My Oh My

I've been listening to Brene Brown's Rising Strong in the car for the past few weeks. It's powerful, and it's speaking to me, as all of her books have.

The basic message is that we can't skip over the messy part. We can't just say that failure leads to growth without talking about what is required for that growth: the pain, the shame, the rumble as she calls it.

At one point she mentions this song as one that she listens to on repeat when she's in the hard part:

What on earth is going on in my heart?
Has it turned as cold as stone?
Seems these days I don't feel anything
‘Less it cuts me right down to the bone
What on earth is going on in my heart?

My oh my you know it just don't stop
It's in my mind I wanna tear it up
I've tried to fight it tried to turn it off
But it's not enough
It takes a lotta love
It takes a lotta love my friend
To keep your heart from freezing
To push on ‘til the end

My oh my

What on earth is going on in my head?
You know I used to be so sure
You know I used to be so definite
Thought I knew what love was for
I look around these days and I'm not so sure

My oh my, you know it just don't stop
It's in my mind I wanna tear it up
I've tried to fight it tried to turn it off
But it's not enough
It takes a lotta love
It takes a lotta love my friend
To keep your heart from freezing
To push on till the end

My oh my, you know I just can't win
I burn it down it comes right back again
What kinda world is this we're living in
Where you never win
It takes a lotta love
It takes a lotta love these days
To keep your heart from freezing
To keep your spirit free
My oh my

My oh my you know it just don't stop
It's in my mind I wanna tear it up
I've tried to fight it tried to turn it off
But it's not enough
It takes a lotta love
It takes a lotta love my friend
To keep your heart from freezing
To push on till the end

So. Much. Love.

Good thing we've all got an infinite supply...

Now and Always

I decided to spend the day today the way I sometimes spent the day when I had a boyfriend: In bed for much of the day. I'm not going to pretend that it's the same by myself, but it's still pretty nice to just luxuriate in the not doing.

When I did finally get out of bed this afternoon, I turned on the ipod player in my room, and this song came on:

You're in my mind baby, now and always
You're in my mind baby, now and always
The road I'm walking might fall away
You're in my mind baby, now and always

I like David Gray, but my first impression was something along the lines of: "Really, Universe? Do you have to make this harder than it already is?"

And then off I went to hot yoga with my friend. Afterward, sitting in her car in my driveway, I told her what had transpired for me over the last couple of days, and out came the tears. No, it wasn't as hard as it used to be, but it's still hard to be confronted with the power of my relationship with the New Englander and be with the loss.

A bonfire smoking into a low sky
The sparks they fly up into a low sky
Would that these demons let me rest
They're with me Lord till the day that I die

My friend asked if that experience (which I described more in yesterday's post) made me distrust my body. Interesting question, and one that I have definitely grappled with over the last couple of years as I've coped with the loss of this love. The answer is no. My body being so sure about him just feels like a testament to all that was right about us. I can't help it if he couldn't prioritize us, show up, be vulnerable:

Ill wind that blows in from all directions
Ill wind that blows in from all directions
Hey, easy boy giving it all away
And nothing left for your own protection

That's out of my control. But the physical connection, and the love, those were and are real:

You're in my mind baby, now and always
You're in my mind baby, now and always
The road I'm walking might fall away
You're in my mind baby, now and always

But like the shift from bursting into tears at the sound of his voice to being pretty much ok with it, slowly but surely, I am healing. And I'm gaining the wisdom I need to make the right choice next time around...

This Year's Love

I usually have my kids on Wednesday nights but I didn't this evening so I decided to once again go to a Yin yoga class. Just before I left, my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but I thought it might be the man I've been corresponding with on Tinder to whom I recently gave my phone number.

Lying in a pose for 3-5 minutes (which is what you do in a Yin yoga class), I thought about the prospect of talking to a man (who is a potential romantic prospect) on the phone. And the next thing I knew, tears were rolling down my face as I thought of when the New Englander and I first starting talking on the phone. We fell in love on the phone, before we spent any real time together in person. When I think back to that time, I can't think of any reason in the world why it shouldn't have worked out for us. It just doesn't make any sense to me, and I still find it sad. Little by little I am letting myself feel the sadness and letting it go, just as I did tonight. Because if there's one thing I learned from that relationship it's that I don't get to choose who I fall in love with and I don't get to choose if it works out or not, either.

This song came on during class just as I was drying my tears and telling myself that as hard as it is to put myself out there again and risk getting my heart broken the way it was the last time, I'm gonna do it:

This year's love had better last
Heaven knows it's high time
And I've been waiting on my own too long
But when you hold me like you do
It feels so right
I start to forget
How my heart gets torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Feeling like you can't go on

Turning circles when time again
It cuts like a knife oh yeah
If you love me got to know for sure
Cause it takes something more this time
Than sweet sweet lies
Before I open up my arms and fall
Losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
And when you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last

So whose to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on
And won't you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last

I hope I do fall in love again this year, and I join David Gray in feeling like it had better last, even if I know better than to think we have any control over it...

Made Up My Mind

In last week's modern love, author Augusten Burroughs writes about his recent nuptials, describing that at one point he had fought back his romantic feelings with a machete because there were a thousand reasons why his attraction to the man who is now his husband was impossible. And then he wrote some of the coolest prose I've ever read:

"But impossible is a concept that makes one's heart laugh and throw peanuts at the television."

