Tag: men

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

Surprise, surprise

Sometimes, I feel myself on very comfortable, sturdy, well-understood ground when I go into something.

And then, after I arrive, I discover that the terrain is nothing like I had expected it – and I can’t tell if it has merely changed, or if it is actually deceivingly treacherous…

Today, I am both grateful and proud to know that, when presented with such a situation, I comfortably acknowledged to myself my discomfort st the discovery, and then I actively took on staying present and analyzing what lay before me.

I remained true to myself and my own wishes – it with a bit of hesitation at times, I still did it – and I readjusted my feet and found my footing again…, and I can breathe oh, so well tonight because of it.

Aaaaahhhhhh…….. ; )

Post-a-day 2020

Women’s Bodies

Periodicity.

Did you know that that’s how we got the use of the term “period” for menstruation?

I was researching for a paper that tied in social views of women at the time of the book The Awakening with the concept of insanity, and showed that women were seen as crazy back then when they did certain things and behaved certain ways that are rather normal today.

In that research, I found somewhat shocking information on fertility and on when science actually discovered how the timing of the female body’s reproductive cycle worked specifically (as opposed to having only the general idea that sexual intercourse is the way to pregnancy), as well as beliefs on the female reproductive system as a whole.

These were not my focus of the paper, so I, with disappointment, had to skim them and move on to other things, but they stuck with me nonetheless (and I was just thinking tonight that I might still have them somewhere, either on the computer or in a stack of papers in a box).

I always seem to remember discovering the doctor’s use of the phrase and term “a woman’s periodicity” in one of those papers.

It shocked me, but it also finally gave me the answer to my long-wondered question of the word origin for calling menstruation “a period”.

It was, simply, a period in time, yes, but also a specific period in time that came with consistency and a time-frame… it was a woman’s periodicity that gave her these emotional phases.

Anyway… this is somewhat depression thinking for me, because those were not happy times for women, back then… not women like myself, anyway… frankly, they sucked in many, many ways, far beyond our struggles today.

I am extremely grateful to be here now, to be the powerful woman I am now, in this time and place in existence and in this world.

One final note: hysteria.

It originated as a term used in a belief that a woman’s reproductive organs were causing her to lash out or be inappropriate with her emotions somehow… you know, like how hysterectomy is removing the uterus… hysteria was the irrational emotional state caused by the uterus.

(Roots of the word go to Greek, with the term for the womb being there hystera.)

Kind of makes you want to stop using the word, right?

Well, that’s how it makes me feel, anyway…

But I like the word hysterical… that one makes me smile even bigger, knowing the root is “uterus”. 😛

Haha

Okay, I feel better, now. 😀

Post-a-day 2020

Books and movies

Today, I finished reading the book (well, listening to the audiobook, anyway) Crazy Rich Asians.

I had read the book, because I had enjoyed the film, and discovered that it was based on a book, and that there was actually a whole little series of books, and that it was written by a man…, and my interest was piqued… especially by that last fact.

I had just recently been to Singapore a couple times, so the film easily held a little warm spot in my heart, especially since they go to eat at one of my favorite places in the world to eat (the hawker stand when they first arrive to Singapore).

At long last, I got hold of the audiobook, and dove in, and, though it was different from the film, I enjoyed it.

I mean, I knew it would be different from the film – books always are different from their film counterparts.

Except, perhaps, The Princess Bride… that one is purty darn near exactly the same…, though it does have slight differences still…

Anyway, two things came from this, but I’ll wait…

Whenever I finish a book, I let goodreads.com know, and it adds to my list of books read.

It also sends me an e-mail: You finished [fill in the blank book]. What’s next?

And then it gives a brief bit about the book, including the first few reviews on it, and then info on the author and how to follow him on the website, and, finally, other books that people who read this same book also liked/read.

On this e-mail, I saw part of a review that interested me, and so I clicked and was led to the full review, which I read.

The writer of the review and I had very different impressions from the book – I very much enjoyed it, and she was somewhat annoyed by most of it.

I easily disregarded the review, knowing full well that I often disagree with most reviews I see of books.

(Also, I almost never accept film recommendations, because people seem to have such terrible taste in films and in film quality…)

I have certain people I trust with book recommendations, and I rather distrust most others in the world for a book (or film) recommendation.

But this got me thinking more on the book…

There are probably loads of people who dislike and have terrible and ugly things to say about just about any book, right?

