To be a better person

There comes a point when you realize that sometimes, relationships aren't necessarily about connecting.  Sometimes, there is no eye to eye, spirit to spirit, mind to mind melding of souls.  Often, relationships down here do not resemble anything like what they were meant to be.  Sometimes, the other person is more screwed up than you are and all you can do is try to look at them through the eyes of God, instead of through your own eyes, because your own eyes are blinded by pain.

But then, if you let go, and let God in, He provides the exceptional strength to deal with sadness and longing, regret and disappointment.  This is my cross to bear, and while it is just as heavy as before, I am stronger now, and better able to support the weight.

Life isn't always about being happy.  Life is about becoming a better person.  Life is about rising to the challenges thrown at us, pulling out our battle gear and fighting the demons that plague us.  Life is about letting the difficult things mold us into the person we were meant to be.  Life is about hoping when there is no reason left to hope.  Life is about choosing to be happy when there is no reason left to be happy.

Everybody's broken

Bon Jovi says it best with this song:

Welcome to the party 
Come on in and disappear 
You're feeling like a stranger 
But all your friends are here 
Little lines and cracks 
Around your eyes and mouth 
Something's trying to get in 
Something's trying to get out 

There are days when I think I am broken beyond repair, dysfunctional inside.  I am incapable of appreciating good things.  I am incapable of communication when it matters.  I hide behind a thick skin but inside, I bleed.  I think I may never learn to communicate properly.  I've been hiding behind thick skin for a long time.  It's funny how sometimes, it isn't the big things that hurt you most, but the accumulation of little things.  I think I am better off alone on my island.

I have allowed the words and inaction of one person to poison my life, when the words and actions of all the others should speak louder.  Why should words spoken so long ago by one person still have such an effect today?  Why should I even care, when these words came from the mouth of someone
hurt by life and more dysfunctional than I am?

It is time to get over it.  I am not the sum of words said to me, and my happiness does not rely on the actions of others.  I will make my own happiness.

Give a little bit...

So give a little bit
Give a little bit of my life for you
So give a little bit
Give a little bit of your time to me
Now’s the time that we need to share
So send a smile, we’re on our way back home


The hardest part about being ignored is having to pretend that you aren't.  


What used to be a special day for me was ruined long ago, by someone who didn't want to celebrate it with me.  For years, I dreaded that day, and the phone calls it would bring, the well-wishes, the wanting to know how I was going to celebrate.


I wasn't going to celebrate and no one was going to do anything special for me.  


Every year, it was the same.  People would call and wish me well, and talk all about how I was sure to be spoiled.  I would have to listen to them go on and on about it, and let them assume.  Then they would start to ask more specific questions, like did I get this or that, or was there cake or flowers?  And I wouldn't know how to answer.  Do I tell the truth and make someone else look bad?  Or do I lie?  I hate to lie.  I really, really hate to lie.  


But sometimes, I had to, and it was always painful.


I was always glad when the day was over and I could get on with life as usual.


In some ways, being lost on this island has come as a relief.  Especially when that certain day comes around again.  There is no one to bother me out here.

Teddy Bear

I dreamt I met Teddy Bear again.


The first time I ever met Teddy, it was like the sun had come into the room.  He was the most jovial, outgoing, affectionate person I had ever met.  He was able to reach out to people like me and bring them out of their shells.  Right from the start, there was no being shy with him, he fit in the room like a comfortable pair of jeans.


So being the unsure person with low self-esteem that I was at the time, I put him on a pedestal.  "Here," I said to myself, "is someone who is everything I am not."  He would never, I told myself, want to be around someone as boring as me.  After all, I had grown up in a place where I had been constantly reminded that no one wanted me around or was interested in anything I had to say.  I spent my adolescent years analyzing my behaviour, trying to figure out what my problem was.  Did I talk too much?  I worked on talking less.  I tried to stop joking and to not attract attention.  Did I laugh too much?  Did it bother them?  I made myself laugh less and more quietly.  As long as they didn't notice me there, they seemed to be less annoyed by my presence.


