old man sutton

The adventures through life and spirit of a single father, lover and man.

Behind lie engines
gearing through their paces
busy people with busy lives
eyes straight ahead
focused on the day to day
hands on the wheel
foot hovering hesitantly
between brake and gas
and I turn my back on it
and face the water,
face the north
and watch the waves
slurping slowly at the sand
watching
the water come closer,
causing small seashells
to dance and flutter
lifelessly on the beach,
a cool air surrounding me
and a sun setting slowly to the left
no hands on the wheel
no control and no desire
to punch the gas
or stomp on the brakes
merely lean back and
let my hair stir listlessly
content for now to be
along for the ride.

Let me start off by saying that firstly, no, I did not get in a car accident.  Secondly, that this is a long rambling post, and I’ve been writing it for several hours, so if it gets too difficult to read, I do apologize.

I was going back over some poetry I had wrote at the end the year, and I ran across this.  It’s still pretty much in its raw form.  It’s definitely something for me to keep in mind right now.  I’m still getting panicky, I’m still afraid.  But I remember what this felt like, writing this poem, and it’s helping to calm me down.  Time apart isn’t so bad when you know you’ll be seeing each other again soon.  Still not quite close to “soon”, but … soon enough I suppose.  I really want to talk so bad.   And while most of that is a genuine desire to share company and conversation with her, there is part of that which  is also worry that in some way, the reality of who we are when we’re together will be forgotten about if we don’t talk for so long, and then, so too will I be forgotten.

I see the car moving, and my hands aren’t on the wheel.  That can be pretty effing scary.  I control every other aspect of my life, and have for a good … wow, almost 2 years now since I first separated and struck out on my own.  I have been living an independent lifestyle, living alone, making it all by myself for almost 2 years now.  I’ve worked, parented, struggled, fought, paid, loved, laughed, listened, shared, cried, and died several times over in that time-frame.  And some of those times were happy, and some of those times were sad.  And some of those times were the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I can still remember those times.  I want to grab on to that part of my life that grew those happy times, not just the memories, but the reality of it that made it happen in the first place, to grab onto that and live it and live it hard.  I deserve to be that happy.  Everybody deserves to be that happy.  There’s no way I deserve it more than you or anybody else.

I accidentally stumbled on an old conversation this morning, and it made my heart melt and my tears flow with the tenderness, love, lust, connection, passion and sheer adoration in it.  And if there’s ever been anything that has stood in the way of that, it’s been fear.  It’s something I have no control over.  There’s no steering wheel on this car, the brakes have been cut, there’s a weight on the accelerator, and I’m in the passenger seat looking for the “oh shit” handle, scared to hell too.  I don’t need to park the car in the driveway or nothing, but it would be nice if it didn’t drive over the edge of a cliff too.  That’s the shit about having no control.  You just have no idea what is going to happen.

That’s the scary thing about starting anything new too, though.  It’s new.  It’s the unexpected.  It’s the unknown.  Every day we are handed more and more of these.  Every day is the start of something new.  Every day we are given the present, and there is no telling what will happen.  The best we can hope to do is to do the best we can with each day.  This is where I want to keep the car on the road.  This road fills my heart, and this road makes me feel alive.  Fuck fear.  How many times had her and I ever gotten together, scared what it was going to be like together after so long, and how many times were all those fears unnecessary.  Some things burn bright no matter how dark the horizon is.   And I think that the best I can do, is find those things, and to fan the flames.

That just happens to be one of them.

I’m fanning the flames of my kids, being the best dad I can be for them.

I’m striking furiously with steel and flint at a pile of dried grass where work is, but it’s something.  ;)

The thing is, as much as I talk about love, and this person I love… that’s just a part.  I’m already living the others parts of my life as best as I can, or working on it.  I am always trying to do better.  The love is the part that I’m missing terribly right now,  all the more so because of an added silence on top of it.  I’m not only missing my truest and most precious love, I’m missing my best friend.  I’m missing the most amazing person I have ever met on the face of this earth, and the loss of that weighs and tugs at me.  This is a person that not only do I feel all this for, but one who understands me deeper than anyone ever has, who I have bared my soul to, told my darkest and deepest secrets to, shared our fears and hopes with, shared the brightest times of my life with, magnified the best in me, and whom I helped do the same for, who suffered with me through a tragic loss,  who stood with me and looked to the future with a mutual hunger to grab onto that as hard as we could and never let go.  I fear the loss of all of that, because there is so much there.  There is everything I had always looked for, and more.   Is it any wonder I want to try to keep the car on the road?

