The weight of the world

WARNING! WARNING!  Extremely long entry ahead!  Proceed at one's own risk!

There are many things that can set me off into ornery moods, including:  being talked down to, being ignored, stubbing my toe, making mistakes, having something break right when I need to use it, not finding something I desperately need... All of these things are simply parts of life, but lately it feels like the weight of the world, my world anyway, has been bearing down on my in a crushing manner. 

Sitting at my desk at work, I scribbled out a list of situations and issues that I believe are currently causing me to flip from laughter and happiness to anger and despair.  They are (currently):

-lack of sleep:  I've become accustomed to falling asleep with M. rubbing his thumb or his hand against my skin, talking to me until I fall into a state of dreaming.  This entire week he has fallen asleep before me, leaving me laying awake beside him trying to dream, while wishing he was rubbing my back or hip.
(Dreams:  such funny things, revealing our subconscious desires and longings.  Before I met M., I was consumed with the idea of being loved and being in a relationship, finding security and happiness.  I would dream every night of a white knight scenario, which in the day I knew was ridiculous but in the night was so comforting.  Now I no longer dream of a white knight as I have found my Person, and I lay awake and wonder what to dream about now.)

-anxiety:  This is typically directly triggered by lack of sleep.  Last night I lay awake and tried to sleep, listening to the rhythmic sound of his breathing next to me.  The more I tried to sleep, the more anxious I became, the more afraid I great that I would never be able to fall asleep again.  Eventually, I told myself, I will go crazy from lack of sleep and I'll have to be chucked into a nut house, although M. maintains that I would simply fall into a coma while walking down a sidewalk if I was sleep deprived.  In the middle of the night I reached for him and said aloud, "I'm getting anxious", but there was just silence, punctuated by Licorice's heavy breathing and Mr. Cat's paws hitting the floor as he raced through the apartment on his nightly exercise ritual.

-U.T.I.:  Urinary Tract Infection.  It's very common among women, usually triggered by, no kidding, having too much sex at one time.  The tract gets irritated by bacteria that slip up there during sex.  The friction, the motion of having sex causes the tract to become even more irritated.  Urinating becomes painful and frequent.  I love having sex...but this causes sex to become very...not enjoyable.  I should just plead time off, but I feel bad for M. so I just go along with it, frustrating him because he wants me to enjoy it as much as he does.  I know I don't give his generosity enough credit;  if I told him I needed a break, he would gladly give it to me, wanting me to be well and healthy.

-financial worries:  Well, honestly, who doesn't have these?  Money is something we all struggle with and frustratingly are chained to until we die.  It's annoying to live in a society where everything is measured by money, including relationships and stature.  I carry around a financial burden of being in debt a few thousand and who doesn't?  But I want it paid off and out of my life, yet I'm struggling to make minimum payments due to extremely high interest (28%, WTF) on my credit card.  My car is still being paid for, I'm tied down in one place due to these payments I need to make.... I just want freedom from this weight and I'm reluctant to make any big purchases because I have this foreboding sensation that I'm somehow going to need that money for my debt.  Which brings me to the next thing that has been irking me:

-a broken computer:  I've had this behemoth for quite a few years now...six? Seven?  I truly have no idea, although I'm sure I could figure it out.  Anyway, it was the first real "adult" purchase I made, the entire system of tower/monitor/printer costing me a cool $900 or so.  Computers were much slower and more expensive back then, along with every other technological item.  This beast has done me well, requiring repair only twice in all those years.  I think it's finally just hitting the wall.  The hardware isn't partitioning, cyclic data redundancy errors...the hard-drive is failing.  I'd like to pay out the $500 it's going to cost to get a new computer, but there's that debt just hanging over me like the rain cloud featured in the Snoopy comic.  I'm also hesitant to get a new computer because I know everyone in the apartment is going to be all over it.   I miss writing and checking my email at home in the privacy of my dining room:(

-P.M.S.:  no other explanation required, except it involved sitting in the bathtub under a shower, crying my eyes out and feeling lonely, oh so lonely... P.M.S. turns me into Little Miss Drama.

