This Mama’s Dharma

Father’s Day.

Why is it that when I think of my dad, all I can think of is his death? I remember entering his apartment, like a scene of a murder, but there was no murder - unless you count years of forced psychiatric drugging murder, which it is. I remember the smell of death all around and a puddle of blood dried to almost black on his bedroom floor, in the spot where he died.

My aunt gave me his leftover unused pack of paper towels, and when I investigated them upon returning home, the smell of death had penetrated even those, deep into the fibers of those towels, and I screamed hysterically for my then-husband to throw them out.

I don’t want to think of these things when I think of my father. Though he did not raise me, and I didn’t really get to know him until adulthood, I want to think of his kind and gentle nature, his love of computers before anyone was even into computers, I want to think of how he used to call me “his darling left-wing daughter.” And all the fun little emails he would send me every day, just to let me know he was thinking of me. I want to think of him holding Sami as a baby, the proudest grandpa alive. Sami was seven months old when my dad died. He will never remember him.

Ah…if I went to therapy, I might talk about how perhaps my issues with men stem from not having my father around when I was growing up. His absence - perhaps the reason I fall for unavailable men - the more unavailable, the harder I fall. But I don’t go to therapy.

Today I tended to my garden. I bought a new rosemary plant, and a lavender plant, and scooped them into terracotta pots with fresh, damp earth. I remember someone telling me once that lavender is good for dealing with childhood wounds. Now I will have it growing wild and strong in my garden.

Obsessive thoughts will not stop swirling through my head - this pain of lost lovers, a lost father, my ex-husband having a baby with his new wife. Sami was not himself all day - quiet, lethargic, and listless, and I got lost in worry about that. “Can you give me a smile?” I asked him, as we climbed the stairs, and he turned around and gave me the slightest little smile - that was all he could muster.

By the afternoon, he seemed much better, even playing his favorite, quite energetic “hide under the covers” game. Seeing that he seemed back to his usual self, I tried to be brave and suck it up and go to that Father’s Day picnic to meet my single dad friend. I shaved my legs and tried to make my crazed, unkempt self look somewhat presentable.

But by the time we got there, Sami’s fever had spiked yet again, so I turned immediately around and took him to the urgent care. Two hours later, we had a diagnosis of strep, which I already feared by the foulness of his little breath.

I will have to keep him home from school tomorrow, I fear. Miss a day of work during a very important proposal-writing week, with deadlines looming large and intense. I think, if I had a partner, this would not be an issue. Perhaps my partner would help care for Sami while I got some work done. But in this situation, I am on my own. Don’t get me wrong, there is no resentment at caring for my sick baby boy. It is more the helplessness that I am only one person - my resources are limited. And I cannot, as much as I’d like to, be a superhero. If I care for my child, work suffers. If I work, my child does not get my attention. There is no one else to buffer between the worlds I must navigate.

I feel crazy, crazed, lost in memories of bloodstains on the carpet -my dear dad, dead. Too much pain to bear, so I move in other directions.

I am lost in memories of lovers lost, lost in obsessive thoughts of how happy they must be with their new partners. Sami’s father spent Father’s Day on vacation with his pregnant wife. I feel very dispensable, not very precious, more than a little flawed and defective. Why am I alone?

I hate this. I know that there is no good to come from resisting this. Yet I do, stubbornly, foolishly.

I want someone to slap me across the face like Cher in Moonstruck and say, “snap out of it!”

Tonight I sit with the crazies. I will put fresh sheets on my bed and cry into them, cry from all these men who have hurt me so much with their dying and leaving. And tomorrow I hope, I will awaken to face another day, staying strong, always, for the little man who means more to me than anything in this world, and always will.

A good friend remarked to me today that she thought my challenge was not single parenting, but relationships.

I do believe she’s right.

Not that single parenting is not without its challenges. I’ve wrestled with how much to write about my child, when he is too young to event understand the concept of consent?

For this reason I have held back in writing about him, focusing instead on myself, and this twisted tangle of relationships I have been in since splitting up from my ex almost 18 months ago. So much has happened in the space of time. My ex has married another and they are expecting a baby girl in August. They’ve selected a name, my ex tells me.

“Don’t you think it might be a good idea for me to meet your wife?” I blurt out. My ex stands at my doorstep, Sami is napping in his room, and it feels like an opportunity to actually have a conversation, which we never, ever do.”

“Why?” he asks. “For what purpose?”