So at the same time, if I try to control this car, the movements will become exaggerated, the car will veer sharply, and go plummeting off the cliff.  So here is where things come down to trust.  This is where it’s important to just be present in the moment.  To acknowledge, yes, I AM afraid of losing that, thank you very much.  I have never seen a more undeniably perfect couple as when we’re  together.  I’ve never met somebody I was more sure about wanting to share my love with, who stirred my passion so deeply.  To me, THAT is what’s really worth hanging on to.  I am very much afraid of losing that.  I am expending so much energy WORRYING about losing that, and trying to prevent it, that the focus of that energy is all on … losing that.

Woah, not cool man, I believe in that whole “mind over matter” thing.

Do I have it in me to acknowledge this fear, to know I’m afraid, to know that there IS no way to know, and just … let go of the wheel, lean back, and enjoy this ride, wherever it takes me?  Can I have enough trust in the Gods and in myself to know that I’ll be alright, that my past is not the culmination of my existence?  No matter what happens, good or ill, there’s always going to be a tomorrow, and I’m always going to try to live it the best I can.  Who knows.  I’m not going to give up if things don’t go the way I’d prefer.  Life doesn’t end.  The sun will still come up.  Etcetera, ad infinitum.

I believe.  I believe fear can be faced and acknowledged and dealt with rationally, that it can me redirected so that one can meet the best life ever.  I do truly believe that.  I’m trying to live that every day.  Because when it’s time for my hands to be on the wheel, when I am in the drivers’ seat, believe me, I’m driving the hell out of this car.  That’s the way I want to live my life.  To the absolute FULLEST, enjoying every bit of it.  Good company, community, passion, intellectual stimulation, family, romance, love, equality, my closest friend, a spiritual connection, independence, partnership and mind blowing sex.  2-3 times a day.  Minimum.  ;)

That’s worth seeing how useless it is to panic when my hands aren’t on the wheel right?  That’s worth acknowledging that fear of the unknown, and stepping forward intent on focusing on having the best life possible, to be the happiest I can be right?  No more worrying that things change.  No more fearing the unknown, but embracing the moment as a gift, and always, ALWAYS living it to the fullest.

*leans back, hair blowing in the wind, and tries to get comfortable in the passenger seat*

There are times in the lives of all of us that define us.  Times where we are forced to test what we are made of.  Times that push us beyond our limits, out of our comfort zones, where we must stand or fall.  To live in such times, brings us great fear.  We gnash our teeth, and question the fairness.  We wish that we would never have lived to see such times, we hope that they can’t happen in our lifetimes.  All of us who have ever had to experience this, question why.  While we often reach these times through paths of our own choosing, at the same time often there is no avoiding them.  It does no good to wonder why us, why now.  The times come, and it matters little why.  What matters is what we do with them.

When hope fades, when fear reigns, when pain becomes unbearable, when the odds are stacked against us, when everything seems impossible … these are indicators we have reached such times.  Our normal reaction is to cower, to hide, to give up.  We wish to deny the reality of such times.  We lose our hope, we lose our ways.  We slow down, take stock, and stop.  The fear of change, of overcoming the odds, of facing the darkness with our own meager light is powerful.  The longer we stand still and figure the odds, the harder it becomes to move again.  We begin to tell ourselves we are weak, that we can not possibly face these fears, that there is no way we can succeed.  Perhaps we approached such times from a place of strength, but as the time becomes more difficult, we succumb more and more to the fear, to the pain, and wish to retreat back to our comfort zones.

Facing adversity in such times is hard.  But we are made of sterner stuff, we who are human.  We have many stories and tales, both fictitious and founded in fact, where we overcome the odds.  Where armies who are outnumbered choose to fight, despite being outnumbered.  Where individuals with the world stacked against them soldier bravely onward.  Where one who has been knocked down repeatedly continues to get back up and try again.  We understand that perhaps we are destined to lose, but we get back up and face this with courage.  We stand, we fight.  We strive to overcome.  There is a light within us all that can not be extinguished, if we chose to see it.

