(If in case you feel I directed this specifically towards you, rest assured I’m sending a link to this post to everyone I know.  If I have your email address, you’re getting one…. believe me.)

I am responsible for my own happiness.  Like it or not, you are responsible for your own happiness as well.  Do not look to me to do or say something that will make you happy, because it is not my job to provide happiness to anyone but myself.  Frankly, it is not within my power to do so anyways.   

I don’t mean that coldly, or to suggest I am anything other than the fun-loving, compassionate, sensitive guy I’ve always been, but with roughly 20 years left on this planet, making sure you are happy is not my priority.

My personal manifesto holds that I will never consciously try to hurt you or cause you pain or sadness, but it is bound to happen.  That is why I encourage all of you to look inside yourselves and find your own path to happiness.  Where your road parallels mine, let’s travel together.  Where they diverge, let’s go our seperate ways towards happiness with a warm handshake or embrace and no hard feelings.

Should your happiness involve trying to force yourself into my life in a negative fashion, well, I feel very sorry for you.  What a sad existence you must have to waste your beautiful life hurting others.  Personally, I believe that you will be re-paid in spades for such things, but that’s just my belief.  What you give to the universe is what the universe will return to you.  Like attracts like.

So if my search for personal satisfaction, emotional growth and happiness has offended or hurt you, I’m sorry.  I hope you can find something good in your own life to fill that pained spot with pleasant thoughts and move on.  Don’t count on me to rectify it for you.  Your happiness is your life’s work.  As for me, it’s off to work myself.

Wishing you all, all the best in love, luck, and happiness…

Google maps has a new feature that lets people put snapshots of their hometowns on the map.  Here’s some snapshots of where I live on Long Island… Click the pic for more!

   I wonder when the first door was invented. 

   We as a society have speculated endlessly on the origins of the wheel and of fire, but what of the door?  Who was the first man to blockade the entrance to his cave so as to afford himself a modicum of protection and a sense of sanctuary?  It was, in all probability, a man, as men build things.  It’s in our blood.  Give a boy some water and some mud and he’ll invariably build a damn to hold the water back.  Mottes, Baileys, stone keeps, castles, fortresses… men built them all.  It’s in our nature as men.  Build something to protect myself.  To protect that which I have gathered as mine.

  And probably sometime later, that early man discovered that, that door served double duty.  In addition to protection, it was a place to strike out from.  As no ken was possible, a potential enemy arriving at the closed door could not know for sure the strength of forces marshalled within.  There was no way to judge the depth of the hollow that lie beyond… was there a single man or a multitude?  Vigorously armed or defenseless?  There was simply no way of knowing until the door was thrown open and the defenders poured forth into battle.

  So removing from it’s hinges a door, and leaving the portal thrown open wide is counter-intuitive to a man at best.  Fool-hardy and perilous more generally.  Deadly and oft times fatal at worst. 

   So it is with the doors we erect within ourselves.  They are there to protect and to provide safe haven.  To engender a sense of wariness in those that approach, until they prove trustworthy enough to pass within or until they prove dangerous enough to be  driven away.

   I have spent these past months in grand experiment, eschewing  the protection of a weir to the rivers of my soul… and to my inner self.  This blog is part of that experiment.  I have permitted any passing spirit to peer inside and know my depths and my every weakness.  I have allowed myself no protection of that which is mine on the hopes that such protection was not necessary amongst those with whom I share this existence.

   I can report back to you now that doors do serve a purpose. 

   I for one, need a door.  Perhaps a moat as well. 

   My adventure into candor & forthrightness was at first heartening.  The light which poured through the open doorway was a pleasant respite from the cool, darkness I had felt when it was closed.  But I have lost much in the process too.  I have been stripped of some things that I treasured.  I’ve been inadvertently raped and plundered by those very souls that inspired me to remove the door in the first place.  They are not at fault by any means.  Society knows the intent of a door, so when one finds an open gateway, it can only be assumed that there is nothing sacred or valued within and that anything found there is free for the taking.  To be fair to my fellow man, things have been left for me as well.  The traffic was two-way for sure.

