Did you know the Universe does backflips?

I am always amazed at how many times my world has crumbled this year.  After each devastation there always a whip lash in the opposite direction.  What is astonishing about these series of events is the devastation is counter balanced with so many wonderful things: a kind stranger, several good friends, a free meal, meeting new people who always have so much to contribute to my life in a very short time, a shoulder to cry on, offers of when-ever, where-ever.

I am so very blessed by these events.  If I did have these people/events happen to me this year, I would have faded into the background and I truly do believe that I would have permanently loss myself.

I will have to make sure that all the people who helped me know to extent of my gratitude because I owe them so much more then I think any of them realize.

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”

Jean Baptiste Massieu

“What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

Albert Pike  

-Thank You-

He wanted [to much and not enough] all at the same time...

 Today.... was a day that my own words would not be able to give truth to the place I inhabited... 

much gratitude

The lyrics from one og my favorite songs may give me some insight (though I am not completely clear how but seemed appropriate) "Quisiera" ...

He wanted to be the air you breathe

                                                Qusiera ser el aire que respiras

he wanted to be the curl in your hair,

                                                quisiera ser el rizo de tu pelo,

he wanted to be your seventh sense,

                                                quisiera ser tu séptimo sentido,

he wanted to be the electricity in your light bulb.

                                                qusiera ser un voltio en tu bombillo.    

Turning on the dawn then kneading the night,

                                               Y prender el alba y amasar la noche, 

Leaveing with you, disguised in the horizon.

                                               y salir contigo, disfrazado de horizonte.

     [Was there ever anything I could have done?]

He wanted that you speak to him when silent

                                              Quisiera que me hablaras cuando callas

Or at least to be the knot in your throat

                                              O al menos ser el nudo en tu garganta

           he wanted to be the chair that endures you,

                                                   quisiera ser la silla que te aguanta, 

                                Your wastebasket of hidden kisses.

                                                    tu zafacón de besos escondidos.

And to count with you and be side by side in the streets

               Y contar contigo y doblar las calles

and to plant the guavas

                     y sembrar guayabas

and to be the sound of a thousand details

                                   y sonar con mil detalles

He wanted, so many more things and he wanted...

                                Quisiera, y tantas cosas más quisiera.

He wanted, so many more things and he wanted...

                                 Quisiera, y tantas cosas más quisiera.

Reveling in your eyes, to celebrate your name and leaving with you

                                  Reveler tus ojos, celebrar tu nombre y salir contigo

disguised in the horizon.

                                 Disfrazado de horizonte

He wanted to be the smoldering in your eyes,

                                          Quisiera ser el asa de tus ojos,

the calcium that your vitamins give you,

                                          el calcio que te dan tus vitaminas,

your route when you cross the fog,

                                          tu ruta cuando cruzas la neblina,

And the umbilical cord of your shoes.

                                         y el cordón umbilical de tu zapatos.

                                                                               

  [Why did you hold on to the wrong pieces?]

And to count with you and be side by side in the streets

               Y contar contigo y doblar las calles

and to plant the guavas

                     y sembrar guayabas

and to be the sound of a thousand details

                                   y sonar con mil detalles

He wanted so many more things and he wanted...  

 Quisiera, y tantas cosas más quisiera.

He wanted so many more things and.......... he wanted.  

 Quisiera, y tantas cosas más quisiera.

What about what I wanted?  Why have I never considered this?

The inevitable fall out....

I have now sat with a blank computer screen for what feels like an eternity... I am so distracted because of my father being in that terrible accident that nothing else really seems to matter. I do get that this is a normal way to feel but it's still so very unsettling.

I had someone yesterday state, "Leslie, what you have been through in the last year would have broken anyone else." I do recognize this but for some reason I feel like I don't even deserve that kind of recognition. The implication of my strength during difficult times, taking that in and trying to see what others see, I am grasping in the dark with no sign of light or life.

The thoughts I have had about losing my father are crippling me. Every regrettable decision I have made flashed in my mind..... divorcing, no kids, not going home often enough... everything had to do with lacking things in my life.

Lack of:

The fact or condition of not having enough; shortage; deficiency

My fear based thinking has.... made me feel very lonely tonight.