When I broke my finger, they laughed at me.  When it was my birthday, they begged me to take a break for once and leave them alone to play.  When I was nine, they laughed at the idea that anyone would ever want to marry me and by the time I hit high school I didn't dare let on if I thought a boy was cute.  It was impossible to befriend a guy, because none of them wanted to be associated with me.  To be linked to me would have made them the laughingstock of everyone, so even friendship was out of the question.  Girls were not quite as hard to befriend, but even so, friends were rare.  I had not been out of that world for a year yet, when I first met Teddy.


Later, I had the opportunity to get to know Teddy better.  We both participated in a project with a group of people.  We saw each other all day, every day. By then, I had gained some self-worth, and Teddy got off his pedestal and seemed a little more human.  But he was still so much the superior person in my eyes.  He was the one who was generous and kind, and paid attention to people.  He went out of his way to welcome newcomers.  He was the life of the party.  I was the satellite.  The one who sat back and watched instead of participating openly.  But what did I have to say that could interest people?  It had all been said, and I felt I had nothing new to add of any worth.


A year and a half passed.  I was in a difficult situation, and Teddy invited me to share his apartment with me to cut expenses.  For the first few months it seemed we fit together like two pieces of a puzzle.  It felt like we were a couple that had grown old together.  (Without any of the perks)  We did almost everything together.  We talked, we shared, we started to know things instinctively about each other without being told.  Everything was so simple.


Then the misunderstandings came.  He thought I was hanging on to the recent past, and was losing grip on reality because I didn't even recognize people on TV.  The fact is, it wasn't so much me losing grip on reality, as me just not having had access to a TV for the past year and never having been much interested in TV before that, and not having lived long enough in this relatively new place to even be all that familiar with all the regional artists.


I started to second-guess my worth.  He was too nice.  He was too generous.  He was too concerned about my well-being.  I thought, maybe he's just being nice.  Maybe I don't mean as much to him as he does to me.  Maybe I'm just another project to him.  A girl he's helping out for a bit.  Because that's what he does.  He selflessly helps people out without getting anything in return.  I asked him once, when we were going somewhere, did he ask me to go along just because he wanted me to go or did he want to keep an eye out for me?  He said he wanted to keep an out for me.  I took it to mean it didn't bother him one way or the other if I was there or not.  To me, it confirmed the fact that to him I was just another project.  I could never really be his friend, because I would never be at the same level he was.  I was so far below, it was useless to try.


I think I hurt him, refusing his help later on.  It's not that I didn't want his help.  I did.  I liked him helping me.  I just didn't want him to feel he had to.


I moved into my own apartment, and followed a series of cultural misunderstandings.  Where I grew up, things were done one way.  In this place, things were done differently, and it looked like I did not appreciate the help I was getting to move and fix up the place.  I realize this now, but did not know it at the time.  Even though the apartment was close to his, we saw less and less of each other, and usually it was because I had made the effort.  When we did see each other, he sometimes made comments that first surprised me, then had me seething for days.  I never said a word when he got mad at me for things he thought I should do differently because I was always so shocked that he was mad.  When I thought of something to say, it was usually too late.


I tried writing once.  Basically, the answer I got back was that the problem was that "With you, it's never finished."


That would have been because he had his say, then forgot about it, but I never had my say.  Because I hate confrontation.  Because I had only ever fought or disagreed with the people who couldn't easily turn their backs on me and never want to see me again; my family.  My brothers and sisters were stuck with me, they couldn't not see me again.  Everyone else could drop out of my life if they wanted to.


I stopped making much of an effort to keep up a good friendship with Teddy.  I decided I would just let him go if he wanted to go.  We still saw each other.  We had mutual friends.  I called from time to time, we were both involved in a couple of the same groups.  But it was never the same again.


