A Bad Year

To be honest, this year has been a pretty bad one. Weird really, if you consider that since I turned 18 I’ve had this strange notion that the year I turned 23 on the 23^rd day of the 2^nd month, that it would be somehow special or lucky. That it would be my ‘power year’. Needless to say, life turned out differently.

This year has been both painful emotionally and painful physically. It’s been filled with disappointment and with sadness. It’s been an all-round horror story. My family and friends have had their fair share, and I will admit that not all the bad things have been my own personal suffering. But sometimes it’s the very people we love and who are hurt that bring us the most pain, because we are sometimes unable to lift them out of their sorrow, and the helplessness stings.

On Tuesday the 6^th of February, at around 16:00 the Plettenberg Bay Airport lost radar contact with the Italtile Ltd company aircraft. Nine people left a gaping hole in the lives of many, many more as they stepped from this world into another and their lives became memories. My mother knew them all personally, and amongst them was her best friend and confidant. Her friend left a space so big that it would take countless others to fill her place. In truth, it never could be filled. And holding the position she does, my mother had to sit, for months afterwards, and deal with other people’s grief, confusion and anger. Between 8am and 5pm she couldn’t feel her own grief, her own confusion, her own anger. But when she got home, often late, she did. And all I could do was sit with her.

Do you understand the pain of being helpless to remove someone else’s hurt? Do you know what it’s like to watch someone you love crumble inside like an empty building decays whilst the façade remains? It shouldn’t have been as bad as it was, but when you’ve buried both parents, and your husband, and when you’ve been in a church for funerals more times than you can remember, it gets to you. I have never met anybody as strong as my mother. And whilst I don’t deny that there are people who have experienced worse, and overcome more, it will always be my mother who defines courage, determination, perseverance and love.

A few months later her niece committed suicide. They weren’t close, but she stood by her brother and her sister-in-law and offered as much as she could. They were fortunate enough to have a strong support network and whilst they struggle still, they know that they are loved and supported.

As facetious as it sounds, my academics took a dive. My own personal standard was not met and I felt both disappointed and frustrated. Objectively, I still did well. But my future is riding on the marks that I achieve and the next year, possibly three, are determined by my ability to impress those whose job it is to judge my performance. And so achieve I must. But I did not. Not like I hoped I would. And now, it comes to the end of my year and I have failed to gain access to my ‘plan B’ whilst ‘plan A’ doesn’t look hopeful. And there’s nothing I can do about it now. Such is life, I guess…

Cheyenne, our 13 year old Rottweiler, and the last living reminder of my stepfather, passed away. She died of depression. As laughable as it may or may not sound, she starved herself into heaven. She recovered from her operation well. She wasn’t in any pain. She had no infection or complications. She just wouldn’t eat, or drink. She just wouldn’t live. And to think that just a week beforehand she was running circles around our little Jack Russell terrier. I’m not really a dog person, but I can honestly say that she had the most caring nature of any animal I have ever encountered. She was as much a part of our family as I am, and my mother took it hard. Yes, we have a new companion, who actually lived with Cheyenne through her last days. He was probably the last things she saw. But he’s no replacement, nor should he be.

And just today, a few hours earlier, I dropped my stupidly expensive phone which will cost a stupid amount to fix and which I would be stupid to pay. But such is life, I guess…

There’s no moral to this story. It just is. Life continues. The birds are still chirping in the dusky light outside. The rain still falls softly. I have many things to be grateful for.

I have my family, whom I’m beginning to appreciate more and more.

I have my health.

I have new and old friends.

I have a new love in my life.

I have the good fortune of a roof over my head and food in my stomach.

And in the end, what’s past is past. It will only live with me as long as I hold it.

“Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.” ~Marcus Antonius

Jealousy- in two parts. (2)

Catharsis

I saw him next, fully armed with my self-righteous anger. And my immediate instincts were to ignore him. To visibly show my displeasure. To make him feel, somehow, even a small part of the pain and the hurt. He approached, with what seemed to me, an air of guilt and deceit around him. He spoke to me in his usual honey sweet way but for some reason, this time, it nauseated and cloyed my mind. My heart flared up with disgust. And then the strangest thing happened.

I saw it in his eyes. It stopped me mid-charge as I rushed to make him feel my pain. I saw…hurt. I had succeeded before I even realised it. He could sense that something was wrong and his usually bubbly state was reduced to an anxious gaze and a slightly forced smile. Unfortunately for him, his decision to tell me even more ‘bad news’ resulted in my anger taking over again. And I automatically assumed (imagined) that he was lying to me. Once again, no proof needed. I successfully ignored him for the rest of the hour. When he came up to say goodbye, purposefully coming close and touching my arm gently, to force me to look into his eyes, I turned a cold glare and a stone smile on him.

