(sidenote: I am not giving context for this because the context doesn’t matter, my behavior doesn’t have to be context dependent). (another sidenote: the context probably does matter for recognizing the pattern). (more sidenote: I really don’t like how this was framed as abuse, I just did it again, and that’s not abuse, that’s me being irritable and raising my voice to try and get to the end of it, poorly explaining how this situation is driving me mad and practically begging and yelling for it to stop. That’s self defense without any other way of knowing how to do it. It’s rude and inconsiderate and pushes people away, but abuse is really something different from that.). Enough sidenotes…

That question I was asked turned out to have a great answer. The question was what to do when their partner is in some mood. The answer is simple: leave them alone. It appears hard for someone in that position to just let their partner be alone. It seems as though the person wants to be there and help and they are just engaging in a conversation. The person who is me must have some sense of self-awareness to recognize what is going on. The situation could be addressed, and then ended until the situation changes for that person. This is the more difficult road. Each one is trying to be with the other, and the being together is doing the hurting to both of them. Neither one has the ability to let this instant go, so they can come back together after processing. I need the time to process. I need to be alone, and I asked for what I needed this morning. This was my inability to ask for what I needed. I thought I couldn’t ask, same as the other person who couldn’t ask for what they wanted or needed in that moment. I see something so clearly now. I also see how others don’t have the full picture.

People have given me their thoughts. I am afraid that the other person has people in their ear “helping” them to get through this. They threw the whole thing away because of latching onto fears projected from others. I did this same thing recently in some of my writing, latching on whole cloth to the ideas of others. I would love nothing more than to repair what was broken. I talk to friends and they build me up, and they give me context, they tell me that was abuse. I get to thinking through it, and I’m like, “oh yeah, that was abuse, that was manipulation, that was controlling, that was all that…” And then I sit and write through the things, and I get all wrapped up in this OMG moment of “realization” it all makes so much sense not, I was the victim of abuse and being trapped in a situation. I don’t like that. I don’t agree. I write about it, and I try to process. I don’t know what to think. The thought that protects me and helps me move on, that thought paints the other in a light that isn’t fair. It doesn’t allow them the chance to understand it. The conclusion is that person is an abuser. That person isn’t mature enough. That person is me. That person is them. The “friends” don’t know shit about how the realtionship played out. They don’t get to ask this other person their side. The person is left to defend themselves or to accept it. They are not given anuy opportunity before the decision is made. This whole thing gets confusing about who is who, but read again, it becomes clear that the “person” is both, and the “friends” are full of shit. They only see the devastating effect on the person. They see how broken this person has become. they want to help, and their help might help in some way. But it does not help to heal the relationship. The “friends” drive a wedge that must now be overcome. Professional help, together, is what would be needed if the relationship is to continue.

I don’t want to talk about it anymore. She was the sunshine in my life. My bubbly wife. Everyone else tries to tell me how bad she was for me. I trust in our ability to stop the world and be with each other. Let all that shit go. It’s over. Why am I continuing to try? Why do I do this to myself? I thought I was better because I had classified it as abusive and controlling. With that label, it becomes easy, it becomes an escape. It becomes a place where friends can celebrate me and my choice as dodging a bullet and getting out early.

One minute I love, the next it’s abuse. One is respect, the other is disrespect. The mind struggles to understand. I am too damn strong headed to accept someone else’s classification of her. I yelled at someone for insulting my wife’s character. I also bought it hook line and sinker that the other person was going to hurt me. I got all this when I was told to be careful because the other person might do something to harm me. Their fears that the other person would hurt may be projections and they will hurt me. I don’t believe it, but I need to protect myself because it’s not something that is ever seen coming. I heard this. Me. About them. Funny, indeed. Apparently… Apparently, the same things were said about me. And it just makes all the sense in the world when that “friend” tells me about their experience and how their learning has told them to watch out for those exact red flags.

Fuck me. This is ridiculous. The beauty was there. The trust and safety was there, until someone came along and told me it wasn’t. I believed them. I’m just shaking my head. I am powerless. The only thing I can do is write. Let it sit for a bit. Come back to it with a sober mind. The craziness of love doesn’t have to be so crazy. Fucking “friends” with their own issues have painted over my love and made it a fucking mess of abuse and control. That is not at all how it went down. Only two people know the truth. Everyone else is out of context, protecting, projecting, and they don’t know shit.

For all my readers, I hope you can find your own truth. I am on the path to finding mine.

He thanked me for this advice, and he went on the share that this was his first customer he got on the phone and willing to meet him. I kinda chuckled a bit and told him that reminded me of before I had my own business, and I was selling commercial real estate. I remember calling people asking them if they want to sell. I shared some advice that I got. The advice was not to worry about that one customer who doesn’t pick him; he’s young and just getting started, he will make mistakes. I offered that he shouldn’t concern himself with each single customer because no one customer is going to be that make or break. If he messes one up, there’s plenty more out there, so just call the next one. He thanked me again for that advice because he hadn’t really thought about it like that. He was placing all the hope in this one because it was the first one. I kindly said that it was okay if he didn’t get this deal. I gave him the advice I grew up with: if you help enough other people get what they want, you’ll get what you want, no doubt. I went on to say that in the beginning of my business I tracked the number of people I helped. I knew that if the number of people helped went up, then the money surely followed.

At the end of the call, about 10min, this young man sincerely thanked me for taking the time to give him some advice. He said that not only did I gain a loyal customer, but I gained a friend. He said that he will always call me when he needs something. He thought he might before because we worked together and it was nice. Now, he says he is absolutely calling me for everything because he knows that I care. (gets the advice, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care). He continued to thank me. He said that I had a good heart and it really showed that I cared about him. He went further to say that he knew that I was a good man. I almost cried on the phone. I told him that I was about to cry because of how much his words meant to me. I’ve been going through it the past couple of months, and I really, truly appreciated his words.

