinda makes sense that it was on repeat today when I was hanging out with my friend's baby:

Oh, baby, baby
Oh, baby, baby

Oh, baby, baby, how was I supposed to know
That something wasn't right here
Oh, baby, baby, I shouldn't have let you go
And now you're out of sight, yeah

Of course, this song is about the other kind of baby, but methinks they're related:

Show me how you want it to be
Tell me, baby, 'cause I need to know now
Oh, because

My loneliness is killin' me
(And I)
I must confess I still believe
(Still believe)
When I'm not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me, baby, one more time

Because it was the same loneliness I felt when I lost my man that strengthened my desire to have another baby. I wanted that closeness. That feeling of belonging. Of Oneness.

I'm happy to report that I've come to find out I can have that feeling without a man or a baby, because both the man and the baby are just means of accessing something that is actually within me: my being, my light.

I'm reading a book right now called Perfect Love: Imperfect Relationships, and the author does a brilliant job of laying out all the ways we try to get the love we are looking from other people -- what he calls horizontally -- when what we really need is to get it vertically -- by connecting with our own true nature. For me it's a real relief, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

My now two-week old commitment to the Ashtanga path of 6-day per week practice is already having a profound impact on my life. I've got a ways to go, but I'm doing so much better at focusing on myself and my own healing. And it feels like it's working. And I'm lucky, because I do get to hang out with a super cute baby every once in a while and have her nap on my chest as she did today, which is one of my very favorite feelings in the world.

But I no longer feel like I need to have another one of my own. I feel like I don't know what direction my life is going to go in -- I don't know what's next for me on my career path, I don't know who my new man will be, and I don't know if I'll ever have more kids -- either my own bio, adopted, or step. I don't know.

But I know the what the path I'm on looks like. I know that it involves going to an Alanon meeting on Father's Day when my father ignores what I've written to him in his Father's Day card. I know it involves a commitment to being as present and as loving as I can be for my kids. I know it means practicing Ashtanga six days per week, including tomorrow, even though I'm pretty sore after all the yoga I did this weekend. I know it involves daily meditation, even if it's only for five minutes some days. And I know it means staying really fit, biking most places I go, and being able to head out the door for a run that lasts an hour or more without being sore afterward. I know it means caring for my beautiful home for which I am profoundly grateful. And I know it means using both music and writing to make sense of my life.

So even if there are a lot of pretty big unknowns, there's a lot I do know, and it's everything I need to know right now...