I absolutely love that line. I love being led by my heart. I love that my friend from New England followed his heart to the Midwest despite his misgivings about how it might work out.

I'm not gonna lie -- I'm not to the point where I love how it has worked out, but it's pretty clear what's going on here. My mind got it a long time ago, and my heart is finally coming to accept it.

Pondering this this morning, an apropos David Gray song started playing:

So I made up my mind
I made up my mind
Gonna move on ahead
Instead of lagging behind
Instead of lagging behind

I made up my mind....

I don't like this David Gray song nearly as much as I like his slower songs about being in love. And I don't like letting go of love as much as I like falling into it. I don't suppose anybody does.

But I have to trust that my heart will continue to guide me, eventually back to that falling in love space, and I love knowing that if I try to resist it, I can count on my heart to laugh and throw peanuts at the television...

Shine

Let's hear it for the power of intention: guess who first opened her eyes on her birthday at 6:09am? That's right, I had a full night's sleep to begin my 43rd year, and was it ever glorious!

Speaking of glorious, it could not have been a more beautiful day nor a day more perfectly suited to me -- sunny and 80 degrees! And I received so many lovely birthday wishes in all forms -- hugs, cards, compliments, Facebook posts, texts, phone calls, lunch and dinner al fresco, birthday treats, presents... I feel incredibly blessed.

And although it certainly isn't an entirely happy kind of gift to receive, I realized today that it is a gift that my adventure lovin' ex-boyfriend is as clear as he is about needing to go where he can shine. God knows (as do both of us having lived through years of unhappiness in previous relationships), as hard as it is to let go, it is far preferable to holding on when you just don't have what one another needs.

As luck and/or fate would have it, David Gray wrote a beautiful song that pretty much draws the same conclusion:

I can see it in your eyes
What I know in my heart is true
That our love it has faded
Like the summer run through
So we'll walk down the shoreline
One last time together
Feel the wind blow our wanderin' hearts
Like a feather
But who knows what's waiting
In the wings of time
Dry your eyes
We gotta go where we can shine

Don't be hiding in sorrow
Or clinging to the past
With your beauty so precious
And the season so fast
No matter how cold the horizon appear
Or how far the first night
When I held you near
You gotta rise from these ashes
Like a bird of flame
Step out of the shadow
We've gotta go where we can shine

For all that we struggle
For all we pretend
It don't come down to nothing
Except love in the end
And ours is a road
That is strewn with goodbyes
But as it unfolds
As it all unwinds
Remember your soul is the one thing
You can't compromise
Take my hand
We're gonna go where we can shine
We're gonna go where we can shine
We're gonna go where we can shine

Yes we do. And I intend to use this year to shine, help my children shine, and help others shine too, by teaching yoga, continuing to write and generally being the best me I can be.

Slow Motion

This morning as my alarm was going off, I felt as if the world was in slow motion. Once I roused myself enough to see that it was raining outside, I decided I'd stay in bed a bit longer, skip my yoga class, and practice at home instead. For the next hour or so, I occupied that not quite conscious place between wakefulness and sleep. My ipod was on in the background, and David Gray provided music and lyrics (and with the video, pictures) to describe my sleepy state:

While I was watching you did a slow dissolve

While I was watching you did a slow dissolve

While I was watching you did a slow dissolve

Did I imagine or do the walls have eyes

Did I imagine they held us hypnotized

Did I imagine or do the walls have eyes

Life in slow motion somehow it don’t feel real

Life in slow motion somehow it don’t feel real

Life in slow motion somehow it don’t feel real

Snowflakes are falling I'll catch them in my hands

Snowflakes are falling I'll catch them in my hands

Snowflakes are falling now you’re my long lost friend

Snowflakes aren't falling just yet -- but they're coming. I finally got my light therapy light out of the basement on Saturday. I used to suffer mightily from seasonal affected disorder, now I just observe that my energy level is a bit lower and my mood a bit darker. I attribute the fact that I suffer less with s.a.d. now than I did before to four main factors:

1) I have, and use, light therapy to help me get the (simulated) sunlight I need to feel good.

2) I am careful to do my yoga and get my aerobic exercise -- much of it outside, even in the colder months.

3) I am happier overall, have more love and more support in my life than I used to; but most of all:

4) I recognize that seasons are, that there is a time for budding and a time for dropping off, a time for warmth and a time for chill, a time when we are closer to the sun and a time when we are farther from it, and I do my best to be with all that.

Hospital Food

This morning I woke up again remembering my dream, but this one was about my friend from college who died nearly two years ago. It's the first dream I can remember that I've had since she died where I felt like she was in full living color -- not in the hospital, not swimming -- no, it wasn't like any of those dreams that were heavy in some way with the circumstances of her death. In this one we were on a beach with some other friends, laughing about a guy she'd been pretty obsessed with in college. I woke up feeling like I'd just gotten to spend time with the best parts of her -- what a treat.

And then I reached over and turned on my ipod, which shuffled onto this David Gray number, tapping into some of the yucky memories of the end of her life, at the hospital, where we watched her slip from the woman we'd laughed with to a woman we didn't recognize:

Seeing it all so beautiful

The way it oughta be

Seeing it all so beautiful

And turning away

Turning away

Turning away

Tell me something

Tell me something

I don't already know

Tell me something

Tell me something

I don't already know

I did learn some things I didn't already know through that experience, but not much of it good. Now another friend is in the hospital, and I'm hoping to learn more that's positive this time around.