Don't Give Up On Me

My new mountain biking partner in crime

It was a long, long road riding my mountain bike alone after the New Englander left, a road (or a path) upon which many tears were shed. But today I am happy to say I got to go riding with a friend (a friend who practices Ashtanga with me, no less!), and it was sooooooooooo nice!

I took her to Kettle Moraine -- she'd never been -- and it was a perfect day weather wise. It felt great to be out there, and great to be leading, really, really great.

And then I got home, and I got in the tub, and this song came on:

If I fall short, if I don't make the grades
If your expectations aren't met in me today
There is always tomorrow, or tomorrow night
Hang in there baby, sooner or later
I know I'll get it right

Please, don't give up on me
Oh please don't give up on me
I know it's late, late in the game
But my feelings, my true feelings
Haven't changed
Here in my heart

I know, I know I was wrong, wrong wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong
I'd like to make amends for the love that I never, ever, ever, ever shown
Just don't give up on me, every word is true

I'll give you my everything, all of my love, all of my love, all of my love love love
Just don't give up on me
Oh please, please, please
Don't give up on me

I don't want you to
I know it's late, but wait, please, please, please, please
Don't give up on me
Promise, will you promise, will you promise me
Please don't give up on me

We can make it if we try
I'm gonna hold on, hold on with me
And don't give up on me, oh-ooh, -oohohoooh -baby
Oh baby, Oh baby, please, don't-give-up-on-me
Whatever you do, we gonna make it, gonna make it through
Don't you give up on me, please, please, please... Promise me
Don't-give-up-on-me

To which I say, hmmmm Universe, interesting song choice. Beautiful, but interesting. It's not a song about celebrating new beginnings. It's not a song about moving on. It's a song about not giving up on the person who has wronged you but still loves you.

Very. Interesting. Choice.

But here's the thing: I'm playing around right now with the mantra "I already have everything I need."

Strictly speaking, I know that it is true. I have air to breathe, clean water to drink, food to eat, and love all around me. I even have a new mountain biking partner. So I'm just going to let the song play, and let it mark the day, without creating any kind of story around it, other than my mantra:

"I already have everything I need."

Indeed I do...

I Can't Fix Us Two

The process of writing a memoir has been so great in terms of seeing myself more clearly. Revisiting the old emails between the New Englander and me, I see a woman who was desperate to fix the man she loved. It's not pretty and I don't like that side of myself, but I can see now that it's where I was: I really believed that I needed to fix him in order for us to make it, which I needed in order to be ok. That might not have actually been true -- it wasn't true -- but it felt true.

It doesn't feel true anymore. I mean I do still feel that in order for the two of us to have a real shot, he would have to address the wounds that keep him from being able to be vulnerable, but my happiness is no longer reliant on the two of us making it. I still love him, I still want him to heal for himself, and if he did, I'd still want to give us another shot, but I also understand that may never happen and I can still live a full life and even fall in love with someone else.

Tonight I went to a meditation class with a teacher I really enjoy - he is also a Reiki practitioner -- and this particular class is about finding a deep experience. And what I found when I visited that deep part of me was the word YES. Yes to receiving, yes to being touched again, yes to love, yes to a guy I met online that I have a good feeling about (if that connection ends up being a positive one)... YES.

It feels like a part of me has been on hold -- in a holding pattern -- for a long time. I was teaching a yoga class this week, and I heard myself talking about letting go of what is no longer serving you, and I just thought "You're so full of shit, Sarah. You tell your students this, but have you let go of what is no longer serving you?"

So tonight I took steps in that direction. I spoke to the New Englander -- who will be 50 tomorrow -- about the ways in which I was unable to hold space for him while we were together in the way that I would want to -- because of my own wounds. I talked to him about the shift I'd experienced from needing him to get better and wanting him to. I listened to him talk about where he is and I let myself really hear what that means, which is basically what my deepest self indicated before that phone call: it's time to say yes to someone else.