As JRR Tolkien wrote in the beginning of the 1976(?) edition of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, there will be always those who dislike things he likes, and also who dislike the way he told these stories.

(He said a lot more, but that is the most relevant part in this conversation.)

As I thought about the film’s being so different from the book, I found myself wanting to talk to the author, Kevin Kwan, and to ask him how he felt about that all, and what his thoughts were on it…

Is it not basically a group of individuals declaring that your story was good, but just not good enough?, I thought at him in our mental interview within my own mind.

Then, it had me wonder, What is it like with reading the various reviews of your books by readers? All those nasty comments and thoughts…Do you just ignore them entirely and never read them, because that isn’t why you wrote them, anyway? You wrote them for those who would enjoy them?

And this idea had me think about whether it mightn’t be a good idea to go ahead and gather together people who love me, and have them tell me how they dislike or do not like something that I have done or created… practice the rejection, so to speak.

Not to experience the suffering, but to learn to separate their unkind words from my own satisfaction and pleasure from the work I have produced… to aid me in learning to love my creations period, with no dependency on what others’ opinions are, good or bad.

My mood is up to me, and my art can be perfect just for me… everything else is insignificant.

If it brings others joy, yay: joy for them and for myself.

If it doesn’t bring others joy, yay: joy for myself.

That’s why I wrote/made/created it, anyway, was for myself, right?

In some way, anything I create must be for myself… it is something I was ready to express, and in this particular form at this particular time… it is for myself that I do it, whether I realize or acknowledge it or not.

Yet, those bad reviews really stick with us… as I recently was called to consider from a quote by Orson Welles:

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that’s printed about him.

So, I wonder, how can we move past that?

How can we be untouched by the bad reviews?

And, even, the good reviews, too, for, if they suddenly were to cease, would we be saddened?

How can we be self-sustaining in our joy and satisfaction with our own art, and untouched by the opinions of others?

The second idea was about how films are always different from the book, even when the book is spectacular already.

Why must the book always be changed?

Why?!

Ugh.

Post-a-day 2020

Surprise

Do you ever have those times where you’re sharing about an extremely unique situation that no one has really been able to understand (due to its uniqueness), but every seems to have been asking you about, and so you’re already accustomed to having to cut corners in the explanation and skip along quickly, so as not to leave the listener bored or confused…, and then, as you begin to touch on what is usually the part where you have to do the most explaining and skipping along, you realize that you are, this time, talking to the one person you know who not only is likely to understand all of it, but who has been through it all himself?

It was a simple part of conversation – one that is usually rather superficial with most people who ask about it – that turned suddenly and easily to a heart-to-heart (though not touchy-feely), deep, and open piece conversation that provided immense insight for me…

How lovely are such surprises in life, especially when they catch us so utterly off-guard… 🙂

Post-a-day 2020

Lifelike emotions

I did many positive things today, and they were rather satisfying, both individually and as a whole…

And yet, here I sit, cross-legged on my made-up bed, feeling a shiver go out of my body, both from the chill of cool air blowing directly on me and from the feelings of angst deep in my belly.

Perhaps this sense of injustice, of feeling lost as to what to do to make a difference for this suffering individual (i.e. for myself), is not actually caused by the lack of knowledge as to how I will earn money in the near and far futures, nor in my upset and still not having things worked out enough to find my partner in life…, perhaps, the cause of this belly-deep feeling is really just that I wanted some ice cream (coconut milk, not dairy milk) earlier, but it was already after 8pm, and this whole intermittent fasting thing that the nutritionist really wanted me to do made it easier for me to have some tea, instead of eating anything… until tomorrow morning, that is…

But now, I can’t tell if I really just want ice cream, or if my other concerns are manifesting physically, as well as mentally tonight…

Oh, well…

I guess I will find out if my nutrients were too low for today by being awakened by hunger later in the night… hopefully, my dreams can satisfy everything for the emotions, and I can happily have ice cream tomorrow at some point…

😛

Actually, I was pondering dreams while showering tonight:

Dreams help our minds to handle all sorts of emotions and psychology via our subconscious… and, thinking on that, I thought, upon feeling such dread relating to my disappointment of an attempt to date someone recently, ‘Go ahead: dream about it… that will let your brain handle the desires and attached emotions, and enjoy them all, but then let you move along from them all…’

And then, on a whim, I added, ‘Plus, the dreaming usually ends up a better tale than the real thing, anyway, so go ahead and enjoy it.’ (The real thing being when real life actually turns out successful in an endeavour.)

