Tears on my Keyboard this morning

Roughly ten years ago, we were going to music festivals together and making out in a tent. He was devastatingly handsome and I was not sure I was worthy.

We met through a college friend (that I still think is awesome, surprisingly) and the three of us had wild and sporratic adventures that were never much planned but always fun. We had stupid fun, with childish trips to ValleyScare and XFest, house parties and late night sprinkler runs. Even when he got a steady pain-in-the-ass girlfriend and started needing more relationship advice and meaningful talks about life than a drinking buddy, he remained in good humor. We connected. We took our dogs to obedience school together and they almost got expelled (actually, his was a dropout). We were real friends, the kind of friend where when you see each other again after years have passed, you're still at ease and nothing has affected that bond. He made me believe that we didn't have to grow up.

Except now we do have to grow up, because he's dying from the brain tumor that is killing him, the one that knocked him in his ass 3 years ago and stole everything. He squeezed as much as he could out of those last few years; he immediately married a pretty awesome lady and had a son, and did what he could to make sure he was fighting like hell. But Cancer is Cancer. 35 is way too early to say goodbye and leave the party. 35 is still the age of weddings and babies and astronomical mortgages, of career changes and waking up to politics, of a few failed relationships, class reunions, or maybe some crazy adventures to cool countries. It's the peak before the decline.

Aaron, you're the one that got away.

Life is a gift, albeit brief. Cancer can be a love story if it is done with strength and weathered by two people who have enough faith in what is within them and beyond them. Here is their story. I hope seeing the documentary when it is completed helps to bring me closure. Right now I can't find any in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

When Cancer is a Love Story

The Circle

I've written this same paragraph before. I'm trying to write this one with intent and staying power.


I dated a guy on and off for 6 years. We finally ended it, and I've been single for about a year. I tried dating a few times on the "breaks" from him, but it never lasted long. I guess the real problem was the emotional abuse. Now that I know what was happening and I'm getting a ton of therapy, I recognize it. When you're in it, it's a lot harder to realize what's going on and why you feel so bad about yourself all the time. It's really tough, especially in our age range when most of our friends are married off with families and you're back to square one if you end things with whoever you're seeing... And so you stay, thinking it might get better if you try to communicate better or avoid certain topics, try harder to please your partner, stay away from the land mines.The more I read about this stuff, the more I understand that part of the reason for staying in that relationship all those years was what is called relationship investment... years "vested" into a particular person. But clearly it wasn't a great investment... I just kept thinking that he would come around and want to settle down, have a family, etc. 

Wrong. Clearly. 

Again the optimist, seeing only the good and ignoring all of the red flags that indicated he was not the type of guy I was looking for. It's really hard to let go and walk away, especially when you love the person and genuinely want them to also be happy. 

Only age and wisdom allows you to understand that sometimes the biggest way to show someone you love them is to say goodbye, and good luck, and I won't try to make you be who you are not.

I bought the moped to replace a broken heart and a failed relationship. I named her FREEDOM.

Defeat Before the Gun

So... this weekend was supposed to be my first attempt at a 1/2 marathon. I failed.

After a 3-week chest cold that took the wind out of my sails, I kept my determination in place to run it... but on Thursday night my health dictated otherwise. Three solid days of migraines left me bedridden and dehydrated, so I followed a good friend's advise and didn't go to the race. My heart wanted to, but my body did not. I will look at this as a lesson in listening to my body and not pushing beyond sanity. I will never finish a marathon if I don't ensure my physical soundness.

I hate having to quit or admit defeat, but life goes on. I will train now for the 1/2 marathon in Kauai on August 31st and pretend this was just a minor setback.

Honolulu Marathon countdown: 243 days

After the Storm Comes... Sunshine

I haven't written in a few months due to things in life that I needed to tend to, mainly my sanity.