Bad idea.

My heart broke. Those golden-hazel eyes bored right through me and the realisation of my stupidity flashed through my mind in a million disjointed pictures- like a giant mash-up of all the shit that my jealous imagination had fed me. And I realised that I, by myself, at the command of my jealousy, had created the very monster that I claimed to be fighting. I had completed the self-fulfilling prophecy. My actions towards him had hurt him and he had put his guard up. He erected those walls between me and him because he was being attacked. And now they became real. They moved from the realm of my imagination into his feelings and his very real reactions. I imagined them, and they came to life.

So you see: jealousy is creative. It builds castles in the sky and then makes you pay the rent in pain and suffering. But how to defeat the green eyed monster? To kill the demon within?

I firmly believe it begins with the realisation that your feelings are your own. No person can ever put their feelings inside of you. You are the gate keeper. You are the one who decides how you will react to each and every visiting emotion. And there are ways in which you can do this.

Self-reflection is one. It is the longest and the most difficult process of the lot but it is more rewarding and stable than all the others put together. It begins with questions. Honest questions to your heart and your mind. Questions that make you look at yourself from a perspective other than your own instinctual nature. Why? How?

Relinquish control of the outside world; it is only an illusion of control. You cannot physically make anyone love you. You cannot bend their emotions or their will. But you can mend your own. You can decide how you will react, and how you will feel. You are the master of your own ship. When you so firmly enmesh yourself in the imaginings of your jealousy you are giving away your power to that emotion. Those ideas in your head are fantasies. They are not real. They can never truly represent or understand what is actually occurring. So put them in a glass box. Examine where they come from. Why do you feel jealous? What is the cause of the jealousy? What is the purpose of the jealousy? How is it serving you right now? Realise that you cannot control the act of feeling jealous in the first instance. Something sparks it off and only then do you become aware of it. But now that you are aware of it, you can choose how to react.

What would have happened had I chosen to react differently? If I had tried my hardest to put aside my feelings and genuinely greet my friend? That hurt that he experienced would not have been caused by me, and he would not have retreated to behind his walls. And my jealous imagination would not have been validated. It would be disproved, giving me back the power. When we engage in this kind of conscious thought we can build strong, beautiful relationships because we make others feel safe. We allow them to learn to love us because we make them feel that we are a safe haven for their love and respect. Focus on what you’re doing instead of what you think they are doing.

Here’s a question for you to think about:

Are our emotions the consequences or the causes of how we are thinking?

Jealousy- in two parts. (1)

Genesis

Jealousy is probably the most creative emotion any human can conceive of. Even more so than love. It’s like a hot spark softly landing in a bed of dry sawdust. It smoulders for a second and then ignites- flames rapidly rising and consuming everything until there is nothing but ash and soot and choking smoke. And that’s how it always starts with me. A tiny spark.

I am no stranger to jealousy because it has a long history with me. We are like old opponents, wary of each other but comfortable in the other’s presence, that is, until we join battle again. But this time it surprised me. I can’t even remember clearly what the spark was. Being left out again? Or the idea that I had been lied to? No proof, but none needed. The flames are doing their work. And it’s oh-so-beautifully creative!! What started out as a slight disappointment grew into a simmering anger. And a simmering anger grew into a cold frustration, which grew into a desire to lash out.

In objective terms it starts with a perceived insult. It can be real or imagined, but your ego thinks that it has been hurt. You’re ignored or passed over for another person. Perhaps you’re not feeling wanted, or not feeling wanted enough. Perhaps you want what another is getting. And even, possibly, you want what you had before. But all of these wants share one thing in common- creative embellishment. Jealousy takes the mundane and makes it magical because in order for it to thrive it needs to make you think that you are inferior to the ‘other’. It needs you to believe that you are somehow being cheated of something you really want and need.

I wanted the attention. I wanted the love. I wanted the admiration, the time, the respect, the feeling of being wanted. I wanted to feel important to him. But he chose to spend his time with others. And my imagination filled in the blanks. In truth, he has every right. I do not have a sole mandate on his time, or his attention. He is another human with another life that is fully his own. And my imagination lied to me. When he went out, for a day- a single day in his whole span of life, in my whole span of life- my jealousy told me that he had chosen. It told me that all those things that I wanted were being given to another, to use or waste as they pleased. And my imagination told me that he was doing it because he really wanted to give it away to someone other than I. And my jealousy made up these wonderful fantasies of smiles and laughter and love between him and another- all because my jealousy took over my imagination. And my ego cried out in pain. And when it could cry no more, it rose up with a steely look in its eye and it went to sharpen its knife. It went to make plans of war. It sent out spies and it built a fort of hurt around it. And when it was ready it marched out to battle…

. . . To witness the bloody fight see part 2- Catharsis. . .