Perhaps at times we still fail, but we fail knowing we have faced the situation to the best of our abilities.  We have faced our fears and proved our worth.  And yes, oftentimes we find we can overcome.  Our will is a powerful thing, and often has little to do with reality.  While we live and breathe, while our heart beats, while there is an ounce of blood in our veins or a breath left in our lungs, we can continue to push on, to strive to overcome, despite the fear, the sorrow, the pain.  We are unique, in that we can bend the odds around us, and charge through the odds, meeting success regardless.

Sometimes, when we look into the darkness, we can see no light through the other side, and so, struggle to remain in the light we know.  But the darkness stays there, lingering, beckoning, and waiting to be faced.  It spreads through time, growing darker, deeper.  We can not hide from it forever.  Truth must be faced, reality must be acknowledged.  Despite the odds against us.  Whether this is facing the reality of a relationship whose time is over, a love that is not enough and never will be, financial ruin, or even death itself.  Eventually, all things change, and all things must be acknowledged.  There is no life without risk or change.  There is no happiness without sorrow.  There is no light without the darkness.  There is no hope without adversity.  The only way to live, to find happiness, to realize hope, is to accept the road ahead of us.  We can not change these things, we can not run from them or hide from them forever.  They will catch up to us eventually.  It does not matter how we got here, for we are here.  It is NOW.  What matters now, is how we face them.

In my veins, I bear the blood of my ancestors.  I bear their memories.  I feel the times my people have faced the odds, have struggled, and have stood fast and true.  All things change, and often in ways we wish they wouldn’t.  There is no going back.  There is only ever forwards.  We can not mourn the past forever, we can not pick up the threads of a life that has ceased to be true.  Some truths are not strong enough to move forward with.  There is only honesty and acceptance, despite how scary this may be.  In a couple short years I have been forced to accept many of these.

Despite loving my ex-wife, despite our children, despite the vows I had made to her, despite the things we could have done to find more happiness … despite all this, I lacked a fire for her.   I had to face the unthinkable, and say goodbye to the life we had.  I had to accept us as who we truly were.  There was and always will be love between us, but it is a love that is without passion.  We had problems communicating, with intimacy, with honesty, and accepting each other for who we were.  These were the problems of our marriage, very real problems.  And all problems that could be addressed, had they but stood on their own.  But more than being problems, they were side effects.  They were not the cause, but the consequences of a deeper problem.  A love without passion, a love that despite both our desires and hopes that it could have been enough, never could be.  Always underneath was the knowledge that we would always desire more.  That our passions lie elsewhere than with each other.  Perhaps I did reach deep enough into the core of her to awake a passion for me.  Perhaps.  Through time though, she has come to see that she lacked that for me, despite her protestations in the face of losing me.  She was forced to face her fears, to face the darkness, and in doing so, found change and truth.  As did I.  The sorrow was unimaginable.  To give up all I had worked for, to give up all that I had hoped we could be.  To give up the family I had tried so hard to create, the love I tried so hard to tend … no matter my fears at losing that, the truth was … it wasn’t there.  Only by facing that truth, and accepting it, have I been able to progress beyond that fear, and stand ready to face the future.

And what a future it has been.  Looking back, I knew this would be hard, but I had no idea how hard it was going to be.  I knew I would likely struggle to make ends meet, but I had no idea it would be this hard.  I knew I would be heartbroken, but I had no idea how close my heart would come to being destroyed.  I knew my children would suffer, but I didn’t really think the aftereffects would be so far reaching.  I knew things would never be the same, but I had no idea how much they would change.  I had hoped we would be able to remain close, but even with how well we get along, there is a distance now that can not be bridged.  I closed the doors, I burned the bridge, I shed my tears, and despite the fact that things have been so much more difficult and tragic, more painful than I ever thought I could bear, I have beared it.   I have faced it.  I have come out on the otherside, and I have found hope.  I have found I am still alive, that life goes on, and there are still futures spread before me.  There is no going back.  There is only ever forward.