After my boss quit, the secretary quit, and I quit chasing a man that was never going to be emotionally available, I hit the lows. Anxiety to the extreme and a heavy dose of depression. Life was bad. My days were bad. Stress was a key component of every work day. Even derby was irritating and riddled with drama! I couldn't seem to escape the negativity all around me.

But the sun rises, sets, rises again.

And months later, I am still alive. Things are slowly getting better. I don't want to lie in bed in the dark on my off days, and I've even cleaned my house a few times and done my laundry on occasion. All in all, I am functioning like a normal human being. I have made progress with my therapy sessions and I have come to the end of my 5-year plan that I had set out to accomplish waaaaaaay back in Minnesota. Now I must set the goals for my next 5 years! This brings me to my 5-yr plan list, in no particular order.

1) Buy a moped.

Walking around the city and taking the bus everywhere has it's charm, but I'm hella tired of lugging groceries home by foot or by transit. It's lame and inconvenient. I got a big tax return check and plan to rectify this daily inconvenience.

I would like this.

I can afford this.

2) Do something else.

Today, as a matter of fact, I had my informational interview with the Mark Takai for Congress campaign and will be starting in with them to assist with fieldwork operations starting on April 1st. I need to do something that has me meeting people (particularly men) that does not involve a society of stinky women or snobby art workers. Time to kick it up a notch and begin the long road to...


3) Run for public office.


Being a curator in the arts is cool and all, but not when you deal with aggravating state co-workers on a daily basis. I love art and love portions of my position, but let's face it... I'm just not anal retentive enough to catch all the details involved with museum work. The parts where I am in the community servicing public sites and nominating art for purchase are amazing and I love them. The actual museum part I want to stop doing as soon as possible. I can easily find a better way to help out the arts in this State than working my current position. I am good at being a public servant, have campaign volunteer experience, and I think I could do a lot of good for this State on multiple platforms. Step one is learning about campaigns and learning Honolulu's districts and major running issues. Step two is research. These will lead to step three: running for office.

4) Run a marathon.

As I've already disclosed in a previous post, I've signed up to run the Honolulu Marathon next fall. I am still on track and training. I've had a little bit of a knee issue lately, but can regularly run 6 miles and have already completed a 10 mile race and an 8 mile race. Next up is the Hapalua in April, a 1/2 marathon on the same course as the full. Stoked to be getting into this sport I never thought I would like! Sometimes I surprise myself. I need better shoes, though, and soon.

5) Clean up my diet.

I am still eating garbage on occasion and could definitely afford to clean things up. Easier said than done. I think I still have some self-loathing tendencies that need to be worked out and will continue to work on this in therapy.

6) Find a better boyfriend, or at least date better men.

I'm done with being shit on regularly and putting up with way more abuse than I should ever tolerate. Selfish, egotistical, emotionally unavailable men are no longer on the menu. I've been searching on several online dating sites, but it could take a while. I have some great stories about this and will save them for a later blog post!

Just one of many awesome first emails.

7) Volunteer. Give back in some capacity.

There are many beautiful things that have gone my way in life, and many things I miss that I still had. One is my dog. A way to remedy the hole in my heart is to volunteer at the Humane Society of Honolulu! I have signed up and will do my orientation training on April 19th to become an animal massage therapist and behavioral trainer. I am beyond stoked. Going to the dog parks with my good friend and her dog has been therapeutic, but this way I can help out a bunch of animals that are in distress. I am really looking forward to this.


8) Get married in the next 5 years, and have a baby.

I think it's a reasonable goal to set for the next 5 years. Marriage may not be necessary, but why not make it be in the goal? I'm not doing that shit alone on purpose! lol
Life is short, the clock is ticking. I am looking into freezing my eggs. Sounds pretty Star Trekish, but I'm being realistic: at 36, I'm just now looking (in a healthy mindset) for a life mate that will want to have a child together. It will likely take a few years to do so, and I need to preserve my eggs while they're still in good shape. Hopefully my future husband is a doctor or makes more money than me, because I'm growing weary of living in a small closet-sized apartment.