I began thinking about how helping people is just who I am. I feel good about myself when I help people. Is that a hero complex? I don’t know. Is having a hero complex bad if I’m a hero to people? It sounds bad because of the word “complex.” Having a complex never sounds good. It would be cool to be a hero though. So, maybe it’s not all bad? I don’t know, and I have planned to do some research on what “hero complex” actually means. I get called things, and I don’t know what those things are. I gotta look stuff up. I got called an “asshole” once, and I’m not sure what that meant either… LOL

Back to the serious matter… I got off the phone with this guy, and I wondered how I ever strayed so far from who I am. I was the nice guy. I got away from it. No excuse for my behavior. Nobody made me do it. I am not saying there weren’t factors affecting me that caused me to be so wrapped in my own agenda that I didn’t see anyone else. But I did see other people at times. I was able to do it intermiitently during the same time period. It became something very different in some moments, and I am not sure how I got there. I won’t go pointing to any specific events or people because it was a combo pack of the different variables all whammy punching me in the face at the same time. I didn’t know which way was up because I was so far into the stress of it all that I forgot who I was. I deteriorated into something else, and there is no excuse for me to treat people the way I treated people during that time. Maybe it is a factor of not being able to get away from it. I just wanted it to stop. Everyone else I could turn off. I could get away from them and give an excuse to get off the phone or leave the situation. I could leave a place, I could hang up the phone, and I could be away from people. But with someone in particular, I couldn’t leave. I was trapped. I wanted them to stop. I wanted to get away from it. I wanted to hang up the phone, but they weren’t on the phone, and they slept in the same bed as me. I couldn’t get away from the stress so I pushed the stress away from me. I went there because things had gotten so far gone that I didn’t know of any other way. When it finally did happen, it was too late.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. I’m looking for reasons because I want to be able to identify these things so I can avoid it and protect myself in the future. I am not sure what is what. I know how it made me feel in the moment. I don’t know that what I was feeling was correct. I don’t know that the “cause” of any one thing could be said to be the cause. I also know that pointing to any one aspect and detailing how stressful that one particular aspect was can shine an unnecessary spotlight there, making it appear as though nothing else exists to blame (maybe the word should be “credit” not “blame”, but I’m tired, cut me some slack). I haven’t slept much in a few months. My stress levels are still outrageously high. I also know that the profession I chose has some dark statistics about mental burnout, depression, substance abuse, and suicide. It’s inherent in what I do. I must be vigilant to protect my mental peace in these moments. I am already in a precarious position with the line of work, and when it goes too far for too long, I am liable to snap on people. I got rude and mean. It is never okay to do what I did. It is never okay to yell. It is never okay to get angry and mean and berate and continue to drive the point home about how I am right about this and you need to listen to me, I won’t stop until you stop arguing with me. Yeah, that’s not cool man.

I write it, and it sickens me to think that I now have to stand up and admit to doing those things. I am owning it. I did those things. It’s not who I normally am. It’s not even who I abnormally was. It was a unique display of how bad I can become if I don’t protect my peace of mind. Mental serenity and calmness are two aspects that sound like a dreamland because I might say, “I live in the real world and that bullshit fairy tale monk peace life is nonsense.” That’s not true, and I can barely recall the sentence that was written before these words. My brain is fogged out, and I can’t remember much. I say that because I am sleeping terribly, only in bed for about four hours, but not asleep for four hours. It was four hours from the time I decided I should be sleeping and the time I decided to not be sleeping. I get up in a sweat thinking I’ve overslept and missed something. OH SHIT!! I’m late!!! I didn’t do that thing!!! I forgot that other thing!!! I am missing stuff!! What’s wrong with me?? How do I fix this?? What needs to be true for me to not be stressed at every moment, waking, sleeping, dreaming, and all the semi-lucid spots between. There’s always something I need to be doing. I didn’t write a letter!!! AHHH!!! I promised!!! Ahh!! I broke my word again!!! Fuck me!!! Damn it!!! What’s wrong with me??? Why can’t I seem to do anything right?? What is really going on with me?

Then I have a phone call with a guy who thanks me from his heart, we connect, and I feel like I can do it. Then I get a phone call about how I didn’t do that other thing. I look at my to-do list and realize that while I was doing that good thing, I forgot to do that other thing. Stress return. Saying it like I’m commanding the stress and summoning it to my side.

There has to be a better way. I am trusting a friend with essential oils. Yeah, snake oil. No. I would have previously said that I don’t do that holistic mumbo jumbo voodoo magic witch doctor potion crap. I might has taken the opportunity to tell someone how and why I don’t believe in that. I may have taken the step to inavlidate their personal beliefs about something because I “knew better.” But not today. I listened and with an open mind spent about $450 on a load of these different essential oils and a diffuser and some other things. A valerian stick that looks like deodorant. An oil stick that works topically on the body. And some veggie caps, to do something. I don’t even like veggies, but hey, I’m surrendered and open minded now. Maybe desperate to sleep. Maybe willing to try anything that can help me get to a clear state of mind at least temporarily.

Oh and that wake up late thing. I’m kinda like on vacation… Why do I need to be up at 5:30a?? Why do I still freak out if I’m not awake and doing something. I put this stress on myself. Anything additional that gets added to this list is just even more stuff, more stress, too much at that. And maybe I got so offended by being called abusive for the same reason other people don’t like it; it’s not how I saw things, and it doesn’t align with how I see myself. But I still feel like I had an experience and my experience had all of these things going on. I feel unfairly treated by everyone. The customers who think because they pay me money that they have the right to fuck me and do anything they want to me, and they are not thinking about how it might be for me. They are thinking that they paid me money and now they can have their way with me. Maybe I’ve been trafficked into this profession and now I’m forced to bend over for anyone who pays me money. Hell of an analogy right there LOL

Nah just kidding. Have a great day everyone!

