Peace and joy and love

just read Derby's opening post to this thread....two BIG thumbs up for you!!!
 
I have a couple of new things in my life that I'm working on at the moment. They are related to each other though which is kind of interesting.

The first is that I'm working on getting more in touch with how I feel and once I know how I feel I'm working on expressing it. It's not an easy thing for me to d. I'm quite adept at talking about what is going on and how I'm reacting to it but I'm not good at pinpointing the emotion behind it.

The other thing I'm working on is figuring out what I want out of life. My husband has been talking for a while about wanting to invest in real estate. I don't have a passion or a drive to pursue it. Maybe the lack of drive comes from not having a big picture dream to be passionate about. Maybe there just isn't anything that I want that passionately to be able to embark on something completely new.

If anyone has links on how to identify emotions or how to figure out what you want out of life please send them my way. I think it's a time for personal growth and I'm only going to be better for it.
 
I have found that writing out the situation as well as my reaction to it helps me. I'm real big on the I'm upset, but don't know why. I can go through 3-4 different explanations before getting it right.
 
I was going to write about our visit. It was good to see you MBG. You have incredible strength!
 
I just didn't want to be posting things here without checking with you first :p

So as you all may have gathered by now I went over to see MBG on the weekend. Her husband has been sick in the hospital for the past 3 months and she's had a lot of other life things going on too. So we've been keeping in touch over facebook and I've been wanting to go over and spend some time with her and hopefully be something of a distraction and some fun since the rest of her life is a little intense at the moment.

We had a visit with her husband and some good talks. I find it amazing what you can cope with and adjust to if you need to. I get the feeling that MBG is giving herself a hard time for not doing better and not being able to do more but I think the amount that she is doing and is holding together is really phenomenal. Hopefully there will be more visits in the near future.
 
I'm glad to hear MBG is doing well (as well as might be expected) :)

I just saw your request for resources on figuring out what you want. My all time favorite author on that topic is Barbara Sher. Her first (I think) book is called Wishcraft. A lot of people came up to her after that book and said, "I know your stuff would work for me, if only I knew what I wanted." So, she wrote a book called 'I could have anything, if only I knew what I wanted' (or something very like that).
 
Wow what a weekend. I've been working on mending bridges with the husband of a friend of mine in the city where I grew up. It's been a bumpy road and emotionally exausting. We are coming from 2 completely different worlds. In the course of the conversation I found out that his biggest issues with me came from a conversation he had with my husband and he figured that I must think in exactly the same way.

It doesn't make sense to me to think that couples aren't made of 2 individuals. I'm wondering though if that isn't just a part of monogamous culture. I find it quite patronizing that he would believe that I can't think for myself and must obviously defer to my husband's point of view.

For myself somthing I've learned in this process is that I don't trust those close to me to make good decisions in terms of mates. And in not trusting I damage the potential friendship I might have with these new people who are in my life by extention. It doesn't matter that the qualities that I would value in a partner aren't there, I'm not in a relationship with them. My only requirement for interaction with anyone who I'm not in a relationship with should be mutual respect. My friends and lovers are adults and as such they know what they require from a relationship and I need to trust that they are chosing wisely for themselves.
 
I was so lonely last night for no good reason. I had a weekend filled with adventure (I went spelunking). And then as soon as I got home I was all alone. The kids are camping with their grandparents this week and my husband was out on a coffee date. There I was alone in the house with the laundry to do and the pets to take care of and just a big feeling of emptiness inside me.

This past week I have gone to bed alone every night and have gotten up alone every morning. I feel like I'm walking in a different world than the rest of the people in my house.

I think it's also being aggravated by both my husband and RP having new people in their lives. Although I'm not feeling the need for more in my life I am still envious of the shiny new they are experiencing.

It's not like no one is interested in me it's just the the feeling hasn't been reciprocal when someone has shown interest in me so I tend to write those off as not counting. I have to remind myself that it's not a competition. If something is meant to be it will happen. I would rather have something develop organically anyway if it's going to happen.
 