9) See Nepal, India, Cambodia, Thailand, or all of them.

This is sort of a continuation of my last 5 year plan goals; my travel plans didn't really pan out. Although I saw parts of Australia and 4 islands of Hawaii, I haven't made it to the East as I intended. I will have to work on making this happen. These are my friend's photos... I would like to take my own.

 

10) Figure out what to do about Derby.

I have been playing derby for 8 years now, and my joints are starting to protest. I need to figure out how to transition out of playing into more of a coaching/instruction capacity. The problem is that I still love playing so much! I am taking on a lot of responsibility for our league right now and am heavily invested. I just don't know how to get out. This is where list item number 7 comes in... the ultimate derby injury. Muahahaha!




Okay, so that's 10 list items to accomplish in the next 5 years. Ambitious, rewarding, and ultimately character building. I am already getting a start on them and look forward to seeing how things unravel :) One thing I have learned in life is that things rarely go as planned.

Hold Fast, the Storm is Here!

My career is crazy. My boss resigned due to conpiracy over copyright infringement and an astounded Hawaiian community that took offense to her role within our organization. As she makes her way out (slowly, to burn up her sick leave time), she is meeting with news reporters to slander our organization and misdirect the blame back onto our agency and its employees. It has been an extremely turbulent year at the foundation, and I am amazed at how much commotion has been stirred up since I started. I am lying low and hoping to salvage what I can during this time, and luckily the employees here are coming together in unity to uphold the integrity of the organization. I've never experienced anything like this before. I don't like reporters calling me at work. Pretty wild! Haha

My new singledom is slowly starting to get a little easier, thanks to therapy and a new exercise routine; I have been running every other day for several weeks now, starting it off with a bang by running a Thanksgiving 10 miler without training. Ouch! Since I somehow managed to finish that one, I figured it was as good of a time as ever to make it happen for myself and build on that momentum. I'm on an 8 week program that will steadily increase my distance and speed capacity through steady and interval training workouts. By the end of the 8 weeks, I should be able to swiftly handle 1-hour runs and be a more comfortably fit. The stress of life in all of its many forms have really gotten a hold of me, and I am to the point where I must fight back.

Being single feels similar to what it felt like to be in a relationship with the Writer, since I have the same routine minus spending time with him after work. Since he isn't friends with my social circle and we don't work together, his absence in my life comes mostly at night in the dark loneliness of my apartment. Bunnies are not snuggly like dogs and cats, so I've been making Christmas ornaments and watching copious amounts of Law & Order. I try to get out and do fun stuff on the weekends and reach out to friends when the loneliness feels overwhelming. Somehow it is hard to accept that we are truly in this life as individuals and must be comfortable with just ourselves...somewhere along the way I was led to believe that I must have a partner to weather the storm of dark days, and that independence was only acceptable until age 30. As I have watched all of my girlfriends marry off and spawn, I wonder what fate has in store for me in the next few years. I wonder if being a single mother is a silly idea to entertain, and if I am instead meant to adopt 4 dogs and live in this tiny 500-sq ft apartment until my retirement years, or if better things are in store for me.

Perhaps we are all dissatisfied to a certain degree with the cards we have been dealt, and life is more importantly about humbling ourselves to accept that in which we are lucky enough to get. I have 1st world problems in relation to what others in the world face on a daily basis, and I try to ground myself in that whenever I can remember to.

On my living room buffet, I have a statue of the buddha sitting under a silver tinsel tree with blue ornaments. I am a walking contradiction of life experiences and beliefs. I am me (I am by myself), but I am surviving. I need to concentrate on day to day but also start working on what is down the road, as time ticks on, never ending. A race against the clock could possibly be more of a challenge than a race of miles to run, so at this point training for a Marathon doesn't seem too out of reach.