My most recent thought develops it a bit, nuanced in form. The courage to be known. Oooh weee, that hits different. That scares me. What if they don’t like me? Aha! I see this now. I see how the courage to be disliked comes from being known. The guy in the book, I’m gonna say it, he was friggin’ hermit, living away from the world. How can he be the example of courage? He is not known. He focuses solely on the self. He has the courage to allow their lack of knowledge to stand. There is a form of courage here. No desire to be loudly professing something, posting to the internet for all to “know me.” But that is not being known, it is being watched, and it places a distance and filter on the aspects that are shared. It is not being known as a being, it may be known for doing. Who am I? I know this, but I’ve hidden it from the world for so long. I was building the walls to keep the people out, to protect myself from seeing the dark sides of myself, my shadow. I built the walls myself, to benefit me, in a misguided attempt at not being truly known. This is now something I identify as stemming from my inability to accept myself. It was a self hatred and refusal to do the hard work, to go through it to the other side. If only I could change the circumstance, then I would be able to thrive. From the movie Blow, I am reminded of what his father told him, in response to him saying how good he was at smuggling drugs, “you would have been good at anything.” It’s the person, not the circumstance. I can grow in any soil. I have it here with me. I am wasting my time looking for something else. That’s the easy way, but the hard way says that I can do this right here, with the obstacles, with the challenges, with this person (if they are of the same mind and willing, never obligatory or forced), with whatever may come. I don’t need something different to succeed. I don’t have to quit what doesn’t appear to be working. Don’t quit before the miracle happens!!!

If it’s taking too long, good. That’s not too long, that’s slow and steady. It might not look like the tree is growing. Progress is not apparent from one day to the next. Nothing changes from yesterday; it’s the same path, one centimeter farther is not that far. When I add up all those centimeters, coupled with the direction, over time, this becomes the difference between the dragon and the pig. I’m in the slow lane. I am taking my stop. I am stopping at the red light (I actually got that ticket LOL). That is my path. I don’t look for any other path, nothing is easier than what I already have. Bird in the hand, devil you know, and that greener grass, those are the metaphors that speak to this. They are also the metaphors that I overlooked. I said, fuck that, I’ll do it different, better, faster, my way. There’s something wrong with that thought if it takes me off my path, if it makes me question what I’m doing.

Let’s take a moment to speak about “friends.” This is a tough one to speak about because it gives me the feeling of judging others. I don’t want to judge others. I hope it’s not heard that way. But, maybe I am judging them. I won’t belabor the point, but there are certain people that I protect myself from. The people that pull me off my path with their own agendas. They are “trying to help,” but they don’t know what the fuck their talking about. Fix your own shit (sounds familiar…). Stop telling me how I am putting myself into dangerous situations. I am listening because they seem to care. I also have the self-confidence necessary to draw a line. I will not allow another to classify my relationships. They don’t know. They are trying to help in the only way they know how. They haven’t looked at themselves to become a whole being, they find purpose in trying to make me whole. (those words don’t feel accurate, but we’ll keep going with the thought train and come back later for refinement). The effect is to get me questioning, when I should be questioning their advice. It was given without full context. I was not able to give the full story, just as a picture cannot do justice to the grandness and full beauty of the snow covered Alps. They only have the picture. The don’t have the experience. They want to look at my picture and make their own conclusions. They are not in my shoes. They pretend to be. But their words betray them, “if that were me….” It’s not you, it’s me. How do I be true to myself in the moment? I push back. I challenge their world view. I also see that nobody knows this shit for another. If they did know anything, that knowledge is limited to how their situation unfolded. My relationship is not your relationship. My life is not your life. I listen, analyze, challenge, and discern for myself how this new information might be true. I cannot buy fully without question their conclusion and perception. They have their own filters and mental issues not being presented or examined when they share their thoughts. What are they protecting? Why would they see it that way? Why should their experience be my experience? That last question takes it slightly different direction, but it feels like that capstone rhetorical question that allows me to separate their words from defining my life. That let’s another person have power over me. I rely on this person to shape my world, and I adopt their worldview as my own without discernment. No, thank you.

I have the courage to be known and judged for my decisions, for my thoughts and conclusions. If I don’t see something, tell me. I’ll take what you tell me and question the source. I do advocate for questioning the other. I don’t buy their shit. I’m not being convinced just because the person who said it cares about me. I think critically about what was shared, and I decide whether it applies. I don’t use AI chat to reinforce beliefs. It will not question. It will take it’s sycophantic approach and reinforce what was provided. It’s tendency toward agreeableness and validation can reinforce the improper belief, it won’t help me grow, it only helps me to get deeper ingrained into what I presented in the first place.

The courage to be known. That’s where we started, and that’s where we will end. All of these concepts used in harmony allow me to have that courage. I cannot be broken. I cannot be shaken. I cannot be affected by the judgment and conclusions of others. They tell me I’m messing up, but they don’t know everything that I know. I see what they are trying to protect, but I won’t make their fears my own. I don’t dismiss their genuine concern. I seek to understand why they would start with that concern; what do they see as the risk? Understanding their starting position allows me to apply their words, or not. Someone cannot tell me that I should leave a relationship. They cannot tell me that she isn’t the one, that the guy is a bad guy, that this isn’t working and will never work. They do not know the whole of the situation. They have their own demons. If they have ruined their own relationships and blame the other person for what “they did to me,” I cannot take their advice with much weight. I look past the words to the source.