-Low carb diet:  Yeah, it's uber healthy, my skin has cleared up and I feel a bit better, I'm supposed to start losing weight and all I want to do is eat a giant plate of pasta, just eat up all the stuff I can get my hands on.  I'm thinking about a brownie from Second Cup, but my cheat day isn't until Saturday...Saturday, the day my sister and I were supposed to throw a party but she has cancelled on.  Great.  I just need to eat something sweet... Please world, hand me a cookie (peanut butter) and don't let me gain any weight.

-Strained family/friend relationships: Obviously when one starts full force into a committed long-term relationship, there's always a shifting of dynamics.  Parents that were so heavily involved in one's life tend to move to the back burner, especially as you begin to realize that in time you will be a parent yourself and you are becoming autonomous, your own person building your own little family, even if it only consists of a long-legged timid greyhound and a snarly yet cuddly fluffy cat.  When the four of us, M. with his arms wrapped around me, legs intertwined through mine, all squeeze onto my bed, I feel a swelling, a rush of contentment and happiness.  We all belong to each other, but there are pinpricks of sadness, the tiny awareness that things aren't the same anymore with friends and family.  Thrust apart by differing world views, I don't want to hear about condemnation or how I'm sinning.  Perhaps that's because I'm avoiding feeling of guilt, but I desire to know, to be told that I'm the same person  and I am loved just as much as I was before.
There are no more texts in the middle of night from random friends, asking how I'm doing and when we  can hang out next.  We have all become busy, absorbed in our own lives, and the sooner I settle down to that fact, the happier and more content I shall become with what I do have.  I want, more than anything, for my parents to accept the person I am today, to stop asking my sister (and roomie) if I've had sex with M. (she said yes, thanks for tooting the horn), to want to spend time with M., get to know how wonderful he is and how happy he makes me.


There it is, the numerous things, those weights in my world that I carry with me wherever I go and whoever I am with.  I look to the person who loves me as much as he can, who spends the most time with me, I look to him and I see problems, I seek out issues.
I always end up feeling as though our fights are due to my own idiocy.  Each disagreement pulls us closer to our edge, or so I dramatically feel.  Our existence has an expiry date and we're tumbling towards it, but I don't want it to end.  
There's a thread running through us:  I long to be chased, I long for him to seek me, to come for me when I say I want to be alone.  M. does not get this.  He speaks rationally. he does not persist with me and I fear his lack of persistance with his art, his dreams--it will all spill over to us, eventually he will give up as he has with so many other things.  History will repeat itself.  I want to help him, to encourage him to keep trying, to show him that I believe in him and his talent, but I also want him to persist with me;  I want him to try with me.

He walks out the door, me, with tears spilling down my cheeks, holding it open.  I slam it behind him with a force of vehemence, fear, love and hurt.  All I wanted was for him to look past the shower curtain and see me waiting for him, always waiting for him, watching for signs of dwindling persistance.  I sit here and feel frozen, hard to believe he is now on a bus, moving away from me instead of towards me, our chance to talk gone.
As with so many things in life, I regret this:  that I made our brief parting angry and sad, that I look for signs of his fading love, that I am attempting to harden my heart against him, that words should've been said but were left hanging like cobwebs, clinging elusively to us.

Please don't give up on me, M.  If he went away and never returned, a light would be snuffed out in my light and I would wander in the dark for a long time, perhaps for the rest of my life.  I'm scared to think of what my life would be without him, afraid I will discover the truth: that I could go on living without him and be self-sufficient and happy.  I want to rely on him and to trust him, I want to be a better person for him.   I want to maybe even be a better person for myself, to grow and change. 