I find myself in financial ruin.  I am so far behind on all my bills that I see no hope.  I have income that barely provides groceries and gasoline, yet life goes on and every month the debt against me stacks and grows and builds.  I stand the risk of losing my house.  My water has been off for almost a week.  My phone is shut off.  My internet is shut off.  Soon, I’m sure my gas and electric will be disconnected.  I owe thousands in back taxes to the city.  I owe thousands to the utility company.  I owe tens of thousands to my mortgage company.  I don’t currently own auto insurance.  I sit here day after day, trying to find work and failing.  I see no hope.  I see only everything stacked against me.  I long to give up.  I am afraid to act, afraid to move, afraid to even answer the phone and listen to another harassing debt collector.  I am afraid of losing everything I own.  I am afraid of continuing forward.  But even more so, I am afraid of not doing so.  If I give up, if I turn my back on everything I have accepted, everything I have found to be true, I am afraid that I will cease to live and cease to have my opportunity to find the truth of why I set out on this path in the first place.  Some days it is SO TEMPTING to just call her up, and look to put the past behind us, to grab on to the love we still share, to pick that back up, and to have my comfort zone back.  It is a strong urge, that I fight.  It might work, we might find happiness even, but I know I would not be truly living.  The doorway to that path was opened by another.  And that’s been scary from the get go.

Despite how much that terrifies me, it terrifies me even more to ignore that.  And now… the one who DID open that door for me, the love of my life, she must face her own darkness.  To look through the broken pieces of her own self, and reclaim the truth that led to that breakage.  And while she does this, I still must stand and fight.  I can no more run from the truth of my own dark night than she can hers.  I have to stand and fight.  I have to remain strong.  While there is even a shred of hope left for me, while there is but a breath left in my body, I can not run.  I can not hide.  These are the times that define us, and while I am afraid to face this, I am more afraid of turning by back and giving up.  No more backwards.  No more standing still.  There is only forwards, and I am made of sterner stuff.  There is always hope, despite the harshness of the truth.  Despite how hopeless my life may seem, I will always stand and fight, to my dying breath.  There is no reward without risk, and for the stakes I’m playing for, there can be no greater rewards.  I am playing for the future, for LIFE, for TRUTH.  I will stand, and I face this, and I will fight.

I wish her the same steel and strength as she faces her own night, and pray that I can be as strong.  Change comes whether I want it to or not.  And I will be standing on the other side, even if I end up standing alone.  To do anything less would be to deny the truth of myself.  I am part of Deity, and I will continue to act as such.  So mote it be.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the topic of readiness lately in my travels through life, specifically, about the lack of readiness. I’ve been hearing it from a lot of people, about a lot of situations. It seems I can’t turn around any more without hearing somebody say, “I’m just not ready yet” or “I really wasn’t ready at the time”. I know I’ve uttered those same sentiments more times than I could possibly even begin to count. You hear people say, “I was BORN ready!”… well … not me. I was born always looking for the most opportune time to act, wanting to BE ready, but never quite managing. Despite that, that sure hasn’t stopped the wheel from turning out surprises for me, ready or not.

One of the scariest things to face, in terms of readiness, is the prospect of children. I don’t know that ANYBODY is ever truly ready to become a parent. There is really no way one can determine the readiness for this monumental step in life, as there is really nothing else that can come close to this situation in terms of prior experience. I don’t care if you were a day care provider, foster parent, or raised your brothers and sisters almost singlehandedly due to some tragedy or neglect on the part of your own parents. Nothing can ever truly prepare you for what it’s like to help create a life, and then be responsible for caring, nurturing and loving that life. There is no prior experience that is going to match that.

I knew that I always wanted to have kids. Whether it was because of the masculine urge to further my bloodline, or my nesting urge to be part of a family of my own, or what, I just knew that someday, I’d like to have kids. I wasn’t ready for my first one. In fact, at the time, I was looking for a way out of my marriage. I knew I wasn’t happy, I knew it was over, and I had decided to ask for a divorce. On the day I decided that, I went home to do the hard thing and admit it. My wife had big news too. She was pregnant. Wow. Timing. We could make it work though, and having a kid would help. *rolls eyes* I won’t get into all of that. The point is, for that point in my life, I was definitely not ready to have kids.

Fast forward two more years. Wife and I were still together, we had somehow managed to raise our son to the ripe old age of 2 and a half. Things were looking up. We were getting along a bit better, getting comfortable in our roles as parents. There was a lot wrong there, that again I’m not going to get into, as it’s not relevant to this topic. But. It was Christmas. We knew something was up. Pregnancy test. Pregnant. Merry Christmas! This time, we approached the news with a lot more joy and cheer. We hadn’t been planning a child, we really weren’t ready. But here one was coming, and we were happy to be blessed with one. Wouldn’t say we were READY though.