I was talking to a friend last night and I realized that I only post here when things are turbulent within me. Being how infrequently I post on my blog that must mean that there's a lot right with my world. In reality the little hiccups are nothing and a lot of the time I hide them because I know the feelings pass pretty quickly.

That's one of my lessons that I'm still learning. Even if I know the feeling will pass I should share it. My feelings make me human and help those I love to understand me. I don't need for things to be fixed since there's nothing actually wrong but talking about my fears lessens their power to some extent.

I also realized that I've come a long way since I started writing this blog. I think before I saw new additions kind of like the enemy. Even having the vaguest notion of that thought prevents you from being open to developing a friendship with a new metamour or potential metamour. (Or new partner of a close friend for that matter). It was a hard lesson to learn and I thank my best friend and her wife for teaching me that. I wasn't exactly pleasant when they first got together since I relied on my friend so much for support. Through a lot of conversations between her wife and I we have come to a place of genuinely enjoying each other's company.

It comes back to trusting the people in my life to make good decisions for themselves. If I believe that everyone comes into my life for a reason and to teach me something I should believe that the same is happening for others. I have no control over the universe (or even over an individual person for that matter). Giving up that control is freeing and it allows me to let friendships develop organically where they may without preconceived notions of the outcome.

I like Brad (RP's new love) and his wife. They're good people and I'm pleased to know them. I'm glad that I have torn down the walls to let that happen. My husband is also out meeting new people, who knows if anything will come of it but I hope that I can keep my desire to be in control out of that as well. It's so much easier to just let things happen as they are going to anyway. Trying to stop it, or change it, is just an exercise in frustration.

As for me wanting to meet new people. I have no time to devote to another relationship and I would be shortchanging anyone I would think of adding. It's not a competition and I'm probably putting out into the universe that I don't have time since I know deep down that I don't. If something is meant to be it will present it's self at a time and place where it's something that I can give my proper energy to.
 
So it's been a really long time since I posted again. I've just been all caught up in living life and haven't had a lot of time on the computer at all. Derby has been keeping me really busy this summer and with an undefeated season I'm pretty proud of us. I had a lot of new friends come and see my last game of the season. I missed my loves there though. My husband was away working and RP had a show of her own that night (which I was very sad to have missed).

It seems that as a group we're finding more friends who fit with us the way we are. Poly is big enough to have a place for everyone to fit in. There was a time where it seemed that I had to be friends with every poly person that I met because they were such a rarity but that approach seems really forced and doesn't work in the long term. In reality there are people that I'm just going to have more in common with than others and there's nothing wrong with that. I do enjoy conversations with most of the poly community but I don't feel any drive to try to push for more than that.

You would think that being poly and being open to romatic relationships developping as they will that there would be less of a need to force friendships that aren't based on anything deeper than relationship structure. I also find that it matters less if my friends are poly or not. I like people for who they are and as long as they can be ok with me for who I am then we're good.

RP has a fairly recent addition to her life. I'm surprised that I feel very little in the way of jealousy. He's a good guy and I like him (and his wife and their child). They just seem to fit, there isn't any friction there. It's nice. I do worry sometimes that RP isn't going to have time for me though, 4 relationships are a lot to balance and since I'm neither a live in partner or the latest partner it's a worry. RP hasn't done or said anything to indicate that I'm any less important to her. That's all I'm going to say on the topic at the moment since I haven't talked to her about these feelings yet. (Don't worry RP, I'm alright, not in a panic or anything :) ).

I just came back from a Sci Fi convention in another city. I enjoy socializing there. There are people there that I just wouldn't come across in my day to day life. Plus costumes are totally the thing to do and I love dress up! I'm looking forward to a much more quiet weekend this weekend though and I plan on being kinder to my liver! Before the weekend away I spent a week out of town for work. Somehow that equaled drinks with coworkers every night. I'm not used to one or 2 drinks every day, I don't do well with it after about 3 days.