Dr. F. sits down at the desk a few feet away from me, seemingly burdened as well with the weight of his world:  a nineteen-yr-old patient of his who suddenly died.  There you have it:  we're all carrying different problems with us and we're never free from those things.  They come to us in the middle of the night and keep us awake, our brains firing with little signals that jump from lobe to lobe, cerebral cortexes alive and charged with our failures and futures. 

Weight of the world, lighten your load please.
~Matt. 11:28-30

Humility

Humility.  I think it's key to any relationship.  Of course there's love and commitment and all that good stuff...but humility seems, to my thinking, to be a very important virtue.

When I'm humble, I have the realization that I don't necessarily deserve the good things that come to me.  I have done nothing magnanimous or with complete altruism.  Humility is the recognition of grace at work and present in my life.

While some people consider it an unhealthy state of mind, perhaps because they believe they deserve all the great things they are experiencing or getting from life, I don't think there is any negative about a good dose of humility.  It's grace that brings us to where we are, not the fact  that we may "deserve" something.

I think it's so important, vital to relationships, because it keeps me real and it keeps me grateful for the Person I'm with.  I can never take him for granted or think that I can do better than him, because such feelings lead to an underlying sense of "I don't need you" or "I can do better". 

Maybe sometimes we could be with someone different, but not necessarily better.  When we think we can do "better", we begin even subconsciously to take the person we're with for granted.  Feelings of resentment can grow and fester from there, as we consider the way they should treat us, at least to our thinking.  "He doesn't get me gifts!" "He never takes me out!"  "He doesn't satisfy my needs!" 

My prayer should be:

Lord, keep me humble.  Let me not consider myself greater or better than others.  Keep me diminished, grateful and content with all I have.  Amen.

What I do have is a wonderful boyfriend.  We get each other.  He understands the feelings and meanings behind my words, even my texts.  I humbly consider all my mistakes I have made, the poor ways that I have treated him and I am once again reminded of grace--grace that we do not owe but that is so freely given to us.  We need to give it as much as we receive.

~Peace

Back from hols!

Dear merciful heavens, I'm ready to plunge a knife into my beating heart as I am held captive at this "job" aka HELL.

Also, I think I possibly aspirated a small piece of a pepperoni stick, which will hopefully come out after a few rounds of hacking and coughing.  My eyes watered up like crazy when I got the piece jammed in my throat, although I don't know if I inhaled it or if it scraped it's way down my esophagus to my stomach.  I hope, I pray the latter.  If this blog isn't update any time soon, that is the reason.  I am dead.  Either from the plunged knife or the piece of pepperoni.

In the news today: 

Jack Layton, leader of the NDP party died after a long struggle with cancer.  Even though he vowed to be back in Parliament this coming September, any person involved in the medical field could see the truth of his condition in his gaunt and jaundiced appearance.  He was a stirring speaker and I wish he had fronted the Conservative party, but there you have it.  Life is always beginning and ending. 

And in other news:

My boyfriend lost Licorice's purple leash.  It was a nice light-weight nylon purple one that I had found during my move to this new apartment.  R.I.P.  Mr. Leash.  You will be missed.

That's all for now:)

Cohabitation & call bells

I always over think everything.  Every. Single. Thing.  I wish I could be one of those people who were reckless and did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted to, but alas, I am not.  All angles must be taken into consideration, all aspects discussed and delved into, every possibility placed rigorously under a microscope for close examination.

The strange thing is, I used to be that type of person--carefree and wild--especially when I was teenager.  I was very free spirited, possibly because I had less worries and responsibilities back in those days.  "Growing up", carrying around the weight of being financially independent and all those other things, changes everyone.   You begin the journey of realization that life isn't simply about creating fun experiences to enjoy--it's also about sacrifice and learning how to be less selfish, becoming more giving to the people you love, making wise choices and taking care of your body.