See, both times I’d been greeted with the news from her, both were times in our life of some of the greatest suffering. I would lose my job after the news of an impending child, about 2 months afterwards. She would then lose her job, or be unable to continue working. We would be sitting there with no income, no health insurance, barely managing to scrape bills together, personal issues between us still growing and whatnot (though that wasn’t as clear at the time), and … here we were, about to bring CHILDREN into that. We weren’t ready.

Would I go back and change all that? I really don’t think so. Despite not being ready for either of my children, since they’ve been in my life, I wouldn’t really trade them for anything. To this day, I still don’t feel like I’m ready to be a father, at least not a good one. But, it didn’t matter if I was ready, or not. It happened, and I was thrust into it. So I try to be the best damn father I CAN be, and am always trying to be better, because… ready or not, I’m living it.

The same holds true with when my wife and I finally did split. I wasn’t ready or even really looking that hard to get out, though I understand now to a degree I was. I was still involved in actively trying to hold us together. I knew I was unhappy, I knew I would have rather been alone, but … we had kids together, we were married, we took vows, and I wasn’t ready to face the cold hard reality that we were done. Had been for quite some time. I wasn’t ready to put the work into saying goodbye, and walking away. And I sure as hell wasn’t ready for somebody new to enter my life, somebody that would turn out to be my truest soulmate in every sense of the word, and the woman I had always been searching for. Not ready at all. Timing. Ugh. When I realized that’s exactly what had happened though, I panicked. HARD. I had a complete and utter breakdown on the spot, and I wasn’t quite right for a long time afterwards. Some days I still feel the ripples of that day.

I think we can spend a lot of time in our lives helping ourselves out by becoming more ready to face the challenges in front of us. I think that’s a good, and responsible attitude. If somebody doesn’t WANT children, for example, then there are options available to avoid conception in the first place. And there are options available that I may or may not agree with in all cases, to end an unexpected one. But despite that, sometimes, the Gods don’t give a SHIT whether we’re ready or not, don’t care about the precautions we take, and things happen anyways. I take some small comfort in that. I may not feel ready for whatever life throws my way, but the Gods have enough faith in me to decide I AM ready, or they wouldn’t throw things my way in the first place. Sometimes they decide that I’m ready, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It’s like a giant game of hide and seek. Ready or not, here it comes.

I don’t think that life works in such a way that we’re only able to tackle things when we’re ready. Without a prior experience, you’ll never know if you are truly ready or not. How can one EVER be ready for the unknown? Being ready is all about preparing, of making sure that all your bases are covered, dotting all your i’s and crossing all you t’s, revising, rough draft/final draft, and all that. But when dealing with an unknown, you can’t be. Readiness is reading the strategy guide cover to cover, memorizing the instructions, and maybe even picking up a couple of cheat codes, before playing the game. Life is being thrown into the game with no strategy guide, no instruction manual, one life, and no save points.

When the Gods give me something I don’t feel I am ready for, my first instinct is to fight. Fight the situation, fight the Gods, fight to stand stock-stubborn still and wait until I AM ready. The thing is though, there are times when I don’t know that I’ll EVER be ready for what is being thrown my way. And through time, I’ve learned to fight less, and go with the flow more. So what if I’m not ready? It’s HERE, it’s NOW. It’s happening, and there’s no stopping it. It’s been decided that I have something in my life to face, ready or not. The only thing I can do at that point is soldier bravely on, and do my best. Maybe that means sucking it up and being the best dad I can be, no matter how much I’d rather be trotting across the globe, waking up in strange and exotic ports every day, or partying with the guys. Maybe it means having to face some of the hardest and most painful things I’ve ever had to do, not just to others, but for myself included. Maybe it means opening myself up to somebody else, before I’ve fully let go of who was there before. To me, it means acknowledging what is in my path, and accepting it for what it is. Ready or not, it’s here, and I’m at least ready to give it all my full self.

