What? This was written 2 weeks ago!?!?
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 25 January 2011 at 1/25/2011 09:46:00 am.
NB: OK in my defense - this was written 2 weeks ago and somehow it didn't get published when I clicked publish... and now only half of it is in my Drafts folder? WTF?!
oh well, so here's half of my musings from 2 weeks ago...
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Meaningful take 2.
Right, so this is still hard for me. I have noticed over the last week that my main problem is thinking something, anything, every tiny little thing that even pokes it's head into my mind in terms of potential "meaningful stuff", just gets shot down by my brain. "Nah, that's just a sorta whatever-fine-okay thing." And I find myself waiting around for some other idea to surface that would be post-worthy.
...which is just stupid, because obviously if something was valuable enough to pop into that corner of my mind in the first place, it's got to have meaning and quality and worth and some sort of power that I'm not acknowledging. Which is worth further investigation and will most probably result in the realization that I'm not paying such small blessings or people or whatevers in my life their due. Which is kind of the point of this little exercise.
So I need to practice more, or something.
But anyway, let's go with one of those exact little "things" that happened last week (or before?) exactly the way I just described it: I got an email from someone that registered in my head and my heart and made me really FEEL something for a moment there, and of course now being on board with this new blog project of mine I was tempted to say "yeah, hey, that is definitely meaningful" but then the cynic in me got the better of that thought and it was dumbed down through no fault of its own by a bunch of "yeah but..."s.
So the email was from my little brother-from-another-mother (little BFAM?) Uncle A. He's been in India with his new girlfriend (an american medical student that he met in Malawi on his travels northward a couple months ago and subsequently spent 2 weeks with and fell in love with and made a plan to meet up in India for 3 weeks with last month.... but that's a whole 'nother story). He wrote a classic little BFAM email to me inculsive of a whole 9 sentences or something - cuz that's how he rolls - but in it he wrote about his heart ache of leaving the new girl behind, how much he misses her, and how he would even entertain the thought of uprooting and moving for her. Then, in the same email he made remorseful mention of how he feels sad about missing (of all things... can hardly believe this one...) wait for it... it's unbelievable....
... LJJ and the growing up period she's in the midst of right now, since he's been gone so long!? I was flabbergasted. Seriously? Let's just say I NEVER expected that. Not in a million billion years. EVER. This is the guy who Foreigner pre-emptively wrote "(You're as) Cold As Ice" for, in 1977... oddly enough, 7 years before his birth!
Ok, so where was the meaningful in this story?
Uhhhh, only on so many freakin levels!!!!
Firstly, the honesty. I crave honesty in my relationships and it's probably the number 1 value I hold dear when it comes to the people in my life that I really value. Honesty allows you trust, give in, be vulnerable, believe in that relationship because the other person is saying "look, I'm picking you as someone who's worth the truth, no matter how it makes me look. It inspires you to be more honest with the other person, which is a buttload of added value to the relationship itself. And most of all it purifies all the ju-ju that circulates between people in any relationship. And, let's face it. I kind of crave this in a little BFAM. My own worthless waste-of-time relationship with my own bio-sib is one big cess pool of anti-quality, mainly related to the fact that he is a two-faced liar who would sell me down the river to anyone he meets as well as betray with the drop of a downbeat. Not to mention happily foster a 1-way relationship in which he quite happily collects all the attention made available to him like freakin' trinkets, and then lies unblinkingly to the faces of those offering that which he collects. Family members, significant others, friends, anyone. Everyone's fair game. What that does, is creates a situation where I can't be honest to him and I become cold and stonewall-y all together. And stonewalling people is just another type of dishonesty - you're hiding stuff, you're putting forth a false face/personality, and you just rot under the lies and stinking bad mojo.