So obviously, when my Person and I started discussing the very real and imminient possibility of moving in together, I immediately began conjuring up hypothetical scenarios that we would face.  Who would pay for what?  What if either of our friends became too rowdy?  How would we respect each other's belongings?  Who will clean the bathroom?  The kitchen?  What if we fight?  Who is responsible for making meals on what night?  What if either of our friends drink all our liquor and eat our food?  When should be the set time for kicking people out?  What if we start to get on each other's nerves due to being in close proximity to each other on a daily basis?

The minute I had a free moment to myself, I went to Google (the answer to all of life's questions) and typed in "questions to ask before moving in with boyfriend" and voila! Up came all these weird links to Wiki Answers and Yahoo Answers which comprised of questions people had posting asking if three months spent with a boyfriend was a long enough amount of time to be prepared for cohabitation.

Even as I read the questions and the many differing answers, I knew with my head that asking that type of question is ridiculous because each person is different, ergo each relationship is subsequently different.  There is no standard or magical time where one automatically is prepared to embark into a more serious commitment/relationship.  I kept reading though and eventually stumbled upon this:  101 Questions To Ask Your Boyfriend. 

It was the most bizarre thing I have encountered in a while;  the idea of sitting down with a printed list of 101 questions to ask your significant other seemed strange to me, although I suppose it must work for some people.  The questions vary from serious ("Do you prefer to share finances with your partner or keep it separate?") to very personal ("Is there anything we can do in bed that you think is just wrong?) to bordering ridiculous ("Is cheating ever okay?").  Call me crazy, but I believe that if you're even having to ask those questions looking for a serious answer, your relationship hasn't taken off yet and you definitely shouldn't be considering moving in with them.

(I asked a few of those questions in my head to my Person and was relieved that I felt fairly sure of answers I could predict coming from him.  Perhaps I'll be weird, print off all the questions and make him sit for two hours and answer every single one in great detail.  Especially "Should relationships require work?".)

Moving along with this post which is getting quite lengthy...  After delving through the internet for questions to ask before moving in together, I discovered that according to Canada Statistics, couples who cohabitate before marriage are more likely to dissolve their marital union than couples who don't live together before marriage.

My brain went into overdrive after looking at the statistics and reading articles that expound on why this is the case.  (Stats can be seen here.)  Eventually though, I read a piece that discussed "adverse selectivity".  Here is a small bit from the article:

"Finally, cohabiting relationships and post-cohabiting marriages are at greater risk of dissolution than are marriages not preceded by cohabitation. The last factor is likely due to what researchers call adverse selectivity. That is, these relationships attract people who are more willing to dissolve unsatisfactory relationships, rather than remain in them unhappily."

It's a very interesting point proven, but also makes one wonder about the level of commitment and fidelity our society contains.  Yes, there are people who say they become trapped in loveless relationships, but on the other hand, when does one give up? 

Okay, seriously, enough about relationships, whether long term or explosively short and damaging.  Again, I know with my head that there is no way to predict what might come of the choices we make.  All we can do is move forward, which I think should become my new mantra:  there is no looking back, only moving forward.

Call bells are extremely annoying today, patients ringing every few minutes for the most incredibly unimportant reasons.  I sometimes hear phantom ringing in my head when I'm trying to fall asleep and it's then that I make the resolution once more to find a job that I enjoy doing, not a job that has become a necessity of life.

It's Friday and the eve of my nine days off of work.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
~Peace

After tossing and turning  until just after 4 this morning, I fell asleep fitfully for a couple hours and then got up just after 6 for a quick shower and off to work.  I've always had problems when it comes to sleep...sometimes it can take me up to 2 hours to fall asleep and when I do eventually fall asleep, I'm often awoken by noises or stirring.  It's extremely frustrating to live with and usually after a couple days of getting few hours of sleep, I crash for a long period of time and sleep soundly for several hours.

Anyway, I've become used to falling asleep with a warm body beside me, hand draped over my hip, the sound of his breathing slowly lulling me to sleep.  Since January, I've had the most consistent sleep of my life; it no longer takes me hours to drift off, especially not when he most kindly tells me a story which causes me to fade away to dreamland.  The most frustrating thing is that he obviously can't be there every single night and those nights are usually the ones that are eves of early mornings at work.  I dragged myself to work today and am currently sitting at my desk, alternating between staring into space and trying to find small tasks to do in order to remain alert.