At that, I had myself wondering, ‘Then why do we bother with the real thing, after all? There must be something to it, if the dreams are seemingly better, yet we prefer to live life itself…’

In the book Ready, Player One, this concept is somewhat addressed – that of preferring a dream world of an immersive, lifelike video game to the real world… (I highly enjoyed reading this one, by the way!*)

I choose the real world, for sure…, but can I say why?

As I mentioned, the dream world has an often significantly improved version of life…, so, why do I pick real life?

My query for the time being, to be ever-present in the semi-passive side rooms of my mind for the foreseeable future… perhaps I will end up inspired by it all. ;D

*Reading meaning listening to the audiobook… it has a tiny fun flair of the reader’s being someone who is actually mentioned within the book itself! (I’ll leave you to discover who that is.) 😉

Post-a-day 2020

I love my city

I really do love my city. I spent most of the day today out riding my bicycle around it, and taking photos of things I like, so that I could send them to my buddy in Italy, so that he could see some of the everyday and the beloved that are part of my life in Houston.

(What a sentence!)

What’s funny to me right now, though, is that, though I did that and I exercised and I made delicious food and healthy and delicious juices afterward, and I sent the photos on, and I chatted a long while with a good friend while winding down just now…, though I did all of these things, and I was incredibly satisfied by and fulfilled by my day…., I suddenly am filled – in my intense sleepiness, as I prep as quickly as is possible for bed – with an experience of loss regarding that guy… I almost want to cry, yet I couldn’t say why specifically… but it has to do with him, I know.

It is much like the song I wrote the other day about loving my city, yet not wanting to be in it right now…, because I wanted to be with him, instead… I was just going through all of these awesome photos, and it was on my mind how much I love my city…, and then, bam… some utterly unknown tangent busts in this old topic.

I know it was a tiny affair on paper, but it wasn’t tiny for me, for many reasons… and I understand that it isn’t just going to go away – it is going in small steps, with every day involving less and less brainpower and attention occupied by thoughts of him and that whole situation, and also less intense emotions connected to all of it… but, even still, it doesn’t feel good when, after a whole day of being in great spirits about it, my guards of logic and consciousness begin to close down for the night, and I am whooshed by a sudden sad reminder of something I really wanted – something I expressed wanting – didn’t work out, despite my going for it.

I’m just going to sit with that for now… perhaps it is what will do me best, not to resist it or disappear it right away… perhaps it still just needs to be felt at times…

So, I’ll feel it…

Post-a-day 2020

Thursday night

I finished having dinner, showering, and generally readying myself for bed tonight while the sun was still up… I dare say that it was around 18:45 that I was up in my room, ready to begin whatever I wanted to begin after all of that.

I tidied and rearranged certain things, continuing along what I had begun earlier this week.

I listened to my audiobook, enjoying it greatly.

I found myself somewhat hungry around 20:30, and so made some tea.

It helped beautifully with the hunger feeling, and improved my already high spirits.

The evening and night have been going lovelily, indeed – it has been just as I have longed to have my average evening go, tonight, and I have loved it.

Rather than proving unsatisfying, it has proven my dream and goal worthy of existing.

I love going and doing things in life, but I am quite the homebody I’m the average night… and I like it.

I didn’t even notice that no one was with me, I was so content.

Now, I am off to final preparations for bed, so that I might wake up early and do a distanced group workout at the park at 6:30 tomorrow.

And then, I think I shall have my Friday night be rather similar to tonight’s… I have so enjoyed organizing and tidying things so well.

Plus, as I declared a while back now, I have had this feeling that I would meet my someone once I cleaned up my room and living space, and had them true to how I want it all to be…, so that is an extra little edge of delight behind it all (though by no means the main impetus).

P.S. It is only now that I realize, with the coming of May tomorrow, that I missed ‘celebrating’ the ides of March… more like lamenting, but acknowledging, nonetheless… I have for many years valued the contributions of Julius Caesar, and even joked for a time that he was my kind of guy… he was, in many ways, amazing… he was also, in every way, still a man… ‘P.S. I love you, Julius Caesar’, I guess 😛 Haha

Post-a-day 2020

Pride and Prejudice and Candor

I am currently rereading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, as I tend to do about once every year or so.

[If you haven’t read it and you care to, be forewarned that plot ‘spoilers’ ensue.]

Tonight, listening to the audiobook – yes, I count it as reading, though I could argue against it in a way – while I rearranged and tidied my room, mostly folding laundry (one of my biggest struggles in daily life so far, laundry is), I was struck particularly in the section of Mr. Darcy’s proclamation of love and request of Elizabeth’s hand in marriage.

