It's Everything To Me!

For everything there is a season,

And a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

A time to keep, and a time to throw away;

A time to tear, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate,

A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I’ve been thinking, which some people think I may do too much of sometimes, but none the less, I’ve been thinking about what is love and why I was able to see past so much pain to know that W could love me and I him. I know, weird hey, that I would be wondering that now, after W and I are already married but the conversation came up with a friend and the words used were envy and trust and letting go and it struck me that in fact all of that was a part of it but not all at once, over time was how it all transpired. It made me think and more so, it made me want to write it through because when I do that, it all seems to find sense somehow, so here it goes.

I spend a lot of time with questions that I know I may never have the answers for, like; do you ever wish you could just have a few minutes with God so He could clarify some things so you didn’t have to wonder so much. I do but since an eye to eye meeting would have to come at such a great cost here’s some of the questions I might ask.

Why me? I know, this is a total pout moment here. I don’t mean this in a selfish way but more in an illogical, irreverent kind of way. I get how choices put us on the paths our lives take but it’s not so much wondering why the bad stuff happens but more why the good is all around. I have such a wonderful life and I am so grateful for it but I think that there are times when I am just waiting for the whole floor/rug to be pulled out right from under me because this kind of happiness just doesn’t seem to match me. Crazy hey! I know, time to have a good quick swift kick in the arse and for someone to tell me to quit complaining but the truth is I’m not complaining.

So, here’s another question, maybe a bit irreverent for those who are of the black and white persuasion so if that best describes your outlook on life please skip this paragraph. So here it goes, how come really great people who may or may not be MOMO and treat everyone absolutely fabulously, who have lived honorable and outstanding lives maybe judged as “not” able to inherit the kingdom of heaven but others, who proclaim to the world their celestial status of a “calling and election” made sure do? Yeah, I know, no one knows for sure until the trumpets and angels and so forth but please, there are times when I much prefer the company of the supposed “sinner” than the boastful “saint”. I’m just saying, glad it’s not my decision but an answer sure would help my heart making sense of it all.

I think I am veering off target here but please bare with me. I really wish that my heart could wrap itself around contentment with ease. My life being as full as it is and my days overflowing with love and being loved I find myself looking around and I want so desperately to share or give this away and then I remember what it was like to be without it. Hard; very hard. I can’t just give away my love, I did that once, didn’t work so well but now, this two way street is glorious and wonderful and all I can hope is that everyone I know that deserves this, finds it. It’s another one of those questions. Why do you have to make it so hard for some people?

W is such a gift in my life and I am eternally grateful to him. We have started the ball rolling to seal the eternal deal and there is a part of me that resents that I even need to ask for “permission” from the ex. I could get started but I won’t but it occurs to me that starting this ends something else and I am reminded of the lose I felt back then. I lost my innocence and even my faith in a life long learning. I thought back then that there was no hope. I know differently now that there is. This is where I testify of God’s goodness.

So what have I learned?

Timing and life are intertwined in a way that we may never fully understand. To ask why and always expect an answer will surely leave you disappointed. For whatever reason life is meant to have ruts and curves and downright bastions of wastelands but it also has valleys and mountains and a beauty that will help you to know that it all has purpose and meaning.

Final thought; this I know!

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ~

All’s Well That Ends Well

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipt them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherish'd by our virtues." ~ William Shakespeare All’s Well That Ends Well

I’ve been blogging now for just about two years. As I go back and reread all the entries, the emotions and events come flooding back and I am able to evaluate growth and weaknesses that I have experienced and to what extent I have changed. Change is an essential element to a better and emotionally healthy life. The process of life is to find purpose in the journey but more importantly to seek the joy that life offers. That can be so hard sometimes. We can easily be overwhelmed by our own expectations as well as cultural demands that others place on us. Balance is the key and one must never assume that once you’ve found it that it will always be there. The scale of life shift constantly and finding balance is always an ongoing process.

I have come at this very principle full throttle these last few days and I have had a tumultuous few weeks. Here’s what I am on about.

Winter just doesn’t want to leave us here in the Great White North. It’s May 2010 and we are still having weather warnings and winter storm warnings and it makes you wonder; is it ever going to end?

Lately, my life has felt like that. Just when I thought I had all the doubts licked they are plaguing me again and I have to bind myself is all the positive energy I can muster and purge the “what ifs”. The oxymoron here is I have never had the kind of happiness I have experienced these past few months ever in my life so I find myself in near utter confusion. How can someone be so happy and be stalked by doubt. I’m not saying doubt in my new life but the kind of doubt that reaches deep within your soul that makes you wonder if everything you have accomplished emotionally is really just a house of cards ready to fall down. Do others have moments like this?

I know where my fears lie. The “what if’s” are stalking me and I am doing all that I can do eliminate them from my thought processes. I had this under control and “out of control” it turns me into something I am not content with. Yikes, I need to find the strength that pulled me through these last few years and understand new life as compared to old life. The consoling part of this equation is that I know I have it in me, I know I can rise above this. I know it’s there.

I can give you all the reasons why my life became unbalanced again but lets suffice it to say that I let the opinions of others get under my emotional skin. I may not ever measure up to some but that’s not important because measuring up to myself is much more valuable and knowing who I am helps tremendously with that. Maybe I started to loss sight of that. Maybe I let the door open to the doubt. Goodness knows I have had that lesson taught to me a bazillion times.

So last night as I was talking to my wonderful, beautiful, accepting and cherished new husband and he was again showing immense patience at the incongruity of my thoughts he said the most amazing thing and just like that, I got it. Wow, I can’t even describe the feeling I had as I realized that as crazy as I sounded he understood and without criticizing we found a solution together. He in turn spoke to his anxieties and the back and forth of emotional acceptance and understanding began melting me more into love with him, as if that could even be possible, more in love, and yet I was.

“It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self--never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted.”

~ George Elliot – Middlemarch

When you spend a good portion of your life with the paradigm of fault being the constant reference getting out of that rut can be a bit of a process. I would be remiss if I didn’t fully acknowledge healing and growth and wonder at a new and better life. Today, I said to my beautiful sister, that W was easy as a husband. That’s neither a fault nor a put down. W is easy because he loves fully, forgives easily and expects only what he gives. When he’s mad, you know, when he’s happy, he’s infectious and when he loves, it makes you feel safe. For so many years, all I ever wanted was to feel safe. Each day I am greeted by a text or a phone call and it is from my BEST FRIEND. Through out the day we text and call and in the evening, he is generally the last person I speak to. I never grow tired of his jokes or his words of advice or encouragement and I love his patience with me. He’s says I tell him 10 times I am going to do something before I actually get it done but that I do get it done eventually. I love that once is all I have to ask so I need to be careful what I ask for.

Now, please don’t assume that this new life of mine is all roses and cream. We are getting used to each other and the main difference is in the effort. W isn’t perfect and I am even farther from it but we know that, we actually get that and we find such humor in the kerfuffle’s that we find ourselves in. The other day, we went for a ride to Waterton Park. We had finished and the shortest way home was to turn left. The unknown was right and a much farther drive. As I was sitting there, I turned to him and asked, want to go on an adventure? Sure enough, the answer was yes. That’s what I love most about him. The adventure!