Drowned

I have now officially accomplished one year of breaking up.I am almost in awe how fast 365 days went. I remember sitting at this little desk, this exact screen, and writing about the doom of my marriage. I was so broken that there were no words to really convey, I am not sure if there ever is for deep heartbreak. It was like for months, years? that I walked around a pool, terrified, because I knew I could not swim. And then someone threw me in, and I started to drown. All my fears were confirmed, and all the gasping for air I did really made no difference.

I know we have no power over other people, their actions, their emotions, their commitments. We only have power over what we do and how we react to them. This is a very tough life lesson.

I struggle to find anything impressive to say (not that I think I say a whole lot that is impressive..) but today, I am a bit resigned and a bit quiet with the whole thing. This month was tough, from the first day. It was like being forced to go back in time to some kind of emotional turmoil that I had to relive. Somewhat reflective of the past 365 days, and in some ways reliving it for the first time again. I have thought over and over, and held onto the hope, that in one year I would feel and be so different. But the year came up too fast, and I did not meet my hope. There is a certain calmness that often surrounds me, deep down, I don't feel tormented as much, not filled with so much dread and worry, and not so questioning of me, those are good to have let go somewhat. But what did not really change in 365 days, is my love of what was, if only an illusion. That has not gone away. I can easily climb into that spot in my mind, without a moment's notice, and that seems to be what still can create great sadness for me, as I have said before, clearly it is very hard to let someone go.

SeaWorld

This is such a story I just had to comment. I have to admit I learned a little bit more the past day, like the trainer, Dawn Brancheau, was extensively trained, and was only touching or near the whale, Tilikum, that no one ever got in the tank with him. He pulled her in by her pony tail, so it is reported, and that was it. What a way to go. He is 12,000 pounds and 22 feet long. Two times the size of female whales. Good god. He killed another trainer in 1991 in British Columbia. I believe he was used to sire many a baby whale, 13 I heard.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/25/florida.seaworld.death/index.html?hpt=T1

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/25/whales.seaworld.death/index.html

This is obviously bringing the debate again about whales and sea life in captivity, in SeaWorld or other similar parks around the world.

I just got a whole lesson on wikipedia..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whale

Live captures fell dramatically in the 1990s, and by 1999, about 40% of the 48 animals on display in the world were captive born. I guess I was glad ? to read that..that they are taking less animals from the wild, and are there really only 48 on display worldwide, that just seems hard to believe..but I recall years ago on a show, that is is a very big deal to go get a whale from the wild. It is not like they say "can I go perform at SeaWorld?" They are taken from their families, often whales end up dying, it is a big deal. Can you imagine being taken from your family to go perform for crowds?

The captive environment usually bears little resemblance to their wild habitat, and the social groups that the killer whales are put into are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim that captive life is stressful due to small tanks, false social groupings and chemically altered water. Captive killer whales occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress. (Wikipedia)

I think it is totally wrong to have whales in tanks swimming around doing tricks for people. Way wrong. It is totally against nature. I read it is like for them being kept in a bathtub. I am sad just thinking about it. I for one, do NOT need to see a whale in captivity doing tricks to feel like I have really lived. The documentary nature shows on TV these days are so good, way better to see the real thing than a forced show for money and cheers. I feel the same way for dolphins, seals, tigers (a la Siegfried and Roy..) animals in the circus. It should all be shut down. I don't know if that will ever happen, but it is a nice thought. I feel so bad for the animals. Zoos, I guess they are kind of bad too, aren't they. At least they are not for profit. But I know at our local zoo, there are huge walruses in a pretty small tank. They are magnificent to watch swim around, but again, that is not the life they should have. Now I feel bad even going to the zoo.

I am sorry to see the trainer lose her life, and in such an awful and shocking way. Yet I am sure she knew the dangers every day. We cannot blame the whales, or the tigers, bears, etc..even that wacky chimp (remember that horrible story--although that was a private owner..)Wild animals are just that, they are meant for a very specific life, in the case of whales, for millions of years. Swimming around in a large swimming pool is just totally wrong.

