I have decided to love my life no matter what. I have decided to accept myself. I embrace life. I give thanks for every moment. I am grateful. I will look at life with the knowing that I am moving forward as I should. That all perceived obstacles are there for my best experience. The sooner I know this, the better I am not here to hold on to bitterness and pain, even when I feel it as the only emotion. I am here to make much more use of my mind. I am here to go beyond the taught boundaries, societal boundaries. The only limit are the lists I put on myself. I have experienced so much that I am now here. I am now knowing that I have lead myself here.

Yesterday I practiced something I only use from time to time, and that is to allow a completely different outcome from my expectations of something to play out in my mind. I had quite a bit of fun. I imagined my ex husband as I would really like to see him. It felt really good. I used that a few years ago for someone I felt intimidated by. Their reputation was such that I would get awkward in their presence, and I would be doing something with them for over a year and had to break the feelings that came over me. It worked very well, and it was very freeing. It worked so well, that about a month into the stretch, I actually forgot that I used to feel the way I did. Of late I have been giving much thought to my attitude and all that I find I have spent my mind on, while everyone else has been having family lives. I feel as though I have been more unhappy than happy, although I know that that is not the truth. Everyone goes through difficult times. I am just most aware of mine. What I have to start doing in earnest is tracking my own goals and my happiness. My ex certainly got to me. I must admit it. We are connected by a thread of unpleasantness. I have not acknowledged it, but he seems to inadvertantly get me to join him when I am made to visit court or my lawyer. It has become trying and tedious and I must now watch very mindfully for my own wellbeing. This is why I am writing tonight. I have to start to look out for myself, or what would my life be?

Two in the morning

I have been dealt a blow, and I have to decide what shall happen next. My ex husband has caused so much damage, and keeps smelling like a rose. Yesterday I had to sit and watch someone take his side and tell me some unsubstantiated things against me, trying to couch them as blameless. It was so absurd. I feel as though women keep dealing me blows. The judge is a woman, his lawyer is a woman. This person is a woman, and none of these people seem to see him as I do, no matter how many emails I show them, or texts, or statements I make about his verbal abuse...it is as though I should see that behaviour as normal and stop harping on it. I did not plan to write, but the way I have been treated woke me straight out of my bed. I am unsettled. I want to be optimistic, but it seems that this bitter experience over-rides everything else. I shudder to think how people feel, who are mis-understood, mis-diagnosed and mis-handled in their cases, whether it be health, work or what I am going through.

So great

I have stated before that I make lists. I especially make lists about my plans,wants, stuff like that.I am so good at it that I even believed that they were reflections of what I thought of myself. The truth is that those lists were shallow. They did not go into me where it counted, but I never really saw this until I started asking more from the lists. An example of that is my list regarding what I am looking for in a partner in my life. Long ago, my list would say, very logically, an honest, caring, respectful, attractive man. Now, my list is nothing like that. My list now starts with a real friend. Someone who is willing and able and wanting to be in a committed relationship. Someone who is genuine about what he wants for himself and the person whom he wants to spend his time and life with. Someone who understands what friendship, partnership and love is all about. For this person to be in my life, he must really enjoy being with me. We should be for the other, the person that we want to be with, to spend time with, to laugh with and of course to be deeply attracted to and want to connect with. That makes sense to me. My views on my career has changed, everything has altered considerably actually. When I think of what sort of life I want now, I realize that it is not the way that it has been going. I was vague, unsure and unaware of the process of reaching for the dream. Or at least I told myself that. Some sort of learned helplessness. It all looked hard as hell, and guess what, only people who agreed seemed to be around me. There is always better in the world. There are always ways to get things done. One has to keep ones eye on the goal. It is that simple. Things can turn around in the blink of an eye. One moment life seems to be failing you and the next moment, you can be riding the wave of ultimate success. I was reminded this week that it is definately up to me to know that my life can be great, and I am so relieved.