And I do not have a good answer. “Because we are in each other’s lives, somehow - she is Sami’s step-mother. Soon to be the mother of Sami’s half-sister.” is what I thinking, but I stammer some incoherent responses that don’t seem to convince him.

This is the first time I have ever referred to her as Sami’s step-mother. In my mind, and all conversations, she was “the girlfriend” and now “the wife.” I don’t know if it is strange that I have never met her; from what I hear from other single moms, they do tend to meet the new spouse sooner or later. I try not to think too much about what Sami’s relationship is with her. He never talks about her, unless prompted. They clearly have not spoken to him about the baby. I wonder when they are planning to have this conversation? Do we need to have a conversation about having the conversation? I do not know.

“Is (I’ll call her Muna) Muna’s tummy big?” I ask Sami once.

“Yes,” he responds.

“Why is it big? Do you know?”

“Just because it is,” he says, nonchalantly.

—–

“Since I’ve been single, I have learned that no one is going to take care of me but myself,” says a friend on the phone to me today.

It seems everyone is moving on with their lives - my ex, past lovers, and I cannot seem to find someone to love me. How unspiritual to say, but fuck loving yourself. I love myself as well as I can. I don’t want to love myself solo.

It seems life is pushing me to my “edge” as they say in yoga. I am being stretched way beyond my comfort zone here. I don’t like hanging out in this place, but yet, I know it is good for me. If I took the chance, I could really face some demons, produce some significant work, without the time and energy that goes into sustaining a romantic relationship. This I tell myself in an attempt to self-soothe. I’ve never been a very good self-soother.

———

I don’t know what is going on for Father’s Day tomorrow. There is a Father’s Day picnic being run by a single parents’ group I belong to - a single dad friend will be there and perhaps it might be good to go. But I also feel like it might be triggering - Sami will be without a dad, and all those dads might be too much to take in my fragile state. Or, it could be kind of healing to hang out and celebrate with some cool dads. This Father’s Day is hitting me particularly hard. All this man trouble. If I am not mistaken I was in a similar funk last year. Dead dads, a series of men who leave, generally for other women. I guess I have some abandonment issues. 

I sit alone on a Saturday night, with a sick child asleep in my bed across the room, and I love him more than I can comprehend.

But my heart is deeply wounded. My heart has been broken so many times this year. This fragile heart of mine gets back up from every fall and steps back in the ring, slogging through this world in search of love. There is something that feels ever-so-slightly defective about being single in a world full of couples. The ghosts of past relationships haunt me. I thought I had gotten so much distance from the wounds with my ex. Then the revelation that Sami is having a sister opens it all back up. Everything festers at the moment, and I try to breathe and be present, and I can’t follow one breath, so loudly do my head and heart blare this pain.

Yet I know I will bounce back from all this. I’m a bouncer - look at me, standing in front of the club in my black leather jacket and shitkickers. I click from wounded to just this tough in a fraction of second. It’s how I protect myself from feeling too much at once. But it seems there is always more underlying pain to work through. Always. Life is not scarce in opportunities to learn from the suffering.

The joys are there too, but right now, it is very hard to focus on the positive.

I’ve retreated from the world a bit today as my child vomited throughout the afternoon. It feels good to be as unplugged as I allow myself to be, to finish reading The Soloist, thought to write a book or film review. I’m ready to move on to something to new - productive work is a healing balm to me as well. I cannot wallow in this. I feel, and then I move on, and when I am ready, I feel a little more.

I am a notorious killer of plants.

My body amazed and awed me by growing a baby inside itself and then birthing him out, yet I have never quite managed to keep a plant alive. Even cactuses would wither and die under my fierce neglect. I took my very non-green thumb as a mark of shame, and eventually gave up trying.

Until Mother’s Day this year, when my dear friends and beloved houseguests J and C gave me a gorgeous hibiscus. Upon the hibiscus plant they artfully hung pictures of Sami and me, and left me a note that read, “You’re an amazing mother. If this plant dies, it’s OK because you were busy focusing on your child.”

The card touched my heart, and I couldn’t bear the thought of killing this hibiscus - which boasts a single red blossom so fiery, so saucy, pure attitude with its boldness and flair.  Then, not long after, I accompanied Sami and his pre-school class to the National Botanical Garden, and I saw how fascinated by plants and flowers he was. He took delight in every blossom and asked me over and over, “Mama, what’s this one called?” I dutifully read him the Latin botanical names off of tiny signs.