   I’ll probably open my door again in the future when I feel safe once more… when the footfalls of maruaders and dilettantes are no longer evident outside… but for now I feel the need to shut the door… and bolt it mightily, that I might sleep and reflect in peace for a bit.   For now, I busy myself with the inventory of that which has been left within the redoubt of my heart and that which has been taken that I might better understand the residuum of my experiment… that I may better weigh it’s costs and benedictions.

   So I bid you adeiu for now, and ask that if you feel the need to pass into my antre, you knock first upon my closed door and ask in a kind and honest fashion to be recognized as a friend.

   So, I totally choked this week on my lover’s plans to spend a couple nights with another guy.  We had talked and talked and talked through all of this many times, attended classes on polyamory, read books, and on an intellectual, rational, thinking level, I was so cool with it.

   It does so make sense that I could never be everything for her nor she for me.  It makes sense that to keep the relationship alive, we need to constantly refresh things… seek out new experiences and things to return back to one another with and say, ‘Wow… check THIS out!’  It makes sense that we need to be whole and complete unto ourselves and not dependent upon the relationship for our sense of well-being.  It all just makes sense…

   But then I choked.  I got pissed.  I bitched.  I pouted and basically drama-ed up the entire thing to the point that she cancelled their plans at the last minute.  I didn’t do or say anything I didn’t mean… nor can I blame her for misunderstanding me.  I was hurting big time emotionally. 

   I quickly apologized and begged her to reconsider, I wrote apologetic emails to the guy, apologized repeatedly over the phone to her.  And I felt so bad.  I couldn’t have believed it was possible, but I felt even worse than I had up to that moment.

   He for his part, was magnanimous, gracious and understanding… I’d almost hoped he’d be a total dick about it, but no,  he really is a great guy.  If I felt like I wanted to bust both his kneecaps and send him home in a wheelchair, I was definitely gonna have to find another reason.  Total insanity most likely.

   She was sad and upset but in her usual way, stepped into it all with tolerance and loving patience for me.

    So.  Experience begets pain, pain begets learning if we try and let it.  I wanted to learn from this and I did. 

   Here is what I learned.

   Emotions are not rational.  I knew that, but somehow I kept stupidly thinking that if I read more, or talked more or negotiated more it would change.  It doesn’t change.  Emotions simply do not respond to rational thought.  They only respond to other emotions and experiences and this experience showed me that the pain I felt for disappointing both of them was far, far greater than the hurt I felt over her desire to share some fun and intimacy with him.

   I experienced the pain of knowing I did far more damage to our relationship than anything that could have happened over those two days would have.  She loves me.  She’s told me, he even told me, and I believe it in my heart.  And I paid that love back by hurting her in this instance.  THAT is the a lesson I took from this.

   That as bad as it might feel, it can be worse.  That I can choose to be loved or I can choose to push love away by hurting the very ones that want to love me.  That is something my emotional side can respond too and accept.

   Thanks Suze and David… I needed that. 

  Author’s note: I continued this post in ‘My Passions’.  You can read it here.

Christmas 2007 –  

Love. 

“Love is essentially an abstract concept, much easier to experience than to explain.”, says wikipedia.  “Some feelings that are often associated with love:

Affection: feelings of tenderness and/or wanting physical closeness
Attachment: satisfying basic emotional needs
Altruism: selfless or unselfish concern for another
Reciprocation: if love is mutual
Commitment: a desire to maintain love
Emotional intimacy: sharing emotions and feelings
Friendship: the spirit between friends
Kinship: family bonds
Passion: whole-hearted desire
Physical intimacy: sharing of intimate personal space
Self-interest: desiring rewards
Service: desire to help

Sexuality can be an important element in determining the shape of a relationship, however, there are many ways to express passionate love without sex. Affection, emotional intimacy and shared interests and experiences are common in friendships and kinships of all human beings.”

I love you Suzanne.  Affection, attachment, altruism, commitment, intimacy, passion, service.  All these emotions and more…

On this Christmas day I can only say, “I love you.  Thank you for entering my life.”

