Month: May 2020

Running Men

It seems I am making men run these days… first my conversation exchange buddy, and then, perhaps only days later, a guy I know from high school… so, who’s next on the list, World??

And I haven’t even told them to start running or anything… they have simply determined for themselves that they want to start running for their own health and well-being…, in some way or other, because of me.

How odd… I make men run… and without telling them to do so… and they aren’t running away from me…

😛

And I don’t even really run anymore… haha

Though, if my belly hadn’t been hurting today, I likely would have done a semi-long run (just a few miles, probably) to get in steps for my Weekend Warrior Fitbit contest with a girlfriend from college this weekend…

Anyway…, it is almost 11pm, and I can barely see straight, I’m so sleepy… I need to sleep better at night…

Fingers crossed that I sleep well tonight! 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Meet me here, and stop fixing me

I think I prefer most people not knowing about my problems, because most people try to fix my problems.

When someone asks how I’m doing, and I share about something that isn’t going well, I’m not asking for advice – I’m just sharing, the same way I would about something that is going well in my life.

I usually can handle my problems rather well on my own.

And when I want and need help, I say clearly that I want and/or need help.

And, sometimes, if someone asks if I want help or guidance, I’ll say that I do…, but I usually am not looking for that, simply because I am sharing about something.

I think that’s part of why my cousin knows most of my most desperate problems… I call her and tell her that I am seeking guidance and help and please, tell me that I am not totally stupid for wanting this in my life, etc… and she does just that.

And, when I am not seeking a solution, and say that I just need to share, she lets me.

If she has something she deems valuable to share back with me, she asks if it’s okay to tell me what came up for her… sometimes the answer is ‘No, not right now,’ and she is okay with that, and she respects that.

And I do the same for her.

Sometimes, we just want to be heard and not fixed… sometimes, it only takes being heard, for us to be able to fix everything ourselves anyway.

Oftentimes, when I share about something that is bothering me, I am just sharing that I am struggling, so the person with me can understand where I am, and meet me where I am… I am not asking for a solution.

Tangentially…

Today, someone shared with me about a very painful incident within her life.

She said she probably would cry, and then she did… and her crying didn’t last very long – I gave her the space to express herself, and I didn’t get all sappy and apologetic with her about it, but merely acknowledged and accepted what she was sharing and the pain she was expressing… and I didn’t feel sorry for her, but just accepted her where she was, accepted things as they stood, and met her where she was.

And now, we have a fabulous plan going forward with things, and she not only trusts me but feels extremely comfortable with me… and I think a large part of that is that I didn’t deem her situation as having anything wrong with it that needed fixing… it was just what was so in her life, and I needed to met her there in order to move forward into tomorrow… and I did… and we are doing something together now because I did.

And I’m actually really excited about it. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Love, love me do

Today, I have been angry and frustrated and annoyed with most of the world around me.

The simplest of things have sent me emotionally flying off the handle.

Though, I have maintained calm enough in my interactions so as not to have this be obvious and/or offensive to anyone today… the whole digital interaction certainly makes that easier to manage.

Nonetheless, I have felt myself ready to curse and throw things at people throughout the day, and have been borderline tears at almost any given moment.

For weeks, I have already been stressed as people ask me, “How are you?”

I already wrote and shared a song that declares ‘No, I’m not okay, so, please, stop asking… I’ll get there eventually, but just stop asking for right now, please.’

I have begun opting to decline answering the question and to move forward in the conversation… people find it odd, but they get over it, and I don’t have to be further stressed in attempting to answer the question.

(Because no, I will not lie and say that I’m fine, when I am not fine… period.)

Today, too many people were asking me about how I am, and in various ways… I wanted to yell and throw things at all of them…. and at the people who couldn’t get their s*** sorted when I explained how to do such-and-such for them…

It’s been rough and tough for me today, and on many levels…

And no, it is not premenstrual syndrome, aka PMS… wrong time of the month.

My closest friend here in town left today, moving to VA.

And I don’t miss her yet – nothing like that – but I have been presented more and more strongly with each passing day the question of whether I am living my life properly right now.