Never Ending Journey

This is quite a journey. At times, I can only hold myself together, that is all I can really focus on in some moments. There is so much to process, and I have noticed, I do it over and over. It is not linear, it is all over the map. I read about that. I just hoped it would not be like that for me. I hoped I would go to A to Z, in a quick route, without stopping along the way. However, I have gone from A to Z, and then back again to do it all over again, and over again. I do not know when I reach Z if it will be real, because I thought I already did. I do not know how to really let someone go. That is clear. And yet I know, very much so, that I can never go back. And so I move along this journey. I do not believe I could do this again. More so, I don't want to. I am losing so much of my life, my days, my moments, because at times I can barely see straight, let alone breathe. It has totally consumed me this past year. I feel I traded one prison for another. There has been no real win for me at this point. But, when I woke today I was greeted by a measure of possibility that today would be different than the past few, something shifted in the night, who knows were I ventured in my travels in my dreams. So these moments come back to me, and I feel like getting back on my little bike to continue down the road. I fixed the flat tires for now. I don't even bother to follow a map anymore, because my bike goes its own route, taking me along for a very long ride to nowhere, but I hope one day to somewhere..

One Year Later

I guess I thought I would feel a whole lot different. I used to convince myself, just wait 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, you will be different. But the truth be told, I really at the end of the day, don't feel any different. My heart hurts just as much as it did 365 days ago. I have tried so hard to reinvent myself, to become the new and improved me that is needed to leave this space, but I seem to fail. How long, how long will it be?

It is crazy to think I will go in these circles and keep coming back to this. I am so very sad on such a deep level, that I find it hard to even reach it. I just know that I wait and wait and wait for some new great day, but it never comes. I read all the great thoughts, and do all the great things, and put on a big smile and laugh away, but there is no stopping this freight train of total sadness that descends me.

The other night when watching The Time Traveler's Wife, after he had died, and I don't know if it was his spirit or him back in time travel, but he came to see his wife again, in the meadow, and she comes running and running, and he says he tries to stay away because he wants her to be able to move on, and she says "but I love you." And in that moment my heart sank. It defined where I am. I am running to some f$%^ing meadow in my mind over and over and over again, and there is no one to meet me, and I know that, but I really don't have anywhere else to go.

I guess I still cannot grasp it, how could I love someone and they would just leave me, so many times, so many ways, toss me aside, and how on earth could I have any emotion for this person, and when and how do I get out of this circle. It has become easier on some level lately just to be totally sad, to wait for sleep to drown myself in sadness, because trying to not be sad every day is just really exhausting, it is much more work than just being sad.

February

I am truly glad February is half over. I am not sure what is going on, but I am being stuffed with February memories. It is like I am stuck in some room with no doors or windows. Somehow I have popped myself in this room, and I am trying to retrace my steps to see when this happened. I don't know, I think there is some huge change going on for me and I cannot see it.

I recalled last night that this is a weekend for me I remember quite well. It was 20 years ago that I was completely crushed on this weekend by my husband (at the time a very new boyfriend.) I recall having no idea really as to what he was. It was like dealing with someone from another planet, who could, so easily, just shut it all off. I remember that quite well. I remember being broken hearted. I wish I had what I needed back then to just

m o v e o n ,but I clearly did not. I was sucked into some bizarre reality. Then last February was like it all over again, same person.

However 10 years ago on this weekend I was flying high. I had tossed out my resignation, only to have our group president call me, while I was going to go shopping, I so remember that part, and tell me "we won't let you go" and gave me a whopping staying bonus (I had never had one, never have again, and don't expect that is coming back again..those were the days!) So that was a pretty amazing weekend 10 years ago. But 5 years ago it was a time to move, full of a lot of stress but also so much hope (there I go, living in hope and believing because clearly I did not know..)

Four years ago February also held job change issues, where I stand again today. What the hell is up with February, I think I need to figure it out. It seems to be some life change month for me, maybe because it is my "half way year" on the road back to my birthday.

I pulled some Tarot cards again last night, and the present card was Change, it seems to be haunting me. What change. Changes I want to make are not really possible, and besides that I feel quite stuck in a room. Clearly I am at a crossroads. I am Dorothy asking which way to go. I am wondering whether to go into the wardrobe. I am running away into the woods. I am pricking my finger. I cannot take off the dancing shoes. I want to go home again. I hate writing this, it is making me see, again, for 20 years I have pretty much lived in a circle, with a few journeys outside the circle that made sense. It is so f!%^ing hard to get out of the circle. How many people live in circles, I really don't know.

Camelot

I often think of the scene in the movie Camelot, when Guinevere and Arthur are kind of spinning, dancing and lose their balance in the moment (it is to What Simple Folks Do..) which is kind of a light and fluffy song for a very heavy moment. He knows she is cheating, she knows he knows, but there is an unspoken almost agreement, and they spin as their lives are spinning away from them. He wants so much for it to all be right again.