 So what is the purpose of our relationship?  You drive me nuts at times with your femmy uncertainty and moodiness.  I am so not there with you. 

But at times… in your bed… I am so one with you.  Our spirits rise together into the light.  You fulfill me and I, you.

So maybe our purpose isn’t to become one, but to share the moments we connect.  Those moments when our intentions and attentions are in sync and love surrounds us.

Maybe my purpose is to love you fully and wholly when I can.  To stay out of your way when I can’t.  To be a joy, to be an addition to your life.  To fulfill you as you do me.

To love you. To pleasure you.  To make you more than you are by yourself.

And in return, you offer me contentment. You let me know I am loved.  You complete me.

Thank you, you strange, annoying, beautiful, amazing woman.  I love you.

Seasons Greetings

As winter ‘07 sets in and the air chills and its’ northerly winds begin to blow, I’ve begun to wrap myself up in soft, sweet smelling blankets of love and happiness. 

For too many winters past I’ve remained bare and chilled deep to the bone.  Down into my very soul.  Treading through the snow and ice with nothing between me and the harsh elements… shivering, shaking and freezing nearly to death.  All the while the blankets lay there on my bed, neatly folded, clean and warm… just waiting for me to take them up.  But I didn’t know any better.  I thought they weren’t mine to have.

This winter I’m doing differently.  The first blanket is music.  Good, sweet music. Bela Fleck, Natasha Bedingfield, Rebecca Lavelle.  It’s a blanket I wore many years ago, but had forgotten in the back of a closet some where deep in my soul.  Welcome back blanket. 

Over that I wrap myself in the blanket of thought and new ideas.  It’s a crazed quilt of books and videos and good conversations… of new, thrilling ideas and paths to travel and explore.  To the warmer places of rapturous ecstasy, hot sexual encounters, and a passionate, full and glowing life.

Lastly, I bundle myself tightly in the affection of new friends, and the love of one special one. 

This blanket was the longest missing from my life.  I thought for sure it was gone for good… lost some wheres along the line, never, ever to be found again.  But it was right here the whole time.  Dopey me.

It’s the softest against my cheek, the sweetest smelling to my nose.  It feels more than anything like a long, warm, affectionate hug.  No matter how very cold this winter gets, it gaurantees to protect me and stay wrapped about me for as long as I need.

Blow winter, blow.  It’s all very good.  I’m good.

We must be willing to get rid of
the life we’ve planned, so as to have
the life that is waiting for us.

- Joseph Campbell

Wow.  What an amazing few months it’s been.  A beautiful, wonderful woman has stepped into my life and nothing will ever be the same.  I love her, adore her and admire the heck out of her.   She is a one in a billion woman.

I also happen to hate her guts at times but hey, whaddaya gonna do?  The woman’s got her own spirit, direction and opinions.  She certainly challenges me.

We see eye to eye on a lot of things, literally.  Eye contact is probably the first thing that drew us together.  And we both believe in the beauty and connected-ness of it all… the wonder that is found in all the people we meet.  The power in simple gestures… placing a hand over each other’s heart, breathing together and touching… “it’s all good.”

It took seven years of knowing of one another before we actually ‘met’ and felt the same, “Wow. Who the hell are YOU and what did you just do to my heart?”, “Welcome you!  No… Yes.  I can’t, I will.  Never, please right now!!” lol!

So up to now it’s been great, great stuff.  The path she has been on for the past 10+ years, the things she’s studied, are all things I want to learn too.  She’s put words and direction to the things I’ve already learned, felt and desired for myself for a long time.  I’ve really gotten caught up in her wonderful life.

The parallels are so amazing. She calls it conscious breathing, I call it learning to play the saxophone. She calls it the contexts of Co-Active Coaching and levels of listening, I call it transactional analysis and sensory perception. She calls it connected-ness, I call it being in the moment. Ask and it is given/The power of positive thinking… David Deida/D&s… perception vs. reality/hearing vs. listening… we are on definitely the same paths.