As this beautiful song says, I can't fix us two, and that's really ok:

Left you by the phone at half past three
Now it's quarter ‘til and you're not to be seen
Last I saw your face was ten hours gone
And suddenly you're sorry; it's my fault for giving in

You will never love the way you know
You would never love the way you show

Yet I go back to you every chance I get
No matter how soft my skin is from last time you dug real deep
My bones are shaking; I can't do this anymore
I need to stop missing you; I can't fix us two

Left you by my heart, now it's raw and red
I should've said how mad I really was
Told you how I felt, but now it's done
I go to sleep upset; I didn't tell you what I meant

You will never love the way you know
You would never love the way you show

Will we part our ways, it's hard to say
We've come too far to say we just can't stay
It seems we'll always be two
And I'll never quite get you

I don't have to in order to have a full life. I can say YES to the life that's right here in Madison...

I Want the One I Can't Have

For a while now I've been asking for something that I wasn't sure I'd ever get -- more clarity around why The New Englander is in New England instead of here with us.

Today I received what I've been asking for in the form of a letter from him. I'm not sure he said anything new, but I was able to hear him and accept what he said in a way I've never been able to do before.

Part of that shift came this week while listening to Hardwiring Happiness in the car. The author said something that really changed the game for me, which was all about the difference between wanting and liking, and how they are two totally different neural circuits, and how the wanting is associated with craving, clinging and compulsivity in a way that liking never is.

And suddenly I knew that what I have been struggling with for so long -- the intensity of the want that I have felt for the New Englander that makes me believe we must be right for each other and we should be together -- is actually just incredibly intense wanting. It isn't all the things that I need or want in a loving partnership. I've known that it wasn't, but I kept coming back to the want as evidence. Turns out, the want isn't evidence of anything healthy, so now I can just notice it, be with it, but not choose to get carried away by it as I have in the past.

Phew! What a relief! And to mark this day I leave you with The Smiths' treatise on wanting:

On the day that your mentality
catches up with your biology

I want the one I can't have
and it's driving me mad
it's written all over my face

A double-bed
and a stalwart lover, for sure
these are the riches of the poor

A double-bed
and a stalwart lover, for sure
these are the riches of the poor

A tough kid who sometimes swallows nails
raised on Prisoner's Aid
he killed a policeman when he was
thirteen
and someone that really impressed
me
it's written all over my face

On the day that your mentality
catches up with your biology

And if you ever need self-validation
just meet me in the alley by the
railway-station
it's written all over my face

Little Giant

My very own little giant climbing this morning

This morning my daughter cashed in on one of the Christmas presents I gave her: a Groupon to take four of her friends with her to Boulders for two hours of climbing.

We had a really good time. It was very fun to be back at the climbing gym again -- it has been ages since we've been.

I even had some opportunity to do some bouldering, which was very fun. And of course, the eye candy -- climbers, in my view, tend to be hot, and this morning's selection did not disappoint.

My daughter was so grateful: "Thanks for giving me such an awesome present!" which felt really great.

Our Saturday overall was sort of up and down, and while I did chores in between soccer games, I watched the latest episode of Parenthood.

This is one of the songs from the episode -- one that was able to get the tears flowing -- which I think helped release some of the stress I'm carrying around with this work thing:

Thought that I was in my prime.
But I was naked, dressed in my pride.
You see through the things I hide.
Yeah, it's still same, be yourself, you'll turn out alright.

You made me run like I never run,
Try like I never tried,
Fight like I've never fought,
Made me want it.
You made me run like I've never run,
Try like I've never tried,
Fight like I've never fought,
Made me want it.

I'm always saying, I'll make it right my dear,
'Cause losing you's my greatest fear.
I know I found all the blame and decide
Yeah, it's still said, don't be stupid, you'll turn out alright.

You make me run like I never run,
Try like I've never tried,
Fight like I've never fought.
Made me want it.
You make me run like I never run,
Try like I've never tried,
Fight like I've never fought.
Made me want it.

Who said it's easy, to be loved,
When you look over your shoulder and only see the wasteland?
Just got to carry what you can,
Have the heart of a giant, but know you're a man.

Who said it's easy, to be loved,
When you look over your shoulder and only see the wasteland?
Just got to carry what you can,
Have the heart of a giant, but know you're a man.

Start small, grow tall.
Start small, grow tall.
Start small, grow tall.
Start small, grow tall.

It's true. It's a proven method. I've watched it happen with my kids, it happened climbing this morning, and I have to believe it is happening in my life in general even when I sometimes still feel small...

I Wish It Would Rain

Scene from my late aft beach run

After a gorgeous day here in SoCal yesterday -- sunny and 65 degrees -- the weather report this morning is forecasting rain, rain, and more rain.