Okay, let’s back off of those absolute statements. I can be influenced. I welcome criticism. I don’t dismiss it because of the source. A hypocrite can tell the truth. Someone with their own fears can correctly identify risk. I don’t throw it away because of the source. I look to it with a sober mind. This doesn’t question the source and dismiss because of the conclusion that they are just reacting or projecting their own fears. Someone who has lived through an abusive relationship could be hyper alert to the first sign of danger. That’s their fear. I can accept what they are saying without buying into it. I will also not dismiss it because it’s sourced from their fearful and vigilant mind. I will look to these risks and approach it with my partner. If the partner takes the step too far, that fearful friend might be right. I give them that. I thank them for giving some nuance and insight that I might be missing. I take their advice, but not blindly. It might apply, they might be right. But that’s the maybe that needs to be looked at. If my partner is unwilling to look at their role, the friend may be onto something. But, if the partner genuinely listens, and expresses an interest in understanding how these behaviors might trigger fears for a person who is tuned to that wavelength, the partner might not be the scary version; I don’t have to let someone else’s fears become my fears.

I have a fear of poverty. I project that fear sometimes. I’ve been conditioned to think a certain way. If my fears become projections, I can get in trouble with the advice that I’m giving.

Stopping here, not because it’s finished, because I got to think a bit more on this, and eat….

Tangentially, my beliefs may be misplaced and incorrect at times. That’s okay. It doesn’t count doubt or questioning, and it doesn’t cause me to stop. I am confident in my limited information. I am also confident that the person I became is the person with pure heart and intention. I gained an ability to connect and see others as they currently stand. If my belief and action crosses an unknown boundary, I don’t have to question myself or rethink what I’m doing. I simply need to take the moment to see the other person, understand them, validate them in who they are, and through this ability to pause, slow down, and connect with the person, I can move forward with more confidence. This is not because I don’t care how others are affected. This is because I know my intention was good, although misplaced and wrong in that moment, I get to use that moment to grow with another person and understand them. That is deeper. That is more. It is more than moving forward without regard for others. It may appear the same at the first instance, but it is very different. The moving forward without regard for the effect on others is the same. I am not questioning myself before I say something, send a message, or proceed in a way that may appear cold. But, yes, but, this is not the case. When the other is able to express themselves to me, I can check in and be with them in their experience. I am able to do all the things, and still keep going. The pause propels me forward. That is the “hard way” I’ve spoken about. It appears hard to be in the emotions, shoes, of another. Knowing that I am confident in who I am allows me to not take so personally whatever attacks may com my way. I know that no defense is necessary because I am unbreakable; I am water; I am the ocean. These waves are not coming at me, they are me. That is just another part of who I am.

There is no need to defend against the waves of others. The ocean does not fear the wave. The ocean understands that it is the wave and accepts itself as it is. There is a steadiness that exists from the core of it’s being that allows whatever may come. The waves cannot knock me down. It’s only when I separate myself, attempt to stop the waves, build walls to contain the waves, hide the waves, but the force comes through all the more. I cannot contain the ocean with what I am. The ocean does not hold itself back. It does not listen to the man on the shore who is mad at the ocean for being full of waves. I am not angry at life’s little inconveniences. The waves, the stops, the “inconvenience”, and whatever else we may call these aspects, they are what make life the roller coaster that I love. I love roller coasters. The ups, downs, twists, turns, flips, G’s, loop-de-loops, and the sudden stop at the end, the line to get their, the moments prior, and the moments after, the anticipation, the desire to go again, the thrill of it all, all these aspects are what make it worthwhile and fun. I throw myself into situations where patience is key.

Everything I want is on the other side of the work. This book has been that work for me, and my hope for all those who read it. This is the beginning of the work for you, a piece of the work, might be the middle or the end, but this book was the work for me, and I hope for you that it can be a piece of your work. Let’s do it the hard way, the slow way. Get there slowly. Going slow is the fastest way to get there. I knew this in concept, but I fought the idea because I want it now! The patience I prayed for wasn’t given to me; the emotional connection that I wanted wasn’t given to me; the calm mind through the storm wasn’t given; nothing is given. I was presented an opportunity where the ground was fertile. I was allowed to do the necessary things to develop for myself. I had to take the opportunity, use it, accept it for the blessing that it is. I wasn’t given the thing, I was given the opportunity to take the thing. And I’m taking that thing, today. I was blessed with a fertile ground for patience to be practiced and developed. I was given a string of events that allowed me to learn how to connect on an emotional level with others. I was given a storm, and in that storm, I found the calm. I did not pray for the storm to stop; I expressed my gratitude for being able to stick through the storm. That’s some Forest Gump right there. In the middle of the storm, if I keep going, fighting, surviving, I will find that calm presence that can be carried forward. And after that storm, shrimping was easy. It was the storm that made it possible. I should pray for rain, don’t pray for sunshine. Many cultures have a practice of praying, dancing, sacrificing, or whatever, but that cultural practice had the same goal, make it rain. The rain was necessary to have the crops (if we’re going back to literal uses for the rain), to have the river rise, to have something to drink, the storm makes life possible.

I may get off on why Souther California is not the place. It doesn’t rain there. The storm never comes, and life cannot flourish in its fullest form without the rain. Southern California prays for rain, but it never comes. That’s probably a bit too conclusory to be a full thought of the analogy and concept, but on the surface, the point comes across. I only want good weather, so I live in the sunshine state with 350 days in the year as sunshine. “Let me minimize the storm in life” is the sentiment I can attribute to this mindset. I say, no. There is no bad weather, only bad clothes. There will be rain, there will snow (latitudinally dependent of course), there will be clouds, the storm will come. This is a good thing. I don’t ask for the storm to stop. I don’t ask for it to be easier. I ask for better clothes. I ask to be stronger. I rise to the occasion instead of running from it.

This idea keeps running, but I’m moving to the next thought for now.

I still feel like so much was thrown away with the move that I have to pause and remind myself that this is a good thing. The good stuff coming out of this one outweighs the bad. The relationship isn’t over yet, and there is hope for the future. If there is no hope for the future then she was absolutely right to leave, and it won’t bother so much in the future because the pain and sting of the leaving will have worn off. I will have grown thicker skin because the necessity of it all was too much for the portions of self that require the work.