Love Thy Self, but not too much...

Sometimes it happens. Things come along that confuse you. For no particular reason you’re thrown into a world you don’t recognise. Its familiar but it’s not. As one character says in the film War Boys:

“It’s like I’m walking down a street, and I know it so well that I don’t even have to think about where I’m going. I’ve been down it a million times before. And then suddenly I realise that I’m in someplace new. Someplace I’ve never been before. But it feels like I’ve been here my whole life.”

And that’s exactly it. It’s that unknown that becomes your reality. It’s the natural change that happened of its own accord. And it scares you and intrigues you at the same time.

Things change between my friends and I. Sometimes it’s for the worse and sometimes for the better. But things do change. And at one stage I was afraid of that. I was afraid that it would mean the end of something or that the change would bring about a new way of being that might not live up to its past. But experience begins to teach me otherwise. Relationships are living organisms. They grow and mature. Sometimes they get ill and sometimes they recover from illness. Other times they die. But most importantly, they are alive with possibility. They happen at the level of change.

Probably hardest to deal with is the fact that a relationship is an interaction where both people can grow separately but not drift apart. My personhood, my identity, is not up for consumption by the other party. Nor are they my slave. I can only exist in a relationship if my boundaries are flexible but still present. The minute someone seeks to have a symbiotic relationship with me, they have lost the battle, and the war. I am one person and you are one person. I cannot know what you are thinking and you will never understand my motives completely. And this is not a sign of a failure but rather the sign of a healthy respect for the fact that you’re in a relationship with me as another human being. Symbiosis is essentially being in a relationship with yourself, which is pointless. When someone says to me ‘I know what you’re thinking’ or ‘we always think alike’ it reflects to me the notion that this person wants us to be symbiotic. It does not in any way represent reality. It represents their desire to be merged. An understandable desire, to be sure, but it is nothing more than a subconscious yearning to achieve personal validation. What better way to feel that your own opinions are justified than to find someone who completely agrees with you?

The inherent flaw in symbiotic relationships is that they are generally one-sided. One person gives and one person takes. One person becomes the emotional donor that sustains the other. One person wants to be completely in tune with the other in order to feel validated whilst the other tries their hardest to fulfil the role because they want to be needed. But in the end, the donor burns out. They cannot long withstand the constant demands on their energy, their personality, their essence or their love. And the partner is left wanting more.

Well, I have reached just such a stage. And I’d love to find a way through it that doesn’t involve running from the problem. I’d like to find the path of greatest growth, for both myself and my friend. And through it all I only hope that we can come to share a deeper love and a greater understanding of where we fit into each other’s lives, as individuals and on our common ground. And most importantly, I hope that in every relationship you and I come to realise the value of our own identity as well as the value of being able to love someone else for their own individuality. Because at the end of the day, the person you love should not be you.

Insecure you, insecure me...

I had an interesting convo with a friend today. We were bemoaning the fact of our singledom and exploring the possible reasons for this. We reluctantly admit that we do pass up opportunities because we'd rather not settle for mediocrity. Call us snobs, if you will, but we'd probably fit the description of hopeless romantics better. We're waiting for the 'The One'. Putting that debate aside though, we were recently told (coincidentally) by two different friends, on different days and for different reasons -the exact same thing. Apparently we are 'too intimidating'!!!

Bless!!! Me?! Intimidating?? Never!!

According to my friend I'm intimidating because I'm confident and intelligent and know what I want from life...

Is he talking about me?!?

I know my little niggles, and my bigger insecurities. I know what thoughts wander through my mind daily. And I would never say that I'm too intimidating because I value my open and warm manner. I work on being as accepting as possible and I love to chat with strangers. I'm too shy to strike up a conversation with anybody remotely attractive to me and people who get to know me will tell you that I'm practically a doormat when it comes to helping people out. I can never say no. How can I possibly be intimidating?

The answer hit me at 2am this morning when I logged onto Facebook.

There it was, that little red message icon up on the left there. With that tiny little '1' attached to it.

An unexpected message from an acquaintance. Someone whom I thought might be a friend one day. Someone I had once hoped would be more. Someone who had simply vanished out of my life overnight when his ex reappeared.

I let him go fairly easily. His life is his own to live and I cannot deny him his happiness. His feelings for his ex are real to him and I would never suggest otherwise. However, the whole scene did show me, in high definition clarity, how human we all are.

Prior to this realisation I practically worshipped this guy. I couldn't decide if I wanted to have him, or be him. He had it all-looks, charm, success and a never say never matter-of-factness about him. He might say something like, "I'm going to build a boat"...and I'd believe him. Heck, I'd wonder where we could get materials so we could get going with it. And despite our long conversations in which he poured out his heart and his hurt, I never once doubted him. I felt for him and I comforted him, but I always assumed he was that much more than me. That he was so mature, so strong, so loving, so peaceful. How could he possibly be interested in me.