I see life like this, and to me, it goes hand in hand with what I’ve been led to understand is one of the keys of Paganism. We talk of turning the wheel. Of being TRUE witches. Of not only taking the time to mark the sabbats, working intent when needed. But also, of doing the hard parts. The daily chores. The parts that are less than savory, less than glamorous, the cold, hard, thankless parts that hurt us and take their toll. To quote a favorite series of mine, The wheel weaves as the wheel wills. Pagan life doesn’t only happen on a full moon, or a sabbat, or when we’re looking for it, or those rare numinous times where Deity directly touches us. It happens every day, in a thousand little ways. The wheel turns, with or without us, and it’s up to us to at least be ready to DEAL with what the wheel spits out at us, even if we’re not ready for whatever that may be. To me, Paganism has spoke to me so strongly, because we stand ready to deal with whatever that is, come what may, with strength, conviction, and willing to give the best of ourselves to that. Paganism is not a path of excuses, of doubt, of hiding or running. Paganism is a path of action, empathy, and choices. Of making choices, decisions, and dealing with the consequences. Ready or not. And always giving our BEST.

Are you ready?

This has not been an easy week for me, as most weeks where I have to deal with certain situations rarely, if ever, are. This week has been filled with a veritable plethora of difficult situations. This time however, I’ve been managing to make a lot of positive headway on how I handle myself in these situations, and I think it would be fair to say, I’m seeing a lot of positive results because of this. As somebody recently said, when I wear confidence and tilt my chin and move forward, it looks real good on me. I couldn’t agree more. It FEELS real good on me.

Last night, I received two books in the mail. One, is a book I’ve been DYING to read for quite some time: “Celtic Tree Mysteries: Secrets of the Ogham” by Steve Blamires. The other was a gift from a friend of mine, and is the next book in a series I’m reading. The book is “The Singing Sword” by Jack Whyte. I’m really excited to have new books to read! I’m a voracious reader, and though I love all the books in my library, it wears a bit after the second or third thousandth time through them all.

In my last post, “The Numinous and Worship“, I mentioned a passage from the book “Contact”, by Carl Sagan, that dealt with the main character falling in love. I’d like to share that, directly below.

“Their conversations were a joy, with ideas flying back and forth like shuttlecocks. Sometimes they responded to each other’s uncompleted thoughts with almost perfect foreknowledge. He was a considerate and inventive lover. And anyways, she liked his pheromones.

She was comfortable describing to him her reveries, snatches of memories, childhood embarrassments. And he was not merely interested, but fascinated. He would question her for hours about her childhood. His questions were always direct, sometimes probing, but without exception gentle. She began to understand why lovers talk baby talk to one another. Ther was no other socially acceptable circumstance in which the children inside her were permitted to come out. If the one-year-old, the five-year-old, the twelve-year-old, and the twenty-year-old all find compatible personalities in the beloved, there is a real chance to keep all of these sub-personas happy. Love ends their long loneliness. Perhaps the depth of love can be calibrated by the number of different selves that are actively involved in a given relationship. With her previous partners, it seemed, at most one of these selves was able to find a compatible opposite number; the other persona were grumpy hangers-on.”

As I had mentioned earlier, this had struck a chord for me, having found that within these past couple years ith someone, after a lifetime of searching, and eventually giving up. Man, but the Gods can be cruel when they finally give us what we most desire. Along with the joy of the finding, came a terrible fear and despair of ever being able to grab onto that, and guilt for having to extricate myself from the committed relationship I was already in to realize it fully. I guarantee you, I spent quite a long time hoping to find it with the woman I was already with, out of the love I still shared with her, and the love she still felt for me.

Why do we fight so hard, to force ourselves to go against what is obvious? What was awakened in me, was awakened by this new person, but I hoped maybe it could be transferred to my now ex-wife. She would tell me how much she was in love ith me, would tell me how much she ould change for me, even made certain changes. It was hard facing that, because the more she changed, the more she opened up her lines of communication, the more in her I saw the person I had initially fallen in love with, and the more compatible she became to what I was looking for out of life. Throw in the fact that she was and is the mother of my two children, and the difficulties in walking away from her were increased exponentially. How could I do this to somebody who loved and needed me that much? Did I not OWE it to her, to find the same feelings for her? And let me tell you, I came close to finding it. REAL close. Maybe we COULD “make it work”. Despite all that, I couldn’t seem to do it. Through time, I came to realize, that the feelings I felt, that I were awakened to, were not because of her, and aren’t transferable. And even though I could find almost everything else for her, I couldn’t find that one part that said, “Yes.”

