What's playing on the iPod right now: nothing, it's 3 am.
It's 3 am and I should be sleeping, but most of my "coulda-woulda-shoulda's" turn into "I'm-so-glad-I-didn't."
One of the (millions of) reasons that I married Dan is because he always provides a fresh viewpoint. People think (and for good reason) that I'm the dominant one in the relationship. I do provide the stronger drive, the quicker response and the louder voice, and this is what people see. What they don't see is the Jiminy Cricket that motivates and influences me, aka Daniel. The Universe made a good match when it brought us together. I'm the performer, but Dan writes most of my material.
Tonight, fueled by a mild mixture of PMS-paranoid anxiety and the 3-am blues, our discussion centered on the obvious bricks that the Universe* has been lobbing at our heads to make sure that we don't miss the messages. This 2010 has thus far become the year that wants to be a very special and beautiful gift to our family, but doesn't want to be opened among any leftover, forgotten debris. Something wonderful wants to present itself to us, but it won't until we clean up the old mess. And cleaning up, we are. Everywhere.
Among my myriad of self-help books, you can find untold cures to clutter. They've helped immensely and are still helping. The general rule is: if you can find neither a home nor use for it, it has become, simply, a symbol of your indecision and inability to move forward. Wow. Powerful.
Cleaning is tiring - physically, and most definitely, emotionally. But there is nothing like taking a shower from the inside out.
During this intense cleaning, we've followed the natural path that's led us to re-evaluating our relationships. At first we were content with leaving unintentionally-neglected paths un-used. Okay, so we haven't seen this person in a while, a long while. How do we feel about that? Better or worse? How were we affecting each others' lives, if at all?
We gave up feeling guilty about not seeing some, and gave up entirely on others. One-sided friendships can't grow into healthy relationships. And relationships based on the past, without any fresh, new material become stagnant, like a joke that's retold too many times.
And then there were the relationships that demanded too much of a positive-energy sacrifice from us to offer to the gods of disappointment, emptiness and bitterness that a few of our friends were carrying on their backs. These friends were usually the ones who were rapidly approaching the "mid-life mirror" that refused to acknowledge the
you-that-you-convinced-yourself-you-were and cruelly showed you the
real you
.Dan pointed out that these friendships were the most damaging to maintain.
While we're not educated in finding edibles in the wilderness, nor experienced in constructing a suitable shelter from coconuts and palm fronds, Dan and I are two of the people you'd want to be stranded on a desert island with for the simple fact that we offer
hope.
In the darkest of times, we find the pinpoint of light. We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that everything will be okay. Give us time to react dramatically and get it out, and we'll do so. Then we'll pick ourselves up, take a deep breath and look for the next moment of happiness. Somewhere, anywhere.
The hardest friendships to maintain were the ones with people that could not find hope beyond the next plate of food, the next drug, the next drink, the next nap. Though the warning signs of depression were there, we were ignorant to them, and our friends, themselves, were in denial. Eventually, we could see their patterns: the cruel jokes that came too easily at the expense of others; the attainment of material possessions in an attempt to fill an un-fillable void; the constant dark viewing of others to keep the attention from themselves; the endless stream of excuses for not moving forward; and the most damaging sign-the idea that any good that we, the hopeful, celebrated in others was silly, since most good deeds were nothing more than a well-disguised attempt at manipulation.
In the company of these bitter few, our joy in the goodness of others was viewed as naive ignorance to the true ways of the world. According to these few, everyone had an ulterior motive.
I'm still not over this. What a miserable way to live your life. Dan said to me simply, "I'll be damned if I let anyone's bitterness destroy our hope in people." After constant effort to maintain, these relationships, no matter how old, whether by blood or choice, were sadly let go of.
All people pass through your life with an important lesson to teach you. Sometimes the lesson is that you need to let them continue to pass through.
It's been a painful process, but we're getting through this housecleaning, literally and figuratively. For us, there's no way around it, really. We don't want any more bricks to the back of the head.
*My idea of God and all of God's angels.