After the trip the Botanical Garden, I decided to take a plunge into completely unknown territory and to create a container garden on my deck. This necessitated a few trips to Home Depot and other plant/garden stores (some trips resisted and some acquiesced to by my child) and we procured several large terracotta pots, a very funky half-barrel, some potting soil for the flowers and some organic potting soil for a soon to be herb-garden. We chose locally-grown petunias of a hot pink hue, pink and red zinnias, a hanging basket of many different kinds of flowers, don’t ask me what, and some orange and yellow flowers with fat, rubbery leaves. A Sunday morning trip to the farmer’s market yielded some large-leafed, fragrant mint, a tiny but tenacious rosemary plant, purple and green basil, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, and peppers.

When the new hibiscus flower emerges (it just dropped off), I will post pictures.

To my surprise, I haven’t killed anything yet. So far all off my plants have survived the transplanting. Rain has been plentiful this early summer in my city, too.

I marvel at the feel of my gloved hands working in the soil, the loamy richness of the smell when it has just been watered, the weight of the giant, sloshing watering can in my hands. Sami loves to help, too, so it’s fun for us both.

In addition to the saucy hibiscus blossom, I adore the strength and delicacy of my twin hot-pink petunia plants, reaching out their leaves and flowers with confidence and trust. My entire back deck feels like a different place. It’s not just a deck now, it’s kind of a sanctuary. I completely missed why people garden.

Gardening types have always been an alien species to me. In fact, I was kind of annoyed with them, and their crazed love for their gardens and their pruning shears and those foam mats they use to protect their knees. Now I am kinda one of them, almost.

I find that the cycles of the hibiscus bud mirror the human experience - it opens fully to great the sun in full glory and folds sleepily in on itself in the night, for the duration of its life. And then another one opens to take its place. It’s a  beautiful thing to witness. 

Tending to this fledgling garden reminds me to tend to the parts of myself that need water, sunlight, and care. I turn inward and remind myself to open to the sun and grow towards it. To honor the cycles of darkness and light. To open to the fullest expression of my life.

The other day I listened to an NPR segment about “hooking up” - according to the report, the trend with many young people (they were talking about people in their 20s, but hey! I’m in my early 30s) is no dating, no relationships. Just a text, leading to sex. Rinse, wash, repeat. 

For these folks, emotional intimacy comes from satisfying relationships with friends, and physical intimacy comes from, well, the hook up.

I swore to myself I was done with hook ups. And it’s not like I had an army of men beating down the door to hook up with me or anything, so the temptation factor was not super-high. Yet the other night I fell into a situation where a hook-up emerged with a perfectly decent guy - intelligent, cute, funny, not a stranger but a friend of friends. An ideal situation, right?

It was, nice. I guess.

Nice?

If I’m honest with myself, it was less than nice.

Mainly because throughout the–ahem–act, I was haunted by a man I thought I once loved, still kinda do love, and still pine for. I couldn’t lose myself in the embrace of another, because I kept being pulled back to the memories of the few sweet experiences I shared with this unattainable someone.

It had been three months since I had been with anyone. I keep blogging about how I need physical intimacy, I’m a sexual person, blah blah blah, and I thought I was ready for this experience. 

Clearly I was not.

I kicked the perfectly decent guy out at daybreak, and that was even a lot for me, as I did not wish for him to stay the night at all.

Afterwards, I did not call, did not text, did not email - and surprise! He is interested and wants to see me again this Friday.

I always tell myself that if I am cool enough, nonchalant enough, a man will be crazy about me. If only I had enough self control to pull off the act. Conversely, if I come on too strong, fall too hard, as I tend to do and am guilty of with the one I still long for - well, survey says - buh-bye. This has been my experience, over and over. Like a bad science experiment that I am compelled to repeat, always hoping for a different result. 

Yet it is ridiculous to believe that there are hard and fast rules like this. I scoff at the books. Yet deep down, I want a formula.

Newsflash: there is no formula.

Now, I am in a holding pattern of wanting someone I can never have…unable to let go, even for what was supposed to have been one fun night between the sheets.

I feel sad as I write this, caught as I am in this craving. The Buddha has said that this clinging is the cause of all suffering. This is the Second Noble Truth, and boy, am I living it. 

Yet I know that liberation is possible. It’s not just a theory. I’ve experienced it, at other moments in my life. And in really taking a pause to recognize this particular brand of suffering, to investigate it, on the page and on the cushion, to see how it all works - I am a bit closer to the possibility of some freedom and space from the suffering.