It's amazing how completely one's life can change.  The impact that we have on one another is so strong, especially in ways that one doesn't normally consider.  Of course you think about things that do change with relationships:  less time to spend with friends, arguing and disagreements, being accountable to someone else about various things.  The change in sleep pattern is never truly taken into account though and I can vouch for the fact that it is very disruptive.


What else is disruptive?  Alesse/Aviane.  I meant to write about this earlier but never found the proper time to discuss it.  No time like the present.
I've always been a little "ehhhh" and hesitant about birth controls because my mom didn't support them as a viable option of contraception.  She said that there is no telling what inducing fake hormones into one's system can do.  I started taking them because I was so inconsistent and irregular with my menstruation cycle.

The doctor began me on Tricyclen Lo, which is the standard beginner dose for birth control.  It worked well for the first couple months--I suffered from no blatant side effects, except eventually it wasn't strong enough and I began spotting through from cycle to cycle. I called the doctor and told him and for some reason, I still have no idea why, instead of bumping me up to regular Tricyclen, he completely switched me to Alesse (I took Aviane the no name brand of Alesse) thinking it would solve the spotting issues.

Well yes, it did solve the spotting issues, but it opened up a plethora of side effects, being:

-weight gain
-mood swings
-depression
-lack of motivation
-fatigue
-increase in appetite
-increased sensitivity to sunlight

Of all those things-they all suck, btw-the mood swings were the worst.  I have never experienced anything like those emotional ups and downs and I thought I was going crazy.  I cried almost every single day from mid-February to August.  Inititially I would find myself sitting home alone on the couch and randomly starting to cry.  I convinced myself that the hormones just needed time to adjust and eventually things would level out but that never happened.  I grew more sensitive to things people said, would overreact constantly and I felt like I was losing my mind.

One of my coworkers told me she went through a similar situation with Alesse and had to switch off. I tried to stick it out but it never got better and I called the doctor last week and asked for him to switch me back to Tricyclen, the regular dose.  Since calling and talking to him, coincidentally three other nurses have talked to me about their birth control, telling me that they were all on Alesse and experienced the same emotional distress and mood changes.  One of them even said that she had been off Alesse for 5 months and "still felt sad".

I fail to understand why this birth control is even on the market still.  I guess each body is different with regards to hormone levels and how they function, but it seems ridiculous that it's such a common side effect and we're expected as women to somehow find a way to deal with it.  The emotional rollercoaster was exhausting for me to deal with and certainly tiresome for people around me interacting with me on a daily basis.

I've been on the Tricyclen regular for two days now and so far, so good.  It's too soon to tell if it will work for me, but I hope it does because I'm running out of patience with this fine tuning of birth control.  I went for a long run yesterday with Licorice, something I very sporadically did when on Alesse because I never had any energy or motivation to do so.  Hopefully this is the turning of a corner, because frankly, I'm at my wits end when it comes to contraception.

Such is the life of a woman.
And I leave you with some more pictures:

Hamilton at night

The start of a beautiful summer sunset

Continuation of sunset

My handsome man

Happy thoughts to all of you!  And don't take Alesse!!!

what is love?

I had this thought cross my mind today as I was stocking patient charts. 

What is love?

What do I consider love to be?

Is it really love or is it an ideal that I've created in my mind that is skewed?

One of my biggest problems is freaking out and having anxiety attacks over minor issues.  I work myself into a frenzy and literally cannot turn my mind off.  Last night I lay awake on my bed until almost 12 a.m. and considered all the things that could possibly go wrong in my life, financially, physically, relationally, emotionally... I drive myself into negativity, constantly focusing unhelpfully on possible things that could go wrong.