My biggest question is why are we not fighting like a team to make this work and keep each other. Hope is a powerful drug, and I hope for good things to happen. I am fighting for this relationship to succeed. Is she fighting alongside me, are we fighting as a team for growth and depth and connection in the relationship. I am fighting for that depth and connection.

We both had it in our minds that we were being strong enough to carry the weight for two people. I would like to be understood for what it was; I don’t want or need acknowledgment that the method was the right one, because it wasn’t. I want you to understand where I was coming from and how it made sense and how it was based in love. I felt like I had to be strong for the both of us, and I wasn’t allowed to show weakness because I was the man who was to provide for us. I had this role playing in my head, and I didn’t like it at all, but I was committed to being that person who is strong and provides and is there for people to help. I didn’t realize that the emotional connection and the strength to admit to fears and cry and change course, that’s strength, and the keeping-it-in style, bottled up and shoved away, can lead to overflows of these emotions in snappy and ugly ways. I thought I was doing the right thing by not letting all that show. The angry side got results at times, and that’s why it is a devious method. It can work at times, but then the technique is being mis-applied.

New thought: there is no wrong way to fly, so long as you are where you want to be, and set up for the next move. That’s life. I just connected the dots. It’s all life. Every new skill and every new way of being or doing creates a microcosm for how we interact with the world and deal with problems. I have seen it all with curiosity. And I didn’t see it with compassion. I tried to think about what solutions have worked for me, and I wanted to share those. I used the techniques that were used on me. I got to see what that does to a person. That could have unknowingly been my kids. I know now what is needed because it’s the same thing I need in this moment: closeness, connection, need to be held, need to know that it is okay, let it out, feel it, I’m here, you’re safe.

I needed help. The thought brings me to tears, and I feel deeply how alone I was as I struggled. I didn’t feel allowed to show the things that were breaking. I didn’t know how to handle things, and I thought I did. I was trying to be that awesome person who just gets it all done with a smile and doesn’t cry about anything or feel these feelings of defeat. I thought I had to be strong all the time, and I wasn’t allowed to have these moments. I was so wrong. These moments are necessary, and they are the precursor to greatness. I had it very wrong. My previous theory involved not having these moments. The idea went that if these moments don’t exist, if they are ignored as non-existent, laughed about, dismissed, minimized, and swept aside as childish things that productive adults don’t do.

I’d like to say other things. I’d like to move on to the hopeful future. I will tell the story as I see it. I will give the details that need to be described for me to feel the touch of my one true love, my sweetheart.

I arrive in this other country. But wait, let’s rewind, this beautiful story has hope and sorrow, it has all the hallmarks of a great life, and the feelings are felt so deeply that the core remembers the wound, scarred, a little hurt, but mendable, and a story for the ages of love finding itself across time and distance. No distance is so great that our love can be quenched. No time so far gone that memories would not be able to walk the path as if it were the day before. We feel these attachments as bonds on the soul, binding us together as one heart, and the fear and anxiety of being next to so much passion and love causes the two hearts to wriggle and squirm, testing the new area, unfamiliar and wondering how this space is supposed to be, thinking there’s a way, theorizing about how this should fit, and fighting against the natural fit because it is unlike the fit that was artificially forced upon this forming heart when it sought attachment as a young being in this world, without the ability to do, and only the ability to be what can be, a loving being, a human being, they are not born as human doings, that’s the artificial shape I have contorted myself into being without consciously recognizing the need to not be that shape and to let the natural beauty and emotional self take shap in the arms of the one I love and for hers to take shape around me in the same fashion while I hold her close in my arms, hearts bound together as one.

It felt like I was being manipulated, like this was some show to gain power over me and threatening me and putting me on guard, and I responded with some version of “I’ll give you something to cry about.” It’s not right of me to react that way. I can respond with kindness and curiosity. I know there was no harm meant, but somehow I got offended and threatened and told that I wasn’t being nice when I thought I was being very nice and it got to me, it questioned who I was, and my ego and self got attacked, so I lashed out if defensive anger. It was wrong of me, and I should have responded with tears because I didn’t want to make her feel that way, and I will give context, I just thought about “where’s my benefit of the doubt, what did I say so wrong, why are you so mad at me, this is ridiculous, what the fuck is the actual fucking problem because I didn’t say a fucking thing that should have upset you, and now I don’t know what the fuck is wrong and you storm out of the fucking room like a little kid when we’re sitting here having a fucking conversation, and you think that’s okay, that’s not okay, and I’m done with it, I’m done putting up with these reactions. And I took my wedding ring off, left it on the kitchen table, and I left the house for 20min, got a milkshake, came back and got the ring, I said I was sorry and that I love this ring, and I don’t think now that she heard me. I didn’t say it loud, and maybe I just thought it, like I do. I will make stuff up in my head and forget that I didn’t say anything because I get lost in thought. Lost in thought.

My mind really hit that wall. Fucking hell. What’s wrong with me?? How do I behave right with people? What is right? Why did I push it away so fucking hard?? Pushed away anything different that felt new or weird because I wasn’t used to sharing feelings, that was for weaklings. We get back to work and get over it.

That’s funny that my mom gave me that advice. She said to focus on the things that you’re good at, professional business and professional sport. That’s some advice from mom. That’s the kind of advice that says don’t focus on it and just get to work. She said it is too soon to look at it and heal from the wounds. I believe she is unaware that the wounds come from her style and how I learned and what is portrayed as the normal way of doing things; the problem here is that our whole problem began with the inability to look and feel these things, like this wasn’t allowed, like we have to put on a strong face 24hrs per day.

I didn’t give her a safe space to cry, and she was crying a lot. That’s why she didn’t have a safe space. One of the reasons.