 I wish I could just be with my Dad right now....

I am wishing for the bar floor...

Today was one of those days where.... at roughly 10:30am I realized, there was nothing that could be done as far as the set of circumstances that were set into play.

I have so much to write but considering the condition I am in... I will have to keep it short....

Overwhelmed by the set of circumstances thus..... cut off phase will be starting in 3...2.....

I was objectified by my a clients father in front of a colleague... who subsequently said nothing and tried to convince me that the father has a "crush" on me.... and I do understand that it may not have been a good time to address the issue I cannot get over that this is the one place our client has an issue....
(fyi... still inappropriate in front of our client)

phone numbers wrong....
                        fax did not go through....
                                          mis-communication...
                                                                not taking responsibility for your actions...


(At one point hated so many people... a hit list would have been useful...)

I have a client with so many different things going with him that I felt completely useless...

This day did not end at work... my date for that evening had to cancel because his father unexpectedly went into the hospital....

THEN..

I got a phone call that changed my entire world.  It was that type of call where I will always be able to recall every single second during that call.... those images are burned into my memory....

The phone call was to inform me of my worst nightmare...
My father had a horrible motorcycle accident.... no news on his condition.

My entire world split second was gone and it felt like I had taken my very last breath....

The gift of hanging on to history...

I have this great 1950's record player. It's this big, clunky, heavy as shit, kind with a top that lifts up. As much as I have loathed moving it around. I am so happy that I kept it. I love the quirky little details like what today, we would call the volume is marked as 'Loudness' on this record player. Tonight I just out of the blue I would bust out my old records. I listened to all kinds of music tonight and it was so nice to just hang out at my new place and do something that I loved to do but I had not made the time before. Everyday, I realize how much of myself that I really lost due to Love and the last seven years.

How did I ever allow so many essential parts of my being become constricted, lost and beaten down?

What happened to me was so against everything I stood for, my personality and my core values. I let go of all those parts of me for Love. Writing that down makes me feel sick to my stomach. Love.... I love, Love. Is that really the best reason I can come with? I almost completely lost everything about myself and that is my answer. I was really willing to sacrifice that much... which looking at the past 7 years all my sacrifice did was cause a prolonging of the inevitable decline. Perhaps.... perhaps not....

Love is.

Passion... Obsession.... Someone you can't live without.

If you are lacking in any of these.....

Then the expectation cannot be much....

Fall head over heels.

I say, find someone you can love like crazy and who'll love you the same way back.

How? How would you come across someone that would be 'the one'?

Forget your head, the rules, the game and listen to your heart.

Yes, the heart.

If I'm not hearing the heart.

Then just let things be... and be ok with that, I mean really ok.

Yes, you will run the risk,

The greatest risk of all....

   

        [a broken heart]

The truth is....

There is no sense living your life without Love.

To make that journey and not fall deeply in love...

Well, you haven't lived a life at all.

You have to try....

Friend extending hand.. pick me off bar floor

Stand.

Balance.

Today, started and ended well. My day was full, busy, times of fury which led me to rally at work like I used to. That felt good. Good, as in "Yes, I just fixed a potential nightmare and did so in 4 inch heels".

Inhale

Exhale

Really breathing, for weeks I have been taking shallow, erratic breaths, never feeling like my lungs were full. Slowly gaining stability will pay off in the end. My impulsive nature will continue to get the best of me some days but I will prevail. It's just what I do.

Speaking with a dear friend tonight always gives me an amazing fulfillment that I know for a very long time was clearly missing from my life. Today for so much of the day I did not feel 'alone'. Which I have to take note is; I did not need a boy to obtain this feeling. (Leslie, remember the lesson you learned today)

My dear friend is also in a major transition in her life. Which I will keep our conversation placed safely within. I will instead leave this post with a poem from Pablo Neruda.

This is for you Laurel...

The Light Wraps You

The light wraps you in its moral flame

Abstracted pale mourner, standing that way

against the old propellers of the twilight

that revolves around you

Speechless my friend,

alone in the loneliness of this hour of the dead

and filled with the lives of fire,

pure heir ruined day.

A bough of fruit falls from the sun on your dark garment.

The great roots of night

grow suddenly from your soul,

and the things that hide in you come out again

so that a blue pallid people,

your newly born, takes nourishment.