The honesty part of this story is about the fact that this little BFAM of mine is one tough cookie, emotionally. One of these guys who honestly believes that vulnerability is a terminal cancer that will bring you down. Someone who puts forward a tough exterior and uses (as I've learned over the last 6 years) cynnicism and insults and negativity to compromise for the fact that there's something missing. As I've recounted before, having been at the receiving end. But this is PROOF! that when he has love in his life, he actually has a heart of gold (I'm going to go with that, even though I've been burned before by him, the last time there was a gf and I thought... well, anyway). So for him to actually open up and say this sort of stuff, it really kind of bumps our spookily-frighteningly-sibling-like relationship up a notch on the meaningful pole. It's like a bit of confirmation that I'm NOT dreaming when I think that our *thing* is more than just a superficial friendship. It's evidence that specialness exists and all the shyte that we've been through together (inter-continental moves, breakups, dead dogs, desert breakdowns, family nonsense, etc etc) actually built something and created a platform in the friendship on which honesty is practiced.
Secondly, the love part. This is meaningful to me because seeing him being in love and knowing what it feels like... to love somebody... (yeah, that's right, the BeeGees wrote that song pre-emptively about him too! Amazingly enough this time a whole 17 years before his birth...) but I digress. It means that he's got a new facet to his life, a new depth, a new perception that he never had before which opens up a whole world of difference in how he's going to enjoy life from now on, regardless of if the relationship works/lasts or not. (these are such big-sib feelings here) Not only is it going to make him happy, it means that it'll give him perception.... all those times he balked at the idea of people being soul mates. All those times he rolled his eyes when me or The Mr. would mention that we believe in it. That kinda stuff.
Thirdly, the "I regret that I'm missing all this growing-up stuff" re: LJJ part. Sure, everyone wants to feel like their friends like their kid. But this really gives a whole 'nother dimension to the "Uncle A." moniker that we've given him from the get go. Again, in contrast to my biological sibling who has shown all of .00009% interest in his neice, this part goes a long way. It means a lot to me to know that there is some sort of emotion there, a genuine interest, some caring going on. Not in just the standard "how's the kid" question that everybody and their dog can ask without even listening to the answer (yes, I now know parents CAN actually get fatigue in the "let me tell you ALLL ABOUT MY KID" department, especially when it's usually just a disinterested rhetorical question), but in that "I feel like I have a relationship with her" manner. I never saw that one coming, not a mile away. Wow.
----
Anyhoo, that's all that was left in the Drafts folder. I think there was a "Fourthly" section, but I can't remember anymore. damn blogger.
oh well, so here's half of my musings from 2 weeks ago...
----
Meaningful take 2.
Right, so this is still hard for me. I have noticed over the last week that my main problem is thinking something, anything, every tiny little thing that even pokes it's head into my mind in terms of potential "meaningful stuff", just gets shot down by my brain. "Nah, that's just a sorta whatever-fine-okay thing." And I find myself waiting around for some other idea to surface that would be post-worthy.
...which is just stupid, because obviously if something was valuable enough to pop into that corner of my mind in the first place, it's got to have meaning and quality and worth and some sort of power that I'm not acknowledging. Which is worth further investigation and will most probably result in the realization that I'm not paying such small blessings or people or whatevers in my life their due. Which is kind of the point of this little exercise.
So I need to practice more, or something.
But anyway, let's go with one of those exact little "things" that happened last week (or before?) exactly the way I just described it: I got an email from someone that registered in my head and my heart and made me really FEEL something for a moment there, and of course now being on board with this new blog project of mine I was tempted to say "yeah, hey, that is definitely meaningful" but then the cynic in me got the better of that thought and it was dumbed down through no fault of its own by a bunch of "yeah but..."s.
So the email was from my little brother-from-another-mother (little BFAM?) Uncle A. He's been in India with his new girlfriend (an american medical student that he met in Malawi on his travels northward a couple months ago and subsequently spent 2 weeks with and fell in love with and made a plan to meet up in India for 3 weeks with last month.... but that's a whole 'nother story). He wrote a classic little BFAM email to me inculsive of a whole 9 sentences or something - cuz that's how he rolls - but in it he wrote about his heart ache of leaving the new girl behind, how much he misses her, and how he would even entertain the thought of uprooting and moving for her. Then, in the same email he made remorseful mention of how he feels sad about missing (of all things... can hardly believe this one...) wait for it... it's unbelievable....