She’s not only my closest friend here, but the only one I see regularly… and I usually see her multiple times a week.

And it usually was just to hang out – nothing special (which made it all the more special as a friendship).

This now presents me with the fact that I have no close friends, and no daily friends here anymore.

I don’t have anyone to check in with or who will check in on me… I don’t have anyone just down the street anymore… I don’t have anyone to love me simply by spending time with me.

I’ve thought a lot about it today… what I want most right now is to have someone:

1) Tell me that I am loved,

2) Tell me, practically speaking, that what I am pursuing in my life right now gives value to the world around me, and will continue to do so the further I pursue it,

3) Tell me that I am on the right path for myself and my life right now – and that he/she has full faith in my ability to succeed profoundly with it all, and

4) Laugh with me… a lot… until my body hurts so much from the laughter, I don’t know if I can take it anymore.

For now, though, I will do my nighttime stretches and reading, and I will go to sleep.

The irony of this is that my daily reminder today is “Today, I remember to love and to be loved”… I still haven’t marked it as completed…

One fun plus to all of this stress and crying tonight – I managed not actually to cry until this evening for the first time, when a friend who knew I was struggling actually called me to check in for real on me – is that the slight bit of allergy edge to my nasal cavity right now makes it smell like a swimming pool whenever my nose starts to fill up with snot… and so, I am transported to sunny pool days of my childhood right after I blow my nose every time (from the crying)… and that makes me smile genuinely. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Oblivion

A friend of mine today shared with me what felt like a somewhat desperate opinion about death.

He said that, since someone important to him died a while back, he is now the only person who knows certain things about her… there is no one left on the planet to carry forward these pieces of her, these memories of her… and, when he dies, all of these parts of her – parts that he finds to be spectacular and worth keeping alive – will be lost to oblivion… much like the great Augustus Waters feared for his own life.*

I, however, have found that I do not see things so desperately as my friend does.

For one thing, I never fully understood Augustus Waters’ fear of being lost… In everything I do, I affect the whole world around me… Whether people know my name or not, whether the trees talk or not, part of me exists in all of them, simply because our paths have crossed… Whether I like it or not, parts of me are spread throughout the world, and those parts will travel on forever, no matter whether my physical body is still breathing and pumping blood.

In a way, I always will exist in this universe… and I do not feel separate from the rest of what is here within it now, nor do I feel like a spectator – I am part of this universe, and it is part of me…

A single drip onto a pond sends ripples that change the whole… even if the fish doesn’t know it, his path was altered because of a drip on the far side of the pond…

And I already know that most of my ripples are more like waves in this life…

…

Now, for another thing, if things are as this friend expressed them to be, is that not all the more reason to value the unparalleled opportunity it was for him to have been witness to these parts of her?… these beauties are only in existence for this short and brief time in the world… let them not go to waste by brooding over their eventual loss… instead, embrace and love them while they are here now, and be grateful that he had the opportunity to be the one to know them.

Otherwise, it is almost an insult to the beauty of the memories and to the person of whom they are remembered – she was amazing, so let us be amazed…. and the memory of her only lasts so long, so let us embrace it while it lasts, and be grateful that we were honored with such a unique and limited experience.

Just my thoughts from this morning… I think they are part of why death has always been a sort of mixed bag for me… I simultaneously and terrified of it, and feel oddly connected to it and rather unafraid… when it is time, it is time, because a body is ready to move on to the next stage of things… it’s almost not even personal…, even though it is…

::sigh….. oh, well… that’s all I have to say on that for the moment…

*If you don’t get the reference, Google it, and help yourself onto the young and hip bandwagon. 😉

P.S. Turns out that I had something else to say on this… I remembered just now what a friend of mine shared years ago, after her mother died… it is something that resonated with me then, and still does today (specifically the sections in bold, with a big bam on the underlined part at the end)… it is from 2005 by Aaron Freeman:

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.

-Aaron Freeman.