My world is plugging along very nicely. I'm happy and at peace. I was feeling the need a while ago to go out on some dinner dates with new people and I might still do it although there doesn't seem to be that pressing desire anymore. I know I was just looking for approval from strangers. I shouldn't need that outside validation. The feeling comes and goes, right now it's not there. I will have to pay better attention next time it happens to see if I can figure out why.
 
Happy birthday Sweets. Hope you enjoyed your surprise dinner party that your hubby and I planned. I loved taking you out the other night too. You should have more birthdays, I like showing you I love you with birthday fun. :)
 
Happy birthday Sweets. Hope you enjoyed your surprise dinner party that your hubby and I planned. I loved taking you out the other night too. You should have more birthdays, I like showing you I love you with birthday fun. :)

It was awesome. I'm feeling very loved and special. I don't want to have birthdays more often though, it would make me older quicker :)
 
I'm feeling like I'm out of sync with everything around me lately. I've been all consumed by work and getting ready for a big review by an outside agency next week. It's left me with not a lot to give in any other aspect of my life. I feel that my relationships are suffering for it (and my job on for my derby team isn't exactly going swimmingly either). I've not been doing any kind of a good job of being present. I'm all wrapped up in things that aren't even that important (to me) in the long run. Sure it's all important to the organization, but to me personally, it doesn't really matter at all. My job will continue in pretty much the same way regardless of the outcome of this review.

I hate feeling like I'm all used up when I get home from work. Work shouldn't be taking everything I have. I keep thinking it will let up but I don't know that it will unless I make the concious desision not to let it take over my life. I think if I keep saying that I can take on more and more at work that it will leave less and less of me for what's really important.

Bah it's hard being a grownup sometimes!
 
I'm holding those I care about in my thoughts at the moment. It's difficult to stand by and not try to help. It's not up to me to do anything though. It's not my relationship and I have to let it play out however it's going to. I've always had a hard time with not doing anything. I've been learning from the people I work with though that sometimes just by being you're doing what's needed.

I know this is a very criptic post but the story behind it isn't mine to tell.
 
It's been a long time since I have written and there will be more to come. It's been a crazy emotional roller coaster of a weekend. I'm not ready to say more than that for the moment. I'm just exhausted.
 
This month I have (re)learned:
1. The only constant in life is change.
2. No matter how scary it is talking about things won't kill you.
3. The only person you have any control over is yourself.
4. Honesty and integrity are important even if the outcome isn't what you wanted.
5. There is no instruction manual on how to do poly.
6. Crawling out of your skin when you're uncomfortable with your emotions really isn't an option, you just have to breathe through it.
7. A full belly and a good night's sleep help to put things into perspective.
8. The human body can hold a few conflicting emotions all at the same time and you can feel really crazy, it doesn't mean you are crazy.
9. Moving your body and laughter are really good medicine when you're feeling broken.
10. Everything will be OK in the end, if it's not OK, it's not the end.
 
This month I have (re)learned:
1. The only constant in life is change.
2. No matter how scary it is talking about things won't kill you.
3. The only person you have any control over is yourself.
4. Honesty and integrity are important even if the outcome isn't what you wanted.
5. There is no instruction manual on how to do poly.
6. Crawling out of your skin when you're uncomfortable with your emotions really isn't an option, you just have to breathe through it.
7. A full belly and a good night's sleep help to put things into perspective.
8. The human body can hold a few conflicting emotions all at the same time and you can feel really crazy, it doesn't mean you are crazy.
9. Moving your body and laughter are really good medicine when you're feeling broken.
10. Everything will be OK in the end, if it's not OK, it's not the end.

I could not agree more. I am learning each of these things one by one. #6 is a big one. I would love to crawl out of my skin from time to time and avoid facing the tough emotions.

I hope everything works out for you. :)

Ry
 
Thanks Ry,
I'm a strong believer in everything working out in the way it's supposed to. It doesn't mean I have to like the process though.
 
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