Always afraid to make that first "connection"; always missing that tremulous "hand offered" at a big party or social event; believing that "blind dates" should be restricted to those without sight--truly; I know that my checkered romantic past should be a huge cautionary tale--especially to myself.
Did I take my own karmic advice? Of course not! "The heart wants what the heart wants".
However, now I am truly convinced that Facebook DOES aid in our chronic planetary depression...when scrolling through tons of fabulous familial portraits (however real or photo-shopped) or hearing of an old friend's newest success (however real or imagined), one cannot help, if one is predisposed to such things, to feel badly about one's present travails.
Even as the world continues to bleed, one's personal life does take a looming stand. The reason I don't read those holiday tomes (single spaced, two plus pages) is for the same reason: my life just doesn't compute when I measure it against...well...anyone's! I mean, clearly, I am the blackened sheep among my siblings. (However they protest and try to "include" me.) Clearly I am the ugly duckling looking over two generations, at least. (Do you know how disheartening this is? I mean, we have the film-at-eleven footage to prove this! My sister Ann even gave me an ugly-duckling jewelry box last Christmas! As if I needed a reminder...) While I am happy for my sibs and joyous about my beautiful nieces, my own body-electric cannot help but wince.
Beyond the physical, there is the mental and emotional feeling of being "alien"...I mean, really alien...like off the planet or another dimension. I don't care for the same things as most adults in this century care for...and yet, when confronted by this fact, I realize how having a trustworthy car; a safe abode; life insurance/health insurance/ a vision and dental plan; homeowners/renters insurance; a will; a safe to put the will into; expensive jewelry of any kind; a boat bigger than a coffin; recent electronics; an IRA; or wealthy old relatives who adore me (on any side) are all comforting "tools" and add immeasurably to one's attractiveness. Yet, try as I have, for almost six decades, I just can't seem to accumulate these things--not for any length of time. It isn't that I hold them in disdain. I just don't seem to have whatever is necessary in this life to gather them in one place for longer than a few years. Then, something huge and horrendous takes place around me and BOOM!!!! I find myself having to begin, yet again; reconstructing a new life, almost from scratch.
Now, since I don't have children of my own and my nieces are well covered on all sides, the only person I need to worry about is myself. Most of the time, I don't worry. I understand, through sobriety and two different psychotherapy stints (as well as many hundreds of therapist and psychologist and successful in a worldly way friends all willing to give advice), that I am not crazy. I don't have a death wish. I am employable and enjoyable and valuable as a friend. But, even the most hard-hearted and headed among them has been made to admit: Minns, you have terrible karma!
When I write my adventures of the heart out, nobody believes them. When I live them out, again, nobody wants to stay...I have tried the mixers, the dances, the hook-ups and set-ups and phone calls and texting and snail-mail ads and dating services. I have had a few long term relationships where I felt deep connections were made and something true was growing...but then...but then...but then...from natural disasters to unnatural ones; from religious conversions (and re-conversions and de-conversions); from divorces to marriages to re-marriages to re-commitments to run-away answers; deaths, departures, despair of an emotional or psychological or societal kind; war; visa problems; accidents; break-ups and break-downs; drugs; sobriety; booze; sobriety; twelve steps; no steps; side steps; loss of family; of property; of jobs; of clout; of savings; of pets; loss of weight; of hair; of hope; of political standing--these (and more) have conspired to change my life (romantic and otherwise) for five decades, without let up. I understand the roller coaster of Life, however, even roller coasters have some slow times.
Now, with Facebook and LinkedIn and other "new roads to connection" that are not necessarily "love connections", I find a whole new slew of folks who are "interested" in "getting together" and possibly "re-connecting"--but, with my karma, what does this mean?
They have seen my true photos and paintings and descriptions and blogs of what is happening to me, right now, even as we type. This has not dissuaded them. However, I remain like a cat on a thin wire: shaky, nervous, wondering which life I am about to cash in. (Can I handle yet another complication?)
So, I take myself out of the circle, again. Remove myself from the usual "lists". I press the assorted "unsubscribe" buttons and retract my "dues". I'm trying to clean up the karma and re-focus. Be the writer and painter I most am. Continue to seek out the elusive teaching job that I know I am best suited for (but seems that no one else is convinced--much like my social prospects).
I eat right; I swim and paddle; I hike around the woods, meditate and pray; keep up with world issues; speak out against horror and mean-ness and small mindedness when I find it; work on my mind (expanding my outlooks) and my Soul (never endingly). Try to understand why I'm here, now, in this place, running up against brick walls on all sides, and on all fronts--including the social--knowing I'm somewhere I've never fit--yet wondering: Have I ever fit? (Anywhere?) Did I sign a contract that I cannot remember and little-comprehended, before entering the third dimension of planet Earth? Is this just a cruel joke? A bad movie? A cosmic play? (Am I sleep-walking through someone else's dream?)
I thought I'd grown past being a teen...had survived my twenties and thirties...was building a "grown up real professional life" in my forties and fifties...only to have it deconstructed, pulled apart, and dissolved...fading me back to where I've never thrived...Karma. Perhaps. Or a Bigger Plan that I am simply too dense to be aware of...
No pity. I'll "man-up" (woman-up) and take my lumps. Face my punishment. Learn my lessons. Trust my Spirit. (But I wish I knew what I'm doing wrong.) Or, if, by doing what has elicited so little in the material world, I am actually doing "What Is Right"...