I got married.  I moved away.  I called once to let him and another friend know I'd been to the hospital recently and had my baby.  There was another misunderstanding.  I got mad.  The next day I wrote him an e-mail, told him to have a good life, deleted him as a contact and tried to forget about him.  That was almost 12 years ago.  Every once in a few years I would meet him again because we still had mutual friends.


I think we forgave each other long ago because there was that one time I was able to put my arms around my Teddy Bear once again in a big bear hug that lasted not long enough.  But we never talked.  The silence between us speaks louder than death.  I have never been alone with him in all those years, there has always been a crowd of people around.  It has been easy to ignore him and talk to others instead.  We have gone separate ways in 12 years.  There are many things I am sure we would not agree on.  There are too many things left unsaid, too many misunderstandings.


I have lost my Teddy Bear and I do not know how to get him back or even if I can get him back.  I get a sense that he is not so happy all the time.  I think he was happier then, or at least life was much simpler for him back then.  I no longer think Teddy is superior to me any way.  We are just made differently.  I have a few very dear friends, such as Gypsy Queen and Mr. Tumnus, who I think are amazing people.  But they are mostly similar to me.  We are a cold lot.  We seek warmth.  


Teddy was the first person I thought absolutely amazing because he was so different.  I am not a touchy-feely person.  Put two cold people like me in a room together and we will never touch.  There will be no slapping of shoulders, no quick, random hugs.  There will be no pulling, tugging, or pushing.  We are the calm, cool-headed people.


Put me in a room with a happy, energetic person, who seems to thrive just off of greeting people and I will instantly be attracted to that person.  I have met this type of person a few times and every time I feel a natural pull.


I don't think I have ever been so attracted by someone's personality as I was to Teddy's.  In the early days, before I came to live with him, he used to sing "You're as cold as ice" to me.  He was right.  Later, when I'd moved into my own apartment, and trying to reconcile some things, I wrote to him saying we both had passion, only his was hot and burned quickly where mine was cold, slow to start, but burned steadily once started.  He started things, got them going and then moved on.  It took longer for me to get started and longer for me to move on.


There was a time when I could have been physically attracted to him as well.  In spite of the fact that he was overweight, he wore it well.  He was taller and larger than me.  A huge Teddy Bear.  That made me, a tall, large woman, feel small and petite and feminine like no one else has been able to since.  But that has all changed.  He has changed.  The last times I saw him, it didn't feel the same.  Like he'd undergone some change in his chemical balance.  I'd always felt his masculinity before, and now he was just... neutral.


Still, I wish I could have that Teddy back.  The one I met long ago.  The one that lit up a room when he walked in.  The one that got his energy from being around people.  I miss him.  Perhaps he's moved on.  I don't seem quite able to.  I wish I could.  But mostly, I wish I didn't have to.

Gollum

From the desert Isle of Juana la Cubana:

He doesn't pay attention. His eyes go blank when I talk to him of things that he finds boring. He wants to do things his way. I am glad I do not live with him or I think I would go nuts. However as he passes by and drops in from time to time, I must still put up with chairs being placed just so, convenient for him, but in my way, or other such things. He does not want to listen to my arguments for something different, so I put up with him until he leaves again.

Then Gollum will suddenly appear, with some project he has been working on and asks my opinion. I am not sure why he wants it, as most times he is not interested in what I think. Perhaps he is just excited about what he is doing, and in spite of him he needs to share that excitement with another. Perhaps my opinion still does not count, and this is just one way to get some kind of approval or compliment. Perhaps it makes him feel generous to let me voice an opinion on some subject of his choosing.

But how does one politely decline the honour? I am not interested in voicing my opinion on anything to him, if my opinion has no worth in more important issues.

Juana la Cubana's rant

From Juana la Cubana
Thoughts from a desert isle...

I used to think it was a given that if you cared for a person, you would go out of your way to make that person feel special in little ways. I thought everyone thought like this. With the exception of course of crappy, criminal-type people. I was wrong.