I never felt like I had that kind of romance in the dark moment of my marriage. But there was a lot of spinning, and continues to be. But I often feel in my relationship with myself, that sense of spinning and not able to ground myself. Finding nothing left to hold on to. I am drifting and I must at all times have something to hold on to, because if I don't, I feel an emptiness that I cannot quite explain. Not an emptiness of "i must run a personal ad and get a date" it goes way beyond that. And then I have a fantasy of me in a convenant, somewhat locked away, in a very confined reality, which is funny because that is where Guinevere ends up in the movie. I go from extremes of wanting to embrace life and do so much, really be out there, to wanting to hide away because I am somewhat lost in finding my way. It would be true to say that I still go moment to moment these days and must constantly supply myself with filler, as to not totally spin away.

Fly Away

I..I what..feel a bit stuck..to say it sounds so trite. It really does. But I do. I realize I had a life that ended, quite awhile ago, but I have not really moved on, not in the big sense. While I don't believe I am living so much in the past, but I am in the middle area, and kind of content to be there..there is a certain safety to it, and at the same time it is upsetting and limiting. I was thinking today about how I even hate to think about it, like what am I going to do with myself, and all the questions that float around me everyday, kind of going unanswered, if I can just keep myself under the radar from myself. I like the "old days" of my life, and I did not feel like this every single day, that I had better make fabulous plans for my life. I better read things that were inspiring. I better find new hobbies,and people and places and things....I just "was"everyday, and there was an incredible freedom in that, although I was also totally in prison. So I just switched prisons.

Being too lazy to go do a real Tarot reading, I just pulled this card online:

6 of Swords

Success and moving on.

All around you everything is moving on and you are moving on with it. You are flying free and moving forwards in your life. The sun is shining and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. You may not know where you are going but you might as well enjoy the ride, because it’s going to be better than where you were.

Kind of a perfect card, if you ask me. Maybe I am moving forward everyday and I just don't see it right now. I wish I could fly far far away.

James Ray

I am thrilled this guy has been arrested. And I LOVE his mug shot. He deserves everything he gets, which I hope is a major prison sentence and that his company dies a fast death. The guy is a total joke.

And then of course we have the Mr Phony before look, with the coifed hair, the tan and the bright white teeth--what a con.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/regulate-gurus-james-ray-pleads-guilty-manslaughter-charges/story?id=9749118

I find it downright amusing that he has pictures of himself--photo shoot photos--he is so stuck up!! Please!!

http://jamesray.com/company/james-ray-photographs.php

Yep, another total narcissist!! They are so easy to spot now. Would people be so willing to pay a short, fat, cute little bald guy, who did not charge THOUSANDS..probably not.. (his courses are off his site now, so I cannot confirm, but I believe I heard upwards of $10k, which makes the head spin..) back to the short fat, bald guy..no people love to see these phony ass tan twinkling teeth guys, and phony women too..seriously we are just feeding the total narcissism out there..it is amazing how many cons are out there.

But ah, how happy I was to see him get arrested. I think it is funny. It is such a tragedy that people DIED on a seminar on how to have a better life, and he let it happen!! Seriously, for free we could all just take a hike outside, help out at a shelter, hold a new born baby, visit with our parents, call an old friend..and on and on..there are NO special answers out there from these people. The answers are free and reside within us.

So that is my two cents. I am glad to see him in jail, oh and that weird doctor who treated/killed Michael Jackson, he is about to go down too.

Thrown Under the Bus

Today I found out I was majorly thrown under the bus. Now I love that term, it is so perfect. When you actually know you have been thrown under the bus, it is tough. Little did I know that colleagues talked crap about me, don't want to be bothered with me, somehow I have become a nuisance, when I thought I was finally being a team player--which is not always that easy for me--as I find many people inept. But I threw myself into being a team player, and then this is how I get repaid. I had no warning that I was about to be told I was thrown under the bus, which made the whole experience that much worse. I really had no idea what the phone call was about. And my car somehow became center stage at the end, which was even odder than the phone call itself.

I hung up wanting to cry, out of total frustration. It is totally ridiculous at this age to even waste ONE second feeling bad about work, I mean really. Like they say, no person on their death bed says they should have spent more time at their office. I think they should also say, no one worries on their death bed if they have been thrown under the bus. Really, in the big scheme of life, who the hell cares.

I am reminded of a blog I wrote back in the fall I think, where I decided sometimes one just has to say F*%$ YOU! And scream it from the roof tops, and I sort of did today, while standing in my bathroom where no one could hear me in the neighborhood, so they really did not think I was some kind of wacko.

And then after wanting to cry out of frustration, and then yelling F*%$ YOU, I felt a bit free with the whole thing, as it is what it is, afterall, I cannot change what other people do. In my dad's words "you just worry about yourself." I can be my biggest fan, so I will.