The search continues, even in America.
Did I take my own karmic advice? Of course not! "The heart wants what the heart wants".
However, now I am truly convinced that Facebook DOES aid in our chronic planetary depression...when scrolling through tons of fabulous familial portraits (however real or photo-shopped) or hearing of an old friend's newest success (however real or imagined), one cannot help, if one is predisposed to such things, to feel badly about one's present travails.
Even as the world continues to bleed, one's personal life does take a looming stand. The reason I don't read those holiday tomes (single spaced, two plus pages) is for the same reason: my life just doesn't compute when I measure it against...well...anyone's! I mean, clearly, I am the blackened sheep among my siblings. (However they protest and try to "include" me.) Clearly I am the ugly duckling looking over two generations, at least. (Do you know how disheartening this is? I mean, we have the film-at-eleven footage to prove this! My sister Ann even gave me an ugly-duckling jewelry box last Christmas! As if I needed a reminder...) While I am happy for my sibs and joyous about my beautiful nieces, my own body-electric cannot help but wince.
Beyond the physical, there is the mental and emotional feeling of being "alien"...I mean, really alien...like off the planet or another dimension. I don't care for the same things as most adults in this century care for...and yet, when confronted by this fact, I realize how having a trustworthy car; a safe abode; life insurance/health insurance/ a vision and dental plan; homeowners/renters insurance; a will; a safe to put the will into; expensive jewelry of any kind; a boat bigger than a coffin; recent electronics; an IRA; or wealthy old relatives who adore me (on any side) are all comforting "tools" and add immeasurably to one's attractiveness. Yet, try as I have, for almost six decades, I just can't seem to accumulate these things--not for any length of time. It isn't that I hold them in disdain. I just don't seem to have whatever is necessary in this life to gather them in one place for longer than a few years. Then, something huge and horrendous takes place around me and BOOM!!!! I find myself having to begin, yet again; reconstructing a new life, almost from scratch.
Now, since I don't have children of my own and my nieces are well covered on all sides, the only person I need to worry about is myself. Most of the time, I don't worry. I understand, through sobriety and two different psychotherapy stints (as well as many hundreds of therapist and psychologist and successful in a worldly way friends all willing to give advice), that I am not crazy. I don't have a death wish. I am employable and enjoyable and valuable as a friend. But, even the most hard-hearted and headed among them has been made to admit: Minns, you have terrible karma!
When I write my adventures of the heart out, nobody believes them. When I live them out, again, nobody wants to stay...I have tried the mixers, the dances, the hook-ups and set-ups and phone calls and texting and snail-mail ads and dating services. I have had a few long term relationships where I felt deep connections were made and something true was growing...but then...but then...but then...from natural disasters to unnatural ones; from religious conversions (and re-conversions and de-conversions); from divorces to marriages to re-marriages to re-commitments to run-away answers; deaths, departures, despair of an emotional or psychological or societal kind; war; visa problems; accidents; break-ups and break-downs; drugs; sobriety; booze; sobriety; twelve steps; no steps; side steps; loss of family; of property; of jobs; of clout; of savings; of pets; loss of weight; of hair; of hope; of political standing--these (and more) have conspired to change my life (romantic and otherwise) for five decades, without let up. I understand the roller coaster of Life, however, even roller coasters have some slow times.
Now, with Facebook and LinkedIn and other "new roads to connection" that are not necessarily "love connections", I find a whole new slew of folks who are "interested" in "getting together" and possibly "re-connecting"--but, with my karma, what does this mean?
They have seen my true photos and paintings and descriptions and blogs of what is happening to me, right now, even as we type. This has not dissuaded them. However, I remain like a cat on a thin wire: shaky, nervous, wondering which life I am about to cash in. (Can I handle yet another complication?)
So, I take myself out of the circle, again. Remove myself from the usual "lists". I press the assorted "unsubscribe" buttons and retract my "dues". I'm trying to clean up the karma and re-focus. Be the writer and painter I most am. Continue to seek out the elusive teaching job that I know I am best suited for (but seems that no one else is convinced--much like my social prospects).
I eat right; I swim and paddle; I hike around the woods, meditate and pray; keep up with world issues; speak out against horror and mean-ness and small mindedness when I find it; work on my mind (expanding my outlooks) and my Soul (never endingly). Try to understand why I'm here, now, in this place, running up against brick walls on all sides, and on all fronts--including the social--knowing I'm somewhere I've never fit--yet wondering: Have I ever fit? (Anywhere?) Did I sign a contract that I cannot remember and little-comprehended, before entering the third dimension of planet Earth? Is this just a cruel joke? A bad movie? A cosmic play? (Am I sleep-walking through someone else's dream?)
I thought I'd grown past being a teen...had survived my twenties and thirties...was building a "grown up real professional life" in my forties and fifties...only to have it deconstructed, pulled apart, and dissolved...fading me back to where I've never thrived...Karma. Perhaps. Or a Bigger Plan that I am simply too dense to be aware of...
No pity. I'll "man-up" (woman-up) and take my lumps. Face my punishment. Learn my lessons. Trust my Spirit. (But I wish I knew what I'm doing wrong.) Or, if, by doing what has elicited so little in the material world, I am actually doing "What Is Right"...
The search continues, even in America.
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