It just doesn't occur to some people to do that sort of thing. Either they were not brought up in families that made a big deal about each other, or else they are actually oblivious to the fact that people around them have gone out of their way to do something to please them and do not think to do the same in return.

Oh they love you, they don't want to see you hurt or poor or sick or in dire straits. They'll help you out if you ask for it. But if you're far away and lonely, they won't think to send photos or keep you up to date as if you were close. They don't care if you do anything for their birthday or not, and expect you not to care either. Birthday and Christmas gifts, if they get you any, are symbolic tokens only because they really have no idea what you like, because they don't make a point of remembering when you exclaim over something.

They aren't mean-hearted, they aren't cheap or miserly, it's not like they don't appreciate you, they just don't see the point in getting excited over nothing.

For someone who delights in doing little things for someone they care about, it's hard to understand someone who doesn't. In fact, more often, we might tend to think that that someone doesn't care at all. Even when it isn't true.

Disappointment comes in waves, like the ones crashing against the shoreline of my island, and then it goes out with the tide.

Truth

Truth hides in the little things. Truth burrows itself into the details. Light still escapes between the shades of a window. Fossils long buried eventually come to the surface. What's left unsaid, what's left undone speaks volumes about who you really are. Pieces of the puzzle come together, a clue here, a hint there, a sudden revelation.

Sometimes fate has a reason, some things were never meant to be. You might never lie, but you hide behind the blinds. You take advantage of distance, you only show what is convenient to you, but you can't hide forever. You will be found out. Truth oozes out of the wounds you leave behind. It trickles out in the tears cried, it pours out from behind the dam broken.

Balance

I do not understand a world which makes such a fuss over fleeting things. We are spiritual as well as physical beings but we have forgotten the spiritual. That emptiness, that void inside us, it cannot be filled with physical things.

On one hand, I am a physical being. I take pleasure in simple things, coffee that tastes just right, raindrops on my nose, the sound of waves crashing on the beach, the feel of sand between my toes.

On the other hand I am a spiritual being. I need spirit to spirit contact. Long talks with close friends, philosophy, a song whose lyrics mean something, a poem, a conversation with God.

There is balance to be had. A life filled with carnal pleasure alone is a very lonely, empty life indeed. On the other hand, a life empty of carnal pleasure is a very sad, boring life. One cannot replace the other.

In the same way, a mariage based on only one or the other of these two poles is an incomplete mariage.

I wonder sometimes, just how does prayer work? How can you ask God for the conversion of another person when God leaves us all free? If prayer is so strong, how can God give us our freedom? Or is praying for someone actually kind of like your soul appealing to the soul of the other person. Is it in a way, a silent calling of one soul to another? Does the other soul hear even when the person does not?

Endless highways and the like

Juana is back... after a few storms and such. I have managed to power up once again and the wind is just right out here in the Bermuda triangle. (Sometimes I think my own mind is a Bermuda Triangle.)

Ahhh, Bon Jovi, one of my favourites. Yes, I could go down that endless highway, and gladly too.

Gollum has been acting up again, I try to explain why I feel the way I do about things, but his eyes cloud over and I know he is tuning me out. "My precious" he mutters and no longer hears me. Thankfully I do not have to put up with him too much, as he does not come to visit too often.

The Gypsy Queen was here around Christmas time and although we do not always agree on everything, it is always nice to have someone around who understands you, in spite of your differences.

A new person has come to visit me on my island, a certain Mr. Tumnus. A very likable fellow, in spite of his having hooves and horns. I invited him for tea, forgot that I didn't have tea leaves, but he had happened to bring some for his own tea, so that worked out alright, although I was a bit embarrassed over the whole thing.

If there is one thing that I have learned in recent months, about relationships, (funny how much one can learn on a desert island about relationships), it is that if you want to marry someone (which I don't, been there done that - but for those of you that do...) you might want to make sure that you have fun with the person first.

When I say fun, I don't mean s/he cracks a joke, you laugh. It's not enough to think that a person is funny. Joking helps, but it is far from being everything.