With my brain I rationally know that anything could go wrong.  Every relationship has an aspect of risk, is somewhat of a gamble.  Physically, you never know what could go wrong with your body, how you may need to seek medical attention.  Emotionally we all have scars and demons that we fight with until the day we die. 

What is the point in contemplating these negative things and making myself freak out while I'm sleeping alone at night?
Anyway, back to what I contemplate love to be.

I suppose I consider it to be what my parents have shown and taught me.  My dad is very respectful of my mom.  Of course they would fight--on one occasion she even threw a knife after which we would grab all the kitchen cutlery and hide it when they were getting angry--and they aren't a perfect couple, but one thing my dad has displayed is a respect for my mom.
He would never talk about her and their issues to anyone else because he knew how much that would hurt her.  He told us that he loves her more than he loves us--I know that sounds harsh, but she is the person he plans on spending the rest of his life with, not us his children.
My dad and my mom are individually very frustrating people at times and I have a broken relationship with them at the moment, but they have displayed exemplary behaviour when it comes to persevering in a relationship.

So I guess love means perseverance to me and I've constantly made the mistake of throwing in the towel.   "Ahh, things are getting hard! Woe is me!" *arms windmilling wildly in the air* "I'm giving up!" 
I seem to lack perseverance when it comes to many things, another thing being exercise.  I used to be extremely rigid in my daily routine and now I've just become apathetic and lazy.  I used to stay on top of my finances and now I'm dealing with credit problems because I've been lazy.  I tend to bury my head in the sand when things get overwhelming and scary.

Okay, what else?

I kinda think that love is give and take, each person looking out for the interests of the other.  So, automatically when I want something, I believe that it will be given to me because they love me.  I suppose that's a very flawed way of thinking.  Number one, I shouldn't be considering what I can get from someone, but what I can give to someone.  Generosity and thinking about others tends to distract one from negative thoughts.  Number two, I shouldn't believe that love hinges on what one can give to you or whether they make good on their promises.

And now, I very highly value promises people make me and I think that is because of my parents again.  They made promises to us as children and they failed on multiple times to keep their word.  Each time they changed direction we would cry and say, "But...but...you promised!" as if it was the trump card, but then my dad would say, "I'm human, I make mistakes.  Sorry."  Saying sorry to a twelve year old for not keeping a serious promise doesn't really cut it and it's very hard to forgive.

When people who say they love me make a promise, I expect them to keep it and it hurts me a lot when they don't.  It causes distrust to grow in my heart and forgiveness is very difficult.  It takes me back to when I was a child and how my parents treated me.

Know thyself.  The more I think about these issues, the more light I cast on my current behaviour.  I want to be a good partner, I want to be a person who cares about people around them and I don't want to wallow and focus solely on myself.  I've allowed myself to live in this place of self pity and negativity when really, God has given me the tools to help people and has created me to express and communicate myself to others.  Getting away from sitting at home and contemplating the "what if's" is most likely the key to this situation.  The key to opening the door to change, anyway.

Back to "what is love?"...
It's give and take.
It's keeping promises.
It's also...
...considering the feelings of your partner and acting accordingly. 

I expect and hope the person I'm with to think about how his actions make me feel and to consider thoughtfully before embarking on whatever he chooses to do.  However, that works my way as well.  I should probably stop saying "we need to break up" and start saying "how can we work through this?".  I should consider the fact that when I get upset or cry, it makes him feel bad...it causes him to feel inadequate.

There are so many aspects when it comes to love, it's overwhelming, but I think I'll settled with those three definitions today.

Give and take.
Keeping promises.
Considering each other.

I'm going to continue contemplating what love means to me and hopefully I will be able to see how I can change and get my emotional responses under control.

To lighten up this entry...

