Thursday, September 17, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
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 ))
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 ))
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
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 ))
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 ))
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wow!
I haven't ever done this in my blog but there's a first time for everything, right?
I am enamoured of this watercolor, drawn by an artist/illustrator named Rachel Clare Price:
I am enamoured of this watercolor, drawn by an artist/illustrator named Rachel Clare Price:
Isn't it lovely? The colors are fabulous and the movement in the swirls and shades of the dress is sublime. A print would look so wonderful on my wall!
I've linked to her blog, itslikeart, in my bloglist. Go check her out....
Monday, July 27, 2009
I Appreciate The Best But I'm Settling For Less
What's good enough and what's a dealbreaker? When we learn about something that shakes us to our core, how do we know if it's something we should walk away from because it's indicative of a pattern or if it's something we can adapt to?
I think a large part of that answer lies in how well we know ourselves and how secure we are in being who we are without needing something external to help validate us. Of course we all play roles in life and often we do because we feel we must in order to be accepted, respected, appreciated or loved. But like an actor who typecasts himself by only taking on the roles he's sure he can do, we can get so comfortable in our own performances that we forget what it means to draw lines in the sand and use the words, "No, this isn't acceptable to me and I won't live with that because I respect myself too much."
Yet…..that’s the problem, isn’t it? Self-esteem gets sucked out the airplane window. When people look to other people to tell them who they are, how can they truly understand the meaning of self-respect? They accept what other people do to them or say to them because somehow they think that it's their due and they tune out the only judgment that matters -- their own. I’m not speaking of the daily injustices we all face. I am speaking instead of the people that, at pivotal moments, turn down the volume on the internal clamour of pain or anger that rises in response to an attack on their self-respect from a source that refuses to consider compromise. Their fear of aloneness overwhelms their need for self preservation.
At that moment they have two choices; sell their self-respect to the offender or step back and refuse to allow themselves to be misrepresented or mishandled. The latter may cost them a friendship or a business deal or a relationship. The former? It may not seem like it’s such a bad trade. They manage to maintain the status quo and they don’t seem to “lose” anything at all. But ah, what they are really doing is the slow leak. It’s like a pinhole in the artery that nobody can detect on the ultrasound. It’s essentially whoring themselves out in fits and spurts, giving a little here and a little there until there’s nothing left. The former is much more tragic. It might very well cost them themselves.
((Song: "Looking For The Next Best Thing" by Warren Zevon. Lyrics here:
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/warren_zevon/looking_for_the_next_best_thing.html))
I think a large part of that answer lies in how well we know ourselves and how secure we are in being who we are without needing something external to help validate us. Of course we all play roles in life and often we do because we feel we must in order to be accepted, respected, appreciated or loved. But like an actor who typecasts himself by only taking on the roles he's sure he can do, we can get so comfortable in our own performances that we forget what it means to draw lines in the sand and use the words, "No, this isn't acceptable to me and I won't live with that because I respect myself too much."
Yet…..that’s the problem, isn’t it? Self-esteem gets sucked out the airplane window. When people look to other people to tell them who they are, how can they truly understand the meaning of self-respect? They accept what other people do to them or say to them because somehow they think that it's their due and they tune out the only judgment that matters -- their own. I’m not speaking of the daily injustices we all face. I am speaking instead of the people that, at pivotal moments, turn down the volume on the internal clamour of pain or anger that rises in response to an attack on their self-respect from a source that refuses to consider compromise. Their fear of aloneness overwhelms their need for self preservation.
At that moment they have two choices; sell their self-respect to the offender or step back and refuse to allow themselves to be misrepresented or mishandled. The latter may cost them a friendship or a business deal or a relationship. The former? It may not seem like it’s such a bad trade. They manage to maintain the status quo and they don’t seem to “lose” anything at all. But ah, what they are really doing is the slow leak. It’s like a pinhole in the artery that nobody can detect on the ultrasound. It’s essentially whoring themselves out in fits and spurts, giving a little here and a little there until there’s nothing left. The former is much more tragic. It might very well cost them themselves.
((Song: "Looking For The Next Best Thing" by Warren Zevon. Lyrics here:
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/warren_zevon/looking_for_the_next_best_thing.html))
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