And then the strangest thing happened. At his own request, I met his ex. We all went out for dinner. And strangely to me, his ex was human. As human as you or I. He was a little uncomfortable, a little awkward. He tried hard. And he was simply another guy, with his own story. But my 'friend'... My friend was a stranger. He was doting, and lovable and proud and childlike. He was different and fresh and distinctly...well...distinctly human too!

Because on that night I realised that what I saw in my friend was put there by me. I saw only those things I wanted to see, or which my mind tricked me into seeing. I was seeing my own insecurities really, because in reality I could be just as amazing, just as mature, just as comfortable with myself. But my insecurities get in the way, so I give the power to somebody else to be those things.

Without meaning to leave you hanging, I'd ask that you think about what this means the next time you look at someone and think they're way out of your league. Think about the ways in which they too might be human. Think about why they might feel unapproachable to you. And think, also, about what's holding you back. I'd hazard a guess that you might surprise yourself...

Hug With Love

I still clearly remember the day that the person I had a crush on, almost ten years ago, first hugged me. It was the most amazing and comforting feeling I had ever felt. I was still in the closet, and I was raised to be the politest of young men. I shook hands and opened doors and always said ‘thank you’ and ‘please’. And implicit in this upbringing was a calm detachment and lack of unnecessary and “inappropriate” physical contact. Even for a young boy I had the unusual knack of offering a handshake when I met a new adult or new male friend. Females would receive a kind of half wave gesture that still sometimes surfaces today. That changed when I received my first hug with Love.

Although the precise circumstances are unclear I do seem to remember that myself and said friend had just had quite a deep and difficult conversation and when it came time to part ways he offered a hug. The most heart-warming, reassuring and delightful hug ever. And yet I have hugged people plenty of times before and since and not felt that same feeling. This got me wondering what the difference was in that hug and others like it. My only, unproven, conclusion is that it must boil down to the emotion and intent behind it. I hug strangers regularly these days because that’s the world I live in now. Handshakes just don’t cut it on the social scene anymore. It might just be the gay community, but I find that a hug goes a lot further in building rapport than a handshake does nowadays. But the most useful and satisfying hugs are ones where both parties are emotionally involved in actually expressing love or happiness or reassurance in their hugs. And even a one-sided hug leaves the person who infuses it with love feeling better. Almost as if they have done a good deed or helped someone in need. And this is the case more often than you realise.

You could potentially argue that it was because I was already emotionally invested in the other guy that his hug was so satisfying, and I would agree completely. But more than just that, the hug showed me acceptance and openness. And these need not be limited to hugs with people you’ve fallen in love with. You can give the gift of a hug to any friend or stranger as long as it’s appropriate and plausible. Don’t try too hard and end up with a sexual harassment lawsuit or a black eye. But don’t shy away from physical contact either. I say physical contact because there are ways other than hugs to convey messages with touch. A pat on the back, a light squeeze on the hands, hell, even a bump with your shoulder can say a million things. Just trust in your emotions and your judgement and give in to the feelings that you want to convey. I think you’ll find you’re really quite successful.

Sometimes we cannot find a way to say what we want to, or we are not given the chance. I wanted to tell my friend how much he meant to me that day, but I couldn’t for fear of frightening him away. But when I realised the comfort in his hug I put my heart and soul into the hug I was giving. And we’ve been giving hugs ever since. Why? Because on that day my friend felt everything I wanted to say and he knew without words that what we had was stronger than just a friendship.

No he’s not my current boyfriend, nor was he ever my lover. He’s straight and happy in his relationship with a wonderful girl. But more than just that, he knows he’s loved, and so do I. All because of a hug with Love.

On Friendship

In the final analysis, a friend is someone who cares about you and with you for no benefit to themselves. Out of a place of love they stick with you because they feel a duty to do so without any expected reward or reason.

Friendship evolves from letting go. I cannot be a true friend before I learn to let go past hurts and expectations. I can be betrayed and still love. I can be ignored and still work at it. I can be forgiving and forgetful of old wounds. The essence of friendship lies not in the mutuality but in the humanity. It arises from the love for another’s wellbeing and spirit despite their use-value or their confidence in you.

On the converse side of this is the fact that a friend cannot be forced. Your love is given freely but must also be taken freely. If your love is not received with grace and friendship in turn it is not an insult to you, or an attack on your ego. It is simply a fact of life. Move on. Let go. But always keep your heart open. For without the ability to have an open heart you cannot make a safe place for the heart of another to be open to you.