Oh magnificent and fecund and magnetic slave

of the circle that moves in turn through the black and gold

rise, lead and possess creation

so rich in life that its flowers perish, and it is full of sadness.

Where gray business suits fear to tread ....

Today, I have to say, I saw a moment of my future, though 3 margaritas into my paperwork, that sliver of a moment is fleeting at best. I attempted to call my student loan company to explain my current situation and I was stone walled.... I suppose there are, not matter what the circumstances are, where- empathy need not apply... actually; rigid, bullshit, all white men in the gray business suits fear to tread areas of our lives. I was left with 2 choices; take all forbearance that is left on my loan, which only delays the inevitable (and shocker, makes more $ for my loan company) or stop paying and allow my credit to but compromised.

After that....and feeling like the only way to meet my feelings half way was to cry....I really wanted to defect to another country. Living in the United States just seems to be more trouble then what its worth. (I really dislike my current mindset.) I hate that I question my Master's degree ONLY because of how much money it has cost me. I HATE even more that I looked at a loan statement today and realized that I have paid over 5,000 dollars and I actually still owe more then original loan. If there was no APR, I would be half way through paying my loan. While on the phone with one of my loan companies, I was composed, logical, rational and above all nice. This meant nothing to the person on the other end of the phone line. To be put in this circumstance, it feeds my dark side... that side that is whispering... "just give up... why are you still trying to save the world, its not worth it".

(Like that scene from the movie "Scrooged, where Bill Murray's character, Frank Cross sees the possible future.  Frank Cross sees what the comment he made to Karen Allen's character Clair did.  Clair became a shallow, soulless, bitch.  She had given up on helping others.)

That feeling of [is it all really worth it?] is the worst.  It always leads me into a tail spin of self deprecation and hopelessness for life's bigger picture. 

Being this dis-heartened well.... is just that. (rip my heart from my chest) There is a much needed act of kindness, for both my thoughts of my marriage dying and knowing that all the kids I have helped could end up with one less person in their lives who gives a shit.

 No one in the this situation deserves that fate....

Looking for Buddha on the Bar floor....

Knowing I have to do this and really not wanting to start, I am sitting here shaking my head and smirking because deep down I actually would rather throw up then admit any of what I am planning on writing down. At this point I am able to recognize that if I don't do something- I will not make it to my 31st birthday. What I mean by this is that my life has so little meaning, my future is unforeseeable and this feeling of being utterly alone has created this oubliette within me.

I am in a little Frenchesque cafe looking at the owners little boy and seeing what should have been my little boy. That should be me scolding my son and having him lovingly roll his eyes at me (as a mother I would know that deep down, my son would be desperately needing me). That little boy is about the age that my son would have been if I would have pushed harder to start a family with my Tainted Love. (Welling up now- Leslie stop it.... Just stop it.....) Smiling to over come the tears, my thoughts wander towards reveling that our potential little boy would have been just as mischievous as the boy I am watching now. The feelings I am having now shift between joy of watching a happy mother and desperate jealously knowing that I will never have what I was currently witnessing. (At least nothing like that in the immediate future.)

So, there are many questions that I need to answer but for now I will have to ask...

What can I do with all the little jagged pieces of me that are at the bottom of the cliff?

The answer to that question may take me a lifetime to know but I am now brought to the point that I have to recognize what turns my life has taken... Which includes: more happy/fun/debaucherous moments then I had had in a very long time. Recognizing that I have missed my social being and seeing the shadow I had become..... an intervention was needed. Hitting the ground running, I rallied. I went out every night I could spare. The realization that I LOVE going out, meeting people, experiencing new places and just being out. I have many stories that will be worth repeating later on.Whether these actions I have taken will show me enlightenment, I suppose its not completely out of the question to find Buddha on the bar floor.    

Though...the pendulum has now swung in both directions, there is now a desire for balance.  I had to see the eventual tail spin quickly approaching. The fun has lost its flair and I am now staring back into my internal oubliette...

I hate, and I mean HATE what I have to admit right now today; I am impulsive, a complete commit-a-phob which goes so well with the fact that I can't stand being alone... Balance..?  (Good luck with that one.)