You want to share similar interests. A LOT of similar interests, one or two is not enough. You want to be able to talk about just about anything, and still get along. You want to be able to have inside jokes and share the same weird sense of humour. You know this is happening when you speak the same language as the people around you but noone has a clue what you are saying except yourselves. You want to be best friends. So I say, lay off the sex for awhile and find yourselves a best friend first, one, of course that you at least find attractive, but take it slow, because marriage lasts a looooooong time.

Oh, and by the way, your best friend should also share your faith if you have any, or lack of it if you are an atheist. Unless you really want to live with a certain void every day, knowing that only half of who you are is in fact in that marriage and the other half has been rejected, or is being ignored. Just ask Elizabeth Leseur.

Gypsy Queen and I were discussing this quite a bit recently, as she has had to deal with some men in her life.

El Alejandro came by the other day to see how I was doing. He is always very refreshing. Ahh to be young and uncynical again. Wait a minute! I WAS cynical when I was young. I think I may have actually mellowed out a bit! But still, it is nice to see the enthousiasm of the young. We played a bit of soccer before he left, off to conquer foreign lands again.

Aquaman swam by again, it's hard being a superhero. One doesn't always make ends meet on a superhero's salary.

Island Tales

Some days I think I'd like to go back to civilization. And then suddenly, I am reminded of the brainless chittering that goes on in our consumerist society. Instead of going for what lasts, society prefers disposable. Disposable diapers, disposable "swiffers", disposable relationships, disposable sex.

And then, suddenly I prefer the quiet of my island. I have no desire to even have a romantic relationship. I think I no longer believe in love. Or at least, I think very few men out there prefer the non-disposable kind of love. I am dis-enchanted. I prefer to be single than to even try having some kind of relationship. I believe I am better off alone.

I had a husband once. He didn't make it to the island, he couldn't swim very well. He's gone on to a better place. I hope. Yes, I had a husband once. There is a time for everything, and for everything a place. I do not believe I am called to go back to that. I do not desire to sacrifice myself for someone who misunderstands me. I think few men would understand me now.

I had a child once. That I miss. There is nothing like holding your baby for the first time. There is nothing like teaching your child to pray, holding your child when he is tired, sick or hurt. There is nothing like looking apon the angelic face of your sleeping child.

But not even for the gift of holding a child again will I give up myself.

Guys you want to avoid...

Gypsy Queen, where do you come up with these guys anyway?

Poor Gypsy Queen came visiting recently and told me of her most recent encounter with the species known as hominus malus. Gypsy Queen has been renting a villa, which she no longer desires to rent. So it was up for lease by the owner. A couple came calling the other day, to visit the villa, and have decided to rent it. The husband came back a few days later for some technical reason, and Gypsy Queen and he got to talking. They were apparently having a good conversation, when the husband started complaining about the mentality in this place, how friends couldn't "love" each other and whatnot. Gypsy Queen could see where this was going, and wasn't very surprised when the husband proposed.

His proposition was that since Gypsy Queen and he were now friends, she should sacrifice herself so they could have sex together. Gypsy Queen had a different proposition. He could open the door and leave. That woman he was with? Wasn't really his girlfriend.

This is not the first time Gypsy Queen has run into males afflicted with this kind of logics deficiency. So we are wondering if she has become a magnet, pulling them in. It seems it is time for her to move, and find different circles, where humans of the opposite gender have some class and respect. I am hoping that the city where she has leased a different villa will treat her better. (Especially the male part of it.)

Generosity

I arrived at my hut yesterday, after a long walk on the beach, with a few fish in one hand and a bunch of bananas in the other, to find El Alejandro sitting on the crude bench in front of my door with a smug smile on his face.

It appears that El Alejandro noticed all the cracks in my walls and set about filling them all in. He also fixed the roof while he was at it. The result is a stauncher, more esthetically pleasing wall. I was very happy. It is so nice to come across true generosity in this world, pure and free, nothing expected in return.