My parents stopped by my apartment last night with a couple of my siblings.  They sat with my around the dining room table and we discussed the family reunion we are planning this Saturday. At one point Sue started yelling and defending Josh (who wasn't even there, wtf) and that's how my family is... Loud, annoying, opinionated, dysfunctional, smothering, emotional, and moody.  It was nice to have people there to talk to, even though we may not get along or things may be strained.  I forgot in that moment about my problems.  I stopped obsessing as we tried to trouble shoot the issue of rides.  And then I realized when they left that I need to stop being selfish and stop worrying.

Even lighter...

I woke up this morning around 5 and Licorice was pacing around the bedroom, watching Mr. Cat and I sleeping together on the bed.  I called his name and he jumped effortlessly up on the bed and curled up on the other side of me.  He doesn't just lay beside me...he snuggles up, puts his nose against me and smells me contentedly, rests his head right against my body as if needing the physical comfort.  Sandwiched between the two animals that love me so unconditonally, I felt so peaceful and happy. 
So fuck it, I'm posting more animal pictures because I love them both.

Here's to continuing down the path of self discovery and enlightenment!

Cheers:)

this & that

Hamilton Habourfront, Aug. 2009

"I saw your boyfriend walking your dog yesterday."
"We had a fight; I yelled at him."  The words tumbled out of my mouth as if I had the compulsive need to confess what had happened to someone.
"I hate boys.  I wish I was single," she said in reply.


I don't discuss my personal issues with many people at work because I've learned the hard way:  nothing remains hidden.  People's deepest and darkest secrets have been exposed many times on our floor, case in point:  one of the nurses was seeing a resident quietly for a few months (a married resident for the record) and another nurse happened to see them walking randomly in a park, holding hands.  Awkward.  And bad timing.  In a city of 500,000+ residents, what are the odds? 

Anyway, that's why I tend to keep my cards close to my chest.  I have a few good friends I work with who I am more willing to discuss these things with--the fact that they've shared personal problems with me also makes me more comfortable to expose myself--but even then, it's very pick and choose about what I let people know and it's difficult for me, because I don't have many close friends to talk to anymore.  I feel compelled to talk to someone about issues and worries I have and lately it's only been coworkers who have been willing to listen and help me figure things out. 

The second reason why I hesitate to discuss matters of the heart with coworkers is the fact that I can be very proud.  I hate admitting that things aren't going as smoothly as I thought they would and I hate telling people that I'm struggling to make sense of something that seems to go so easily for others. 

Moving on from there, I found myself reluctantly agreeing with E.  Her words "I hate boys/I wish I was single" resonated so deeply within me.  I love the person I'm with, but I also hate him sometimes.  We lay in bed last night, staring at the ceiling and not knowing what to say to each other and I felt like ripping his poster off my wall, throwing his clothes out my bedroom window (even though there's a giant air conditioner blocking it so that would be impossible) and slapping or punching him.   I wanted to hurt him as much as he had (unintentionally, I'll admit) hurt me.

Forgiveness, love and commitment. 
Those are the three words that define a relationship, the three things that keep it chugging along.  Even as I think about this, there's definitely some anger and upset lurking deep inside of me, the desire to cruelly continue to hurt him lingering.  I feel that he doesn't understand the extent that he hurt me, the words said striking so deep, wounding to the core.  The most frustrating part is that he doesn't intend to hurt me, words are just so fickle and don't translate well. 

Forgiveness.  I'm not magnanimous in my natural state.  Forgiveness is a hard lesson to learn;  I briefly mentioned it in my last post and am reiterating myself--we'll all need it so we all need to learn how to give it. 
My parents taught me that forgiveness means to truly grant pardon, to cease to feel resentment against, to let go of an offense.  Forgiveness is moving on from the hurt, letting bygones be bygones, allowing the pain to become history.  Forgiveness isn't constantly bringing up old hurts and wounds...it's genuinely letting go and moving on. 