The whole reason things work out in the end is because, in going against all standards of propriety, Eliza speaks openly and honestly of her opinion of Mr. Darcy.

Sure, it is an opinion formed by false and inaccurate information, but these errors could never have been remedied had she not mentioned them so vehemently in their few minutes of true candor with one another – a few minutes which were quite irregular in society at the time.

And then, I thought, a few minutes which are quite irregular in society here, now…

How might things be so drastically different, if we were open and honest with one another as they were in that brief interview?

Would more problems be caused, or would more be solved?

Perhaps, at first, more problems would arise than we would feel we could handle…, but then, with practice, I think we would learn how to live differently, communicate differently, such that an unbelievably high number of problems would be resolved by the new way of interacting with one another with true yet kind candor.

It isn’t that everyone would be running around, insulting everyone else all the time… merely that, when asked, we would speak honestly of our opinions and our thoughts on matters.

Knowing that people would be honest, perhaps some questions would not be asked…, but, knowing that honesty would be given, perhaps more questions would be asked, the asker knowing that no offense need be taken from the answer – it would not be contrived, but merely honest.

It reminds me, too, of how, in the Bis(s) zum book series (a beloved German read of mine), the one group of individuals suddenly obtain the ability (?) to hear one another’s thoughts collectively, always – they cannot avoid sharing a thought, nor avoid hearing a thought of another in the group.

One’s pain is, in a way, experienced by all, and the same with joy and anger and any other experience, as they all hear one another’s thoughts, almost as though the thoughts are their own.

They all care for one another and support one another, and the exposure of the deepest and darkest and most embarrassing of thoughts of any one member, at some point or other, must be accepted by the others, if they are to remain together in life – so long as they live, they will know the thoughts of one another, all of the thoughts.

And they, despite learning these dark and embarrassing thoughts of one another, and of unwillingly exposing their own, eventually draw even closer to one another, their bonds made even deeper by the shared thoughts…

And I find that lovely.

How might the world be different, if we learned to share like this with our loved ones in life… and to love one another knowing these thoughts of one another…?

If we dropped our pride and our prejudice, and listened to the innermost thoughts and fears and wishes and concerns of those around us, and shared our own in return, would we suddenly be able to love more deeply than we had ever imagined possible, live more profoundly than ever we dreamed?

Anyway…, some food for thought, I guess you could say.

(Though I kind of just want some actual food right now…)

Post-a-day 2020

Sunday, fun day

Today had lots of emotions.

And they, for the most part, were experienced, addressed, and released.

I painted lots, and all of it while on the front porch swing, which was utterly lovely.

(Except for the few times the wind disappeared, and it was just miserably warm for about a minute or two until the wind picked up again out of nowhere…. those were not so utterly lovely…)

So, I learned all about which brushes to use for which brush strokes, which was awesome…

I played with flowers…

Super happy with the success of painting today(!), and very glad to have kept with this goal of mine to paint on Sundays. 😀

I then had to stop somewhat abruptly in the middle of number ten, because I felt that it was time to work on a song that suddenly was becoming very clear in my head as I painted.

So, I went inside, got to work, pulled together pieces I had wanted to use but had almost abandoned from a song yesterday and the day before – song got abandoned, but the good words got used today! – and completed the new song, recording it and all.

It helped a lot with some emotions that have been hammering the past few days, and I am grateful for that especially.

Then I rode my bicycle, stopped to listen to some lovely guitar playing and singing in the park, was invited to join the small trio, joined them, and enjoyed company for the first time in a long while… and not just because they are people, but because they are perilla I genuinely liked and enjoyed having around me…, so that was great.

And the music was, too. 🙂 ❤

I love music, and I especially love good music, and I especially especially love good music being played casually right in front of or next to me.

So, it was wonderful.

Then I found a hidden minuscule park one of the trio had mentioned was near my house, and I enjoyed the Live Oak that its heart and only means of existence.

I think I will go back in the daytime to admire and appreciate some more this week.

Now, I go to sleep, exhausted… exhausted… and it’s 2:05zzz…

I am nervous for the governor’s announcement tomorrow.. I want to continue working from home for a while longer… so, I have been nervous to go to sleep tonight…

Alas, I want to sleep now, so I shall sleep.

Goodnight, World… May we have loveliness tomorrow. ❤

Post-a-day 2020