Why do we fight so hard to force ourselves to fill those roles that others hope for us? We show amazing compassion for others, and yet, we show very little compassion to ourselves. For me, the reason I could not tell my ex-wife “yes”, was because she was not the person that that part of my heart was saying “yes” for.. the same one that awakened those emotions in me for in the first place. It wasn’t her face I saw in those moments with her. The Gods are cruel. But, they also are kind, because I DID feel that for someone, in all those ways, even if it didn’t lessen the hurt or acceptance I still had to find. And they were kind, because they allowed my ex-wife to see that was what was real in MY heart, that while I loved her, I couldn’t love her in that way, not after being made aware of it more fully with somebody that TRULY awakened it in me. And my ex-wife, I loved her more than ever for allowing me to have that, for loving me enough to let me find that true happiness, even if it wasn’t with her. And you know, it hasn’t been easy, because when I see her with the man she is with now, she reminds me more and more of what I hoped she and I could have. But I’ve been chasing the future that is real in my heart now, the one that speaks to all those parts of me, and dealing with the pain that comes from walking away from my past as it comes. The pain lessens with time, the healing begins, when there is acceptance of the truth. Yes I love her, yes I see so much good in her, and yes, we could probably have made a better go at things, but no…. that is not where my heart was pointing me. Only after I acknowledged that direction, and she acknowledged my direction as well, was I able to truly move on. She made it easy for me, and I’m grateful. She probably could have sat there every single day from then until now, begging me to stay, and I would have not had an easy time at all walking away. To say the least.

Compassion is a good thing, but there comes a time when one has to let others deal with the reality on their own terms, without standing in the way of that. And here, the compassionate thing is to let them figure that out for themselves, without you trying to hold their hand through it, and without sharing your fears back and forth beteen each other. Feedback loops are powerfull, patterned, and cyclical. Just as there can be a loop and regress of love beteen true lovers, there can also be loops of fear that never move anybody forward. So sometimes, compassion in a situation means having the compassion to walk away, to be quiet, and to let the other person see the truth for themselves. It can mean having the compassion to put your own hopes to the side, and acknowledging that in reality, they’re not returned. Sometimes compassion is having to do the hard things, that hurt the most now, instead of the easy things, that hurt more and more in the long run.

Deep stuff, and stuff I’ve been working on in myself. Having the compassion to let others see the truth for themselves, and having trust that the Gods will bring me beauty, whatever the outcome. It’s hard, but I’m following an ecstatic path… with the ecstasy, comes the hard work. And though it’s hard, I can honestly say that I am truly living my life now, and not waiting on the world to make things happen for me. I’m taking control of my life, and it feels amazing.

ON TO THE RANDOMNESS!

My “W” key is on the fritz, and I never really realized how often that letter is used!

I hate Wordpress’s textbox for typing posts, as it is constantly scrolling back to the top of the post, and typing in it it seems to be about one character a second hitting the screen.

I’m considering removing email notifications of new posts, as I often think it keeps people from wanting to come and comment.

I’m trying to integrate Google Friend Connect, to make it EASIER for people to come and comment.

I like comments.

I’m thinking of creating a new blog to dedicate my posts about my relationship to Herne with.

I really like watching The Office, Bones, and Heroes.

Happy Thursday all.

I’ve been thinking about synchronicity, convergence, coincidence, whatever you want to call it.   Not, actively thinking about it, but definitely as time goes on, noticing it more and more.  I’ve also been wondering why now my life seems to be piling on misfortune, heartache and pain.  I don’t know if they’re interrelated, but they do share the distinction of being a moment in time that really makes one sit up and take notice. 

I was thinking too about how I find myself sliding more and more into a practice of Paganism, despite the fears and hauntings leftover from dogmatic Christian practices that really leave me… uncomfortable with some of it.  How I didn’t actively choose this, how it reached out and chose me.

I’ve wondered through a lot of this, “Why me?”  Why have I been chosen to have been shown some of the most amazing things ever?  Why have I been deemed worthy of a major kick in my life’s ass?  What did I do to deserve any of this?  Where did I go wrong?  What did I do right?

What, when you get right down to it, does it all mean?

Why now?

And the pattern that is building here… of being handed trauma after trauma, inconvenience and burden and hurt, but … then while absorbed in the pain and experience of that, being shown the most beautiful things in this world as well.  Nature, oh you are SO beautiful.  Hurt.  Joy.  Pain.  Thanksgiving.  Sorrow.  Tenderness. 