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.  ~L.B. Smedes

Commitment.  I discovered mid-February that I was falling in love with this wonderful person.  Unsure of what to do about the feelings, I wisely kept my mouth shut and waited until he was ready to share his feelings.   At the end of February he sat down with me and started talking about his feelings, scared to embark on a new journey but unable to avoid the truth:  he loved me.  In that moment of intimacy (discovering new love is always intimate), we both made the choice to be committed to each other, to be there for each other during the ups and downs, to be loyal and faithful to each other, semper fidelis and so on. 
Even when there are times when I feel like I hate him, I made that commitment those months ago to be with him, to hang on when the going gets rough and every time we argue or cry or hurt each other, I have that thought come to mind--this is the person I chose to love and this is the person I want to be with.  This is the person I committed myself to despite any disagreements we may have.  This is the man I love.  Commitment is more sure and steady than any other virtue, for love can sometimes be defined as just a feeling, dictated by emotion.  Commitment is what takes you through the valleys.
Commitment to him made me reach over in the middle of the night and touch his hand.  I don't want to be someone who only sticks around when the going is easy;  I want to be faithful and constant, I want to be true to my word and I want to be there for this special person.


Finally, love. 
It's such an acclaimed emotion and feeling, something everyone pursues at some point in their life.  We all feel that our love is the most grandiose of them all, that we love like no other couple has, but love is more than an ideal.  Love is the embodiment of many virtues combined together, virtues such as forgiveness and commitment.  Christ-like love teaches us to put others first, to reach out to someone even when they have hurt us, to put other's interests before our own.  It's best defined by Paul in 1st Corinthians:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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. ~1st Cor. 13:4-7

I'm not sure where I am even going with this.  I feel like a hypocrite writing out all these ideals that I believe a relationship should consist of, when I have such a great storm in my mind and heart...but what else can I do?  I can't move back to where I was before because I would lose so much... All I can do is look toward the future with him and hope that we will still be together, that I can somehow find the grace to be a good partner and helpmate. 
Where I am insufficient to know what to do or say, God is there in those silences.  Relationships are about more than just pleasing each other--they're about learning and growing together, becoming better people and seeking God (or whatever one believes) together in order to strengthen one's faith. 


I yelled at someone yesterday that I promised I would never intentionally hurt.  I raised my voice angrily to express myself, I said things last night to break him and make him understand how much I was hurting.  I didn't communicate reasonably or logically, I couldn't find a way to express my displeasure and pain staidly.  I failed in my role of being understanding or supportive. 


Back to the top... I hate boys sometimes.  I hate this person that climbs into bed with me and promises me things that he doesn't make good on.  I hate how he has the power to hurt me so deeply, unlike any other person in my life.  I hate how my life has been so completely altered since he arrived in it, so changed from everything I know.  I hate how much I love him, how far I would go, how I would bend and stretch for him, how willing I am to change for him.  I worry that I'm more 'vested in our relationship than he is and when I express those feelings, he brushes them away and says our love for each other isn't comparable.


I hate how confused I am all the time.  I hate how I can't imagine my life without him.  I hate how I sometimes feel suffocated by the emotional depth of our relationship.  I hate how in some ways I have ceased to function autonomously from him.  I hate how I worry and obsess over whether we truly have a future together or if it's all just a pipe dream. I hate how insecure I am about my worth to him. 


The thing I hate the most is how uneasy I am about someone else intruding into our relationship and taking him away from me.  I fight the demons of anxiety and fear that plague me when I consider the possibility of someone else being the right one for him, I shove away the negative thoughts that ride around the carousel of my mind.  Fear makes me want to clutch him closer and hang onto him with all of my being, but wisdom and instinct tells me to let him go and believe he will continue to love me for who I am. 


I apologize for rambling on about these things that are mostly irrelevant and boring to read.  I'm not sure who else to talk to, where to get advice about what to do.  I'm not even sure what there is to do, other than find a way to forgive him for hurting me even when he didn't mean to...and graciously let him spend his time as he wishes instead of expecting him to always love being with me. 


I leave with this quote:

Let us forgive each other – only then will we live in peace. ~L. Tolstoy

Much peace and hope for each and everyone of us to move forward.