The next chapter of this book had me stop just two pages in and go get my computer. I need to write this. I am compelled to share this story of inspiration. Just as Margaret found hope in the trying, I am finding hope in the trying. Just as she did, I am reading all the articles, books, stories, and listening to it all in an attempt to find out what might be able to fix me. My heart didn’t work. It was small and atrophied. I have a vision that I come out of this and run into her. She will see me in that moment, and she won’t recognize me. She will recognize the contour of my face, she might recognize the color of my eyes, but she will not recognize the body, the mind, the heart, the compassion, the caring, the love, the sparkle in my eyes, the safety exuded from somewhere that didn’t exist before. She will see me for that man. It is that hope, just as for Margaret, that go me diving deep into the healing process. It’s the trying that helps. I am trying. I am visualizing my ultimate goal, over and over. My ultimate goal is to have that beautiful relationship that has support and love and security. We live together. Our kids are young, and they are happy. We are happy and know we can rely on each other in any moment, for whatever we might need in that moment. The caring, loving family that I visualize will be true. I believe in that green sky.

I am visualizing what it looks like when she goes to the studio to get the coffee started for the day. I am visualizing what it looks like when I pick up the kids from school, and we drive over to the studio to see mom. She is teaching this afternoon, so we can’t hug her just yet. We can see her through the large windows that feed fresh sunlight into the studio. We can see her silhouette in the sunshine as she moves to the next asana. The flows are flowing, and the children and I love to watch her teach. She is most herself when she is leading the flow. She teaches a lagom style of living through her steady practice, balanced with all the aspects, and filled to the brim with love and happiness. We see her coming to an end with the shavasana for her students. They have worked so hard during the class, and they are taking this final moment to thank themselves for taking the time for themselves today. She inspires others through her work. And as if a lifetime and no time at all had passed, the class was over, the door opened, and the kids ran to her. I walked slowly behind them, steady in my presence, focused in my loving intention to be there. She locked eyes with the children, and she kneeled down to hug them. Her flexibility and working knees make me a little jealous, but not so much that any insecurity may be present, just enough to appreciate her for her. She is that amazing mother who will pick up both children (she’s pretty friggin’ strong), one in each arm. That’s about the moment that I closed the distance between us. She locked into my eyes, and I felt her whole being, her whole presence, together with our children, I am complete.

It’s time for us to have our afternoon time together. Att fika tillsammans. We schedule moments in our days where we are just being, together. We talk, we laugh, we shed a tear occasionally, but most of all we are present. That presence is something that means more than all the rest. Being present with each other was what we found to be the strength that allows us to be in this world. The world is not where we live, we live in each other’s hearts, in the warm, loving embrace that we share each day. Occasionally we will look back and ask what would have happened if we gave up on this. If we had decided something was difficult and moved to something a little less painful. I tell her how my life would have been meaningless without the love we share. I tell her that she has made it all worth it. I tell her how I would not have been able to love so completely without the love she unconditionally gave to me. I thank her for loving me when I didn’t make it so easy. I tell her how she was the one who took me from a selfish maniac, from an immature man, to the loving father and husband she spends her days with, spends her nights with, trusts with her fears, trusts with her dreams, trusts with her heart, trusts with her children, trusts that will be there if ever she is in need. She tells me about how the persistence of love and effort was how she knew that this was real. She thanks me for never giving up on her, on us. She thanks me for giving the space and for listening to what she wanted, then allowing her to go get that for herself. She thanks me for not making it easy. She says she had moments of doubt, but it was my steady presence through it all that made it possible for her to trust again, which allowed her mind to relax, allowing her to love again. We love our time together, and we protect it fiercely. It is this time that it’s all about. We see that we must go out into the world alone sometimes, but we know and trust that we are never truly alone. She even tells me that she has no reason to miss me, even when I am not physically present, because she knows that I am still there. She looks forward to the next moment we are together, but she is not sad or missing something that she doesn’t have. She knows that it persists through distance and time; she knows that we have no reason to miss each other because we are never apart; she knows that our hearts are intertwined; she knows the vibrations she feels are the same vibrations I feel, our souls connected. I love to listen to her stories, and I love to see her eyes light up when she has something exciting to share.

I still find it miraculous that we found each other in this vast universe extending through space and time. It is also miraculous that all the we shared in that afternoon time together was but a half hour. It felt like a lifetime together in those moments. The children played next to us while we connected and shared our day. Nora was drawing a picture of the family. She skipped over to mommy, and, in her sweet little voice, she said, “Look! I drew a picture. That’s mommy, that’s daddy, that’s me, and that’s brother.” She had done this in crayons, and we were wildly out of proportion, in seemingly random colors. I was busy being amazed by how her little mind drew so much love on that page when her brother came over to show off his picture. He drew a picture of a castle and a dragon. He said daddy would save us from the dragon. He had drawn the family inside the castle with daddy outside the castle holding a sword to fight the dragon. It was at this time that mommy and I picked up some crayons and each had a child in our lap while we drew our own pictures. Mommy drew the picture of the family walking down the beach, hand in hand, walking next to the waves, sun setting on the horizon, and smiles spread across our faces. I drew the picture of the family flying, soaring through the clouds, together in the sky, with nothing to hold us down, not even gravity can bring us back to earth. With the idea being that no force could keep us grounded, and we flew above the noise and the chaos together.

I just realized that this visualization became so real as I am writing it. I am seeing it. I am feeling it. I am living it. I forgot that I wasn’t drawing pictures with our children. I forgot that I wasn’t sitting with their beautiful mother at the studio. Across all time, I experience the future, feeling what exists in time as if it existed in this time. My emotions are not tied to a particular timeline. I am drawn to the one who has awakened a fire inside me and the future we design and build together. It’s the designing part that’s most important. That’s where the intention is set, that’s where the dreams are shared and shaped. I love to be in love with the one who loves that we love. Now there’s a sentence LOL.

I had a dream. In that dream, an ex called me. She was very drunk. She had friends who were there helping her to get past me. She wanted to call, and she did, but her friend took the phone. Her friend explained to me that she had moved on. Her friend explained that she has been sleeping with other people, that she is free now, and that she won’t be getting the phone back because the friend is protecting her from me.