I’m feeling pretty battered these days, pretty blank and numb.  Pretty down.  I’ve spent a lot of time in tears.  The smallest happy moments I watch others sharing, have the power to reduce me to a sobbing form on the floor.  Why at this time, in this place, am I being handed more than I can deal with, and still being shown so much that is beautiful, that I don’t feel I can fully appreciate?

I don’t know.  Maybe I’m being shown that even in the worst adversity, that there is still beauty all around us.  Maybe these are the tools for dealing with life when it gets shitty.  It’s good things to know, though it takes a lot of work on my part some days to understand that.  Sometimes you really gotta force that smile on your face.  Sometimes you gotta tell yourself those little white lies, “It’ll get better” or ”I feel good”, before you can really embrace them and see the truth behind them. 

We have no control over a lot that happens in our lives.  Oh, I know we DO, but … so does everyone else.  And all these lives touching effect each other, a million interconnected butterfly wings flapping and changing the world around them.  We can rarely pick the moments for good or bad to happen in.  The moments choose us. 

When I find my life filled with all the negative that I wasn’t expecting, the moment chose me.  There is no re-do button.  There’s just… now.  It’s NEVER a good time for something bad to happen.  But… it happens.  The moment is NOW.  And I have to remember that and choose how I will react.  And then live it.

When I find my life filled with all the splendour and joy and love I wasn’t expecting, the moment chose me.  There is no re-do button.  There’s just… now.  It’s sometimes a bad time for something good to happen.  But… it happens.  The moment is still approaching.  And I have to remember that, and be ready to embrace it.  And live it.

Things have been fairly quiet for me the last couple of days, which I’m thankful for. I’ve been pretty quiet, which I’m feeling a little less than thankful for right now. Have spent the past few days licking my wounds, internalizing, gathering my strength. Trying to find center again in a life that is rapidly becoming a nexus in terms of cataclysmic life altering changes all happening at the same time.

As it stands right now, in 18 days I will be joining the masses of unemployed struggling to find jobs, trying to make do as a single father, with a mortgage, leftover marital credit-card debt, all the normal bills, and child support on the limited budget that unemployment wages provide. If I’m lucky. I still haven’t heard for sure if, as a contractor, I’m even elligible for unemployment. Changing jobs has always been one of the scariest things in my life for me. I don’t know why. It’s terrifying….. Deep breath….. Moving on.

My ex-wife is getting ready to move in with someone else in November. With the kids. I’m finding as time goes on, I’m accepting this more and more. He’s a good guy. The kids love him. He still respects me as their dad. He treats her good. They really love each other. That’s all that matters. Still though … it’s a big change. A hard, hard departure from what life used to be. I worry about her, and I worry about the kids. I just want to make sure they’re happy….. Deep breath….. Exhale….. Moving on.

I recently broke up with Lyon. There’s no way I can even begin to explain how lost I am. I didn’t want to, but right now, at this time, in this place, it’s the right thing for what we want, what I want. I’m still very much hurting and wanting to hold on right now. Life without the relationship side is … definitely a change. A major one.  Slow deeeep breath……….. Exhale……….. Moving on.

This morning as I dropped the kids off at daycare, and drove myself to work, I had the privelege of driving straight into the setting moon. Watching it grow larger and larger as the morning grew lighter, the sun rising in oranges and blazing electric purples behind me. Looking around at the trees and fields on my drive to work, noting how much is still green, but how much is just teeming with the brightest, most glowing reds I have ever seen, and bright oranges, and dull faded yellows already beginning to speckle with brown. The air was crisp, cold, I actually had to run the heater in the car. It was gorgeous. Life was made for moments like that.  It reminds me that everything will be ok.  Those are the moments in life worth having.  Whether you have money, or you have someone to share it with, or whatever.  Sure, those things can help.  But the joy and happiness in moments like these will STILL BE HERE… and they’ll still be amazing.

I still want someone to share it with. I still know who that is. But. Not right now. That’s a huge thing to wrap my mind around. It is. But I’ll get there. The ex-wife will move in with the man she loves, and I’m ok with that. I’m working on grasping the enormity of it. But I’ll get there. I’ll do the absolute best I can to find a job. I can’t give up. I’m putting a lot of faith in deity on this one. And I’ll play the cards they choose to give. Come what may. I’ll get there.

Positive thought, positive action … don’t fail me now.

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