The reality is that I probably will continue to hold on for quite a while. Apparently I am not ready to drop it, though all it takes is a second to do so. But as much as I can, I seek to let go. There is nothing to be achieved by this maintaining this clenched heart.

Discipline is not my strong suit these days.

My sitting practice - more or less out the window.

Mindful eating/consumption? Not so much. My ass is slowly but surely expanding, a universe of its own, and I’ve moved to elastic waistbands for the time being.

Exercise? If you count carrying a kicking, screaming 42-pound preschooler out of Target, I guess I’m doing ok.

Writing? About as consistent as DC weather.

Yadda yadda yadda. I’m practicing being compassionate to myself through all this. But that doesn’t mean that I can keep slapping myself on the back for making the same old choices - (or non-choices) that aren’t serving me or anyone else. At some point, no matter how you love that friend who keeps doing the same thing and whining about it, you have to buy her a latte, shake her, and say, “Wake up, GODDAMNIT!”

I’m working on it.

Things came to a bit of an emotional head for me about 10 days ago, after the Missouri trip o’ tears (I was PMSing at the time, but still, even without hormones, it would have sucked).

It was on that trip that I realized that I had reached the limit, finito, in my current job. I really love the people I work with, but the travel. The rush to get to the office 5 days a week - the harried evenings when I had to cab it to Sami’s school at $10 a pop because the bus did not show in time. The last almost 8 months of this has been grueling. But you do what you have to do, when you have no choice - or when you perceive that you have no choice.

And then the choice appeared. In the form of a phone call, from someone I know and love, offering me a job at an organization that changed my life many years ago. And…get this.

100% telecommuting.

No ridiculous travel schedule. 

Excellent pay, with benefits.

Interesting, engaging work for social change.

I was told that if I wished, I could pick up my child early from school and finish my work at night, after he went to sleep.

I submitted my resignation from job #1 as soon as I got a signed contract from job #2. 

My first official day on the new job is June 5.

The second best part of the new telecommuting job, after the flexibility and the time to be with Sami? The chance to take care of myself again. Since starting the job, I gave up exercising - when was I going to do it? On my non-existent lunch hour? Jump off the bus and walk to work? Didn’t work so well for me in winter. It would have been fine, until the summer heat kicked in, and I walked into my office drenched in sweat.

Maybe those were all excuses, but I could not find the time to fit it consistently into my life, no matter how much I thought of different scenarios.

Now, I actually can take some time for me after I drop Sami off at school, instead of rushing like a crazy woman to get downtown. I plan to start swimming at the local pool. 

Life is all about movement - if I get bored or feel stuck, can I remember this?

Can I remember that sometimes great opportunities come out of the blue?

Can I remember that not everything has to be a monumental struggle?

Can I remember that big changes are often the result of small, daily actions? 

Can I remember to remember?

I know I’ve been pretty weepy/whiny/negative on here lately…and am not meaning to be…but shit is hard right now. And this feels like a safe place to write about the hard shit.

I am needing to travel a lot for work lately, and I’ve been leaning heavily on Sami’s dad…he’s been really good about stepping up but I am afraid to put too many requests on him. Wanting not to push it, for this next trip I lined up child care between a friend and my aunt for a 2.5 day trip to Jefferson City, MO. I got in yesterday afternoon and am supposed to leave tomorrow afternoon to go home, but they are calling for major thunderstorms and possibly tornadoes tomorrow afternoon, just when I am supposed to be getting on a plane. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, and I know as well as anyone that storms do pass, but I am really scared. There are not a lot of flights out of here and I’m worried about missing it and leaving him for yet a third night.

My friend reported that last night he did not do well - she said he was up half the night crying and screaming for me. She said he kept waking in the night and reaching for her, then realizing that she wasn’t me. It’s heartbreaking.

It is the first time I leave him for the night with anyone but me or his dad. He does know my friend well, and she is a mama herself, so I was hoping it would be OK. And I know on some level it is OK. There is some kind of primal scream going on inside me though, knowing the separation is hard on my little guy.

I am just feeling like I’ve made so many mistakes - not reaching out to his dad, and taking a job that involves travel, for starters. I just was so hoping it would be ok. When I talked to Sami about what was going to happen, he seemed fine with it. But maybe he is too young to really understand what I said to him.

My heart is just hurting so bad right now. I’m alone in this hotel room crying and just feeling like such an awful parent. In a panic, I did reach out to his dad to ask him to help in the event that I don’t make it home tomorrow, and he said he would be willing to do it but that he was going to “email me with his concerns about the whole situation.” I went into this whole thing not wanting to involve him. Now I have, and I feel ten times worse. Dreading that email from him.