Deja vu Le vu

Tonight I was listening to the radio and looking at an old movie on Netflix, Kate and Leopold to be exact, and these two things began to oddly take my mind back to my college years. Years when I was so in love with my boyfriend who would become my husband. I recalled the freshness of my thoughts back then. The unknown. I wondered about what I was going to do. I was not even certain that he and I would end up married, but I hoped for it, because of the way I felt. Tonight, for a moment, it was as though I could lift those emotions and run with them anew. In a way, I felt as though I were getting an introduction to myself. What would I do if I felt that sense of new horizon, without the burdens that I perceive now? ...................................... I would see before me the clues that I have left behind...that list I made this year of goals to fulfill. I would see that whatever would bring joy to my child is what I want to pursue. I would see that nothing really can hold me back And, I would see that the black hole of fear would close in behind me and disappear. ...................................... I would take a long look at myself and start plotting my steps. I would know that whatever I focus on, would multiply to the skies and be good. I would remember myself, and laugh out loud Because I had never left. I was cloaked behind all sorts of subtifuge...flotsam and jetsum. ...................................... I would awaken, and see the green, lush world, beyond all the noise and fear, anxiety and present world expectations. I would see my path having no present world eating into it, because I am not of it. And I would smile Because that is how it is supposed to be.

Also...

The realization now is that the first person to admire is the one behind my eyes.

Thank you

I am so over all of the people I obseessed about. When I think about it, it seems really embarrassing. But, it was how I felt for a good number of years. It defined how I viewed romance and even sex. It seemed so external, the person appeared to represent what romance was or could be. I have to acknowledge an indoctrination. I remember asking a friend what she thought about a boyfriend I had when we were in our early twenties. I remember her asking me why I saught her approval. At the time, I had a great come back answer, I stated that she had asked me the same,many that it was normal to want ones friends to like the boyfriend one picked because of all the time that would be spent with each other's friends. I am not writing this this morning to criticize myself, but to observe how dramatically some things change. My last encounter, I stopped it cold because I realised that I was following expectations that were not really mine exclusively, and the person could not be even remotely what I would ultimately want, even though so many things make us compatible.this is a major thing for me, because I had to confront the possibility that I was not moving forward because I might be still hung up on my ex-husband. I now know that what I was actually doing was growing closer to myself and my idea of intimacy, and in a way, I mean an intimacy with myself. The men all had something that captured my interest, of course. Now that I think about it, I believe that a large part of compatability lies in someone saying, me too, I like that too, or finishing your sentence or laughing at your jokes...those things make you feel a closeness and as though that person is so much like you...after all, they like the same things, but they are apart from you. That is where projecting starts. You are always looking for yourself within another person. When they click with you, you are projecting your most favorable traits. When they war with you, they are connecting your most challenged issues back to yourself...because it is always, always...YOU. You fall in love with your reflection. So in a way, everyone is homosexual. Lol. My neutrality on those people that I inprinted my affection onto, could have gone on forever, but it has ended because I have challenged it. I felt it's faulse facade, it's weakening walls,as it were. I think it became apparent when I chose to pull back my expectations and observe the people individually for themselves. Who was really pushing an ideology forward? Who was really trying to work on something lasting? No one! Not really. This was most acute with frequent flyer who made me feel that he was making a big step and then just stopped talking to me about it, and never saught to tell me anything. That one is really awful. There is a wonderful saying by Bob Marley about playing with a woman's feelings and then not really wanting the woman at all. It really did a number on my ego. But on closer observation, I have experienced a lot of that. Men who tell me all the right things, appeared to be part of my mirror, but really, they had no fortitude to save their lives. I asked myself for a long time, did I create that scenario? Was I sub-consciously sabotaging my good? I thought that I might have been? But that was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. I was creating a pattern based on my own Mirror...a deeper archetype as it were. One where I set up an admiration, not the pedestal that I have to my ex-husband, but one none the less, because I held my breath and expected them to be beguiled,to want to form something more concrete with me, although I knew that somewhere down the line, they would not satisfy my real expectations. They wouldn't because the dynamic has always been as my child mentioned to me today... A superficial one..a gut reaction..an alleged chemistry. All of this needs to be looked at even more closely. Now that I know that I am no longer tethering myself to something that is so shallow, even though it lasted over a decade, I am now more interested in seeing what this breakthrough will do for me.