The local TV station picked out a very appropriate song to mark this day, and though I don't share the sentiment (I'd much prefer the sunshine remain), it is a beauty and it's helping me remember that like everything else in this life, rain has a purpose, even if it doesn't arrive at quite the moment one would like it to arrive if one could control it:

Hmmm
Sunshine, blue skies, please go away.
My girl has found another and gone away.
With her went my future, my life is filled with gloom.
So day after day, I stayed locked up in my room.
I know to you it might sound strange.
But I wish it would rain. (How I wish that it would rain)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

'Cause so badly I wanna go outside. (Such a lovely day)
But everyone knows that a man ain't suppose to cry, listen.
I gotta cry 'cause cryin' eases the pain, oh yeah.
People this hurt I feel inside, words can never explain.
I just wish it would rain. (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)

Oh, let it rain.
Rain, rain, rain (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)
Ooo, baby. Let it rain.
(Let it rain) Oh yeah, let it rain.

Day in, day out, my tear stained face
Pressed against the window pane.
My eyes search the skies, desperately for rain.
'Cause raindrops will hide my teardrops.
And no one will ever know.
That I'm cryin'... cryin' when I go outside.
To the world outside my tears, I refuse to explain.
Oh, I wish it would rain. (Oh, how I wish that it would rain)
Ooo, baby.

I remember when I felt like this. The first of the three years I went to a yoga retreat on Maui. It was during the first year after I left my husband, and the trip was the first time I'd gotten any real space to myself since I'd made that momentous move. And though a part of me was crushed that I'd paid all that money for a tropical vacation only to get rained on every single day of it, mostly I felt relief:

Let it rain, let it rain.
I need rain to disguise the tears in my eyes.
Oh, let it rain.
Oh, yeah, yeah listen.
I'm a man and I got my pride.
Give me rain or I'm gonna stay inside.
Let it rain.

I'm grateful I'm not feeling that way today, and even more than that, I'm grateful for the acceptance that allows me to appreciate a 60 degree rain rather than craving 80 degree sunshine since the former allows me to enjoy what is and the latter would only focus my energy on what is missing. What joy is there in that?

Take Care of Yourself

This morning on my bike ride to work, it was only 20 degrees, and because it's November 12, I left the house without my heavy-duty winter biking gear. I was cold on my ride, really, really cold. But I tried not to judge that feeling, and instead, just noticed it.

That outlook didn't make my thighs and butt any less chapped when I arrived at the gym to thaw out, but it take make the ride a lot more pleasant. It left room to also notice the sunshine and the feeling I have every single time I get on my bike -- no matter the weather -- the delicious freedom of moving through the world on my own power.

Now that my commute is 6 miles each way rather than 3, my power (aka the size of my butt and thighs) is more formidable than it has ever been. And it's not just my bicycling prowess that's feeling so strong, it's the rest of me, too. All this Ashtanga yoga means my upper body is also at an all-time strong, and that feels really good too.

But it goes beyond physical strength. I experienced a monumental loss this summer, one that at times, I wasn't sure I would survive, or at least, I wasn't sure I would survive with an open heart. But I have survived. And I'm working on keeping my heart open, but I'm not there yet. There's a feeling that I've described before in this blog, a tightness behind my heart. It ebbs and flows, but it hasn't gone away. And that's ok. It tells me I'm still healing. Just like the cold air on my bike ride this morning, I can just notice it. No judgment. (That's always the goal, and at the moment, I actually feel capable of it, which also lets me know I'm healing.)

While eating dinner last night, I was joined by my friends from Glee, and they aptly picked a song (which I believe was originally recorded by Teddy Thompson), that has the same sort of "just notice -- this is how it is -- kind of attitude about letting go of a love:

It's time for us to part
Yeah, it's best for us to part
Oh, but I love you
I love you
Take care of yourself
I'll miss you
The nights are long alone
I sit alone and moan
'Cause I love you
Oooooo, I love you
Take care of yourself
I'll miss you
And no more tears to cry
I'm out of goodbyes
It's time for us to part
Although it breaks my heart
'Cause I love you
I love you
Take care of yourself
Take care of yourself
Take care of yourself
I love you

The song doesn't pretend that it's easy or neat or tidy, and it doesn't pretend that the love goes away. And that pretty much sums it up for me!