I know my child will not be scarred for life by this, and I know that in some ways this experience is teaching him about his own strength and capacity to endure difficulty, but I can’t bear the thought that I have caused him this distress.

Perhaps I need to consider talking to my boss, or finding a new job where travel is not involved. But in this economy it is scary to contemplate such a thing. I know I need to shift my attitude. Right now I am mired in fear and self-loathing. I need to find some way to accept that this is the situation - the messy, messy situation. Yet, as a friend pointed out, right now my child is warm, fed, and being cared for by a kind, loving person. It could be so much worse. But it’s not all that much consolation.

Please send wishes for a storm-free day tomorrow so I can get home to my little bug. I miss him so, so much.

Despite my best intentions, I missed posting here on Mother’s Day - I was too busy scrambling around trying to get ready for a three-day work trip. 

But it was a beautiful and action-packed day - my house guest, J, made us a wonderful breakfast - omelette, homemade hash browns, and a Bloody Mary. I took Sami to his first swim class, and it is always such fun to help him propel his little body through the water as he learns the art of staying afloat. He is fond of jumping off the side, over and over, into my arms. Then we went out for lunch together, just mommy and Sami.

I napped while he did, as I really needed the rest. Then we headed off for a spectacular afternoon at the Malcolm X park drum circle. Sami ran around with newfound friends as the drummers pounded out stellar rhythms, and incense rose in the wind.

I look back on the day with fondness. I am so grateful to be a mother, and to have been mothered by a spectacular woman. This life is so full of wonder, which I get to experience through the eyes of my child. Every day, he stretches my heart open just a little wider, reminds me of just how much love it is possible to feel.

When I told him it was Mother’s Day, he said to me, “thank you.”

How kind and sweet, for a 3.5 year old to say.

No, thank you, Sami, for the honor of being your mother.

While I still miss my own mother terribly every Mother’s Day, since becoming a mother myself, the day is filled with far more joy than sorrow.

I’m tired so tired not a fan of this feeling that life is passing me by and my child grew an inch I swear while I was gone for four days in CA and sometimes I feel like when I am with him I am not really with him because my mind is always wandering and he is always moving, doing boy stuff like crashing cars and going on about spiderman and power rangers and things that actually make me very uncomfortable because i am hung up on aggression. i try not to resist too much because what we resist persists but i never liked that saying because i feel like it is saying not to resist and there are some things that i must resist. anyway tangent - my son is so cute, so cute, that sweet little face, limber little bod and i am angry at his father for corrupting his mind with that violent crap it is like junk food for the mind and spirit and he’s feeling it to my son who is now kinda addicted to it.

the house is a mess and my own mind is a mess and I’m always cleaning and yet the kitchen counter is crawling with ants which freaks out my son and freaks me out and I can’t get rid of the ants.

My heart continues to break - stupid heart! stop fucking breaking and mend. just get over yourself, heart. there is a he that left me alone and this insult won’t leave me alone. i went out on a date on friday night with another he but was too tired to allow myself to be kissed, too broken even to seize a more than likely guaranteed opportunity for sex. i have utterly surrendered to this fear and expectation of men hurting me. i’m braced for it, wincing, need to get my power back. my power - it’s leaking out of some chakra onto the ground, and it’s leaving an ugly stain on the concrete.

i’m too tired to punctuate and edit or even to attempt to use proper grammar. this may make for a less than stellar or interesting piece to read but i need to write and am shooting for imperfection here.

i am on the verge of tears and have been for days - it’s not even my time of the month so no excuses for this emotionality other than my innate sensitive soppiness. i don’t mean to paint it all as melodramatic because there has been laughter. i had a great time on my date the other night even though i am already pretty sure it was the last.

there has been swimming on a rainy day with a small squirmy wormy flipping and flopping in my arms, attempting to propel his body through the water independently. 

there have been two guy friends crashing in the house for a few days, filling it with queer and wonderful energy. there was the omelette cooked for me by J one of my sweet house guests, who I wish would never leave.

there is the excitement of my spoken word album unfolding in the next few months, mixed with a fair amount of scared-shitness that it’s actually happening.

there is good and there is bad and there is ugly and there is unbearable. 

but damn it, all things change, this i know viscerally. this exhaustion will go, this fear of men hurting me, this sense of occasional disconnectedness from my uber masculine son. i cherish his moments of sweetness before sleep. i hold him and rub his back in circles and kiss him on his sweet little cheek, just the right roundedness, just the right density and consistency and i love him more than i can comprehend.

i’m a blubbering mess but wouldn’t have it any other way, right now. i’m not even going to reread this post, just going to publish as is, mess and all.

