Merry Christmas Eve!
Dec. 24th, 2007 09:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowangolightlyHere's the latest update in the, "Oh, what a difference (one-two-five-six) years make!" scenario of Rowan being a happy woman.
I did my 'wake up in the middle of the might and think deep thoughts' thing again last night. This time was distinctly odd, it wasn't any personal angst or problem, it was a real urgency to get a message across to my friends. I debated on making this 'friends only' since it will be soul-baring but that would defeat the point. This is about heart sharing, truly, sharing from the heart.
You see, my life has changed so radically in the last five to six years and definitely from when I started on Live Journal. This is 'ancient history' now but so many of you, I didn't know back then. *grin* Some of you remember this stuff in RL and are probably rolling your eyes. Bear with me, please.
I left my husband in '99 and sailed right into another relationship, talk about unwise. In '01 and '02, I was living a life of quiet loneliness and frequent desperation, in a very unsuccessful triad, not divorced yet but not really living happily either. Oh sure, I had moments of bliss since that's my nature to find them wherever I can, but there were so many times I cried, wondering what I was going to do and how I was going to make it. I made some very unwise emotional and financial decisions, squandered my divorce settlement on basic living necessities like rent since the other two kept losing jobs and not really caring about getting more. Frankly, I spent some of the time high as my two lovers were most of the time, just out of not wanting to worry and stress so much. What a waste of time and resources that was, that fake feeling of 'oh, things'll be fine!" because they weren't. Then came the nasty break-up where I was abandoned, truly; they moved out while I was gone on a State Fair statue gig, packed up and moved out and left me a note to find when I returned at midnight on August 18, 2002. That was probably the lowest night of my life.
But then the two weekends after, as KCRF started and I was the Evil Villainess in Scenario, I met this handsome Scotsman and life got more interesting. See, he was married and not too happily at that, as I soon discovered. They had this 'arrangement' but it worked for her benefit, not his and caused him lots of grief. I still had lots of stress and worry, with a new roommate who wasn't paying his way so I'd traded one set of frustration and upset for another. Then add the falling in love with a man I'd probably never get to have, true distress and heart-break. Long story short, all summer long I loved this man desperately and he was going through hell, four hours away and I couldn't help but on IM and an occasional visit. I was going through personal hells of my own as it became obvious that KC was no longer a place for me. Here, he had to deal with betrayal and illness and eventual death, and more betrayal even in that. Not happy times, much of which is posted back in his journal and some in mine as well. But times that we learned from, there is no doubt of that. And that was the time during which we began the band that would end up as "Queen's Gambit" which brought much joy to us and to others, even through the growing pains.
But in the end of that time of turmoil, we were able to be together as I moved here, way too quickly for a man in bereavement who has just realized that he is not of the nature he'd been conditioned to think he was; poly-amory was an entirely new concept to him when he met me. But I'd been stifled in both closets, Christianity and Monogomy, for far too long to go back and try to be who I no longer was anymore; it was much too hard work getting there in the first place. He could have me as I was now or not at all. And I could see that he'd been held back from being who he really was for all of his life.
Thing is, and this is the IMPORTANT part, once we were together, we could work as a unit to build bridges which, yes, was in our wedding vows, independently written. And we can and must work together to determine our goals and move forward on them. Time to heal our hearts, to rid ourselves of anger and angst and to heal and work on forgiveness. You see, trials and challenges are meant to be lessons from which to grow and then be able to help understand and aid others who are in challenge and conflict. I believe it's part of our job as human beings, to help one another, to grow closer with candid communication and trust, to learn how to love better and to grow closer to our dreams of perfection, not someone else's.
I believe the goal is to find joy within; to have no enemies, to have no resentment and no fears; to live life with each day being new and full of potential. To learn how to forgive and be forgiven and to move on in joy, having learned the lesson so that it does not have to be repeated until one finally does learn...'cause that's what life does, you know. Life presents you with the same thing, over and over, until the lesson is learned. Then you get new ones since it's true that we're all still flawed human beings! No one can move forward while holding onto blocks of grudge and resentment; forgiveness of self and of others, with the expectation that the hurtful behavior has ended, of course, is how that game works. But when one can forgive the self and forgive the other, what joy is discovered! That is the meaning of freedom, so far as I'm concerned.
The thing I was determined to convey here when I first awoke this morning is that the risk is worth taking to open our hearts to one another, even a bit at a time, to allow love to shine through, to take the chance to be real and genuine, to connect, one with another. In this season of Light, it is my wish for you that you can look beyond the challenges currently faced and the challenges past and see Light in the future. The only gift we can truly give one another is that gift of ourselves.
Still, this hasn't come across exactly as I'd pictured it in the middle of the night, but it's as close as I can get at this moment. Now I must go back upstairs and finish a little pink princess dress for Bruce's grand-daughter.