But now it’s time to make choices and decisions and return to the realization that I am not her.  My life is not hers, much as I’d like it to be.  It’s my life.

That’s not to say I can’t change, I’m just acknowledging that in order to pursue all the things she has, I’ll be starting from a different place and time.  I’d love to study Aikido, take CTI training and attend some Body Electric courses – because I feel drawn to do so.  I sense that they will contribute to balancing me and fulfilling my life.  But unlike her, I have a marriage to wrap up, kids to help see off into their own lives and a regular 9-5 job. Well, 5:30 to 4 actually… but you get the idea.

Time.  And then there is money.  My next big move in life is to move out and create my own space.  To build a base of operations for the next 20 years or so and that’s gonna cost me.  In many, many ways.

So I need to return to the life plan that I was working on before she stepped in and turned my world inside out.   So much of what she’s learned in her life coaching, I’ve done intuitively.  Identify the issues, own up to what caused them and how you feel about them, plan an approach to dealing with them.

My current area of personal growth revolves around relationships.  More specifically, closing the book on bad ones, seeking positive ones and entering into them in a healthy manner that doesn’t unconsciously lead me to ever sacrifice ‘me’ again.

So, it’s not important to ‘catch up’ with my woman right now, much as I really want too.  It’s important to lay the foundation of the rest of my life first.  That means focusing on getting my finances in order, moving out on my own and beginning to center my life on me.

Deep breath.  Yep.  I realize it might just mean shaking hands with her and saying, “Good-bye for now…  Hope we can meet again in the future.”  That will really, really suck. Really. Boy, would that suck.

But… it’s my life.  For better or worse, it’s time to start living it.

Down below the surface of a quiet pond lived a little colony of water bugs. They were a happy colony, living far away from the sun. For many months they were very busy, scurrying over the soft mud on the bottom of the pond. They did notice that every once in a while one of their colony seemed to lose interest in its friends’ activities. Clinging to the stem of a pond lily, it would gradually move out of sight and be seen no more.

“Look!” said one of the water bugs to another, “one of our colony is climbing up the lily stalk. Where do you think he is going?” Up, up, up it slowly went…. Even as they watched, the water bug disappeared from sight. Its friends waited and waited but it didn’t return. “That’s funny!” said one water bug to another. “Wasn’t he happy here?” asked a second. “Where do you suppose he went?” wondered a third. No one had an answer. They were greatly puzzled.

Finally one of the water bugs, a leader in the colony, gathered his friends together. “I have an idea. The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk must promise to come back and tell us where he or she went and why.” “We promise,” they said solemnly.

One spring day, not long after, the very water bug who had suggested the plan found himself climbing up the lily stalk. Up, up, up, he went. Before he knew what was happening, he had broken through the surface of the water and fallen onto the broad, green lily pad above. When he awoke, he looked about with surprise. He couldn’t believe what he saw. A startling change had come to his old body. His movement revealed four silver wings and a long tail. Even as he struggled, he felt an impulse to move his wings.The warmth of the sun soon dried the moisture from the new body. He moved his wings again and suddenly found himself up above the water. He had become a dragonfly. Swooping and dipping in great curves, he flew through the air. He felt exhilarated in the new atmosphere. By and by the new dragonfly lighted happily on a lily pad to rest.

Then it was that he chanced to look below to the bottom of the pond. Why, he was right above his old friends, the water bugs! There they were scurrying around, just as he had been doing some time before. Then the dragonfly remembered the promise: “The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk will come back and tell where he or she went and why.”

Without thinking, the dragonfly darted down. Suddenly he hit the surface of the water and bounced away. Now that he was a dragonfly, he could no longer go into the water. “I can’t return!” he said in dismay. “At least, I tried. But I can’t keep my promise. Even if I could go back, not one of the water bugs would know me in my new body. I guess I’ll just have to wait until they become dragonflies too. Then they’ll understand what has happened to me, and where I went.” And the dragonfly winged off happily into its wonderful new world of sun and air.