Here’s a link to the piece of NPR for “All Things Considered”, one of my favorite segments on NPR, in which this all was originally said publicly by Aaron Freeman… it is a lovely three-minute listen. 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

What’s next, my dear Watson

I can feel it… my daily life… it is time for it to change.

I’m not sure yet how that is going to look, but I can tell with my whole being that something is about to change… and somewhat drastically so…

My life will not be quite the same as it has been lately…. and it will be a spectacular improvement, I can just tell…

What is it???

What are you, change???

This “What’s next” is slow to start, but will be big rather quickly, it seems…, and I am looking forward to it with delight…

Tomorrow morning, I will get myself to work on whatever this happens to be…, and we shall begin to discover what’s next.

P.S. Dearest World, would you kindly allow me to sleep really well tonight and to wake up refreshed in the morning?? These late-night storms have been waking me like crazy the past several nights, and I could really use a solid night’s sleep. 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Memorial Day

Today, I did the Memorial Day workout entitled “Murph”. It was, I have been told, the favorite workout of Navy Lieutenant Michael Patrick Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y. He called it “Body Armor”. It is very difficult, to say the least.

This was my second time doing it, and I had to do it solo. But I did it, and I loved it, of course!

I even got to be creative to do ring rows with a pair of jeans in a tree!

Afterward, I was talking with my friend who had been my gym buddy, but who is moving to VA this week. She decided to do it herself (despite having told me “No way!” all last week), since she hadn’t done much since ending her gym membership in March. So, I rode with her for her two runs, and kept count of all of her other movements for her. We actually had a great time just chatting while she did her work-out, and then hanging for a bit afterward on my porch.

Then, I finally went and gorged on healthy food and drink, and continued listening to an audiobook that I am loving!

——Murph——

Last year:

Mile 1: 9:16

Partitioned ring rows, knee push-ups, and air squats like crazy

Mile 2: 11:01

Total: 53:55

Today:

Mile 1: 8:58

No partitioning, ring rows, Regular push-ups, and air squats

Mile 2: 9:19

Total: 45:12

Holy snap… That’s a nine-minute difference, I did a harder version, and I definitely was not as wiped out at the end! I also was extremely consistent with my movements throughout there work-out, and my breathing was rather steady. For example, when I did the push-ups, every set of 50 lasted almost exactly three minutes, and my breathing didn’t grow almost any more intense by the end of them than it had been at the start of them.

When my friend finished hers, she said that she missed the feeling of hating a workout and then finishing it… that feeling of accomplishing something that had felt impossible at the outset.

I knew exactly what she meant – it’s a feeling I love and a thing I love about our gym.

Happy Memorial Day, folks!! ❤

Post-a-day 2020

Men

“You’d tell him, but not me?” he asks, somewhat incredulously.

“Yeah,” she replies, matter-of-factly, “That’s the kind of relationship he and I have. I mean, he’s not trying to have sex with me. You are.”

He laughs strongly for a few moments, mumbles, and then adds, “It’s so weird… people don’t usually just say that… even if they know it.”

She shrugs, even though he can’t see her, “Yeah. Well, it’s true, nonetheless.”

“I, I know… But people just don’t usually say that out loud,” he says, and he laughs some more, but it is not as pronounced.

He remembers that she is not typical, by any means…, which is exactly why he resists being friends with her: he can’t seem to categorize her.

She wonders if he’ll ever be able to move past this attachment he seems to have to sex and the likes in their chats… that’s what he had been asking about in the first place, though in what she found to be a bothersome evasive and indirect way… she doesn’t mind mention of such things, when they are relevant, but she prefers and genuinely enjoys all the other topics they end up on whenever they talk… that’s why she bothers with the acquaintanceship – she is aiming to be friends, even ones who only talk on occasion.

……

Besides, she thinks to herself a while later, recalling the conversation, as she reflects on the message she just received, not only is he not trying to sleep with me, but he says things like this to me:

Quando ridi si pronunciano molto i tuoi zigomi. Risata fantastica!!🤩

“When you laugh, your cheekbones are very pronounced. Fantastic laugh!!”

And then he follows it up with:

Volevo fare un apprezzamento su di una cosa che mi piace di te….