I do not subscribe to the victim mentality.  I believe that we each bear complete and total responsibility for our own lives, and that we can create and change our reality with focused intention and effort.

That being said, I am basically traumatized by the last year of dating. I can’t think of any other way to frame it.

I’m a sensitive soul.  I was married for 10 years, and totally forgot how to date.  

I fell in love - or infatuation, or something - to various degrees, with three men this past year.  All of whom rejected me. There might be more.  I may have blocked them out.

The thing that kills me is that I fell for the chase each time. They started out so damn gung-ho. Texts, Skype conversations, emails, calls. Intense pursuit of me. I was promised marriage, visits to their family, lifelong love and connection. One of them even suggested that he would adopt my son.

Maybe my heart is too open, maybe I make myself too available, maybe I scream “wounded little girl,” maybe I don’t “play the game” or follow “the rules.” Basically I seem to have an effective man-repellent function. I don’t think I’m scary. I like to think I’m intelligent and fun and good looking and attentive in bed - not sure if that’s the proper order.  I don’t stalk or call too much or text in the middle of the night or do anything creepy. (I have made the relationship-killing error of dropping the L-bomb a bit prematurely. I own that. I’m working on it.) 

And then - the poof.  I’ve discussed the poof at great length.

Sometimes the poof was instant - a disappearance, or a sudden change in behavior.  Sometimes the poof was a slow deflation. Ppppppooooooofffffff.  If a slow poof is possible.  But poofage has occurred, pretty much consistently, for the last 8 months (at least).  Usually, in each case, I picked myself up, tried to regain the shattered pieces of my dignity, wiped the puke off the prom dress and shoes, and moved on to the next one.  The next one generally erased the pain of the one who came before.

But –the last one basically slaughtered me.  My heart is still bleeding on the dirty, trash- strewn asphalt of a back alley somewhere.

While I recognize that I have had a role to play in all of this, and I am far from a defenseless victim, I’ve come to realize that I am somewhat traumatized by men now.

Here is some partial proof.  A Facebook friend, a very attractive man whom I share mutual friends with but I’ve never met in real life, a man whom I’ve been having some cool conversations with, sent me a one line email the other morning, entitled “GM”

Good morning, beautiful.

I cringed in horror upon reading it.  

I had a series of flashbacks. I flashed back to all the warm and fuzzy texts of lovers past, the “I adore yous” the “Good morning, gorgeouses,” the “Sweet dreams, sexys.”  The nonstop succession of words, declaring me brilliant and beautiful and marvelous in every way. The hours-long discussions where souls were bared, laughter was constant, and deep philosophical truths were explored.  Mind-blowing sex where I never felt closer to anyone, never more fulfilled.  

Then I flashed back to the pop, the steady trickle-off of emails and texts, the cessation of phone calls, the gradual icing of the tone, to the disappearance.  The complete and total withdrawal of affection.  The poof.

It ended in tears. I closed the Facebook page.

I am reading a tiny and wonderful book by a deceased Indian priest named Anthony di Mello called The Way to Love, in which the author exhorts us, in quite stark and non-fuzzy, non-coddling terms, to break our addiction to others’ love and approval. According to di Mello, this is not authentic love, but attachment, which creates a high when you are favored by said object, and a crash when the object withdraws his approval of you.  Di Mello challenges us to smash these kinds of attachments to people and things and to learn to see all things and people as they are, and as equally worthy of love.  That, to him, is true love.  Love that does not discriminate or play favorites.

Tall fucking order.  I’m taking it in.  I’ll consider what you have to say, Anthony di Mello, you dead priest, you.

Right now I’m almost too afraid to let anyone in.  I’ve never known this feeling before. The feeling that being alone is preferable to being possibly, potentially, more than likely hurt by another.

That is not me. I take risks for love. I’ve done crazy things like fly cross country for love. 

I don’t regret the experiences I had with each of these men, even though the end result was/is a whole mess o’ pain.  I don’t regret any experience or relationship I’ve had.

In writing this, I realize that I refuse to be one of those people who gives up on the possibility of love.

I’m prescribing for myself a bit of time, some rest, and some triage on my heart (once I figure out what alleyway I left it in).