Back In the Saddle, But My Horse Is a Little Lame

I might've felt sick and had a small panic attack at the mall in front of one of those hair-straightening kiosks run by Russians yesterday while I was waiting for my plenty of fish bachelor to show for our scheduled first date. And I cried. Full on tears.  Then the Russians straightened my locks and tried to sell me $650 human hair extensions to feel better.

I was afraid of the "date," but not necessarily because of who this person was that I would meet for the first time; I was afraid of having to move on. Fearful of moving forward and to having to actively seek out a fulfilling partner that meets my needs. It feels inherently selfish and uncomfortable. I don't like thinking about what I need. I am used to thinking only about what other people need, so anything having to do with making myself happy is challenging. It is hard to let go of what is familiar and comfortable even when it damages me in the long run. Change is hard. Meeting new people is hard. This whole ordeal is so hard, I just want to give up.

And I have. Over and over again, and I've run back to the guy who will accept me and all of my giving ways because his world revolves around him and his needs, and I do a damn fine job of fulfilling those for him. But it's not enough for me anymore, and it's not fair to me, and everyone else who knows me tells me so. Do you think that changes my desire to run back to him? Nope. Not at all. It just makes me withhold information, isolate my private life from all of my family and friends, and take the regular emotional abuse as a side affect for his domineering behavior that allows me to not concentrate on myself. I am aware it has to stop and that it is severely damaging my self-esteem and my future by staying with him, so it would be fantastic if people stopped telling me how bad he is for me. Let me instead concentrate on the bigger issue at hand, which is why I have so much self-loathing going on that I would rather avoid my own needs altogether. That's fucked up.

Certain things happen in life that make us have a skewed perception of reality and our purpose. This is the effect of environmental factors and human interactions, and it is what makes us all have unique perspectives and experiences. Although I had plenty of great things shape who I am today (and an extremely loving, supportive family), I had several events happen at a young age that taught me I wasn't good enough, I wasn't pretty enough, and there was something wrong with my body. Guess what? No matter how many times someone tells me that isn't true, that I am smart and beautiful and perfect the way I am, IT DOES NOT CHANGE MY CORE BELIEFS. Those are instilled like computer hardware. I am working on it. It is taking a lot of time to get through. This is why psychologists have jobs.

I look at the simple fact I was able to break the pattern of this recent 5 year cycle for long enough to go on one date with a new man as a small victory. Don't pity me or feel bad that it didn't end up being a perfect match... instead, be happy for me that I went on the date and recognized that he wasn't a good fit for me. I have a telling history of falling hard and blindly for the first man who shows strong interest in me upon being recently single, so it is truly a beautiful thing to see the pouring in of text messages from this one guy, from our one date, totally wanting to hook up, and to know that it is not going to be a good fit for me. To know, with confidence, that our goals do not line up and there is no need to draw this out over another 5 years. I am proud of myself today for recognizing that.

Maybe with each failed attempt at dating I will learn more about how much I have to offer, and how important it is to respect myself. Last night I wore bright lipstick because I'm a grown-ass lady, and today is a good day, despite my migraine. Don't cry for me, Argentina.

Toxic Relationships

Fully recognizing that I'm in a toxic relationship in a looping pattern, I am re-posting this for my own reference. Recognition is one thing, getting out is quite another. How do you leave someone you love?

Solutions for a Toxic Relationship.

Via Tracy Crossleyon Aug 12, 2013

Soulmate relationships turned toxic are an opportunity to grow.

In a soulmate relationship there’s an intense feeling of connection and more than likely an inability to disengage from that person…even if it’s over or they need space. We just can’t let go, move on or get a grip on ourselves.

The way to feeling empowered is to get our power back, no matter what happens in the relationship.

In each of the tips described below, the outcome isn’t meant to change the relationship, it’s meant to allow someone an opportunity to grow and create a healthier relationship with ourselves.

The goal is for self-realization, greater confidence and building self-esteem.