“I wanted to show appreciation to you for something I like about you.”

Different strokes.

Very different relationships.

Very different men, and with very different goals.

She tends to prefer the cheekbones one over the other…. the one who wants to be a friend over the one who wants to be a friend with benefits…, and possibly minus the friend part of it…

She is glad she told him a straightforward explanation, and that she asked him straight out why he had wanted her to drink with him.

The cards are on the table, and she doesn’t have to play.

Post-a-day 2020

The best policy?

Honesty may hurt – and really badly – but I still believe it to be the best policy.

Being straight with people makes a world of a difference, I swear.

Yes, it can hurt to be told, ‘Unless you lose a lot of weight, get fit, and stop wearing that strong, fake body spray, we are definitely not having sex.’

But would you rather persist and persist and never understand why a girl seems interested in you, yet nothing ever happens between the two of you?

I feel like you just would end up going insane, and not being able to stand being around her anymore, for lack of understanding the situation.

Whereas, in knowing the truth, her having been straightforward and honest with you, you now have the choice either to do something about it to meet her standards, or you can choose not to pursue them and to let go of your currently vain efforts to have a physical relationship with her – no more wasted effort there, and you can turn your attention and efforts elsewhere for that, and instead focus on a friendship with this girl, in which you both can be satisfied from an open and honest relationship.

Just some thoughts for the night.

P.S. I just learned about testicular torsion…. youch.

Post-a-day 2020

Completion

Well, I am extremely grateful that guy was willing, at least somewhat, to give me a bit of feedback on why he didn’t care to pursue anything at all with me anymore.

No, he never gave me a clear answer, but he did say somewhat that he was, in fact, interested in something on the dating and physical relationship side of things – you know, the side I had considered a non-option due to his having a girlfriend (the one who no longer existed, but I was unaware of that at first).

And so, I told him that I wished I’d known that sooner, as it would have made a big difference in everything for me, and that, oh, well…, too bad… let me know if you’d like to do a re-do… ::crying laughing emoji ::face palm emoji.

At that, I leave the situation comfortably.

Yes, I am still bummed at his not being straight with me and not really giving me a chance, once I did start to see where he stood.

Yet, I accept him for it all… I do not need to forgive him; just accept who and how he was… and I do, now.

This scenario and relationship are now complete for me, with all loose ends tied up.*

And I am grateful that I kept true to myself through this all.

Phew!

Getting better all the time, you know?

Grateful for the strength and love that guides me forward with all of this stuff in life.

Thank you, God.

Now, who’s next in line?

Because I’m ready for the next round of being myself in the face of no agreement. 😀

…….

*A joke that my Opa always shares with me came to mind just there… it’s how they would joke with one another as kids, playing with the literal meaning of the phrase used for ‘What’s wrong?’

Was ist los?

Alles, was nicht gebunden ist!

Hashtag Family of total nerds…

Post-a-day 2020

What’s on your mind?

Every time we log in to Facebook, we are presented with this question: What’s on your mind?

Well, Facebook, painfully annoying stuff is on my mind tonight (and clearly I am not telling you about it 😂).

I’m finally, tonight, allowing myself to accept and experience the hurt I have from today and this past week.

It feels almost like déjà vu, and that seems to be what hurts the most about it all.

For the second time in a very short amount of time, I have met a guy and endeavoured to establish a relationship of friendship with him…, and I have been, while accepted at first, almost immediately denied the opportunity.

They aren’t being mean to me – not intentionally, anyway.

They actually are, in a way, being extremely nice in telling me that they don’t want to continue in the relationship (whatever kind it may be), as opposed to disappearing entirely or just slowly phasing me out of their lives intentionally.

However, what hurts about it all is that it feels like they didn’t even give me a real chance – they say they don’t think our personalities match up, or something like that, but they barely even took the time to discover anything about my personality.

This one, I’m not exactly clear if the comment was BS, in that he was actually just interested in a rebound dating relationship or sex after a recent breakup of his, and I was not sharing that intention in the friendship…

For one thing, can we please just speak honestly and openly about these things?