... LJJ and the growing up period she's in the midst of right now, since he's been gone so long!? I was flabbergasted. Seriously? Let's just say I NEVER expected that. Not in a million billion years. EVER. This is the guy who Foreigner pre-emptively wrote "(You're as) Cold As Ice" for, in 1977... oddly enough, 7 years before his birth!
Ok, so where was the meaningful in this story?
Uhhhh, only on so many freakin levels!!!!
Firstly, the honesty. I crave honesty in my relationships and it's probably the number 1 value I hold dear when it comes to the people in my life that I really value. Honesty allows you trust, give in, be vulnerable, believe in that relationship because the other person is saying "look, I'm picking you as someone who's worth the truth, no matter how it makes me look. It inspires you to be more honest with the other person, which is a buttload of added value to the relationship itself. And most of all it purifies all the ju-ju that circulates between people in any relationship. And, let's face it. I kind of crave this in a little BFAM. My own worthless waste-of-time relationship with my own bio-sib is one big cess pool of anti-quality, mainly related to the fact that he is a two-faced liar who would sell me down the river to anyone he meets as well as betray with the drop of a downbeat. Not to mention happily foster a 1-way relationship in which he quite happily collects all the attention made available to him like freakin' trinkets, and then lies unblinkingly to the faces of those offering that which he collects. Family members, significant others, friends, anyone. Everyone's fair game. What that does, is creates a situation where I can't be honest to him and I become cold and stonewall-y all together. And stonewalling people is just another type of dishonesty - you're hiding stuff, you're putting forth a false face/personality, and you just rot under the lies and stinking bad mojo.
The honesty part of this story is about the fact that this little BFAM of mine is one tough cookie, emotionally. One of these guys who honestly believes that vulnerability is a terminal cancer that will bring you down. Someone who puts forward a tough exterior and uses (as I've learned over the last 6 years) cynnicism and insults and negativity to compromise for the fact that there's something missing. As I've recounted before, having been at the receiving end. But this is PROOF! that when he has love in his life, he actually has a heart of gold (I'm going to go with that, even though I've been burned before by him, the last time there was a gf and I thought... well, anyway). So for him to actually open up and say this sort of stuff, it really kind of bumps our spookily-frighteningly-sibling-like relationship up a notch on the meaningful pole. It's like a bit of confirmation that I'm NOT dreaming when I think that our *thing* is more than just a superficial friendship. It's evidence that specialness exists and all the shyte that we've been through together (inter-continental moves, breakups, dead dogs, desert breakdowns, family nonsense, etc etc) actually built something and created a platform in the friendship on which honesty is practiced.
Secondly, the love part. This is meaningful to me because seeing him being in love and knowing what it feels like... to love somebody... (yeah, that's right, the BeeGees wrote that song pre-emptively about him too! Amazingly enough this time a whole 17 years before his birth...) but I digress. It means that he's got a new facet to his life, a new depth, a new perception that he never had before which opens up a whole world of difference in how he's going to enjoy life from now on, regardless of if the relationship works/lasts or not. (these are such big-sib feelings here) Not only is it going to make him happy, it means that it'll give him perception.... all those times he balked at the idea of people being soul mates. All those times he rolled his eyes when me or The Mr. would mention that we believe in it. That kinda stuff.
Thirdly, the "I regret that I'm missing all this growing-up stuff" re: LJJ part. Sure, everyone wants to feel like their friends like their kid. But this really gives a whole 'nother dimension to the "Uncle A." moniker that we've given him from the get go. Again, in contrast to my biological sibling who has shown all of .00009% interest in his neice, this part goes a long way. It means a lot to me to know that there is some sort of emotion there, a genuine interest, some caring going on. Not in just the standard "how's the kid" question that everybody and their dog can ask without even listening to the answer (yes, I now know parents CAN actually get fatigue in the "let me tell you ALLL ABOUT MY KID" department, especially when it's usually just a disinterested rhetorical question), but in that "I feel like I have a relationship with her" manner. I never saw that one coming, not a mile away. Wow.
----
Anyhoo, that's all that was left in the Drafts folder. I think there was a "Fourthly" section, but I can't remember anymore. damn blogger.
Labels: Meaningful, mis amigos
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