Love and Light....
I did my 'wake up in the middle of the might and think deep thoughts' thing again last night. This time was distinctly odd, it wasn't any personal angst or problem, it was a real urgency to get a message across to my friends. I debated on making this 'friends only' since it will be soul-baring but that would defeat the point. This is about heart sharing, truly, sharing from the heart.
You see, my life has changed so radically in the last five to six years and definitely from when I started on Live Journal. This is 'ancient history' now but so many of you, I didn't know back then. *grin* Some of you remember this stuff in RL and are probably rolling your eyes. Bear with me, please.
I left my husband in '99 and sailed right into another relationship, talk about unwise. In '01 and '02, I was living a life of quiet loneliness and frequent desperation, in a very unsuccessful triad, not divorced yet but not really living happily either. Oh sure, I had moments of bliss since that's my nature to find them wherever I can, but there were so many times I cried, wondering what I was going to do and how I was going to make it. I made some very unwise emotional and financial decisions, squandered my divorce settlement on basic living necessities like rent since the other two kept losing jobs and not really caring about getting more. Frankly, I spent some of the time high as my two lovers were most of the time, just out of not wanting to worry and stress so much. What a waste of time and resources that was, that fake feeling of 'oh, things'll be fine!" because they weren't. Then came the nasty break-up where I was abandoned, truly; they moved out while I was gone on a State Fair statue gig, packed up and moved out and left me a note to find when I returned at midnight on August 18, 2002. That was probably the lowest night of my life.
But then the two weekends after, as KCRF started and I was the Evil Villainess in Scenario, I met this handsome Scotsman and life got more interesting. See, he was married and not too happily at that, as I soon discovered. They had this 'arrangement' but it worked for her benefit, not his and caused him lots of grief. I still had lots of stress and worry, with a new roommate who wasn't paying his way so I'd traded one set of frustration and upset for another. Then add the falling in love with a man I'd probably never get to have, true distress and heart-break. Long story short, all summer long I loved this man desperately and he was going through hell, four hours away and I couldn't help but on IM and an occasional visit. I was going through personal hells of my own as it became obvious that KC was no longer a place for me. Here, he had to deal with betrayal and illness and eventual death, and more betrayal even in that. Not happy times, much of which is posted back in his journal and some in mine as well. But times that we learned from, there is no doubt of that. And that was the time during which we began the band that would end up as "Queen's Gambit" which brought much joy to us and to others, even through the growing pains.
But in the end of that time of turmoil, we were able to be together as I moved here, way too quickly for a man in bereavement who has just realized that he is not of the nature he'd been conditioned to think he was; poly-amory was an entirely new concept to him when he met me. But I'd been stifled in both closets, Christianity and Monogomy, for far too long to go back and try to be who I no longer was anymore; it was much too hard work getting there in the first place. He could have me as I was now or not at all. And I could see that he'd been held back from being who he really was for all of his life.
Thing is, and this is the IMPORTANT part, once we were together, we could work as a unit to build bridges which, yes, was in our wedding vows, independently written. And we can and must work together to determine our goals and move forward on them. Time to heal our hearts, to rid ourselves of anger and angst and to heal and work on forgiveness. You see, trials and challenges are meant to be lessons from which to grow and then be able to help understand and aid others who are in challenge and conflict. I believe it's part of our job as human beings, to help one another, to grow closer with candid communication and trust, to learn how to love better and to grow closer to our dreams of perfection, not someone else's.
I believe the goal is to find joy within; to have no enemies, to have no resentment and no fears; to live life with each day being new and full of potential. To learn how to forgive and be forgiven and to move on in joy, having learned the lesson so that it does not have to be repeated until one finally does learn...'cause that's what life does, you know. Life presents you with the same thing, over and over, until the lesson is learned. Then you get new ones since it's true that we're all still flawed human beings! No one can move forward while holding onto blocks of grudge and resentment; forgiveness of self and of others, with the expectation that the hurtful behavior has ended, of course, is how that game works. But when one can forgive the self and forgive the other, what joy is discovered! That is the meaning of freedom, so far as I'm concerned.
The thing I was determined to convey here when I first awoke this morning is that the risk is worth taking to open our hearts to one another, even a bit at a time, to allow love to shine through, to take the chance to be real and genuine, to connect, one with another. In this season of Light, it is my wish for you that you can look beyond the challenges currently faced and the challenges past and see Light in the future. The only gift we can truly give one another is that gift of ourselves.
Still, this hasn't come across exactly as I'd pictured it in the middle of the night, but it's as close as I can get at this moment. Now I must go back upstairs and finish a little pink princess dress for Bruce's grand-daughter.
Love and Light....