Would you just tell me what your intentions are, and we can figure out that way if our intentions align, or if we want to make them align?

Secondly, I was under the impression that he had a girlfriend – because he had had one when I had last seen him.

I was necessarily dealing with a mental dilemma, wondering if I was reading incorrectly into his seeming advances, or if he, in fact, was either A)in an open/polyamorous relationship, or B)was actively pursuing someone else despite his being in a relationship.

Whatever between the two, I was absolutely disinterested in being involved in the matter.

What’s more, I was looking for camaraderie or friendship, as I had said.

So, I was confused as to whether I needed to be disturbed with his behavior or whether I was seriously misunderstanding social cues from this person.

That was happening while I still aimed to be nice and un-prying – because who wants to be the person who calls him out on it, and finds out that he is in a loving relationship, and I was just way wrong and totally misread everything? – and give him the benefit of the doubt, that somehow this all could make sense, eventually.

Well, I found out eventually that his relationship had ended.

And then, after little else, he tells me that, ‘out of respect for me, he doesn’t think he’s interested in continuing our relationship.’

Okay… what relationship is that?

The one that never actually started, because I first didn’t understand what on Earth was going on, and then denied your somewhat unclear invitation – I think that’s what it had been intended to be, anyway – for sex?

Or was it for a dating relationship?

I genuinely do Not Know.

Like I said, I wish people just would be straight about this stuff, about their intentions.

I am not offended or the least bit upset, if you tell me that you would like to have sex with me and not have any other sort of relationship with me, or if you tell me that you are only interested in possibly dating me and don’t want to be friends of the dating doesn’t work out, or even if you say that you just want someone to date casually and with little-to-no commitment.

That would give me the chance to re-evaluate the situation, see how I feel about it all, and let you know if we line up or not… instead of your just assuming what my opinion on the matter would be.

I am extremely frustrated when you have clear intentions, but won’t make them clear to me… Just tell me, dang it(!!!).

What sucks so much, is that, had I known the situation ahead of time, I would have had a very different approach to it… I mean, he’s certainly an attractive guy, and I made several delighted grins at things he wrote or said to me… if I had known he was single and looking, I likely wouldn’t have been opposed.

But that isn’t something I can sort out properly in my head in an instant… I need a bit of breathing time to move someone from the ‘unavailable and off-limits’ category to ‘available and interested in me’ one…

Anyway…

I don’t know where I’m going with this right now… I’m just frustrated and hurt that, once again, a guy wasn’t straight with me, and so he has no idea what my thoughts or opinions are on the matter, but he decided he wanted to cut off all communication with me…

I’m an amazing person, and I truly know that.

It doesn’t mean this isn’t still frustrating, though.

What’s with people?

A friend said to me about it earlier that this seems to be something like a Millennial thing: The moment something starts to get uncomfortable, they ditch.

Granted, I’m not actually a Millennial, but the fad seems to be seeping into those near enough in age, and I am starting to feel like I have too many of those in my life right now.

…

Today, different people in two very different contexts told me that I am a lot to handle (and they didn’t mean it as an insult), both of them men.

One even said that most people are too superficial for me, and so my deepness and interest in being with people for real, on a real level, is hard for people who are used to living on the surface.

My cousin, in another unrelated conversation, mentioned to me that relationships with people can, in fact, develop beautifully and easily by people being straight and open and deep from the start with one another, as is evidenced by my relationship with my conversation exchange partner.

She brought that up on her own.

Another man told me, ‘You are a special woman. Remember that!’

I never thought a woman I [hardly know] could affect my life with such intensity.

Today, three different men and a woman affirmed voluntarily, with no request or prompt from me, that I am a wonderful person and am totally worth it, deserving of the best.

When does that happen in a single day?

Yet, what fills my mind is the one man who never even gave me a chance.

Why do our brains do this?

::big siiiigggggghhhhh………

I think I just need to experience and embrace this frustration, so I can let it all go.

Pick up, and release…

I’m hoping for a freeing feeling tomorrow…

Post-a-day 2020