I invited him to supper of course and we talked of greek mythology and Jane Goodall while I prepared the fish.

Today is a bit cooler, with strong winds rolling in off the ocean. I close my eyes as I sit on the bench in front of my hut and enjoy the caress of the wind on my face. It has been so long since anyone caressed my face or played with my hair. I enjoy the wind even more knowing that if I want to escape it, it will no longer venture into my hut.

I have also taken precautions against the monkeys. I am in the process of finding ways to keep them out of my things, should they manage to get into the hut again

Cleaning

Hurricane Nameless has blasted through here and upended everything. Actually no, I exagerate, but it seems that way. In reality, the monkeys visited my cabin in my absence, and seem to have had a bit of fun. Also I hadn't cleaned up yet from my last visit with Gollum.

Gollum can be a rather messy eater, (and he prefers his fish raw, blechhh) but also, sometimes he brings things with him, which he forgets behind, things I don't necessarily need or want in my way. So then I have to place them somewhere, out of my way, until he finally deems to take them away or make use of them.

I shall go now and clean the place out. I believe that should put me in a fairly good mood.

To love...

To love is a gift. To love is to create. God is pure love, He is the creator. Love can change even the hardest of hearts. I do not believe in making an effort to convert anyone, one cannot be converted by desiring it. But perhaps I should be making an effort to become the kind of person, who by temperament alone, unconsciously converts those around her. Alas, I am no saint. I do not even come close to sainthood. Perhaps my continued stay on this island will inevitably bring me closer to God?

The parrots make such a racket some days, I lose patience and yell at them. Even the monkeys get on my nerves from time to time. But they are only parrots and monkeys, doing their thing.

I pray for patience. Impatience destroys.

I need to pray more. Period.

Gollum

Sitting here, alone on my island, I have plenty of time to think. I think Gollum would have liked to be like everyone in the upper-middle class. At some point, he found out that all he really wanted was to have a very good salary, a nice (big) house, not more than two children and wife who worked and also made lots of money. I think he resents not having this "ideal" of society, another thing which makes him bitter. Unfortunately, this is something Gollum can never have, or at the very least he will have to wait a few years before he comes close.

Ahh, the burden that weighs him down gets heavier as the years go by. It is a horrible thing to carry, yet he cannot let it go. It consumes him.

I , on the other hand, do not need material riches. I could live simply and with little, as long as I am surrounded by friends, for as long as I live. Which is why I do not mind my island so much, only the solitude sometimes. Gollum cannot understand this in me and it irks him. But I am my own person, I do not need another person's approval

The desert isle, blessed solitude

The wind blows through my hair, which has grown longer since I have been here, and I am reminded of a old photo of my mother, long hair blowing in the breeze, surrounded by children. Here, though, there are no children, instead I am surrounded by monkeys, jumping and chattering in the trees.

Sometimes it is just easier to get things done by yourself, on your own. Sometimes it is worthwhile to not include reluctant people in your plans, no matter how important they may be to you, however important it might seem for them to be with you, just to avoid conflict and stress. I have begun to purge Gollum from certain areas of my life. Gollum is a strange mix. He desires good, but does not know what good is. He can be patient and generous with many things and then suddenly turn around and crush me.

Gollum was once a happy, innocent lad and then something happened to him. He carries a great load, it eats at him, it makes him very bitter towards certain people, places and things. I have learned to avoid certain subjects of conversation around him. I have learned to hide certain things. I have learned to avoid going to certain places with him. I must now learn to leave him out of certain projects as well.

Gollum mostly stays in his cave near the water's edge when he comes and does not visit much of my island, he would not understand it. On my island, I am free to talk of the things I wish to speak about, do the things I wish to accomplish, visit the places I want to see.

The monkeys do not seem to appreciate my presence here, so close to their home. This is their territory, I should return to mine, my humble beach hut. Or maybe I shall go take a short dip in the hotsprings just a few minutes walk from here?