Tips on how to use your toxic soulmate relationship as a growth experience:

1. Take control of you.

Stop giving away your power to your mate.

They don’t know what to do with it and it’s how you help to create a toxic environment. It’s not easy, but speak your truth—even if it scares the crap out of you. Do it and you’ll become more confident, especially when your focus is not the outcome. It’ll more than likely also create a different response from your soulmate too.

2. You create boundaries.

In your heart, you know the standards you want to live by, it takes courage to speak them and put them into action. In a soulmate situation, we may just accept what is crappy and not live into our own standards.

There’s no reason to be offensive or disrespectful to your soulmate when declaring your boundaries.

First, get clear on what you absolutely cannot tolerate, what are your non-negotiables?

Be honest and listen to your truth.

Knowing your truth and expressing it, equals vulnerability. It’s your true strength. No need to overpower or win, you’re just establishing a few ground rules on how you need to be treated. You may or may not receive respect for your boundaries, but when you stick to em’, embrace how good you feel!

If you can do this in a relationship of this intensity, you can do it anywhere.

3. If you keep doing the right thing, acting the right way and are programmed by other people’s thoughts about what you should do, stop!

There’s no greater cost then doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

When your strategy is to kill your soulmate with kindness; give into what you assume they want from you or go out of your way for them just to gain their approval or their love, you can stop now.

It’s manipulation and the other person is aware. They will be more resistant to you. It doesn’t work and it makes you feel worse. Instead, start treating yourself to small acts of kindness. Do things for you, which engender your own love, kindness and warmth. It makes a difference.

Gain clarity on the beliefs you have about yourself, understand somewhere along the way you picked up the idea that you deserved this treatment. The intensity you feel with this person is actually the familiarity of what you grew up with and what you believe about yourself—t’s self-induced. Even if the other person feels intense too; it’s about old stuff.

4. Don’t feel shame, please realize you’re human.

Not a super hero. You may stay in an untenable situation, because you have a perfect dream. And well-meaning friends and family can make you feel worse for your inability to leave.

We want this soulmate to fit that perfect dream. It’s time to deconstruct the dream. Nothing is perfect and relationships aren’t fairy tales.

Make a commitment to see the relationship through to your emotional end. It’s not a mistake. Meaning, use this time to dig deep and realize your humanness, your lovability, your needs and the three previous tips. Stay with it (unless there is physical abuse), until you have a complete understanding of how you landed here in the first place.
Use the relationship for learning how to have a deeper acceptance of yourself.

Self-acceptance is key to a healthy relationship and there is something keeping you in a relationship in which you are rejected in some way, so be Sherlock Holmes and figure out why.

5. Your mate is a mirror; use the reflection to find answers.

You’ve probably heard what you don’t like in yourself is reflected in others.

It’s true.

Unfortunately, in a toxic soulmate relationship, it’s more about insecurities. Your insecurities are mirrored right back at you, Big Time!

If you don’t trust your mate, it’s probably the same for them, but they may exhibit it in a different way than you.

You may be outrageously jealous, and they may cheat—abandonment and distrust guaranteed! You set up these situations over and over until you gain self-awareness.

Why are you here?

What is the benefit in being in a relationship with someone who makes your insecurities feel out of control?

There’s always a benefit. It may be that you really fear a real commitment, so your imperfect soulmate keeps you safe from having to show up and be emotionally present in a relationship.

Get clear on your insecurities. If you don’t trust your mate, ask yourself what you don’t trust about you.

It’s really about you not trusting yourself to handle the disappointment of whatever your soulmate says or does. You live in the anticipation and yet the fear of disappointment.

These tips will help you to establish and create your best relationship yet…with yourself. As you become healthier, the intensity will fade; the attachment, and feeling like you can’t breathe without them will also decrease.

In its place will be more confidence, happiness, peace and openness…a true space of freedom where real love can be expressed and lived fully.