Is Keeping Me Waiting....

“Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best,” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called. ~ A.A. Milne

--

Pooh might not have had the word for what he felt but he knew how primally pleasurable it was to feel it. And it is so verrrrry delicious, isn't it?

According to Robert Plutchik's psychoevolutionary theory of emotion, this feeling -- commonly known as anticipation -- is one of the eight primary emotions (the others being anger, fear, sadness, joy, disgust, trust and surprise.) You'd think love and hate would've make it to the top eight but if you take a moment to reflect upon it it makes sense. Neither one of those could ever be called a simple or biologically survivalistic sort of emotion, now would it?

Is anticipation a survivalist emotion? Hm, perhaps.....perhaps not. But it is most definitely a simple one. See object of desire, desire it, take possession of it, relish the moments that hover between the have and the have not.

I adore those moments. Anticipation skating across my nerves, basking in the combined delicacy of agony and ecstasy. In the seascape of my emotional hitches and swirls there is always this one truth -- there, floating in those moments, is where I feel most alive. Perched on the edge of that space where I know that I don't know and I can't wait to find out. The control freak that I am devours those moments when control has abandoned me briefly but will soon return with a crash. Even when it's ghastly or agonizing, it's beautiful.

I'm not a risk-taker...well, at least not when my life is at stake. I've been known to risk my emotions though. There's no going back if I lose my life. No do-over's. In contrast, not risking yourself emotionally is like dying by degrees. It's merely existing. You won't die if your heart gets bruised even if it feels like you might. We're here to learn, my friends, not hide, and time is of the essence. I know my emotional landscape is a resilient creature, by design created to learn just as much (and often, more) by getting hurt as well as by keeping safe. The high of risking and experiencing a psychic return for my risk gives me a thrill unlike few things I've experienced. It's addicting. In other words, while I'm no adrenaline junkie I'm definitely a dopamine junkie.

Those anticipatory moments feel like taking a hit. Yeah, you might come down and crash hard, but wow.....what a rush!

((Song: "Anticipation" by Carly Simon. Lyrics here:
http://www.carlysimon.com/music/Lyrics/Anticipation.html ))

I'm On A Ride And I Want To Get Off

...but they won't slow down/the roundabout."

Those lyrics have been bouncing around in my head for the past hour or so. So much of life seems routine and predictable and then -- every once in a while -- something comes along that shakes you out of your self-imposed coma. It's really hard to stand back and let that something drop away and force yourself to step back into the routine. You find every cell in your body aching to remain in that maelstrom that makes you feel alive instead of existing.

We all know people or places or situations (PPS's) where that aliveness takes hold more readily. Like the proverbial yin and yang, your soul sparks when you face that PPS. It can feel sexual or even be sexual but mostly it's stronger and deeper than that....it's sensual. It feels warm like home even when it scares you half to death. It's primitive, it's unexplainable. You might want to try to explain it because people have a need for understanding in a cause and effect sort of manner, but you can't really face it with reason as a tool to analyze it or as a weapon to confront it. You just know it when you see it. When you do, if you're smart you hang onto that PPS. It is a silver thread joining you to being alive. You don't question, you enjoy. You learn.

It might seem like it would be very hard to deny that you could have this connection but humans are a very contrary species. We can talk ourselves into things, talk ourselves out of things, tell ourselves we don't want things that we do and tell ourselves we want things that we don't. Denial, it is said, is more than just a river in Egypt. Denial is one of our greatest attempts at channeling the whirlwind within. So yeah, it can be done -- people do it all the time. Some live their lives avoiding any contact with that river and others dive in headfirst and do only what their desires tell them to do.

I know it's hard to tread that line between living authentically and living in denial. Allowing yourself an occasional dip in that river might seem too dangerous. You might get caught in the undertow. It's why many people choose to avoid that risk and content themselves with walking on the outskirts of life, especially if they're the type that get so lost in the forbidden revel that they find themselves swimming out too far.

I can't stand not taking that risk. I waded in a pool where I didn't belong for years. It isn't something I regret, necessarily, for I learned about life and about myself while doing it. And I did belong there, once upon a time. But I spent more time yearning for my authentic self during those years than I did actually going about the business of being my authentic self. Life isn't the practice run, it's the main event. You gonna stand behind that curtain until the fat lady sings?

((Song: "The Reflex" by Duran Duran. Lyrics here:

http://www.geocities.com/ladyxanax13/Lyrics/TheReflex.html ))

Yes! Yes! Yes!

You just gotta read this!

It Goes To Show You Never Can Tell

It's come to my attention that I've neglected this little blog (thanks, BFF!) It's true, I have -- my attention's been elsewhere for a month or so.

No, it's not a man. Perish the thought! Besides, there's only one man I can think of that I'd bother making time and effort for at this juncture in my life and he's simply not available. What's that they say? C'est la vie? Yes, indeed.

