risk

... she finally moved beyond the shadows and exposed her heart as a naked wanderer robbed of all other possessions risks exposure save a morsel of compassion ...

impossible

You don't know my life story, but somehow you know me better than anyone who does...

seventeen

Revisited a place I haven't been in a very long time...very surreal to relive the thoughts that fill in the pauses between words.

Refusing to be crippled, happy with my current state, those distant memories will not uproot what has taken seventeen years to establish.

In context, survival. In memory, unfathomable! Still who I am, and better for it.

lost

Resorting to humor, to protect the truth, has distorted the laugh to the point of ineffectiveness. Sadness has begun to set in.

Did I allow myself to get to this point? Or was it inevitable? Would it have been better to avoid? Or would it have hunted me down anyway?

I'm left feeling lost.

everything but the ultimatum

Not knowing what to do, and neither option seems right. Wishing for some miracle, a sign of desperation of which I am ashamed. I hate pretending. I feel like we are fooling ourselves.

Little by little my heart is pulling away, and I know it's because I truly don't believe this will ever happen. And I don't want to pretend I will hold on forever, because it's a lie. He is losing me. Not to someone else...to ANYTHING else. To an international assignment, to giving up on marriage and adopting if at all, to incessant travel and humanitarian aide, to literally anything I can expend myself on and not feel trapped or punished or dependent or reckless or stupid or confused or overwhelmed...he could even lose me to superficiality, operating on such a high level that it can't torture me anymore.

I am not blaming him. I am just keeping him informed. I am not a fixer by nature when it comes to relationships. I have always found things to change in myself to make it work, but it never does. I don't know how to call him out and blame him for this. Instead, I defend him in my mind. But I can not find a way to make this feel right. I can not. And I can not do something to fix myself either...anything I try will only make it worse in the long run... I do not know what to do except be honest.

I love him, but I am not happy.

And I know it hurts for him to hear, but I promised to always keep him informed on this subject. It would hurt more if he found out after the fact and had no opportunity to respond. I know he wants us to be happy too...but I don't know how much longer... I can not change his mindset, the reason he is in the place he is...why he is limited in what he has accomplished. I feel it is inherent and he has reached his limit. He is frustrated at his potential which he feels he is far from...he thinks he can be more...I believed that at one time. Two years ago.

I am trying to fill a role with a different person than I have. I want to appreciate him for who he is and not always be wanting him to be something else or something different or something more. It is not fair to make him resent himself for not being my ideal. And it is not fair that I feel filth for wanting him to be something he is not.

Sometimes holding on means letting go...

Holding on to my dreams and wishes and sanity without feeling guilty and like I am hurting him and disappointing us both...

Him holding on to who he is, to the desire to have a relationship where he feels like he is enough...

Sometimes holding on, means letting go...

When Compassion and passion from a single source collide, it is with great magnitude and disruption, uprooting a sound perception of security and creating an environment that may have existed but was unrecognized or unacknowledged. A hurricane. Inevitably altering the course once securely chartered, the unfortunate reality is that those who operate on a deep enough level to anticipate and preemptively reroute, are rarely steering the S.S. Agility.

The depth of the ship may seem as deep as the ocean...dragging on the bottom, you can't steer your way out. You're feeling stuck with a dream that is bigger than your world. Relativity only comes into focus when you're no longer at the helm.  The actual truth is something of which I am aware, but unable to process - a most debilitating and frustrating thing. Of course, a choice. Still no feasible way to implement. Self imposed limitations I have not found a route around.

A compassion for others, beyond my reach, drives a passion to extend...but the compassion for those close, drives a passion to stay. The passion for children, both those in need and my own desire to experience first hand, are both quickly becoming a faint dream. Whereas previously, it seemed the pursuit of my own was a more likely prospect, again, I bottom - out. 

I have not found anyone in whom I can find reprieve and this journey is long...I have not prepared to sail this monster alone. The perfect plan to accommodate the passion AND compassion, the compassion AND passion. Blame society, intelligently designed human nature, or foolishness carried over from my youthful naivety, there is no denying it. There is no perfect plan. I live the reality daily. I fight my own imagined complexity, with my own over-stimulated logical analytics. I know I can do this, I know I can count on friends, maybe even family...I know I don't need a fully committed partner of sorts to pursue my dreams...I know i am strong.

But, sometimes holding on, means letting go. Sometimes there just IS NO balance that everyone tells you to seek. And maybe their experience of balance was only their perception of it. The eye of the hurricane. And without being able to see the entire ocean, you can only see the storm...and in a storm, you hang on for dear life to anything you can get your hands on. Until....well, until you're strong enough to not.

Out of the blue...book that is...10/24/2010

Airline air...what is it that is so inspiring? Maybe it's the "cage"...trapped, in a world of no distraction interesting enough to free me from my thoughts. So I follow my own advice and inquire within...

Edge of the world...that's where I reside, mentally everything will soon change despite any outside influence. Something must give. My dreams POUND on my door...Happiness raps like rain on my window pane, beckoning me to come out and play. Like a child, grounded for misbehaving, I dare not leave responsibility ~ this punishment ~ for bad decisions past ~ and risk a worse fate.

Yet, if tomorrow does not greet me, where am I left? Gone. Simply gone. No legend, no legacy, no contribution beyond the fleeting moment of loss. What cripples me? Fear I face regularly, so I doubt this is the culprit. Laziness? I can barely sit still... Why do I feel trapped? The relationship I am in only leads me down a road to an unnamed place, but that journey is not my exclusive outlet nor does it demand to be. I don't need hand-holding ~ maybe moreso a traffic conductor, yelling at me when the light is red, but they still wave me through the intersection to the safe left turn I yearn for. 

At 32 years old, I am losing execution time. A pressure motivated, over-analyzer of a perfectionist. When is good, good enough? Rarely. But without executing a less than perfect plan, I execute nothing! Why and How is it possible that this is acceptable to me? Can I not see that the end result of a perfectionist life is a gigantic NOTHING? The little black book of opportunities mocks me! Not even because of the conventional use of such a thing ~ for this book will surely yield a much higher success rate.

Pursuits. Eight letters of evasion. Must I proceed alone? 

"Be anxious for nothing". I remember my mom citing this often, yet in reading her journals, she struggled just as I do. At what point do we learn to let go? For her, I don't know if it ever came before her life was over. On one hand, I'm anxious to execute, on the other hand, I am anxious to leave nothing behind. That the world will be no better for me having been in it. 

What change do I need to make for this to no longer plague me? Is it a page in the black book? Is there a calling I have not pursued or maybe have not even discovered at this point? These thoughts, along with a yearning to fill a void in my relationships rob me of sleep of my peace. And I only find peace in destruction's aftermath.I find peace in running all the time. Not running away ~ running to fix, to help, to solve. What kind of life is this? Not one for a husband of devotion.