The protecting-her-from-me very much hurt my feelings in that moment. It felt like a gunshot went through my heart. The sleeping with someone else actually hurt less. But what she wouldn’t say, and it’s only through the power of universal vibrations (telepathy perhaps) that I was able to sense that she would think of me as the Chip to her Maggie. If she were the Ian to my Maggie, I was the Chip for hers. She won’t say this because she is still too nice and trying not to hurt me. She doesn’t want to tell me that she has had one night stands, that she found someone that could actually give her the pleasure she was looking for. And now that she found this pleasure, she thinks back to how it was with us, and she knows that it can never be. Her sexual desires for me are no longer there, and the freedom to explore the sexuality is a freedom that she is not ready to abandon. The love is lost. The feelings that once existed have been evaporated. It was going out and drinking and fucking that she found she wanted to just be out there doing whatever and living this “free” life.

The more she has been with these friends, the more she has been encouraged down that path. She had longed for the support to do what she wanted to do. The sex just sealed the fate.

All this came through in the dream that betrayed me. It was a difficult waking up, and a painful experience to wake and wonder if any of that had actually happened. I thought to myself, “nooooo!” But the mind had picked up on a frequency, and it tuned so intensely to that one. The other signals were lost in this loud moment. The mind wants to scream at me. There is a piece of my head that is trying to protect me and it says it must be true and it must be accepted, because continuing forward without accepting that “truth” would just be harmful. The mind wants to look to all the red flags and convince me that this was bad from the beginning. There is another voice in the head, a much quieter one, that says this cannot be so. The heart feels what the heart feels. But the head can do its tricks. The head can convince me of something, and I run the risk of classifying the entire thing as a mistake. The entire thing was not meant to be, the mind says. It was only a brief interlude on the way. God bless the broken road, that led me straight to you. Then the broken road continued, and she became more gravel for the broken road. There I am alone again on this broken road, wondering who it is actually leading to.

This doesn’t have to be the case. It is not my choice though. I cannot force this particular outcome. I can only wait patiently and be the awesome person and great friend. Teasing that once felt playful now feels like it’s crossing a line. The empathy inside me causes me to question any of these moments, wondering what the effect on the other person might be. I have doubts in my messages now. She is guarded now. She doesn’t share now. She is still trying to do what she thinks is for me. That’s a form of love, but it’s not true. Withholding cannot be the basis for love. Open and honest communication is the only basis for love and a future. Anything less than that is a betrayal of the other person. If I withhold, then I am not doing them any favors. If they withhold, they are just leading me down a path. If one cannot step up to let the other one know that there is nothing there, and will be nothing there, then the “love” is misguided. I cannot string someone along just to cut them out, knowing they never had a chance, hoping to never have to say the words. That’s not love. That’s fear. That just feels like a repeat of the pattern that got to this point in the first place.

I believe in honesty. I believe in telling someone else that they have something in their teeth. I believe in telling someone else that there’s a stain on their shirt. I believe in telling someone else that there will never be a future here the way the other person sees it. That level of honesty is brutal, and it cuts to the core. It rips away hope for the future. I agree, it does those things. It is also the most loving thing I feel I can do for another. Can I let them live with this false hope, knowing the entire time that nothing will come of it? I cannot do that.

I fucked it all up. I sent some messages that were like we were friends again. My mind is yelling at me and berating me for saying something about her instead of about the book. My mind tells me that it was too much, I went too far, I got too comfortable with her. I should have been on my guard and not joking about something that went beyond the book, that went to us. I crossed that line, and now I cannot go back. I should have… Catch myself there. Should is a judgmental word. There are what I could have done, but there is not what I should have done. I did my best in the moment, and there was laughter on my side. But that was the complacency setting in.

Everything becomes so difficult when playing with the heart. My heart is set on one thing. That one thing is her. My head is trying to protect my heart and use the logic to overcome the feelings. Once the feelings are gone, they are gone, never to return. There’s more logic for me. But it is also affected by those around. The people around would judge me if I took her back. Hell, I don’t want to take her back in that way. I want my friend. Whatever happens after that is up to the universe. What I see today is possibility. What the other might see today is a road of pain. The mistakes of the past are not being healed because they were never addressed in the first place because of fear. Now that same fear is in place and it prevents the truth once again. I cannot see the future. I fear that I am hurting someone else because I keep trying. I fear that I might actually show that I have changed, that I listened. The other might see how they were too late when they finally do come back around. There is no chance that the other can go back and find the love again because they spent all that time erasing the love. The other voice in the head has become so loud, and it has so much encouragement. That voice loudly proclaims that it was never good from the beginning, and this was some test from the universe that was getting me ready for the next thing. If I continue to convince myself of the delusional path, then I will walk down in ignorance, only to find there is nothing there, it was all made up in my head. That’s the protector again attempting to move me along from the current state. But the protector is wrong. The feelings exist. There is nothing to protect against. There is an honesty and safety that exists in this moment, and I cannot allow the mind to override the heart. The anxiety and fear are very loud. They have a lot of control. There is chaos in my mind, and a battle rages between who might offer the correct guidance. The battle calms, and I breathe, with a hand on my heart, and the assurance that I am safe. No harm can come to me. The anxiety need not control. The pain need not be protected against.