My excuse, while boring, is a true one. I've been drawn back into the world of research. I'm not a great multitasker and tend to get a tad bit obsessive about my interests; I sink myself into each one of them. I have a friend that tells me it's lucky I was never remotely interested in the world of drugs because with a personality like mine I would've went whole hog. Maybe she's right. Luckily for me I have an even greater fear of relinquishing control.

Speaking of that, another friend of mine made a comment about my control issues the other day. HD and I were talking about this very thing and he said that was probably why most of my sexual fantasies revolved around being handcuffed, held down or being forced into submitting in some way. (For the sake of discussion, let's put aside my physical limitations for the moment and focus upon my mental environment.) Hm. Well, trust without fear equals desire, doesn't it? I can't find the first ingredient anywhere and if I did, would I recognize it because I can't seem to shake off the second? Perhaps that's where much of my desire has run off to.

I'm also surprised at my evolving attitude towards sex as a whole. For most of my life I always believed sex was an expression of love and you didn't do the one unless you felt the other; guilt would accompany any partaking of it without the prerequisite feelings of love. I'd sometimes even talk myself into thinking I had a more meaningful relationship with someone to avoid feeling that guilt. I've since admitted to myself that sex was something more as well. The actual act of sex -- while meaningful to me as a shared experience -- isn't a compelling, fixed need over the long term in and of itself. As much as is does represent that expression of love, it was also a vehicle to measure my sense of lack of control in a relationship. My desire for it was inversely proportional to how much I felt insecure about the stability of a union. The more stable something is, the less I need to use sex as a glue. This is the nature of my beast.

I've noticed over time that I have less need to maneuver myself out of the guilt I felt in sexual involvement. I don't have to justify my desire for physical expression by couching it in the sugar-coated terms of my youth. It is what it is. However, I wonder how much of the shift from "sex only in love" to "do it if it feels good" has come about because I'm resistant to allow anyone near enough to matter. I can now find a detachment about it that I never used to be able to find and this experience has simultaneously fascinated and repelled me. It gives me freedom of a kind I've never had before -- which is wonderful -- but at the same time it makes me despair of my ability to form any real attachments. Hm, perhaps some parts of the "sex in love" equation do still linger in my jaded romantic psyche.

Ah yes.....about that last bit. I'm so frightened of my capacity to let love disintegrate underneath me that I think it's less risky to live a solitary life. I've learned I seem to appreciate the things I can't have better than the ones that I do and once I've gained something it's only a matter of time before it loses that "new car" feeling and I start noticing the nicks and dings. What is that all about? Internal sabotage -- my projection of the fear within that allows me to keep people at a comfortable distance -- or merely a facet of who I am? Sometimes I think (hope? pray?) that it isn't and that I'm throwing that baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. Other times I'm absolutely certain I can't remain in love with someone long term because I'm not capable of shaping its form and adapting it to the ways I change over time.

Realistically the truth -- as it usually is -- is somewhere in the middle. That pendulum will finally come to rest and I'll arrive at that truth in its time.

((Song: "You Never Can Tell" by Chuck Berry. Lyrics here:
http://people.cs.ubc.ca/~davet/music/track/PULPFICT_ST1/PULPFICT_ST1-09.html ))

We Had Seasons In The Sun

Death.

In this week alone I've experienced three of its aspects. Death by old age. Death by disease. Death by accident.

I've attended three funerals this past week -- well, two funerals and a viewing. Thoughts OF death and ABOUT death have been foremost in my mind.

. . .

Grey's grandmother passed away. She was in her 80's. I think of this as a death due to old age even though one could argue that point -- she was ill, after all -- but to me, old age was a major contributing factor. Time's path was winding down for her and she knew she didn't have many years left to her. She could feel the stillness creeping up. She was tired. She may have even welcomed it.

My ex-mother in law passed away. Doctors had given her a few more months to live a few weeks ago but she suddenly took a turn for the worse. Within three days, she was dead. The disease she had -- cancer, long incubating or perhaps simply stagnant -- rose up like a oxygen-fed fire and swept through her. Organs shut down. Systems faltered. Every breath was a labor. In her lucid moments she said she was miserable. Still, she wasn't ready. She knew what was to come but she was going to choose to fight. It didn't give her the chance to even shore up for the battle.

My friend Queen's 45-yr old brother passed away. No one will ever really know what happened, they'll just be able to piece suppositions together from the fragments of evidence strewn around the accident site. Perhaps he fell asleep at the wheel, perhaps he was tired and angry and going too fast around a corner in the wee morning hours. He was just gone, like that, no warning. No time to tell anyone his thoughts or wishes or desires. No time to say goodbye. He simply disappeared.

. . .

What does it all mean, really?

((Song: "Seasons In The Sun" by Terry Jacks. Lyrics here:
http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/seasonsi.htm ))