It’s the half truths that hurt the most. If there was a love like no other, a feeling that overtook the body, then it cannot be whisked away in a moment. There exists in me the recognition that those things are true. But love is a verb. Love is not some feeling that can fade. Love is not the intense passion that we feel. It is not the desire to be next to another. Love is what I do. Loving someone else should definitely come in the form the other would like to be loved. But it cannot be overshadowed. She stopped loving me long before she left. It was the shift away from doing for another that caused the loss of the feeling. Or was it the other way around, the feeling was gone and so the love stopped. Not sure that I’ll be able to figure that one out by myself. This is a conversation with another, this is not something that I decide in a vacuum by thinking through all the pieces. I also cannot trust myself because of my own insecurities. The filter through which I see this other person and their actions has direct affect on my characterization of the relationship. My own lens shapes my perception. If I never question the lens, then I can never know if something is what it was or just what I thought it was. It’s like being color blind. I knew the color because I saw the color. No one can tell me different. When I find a group of people that will support me, they are supporting my wrong belief. They are supporting and not questioning. The ones who question, those are the ones who care. At least, I can see how the ones who don’t question are caring in their own way. They are caring for a different part of my being, but they are not caring that I see the world in color. They are caring that I feel supported, no matter how wrong I might be. There are those who have told me that I women suck, this particular country’s women are even worse, and someone else’s experience is being used to classify this person in that group of people that should be avoided. There are those who would tell me that I dodged a bullet and got lucky. Although, it doesn’t feel like I dodged the bullet. It feels like I got hit by the bullet and am now trying to convince myself that it wasn’t right all along. The others are there to support me past all this. They don’t see how I actually played a part in this because they are on my side. They will say that I did nothing wrong, they know me, and when they hear about what that other person did, then they are on my side all the more. The story that is being shared has two filters, one when the information came into my head, another when it came out, and wait there’s three filters, the one from the other person why the receive the information. Then we can classify in the way that fits my narrative best. I can be fuly supported and find justificaiton in the decision. The one who says, “are you sure you’re doing the right thing here,” that’s the one that is trying. But that one won’t push much beyond the first question. A therapist might dig in and say, why would you feel beneath them? Why would you see their actions that way? The good therapist will question my lens.

I write it here so I don’t make a fool of myself and put too much on another. As you can see, there is way too much for a text or a phone call. This is a lifetime of days spent talking together. The healing that is needed doesn’t come in a call or a text, it comes in the safety of the arms of another. It comes through the truth, not half the truth. It comes when I am questioned. If my insecurities don’t allow me to move beyond some of these things, and my insecurities prevent me from having a conversation, the fear prevents is, the “love” prevents me from pushing this person or sharing the bad news with them. This inability to hurt someone else is not love. It is a weakness that is born of fear. That fear is that I will hurt another person and experience a loss. That fear keeps me stuck.

The one that jumps out at me is a conversation that was never had. There was once discussion about how I couldn’t tell certain things because I feared how the other person might be affected. I shared that fear with the other person, and they took offense to the suggestion. They were offended that I might think they can’t handle what I am going to say. They told me that I thought so little of them that they couldn’t handle it. I listened, and I started to share all of the things because I trusted that they could handle it. I did not want them to think that I think less of them, and they can’t handle the thoughts. This was my mistake, and it is what I was referring to when I said I should probably stop saying all the things in my head. The things in my head triggered the insecurities of another. When I would say that I don’t want to tell them because I worried it might trigger their insecurities, they would be upset that I thought they couldn’t handle it. Guess what happened… My words triggered insecurities and echoes. The other person filtered my words through their insecurities, and they internalized what I was saying as judgment rather than a loving push in the right direction, which was the intent. However wrongly executed, it was what they asked me to do. When I didn’t do it, I was thinking so little of them that they couldn’t handle it. When I did do it, the words were internalized as judgment and criticism rather than the loving and caring observation.

I didn’t want to change this other person. They thought that I thought they were beneath me. My words were encouraging and uplifting, most of the time. My words could also be harsh at times. The love was there, and the only thing that needed to change about this other person was that they would be able to stand up tall and feel confident in their own body and mind. It is not my task to change anyone. It is my task to love and support them as they are, and that love and support sustains them until they can do it for themselves. I know how to do that with financial support for them, but I did not know how to do that with emotional support. That stemmed from my own upbringing. It was my own misguided mother and father that instilled these wrong ideas. I am now questioning my own lens. I see how I learned it wrong, and I see that the intense independence and forced evolution that I experienced is not the secure way to develop a relationship. I also have a new theory that I don’t treat children different from adults, and people operate from where they are. They operate on a basic set of needs, adults and children. There are definitely topics and boundaries that should be set with all people. Those boundaries are different with adults and children, but the provision of love, kindness, support, and safety does not differ.

That’ll be all for now. I’m not sure how much of this one will make it to the book because this is more of a realization about how things went so wrong because of my half truths, the result of fear, and the way my parents loved and supported me. I was never given credit for just being. It was only when I performed. I made the mistake of trying to judge others on their achievements and to rank them. My Chinese name is YiLong. It means one dragon. There is a Chinese parable called one dragon, one pig. It tells the story of two children who started with the same advantages and all the same ability. The story is one comparing laziness with sustained effort over time. The small daily choices are what make us into either a dragon or a pig. Being disciplined through sustained daily effort results in grand rewards. There is another story of an old woman who was grinding an iron rod on stones. A boy found her at work and asked what she was doing. She replied, “I’m making a needle.” The boy was in shock. He couldn’t believe that a large iron rod could become a needle. He asked how. The old woman replied, “if I keep grinding, little by little, it will become a needle.” These are the stories that give me hope that my small daily efforts will get the result. These stories are told to children to impress upon them the importance of doing the daily hard work. It is only through the daily grinding that the rod becomes a needle. It is that same effort that makes one into a dragon. There is a balance to be struck. My problem is that I heard of the old woman grinding little by little. I took that to the extreme and neglected all else to grind constantly, lots by lots, to get the needle faster. I neglected my health, my friends, my family, and I told myself that I was making a needle. When the needle was done, then I would be able to have time for the other things. My mind took this parable and twisted into a perverse adaptation that caused pain in other areas, but that pain was ignored. Because the logic of the mind gave purpose and meaning behind it all. Those who could not see it were ignorant, and I was the only one willing to sacrifice myself to make a needle. I’m starting to see how that went wrong.