Moving On..

I have spent days doing laundry and cooking and mending relationships and being supportive and selfless and making the best of what I have.

But this is not the life I want.
I was willing to wait all this out for a chance at real love and my lifelong dreams. But I have had to make them happen like Cinderella, from the availables in my life.

I want my happy ever after.
And I am no longer content to daily transform scraps into beautiful items. I want to know the feeling of beholding a beautiufl item that's been made by another's loving hands just for me.

I want the glass slipper to fit and to be taken away to the castle.
But I don’t want someone who has to try and love me once i'm there. I want to experience being loved from the heart with affirming words, expressions and actions.

I want someone to dance with. Not someone to dance for.
And certainly no more silences and mere recollections and imagination to fuel the days without music.

I was born with the ability to love compassionately. Yet I am genuinely grateful that i have had to learn to stop being a martyr and instead, build my self esteem and self worth through the power of self love. Still, i want to be loved by another and experience the compassion of a reciprocal love.

How do i get my happy ever after where i can be sure of being loved unconditionally by someone who struggles just to like himself daily?

Love Needs No Reason

I love you. When i first fell in love with you, I didn't have ... A REASON. My heart just beat faster around you, my heart filled with helium and felt lighter, freer. The whole world seemed filled with possibility. Why was that? Why was ur filled with so much possibility? I see no wthat i thought we could do more together than living separate lives. Synergy.
Do we have more now? YES. Our kids. Our family. That's the more we have and that's IT.

What more do we have? What more could we have. What more is there?

These are the questions that have undone me. But the truth is, Love needs no reason. It just IS. I love you because it feels right. Because i am only able to lose myself, my sense of all reason and logical control with you. ONLY YOU. Which means that when i am with you, i come completely undone from all the rigid structures in me. All the rules, all the patterns of accepted conduct and accepted ways. I just am completely driven by my longing to be accepted AS I AM. Driven by a need to be connected. To hear the words "I love you" and know you feel the same un-doneness with me. To lose myself in that feeling.

It mattered not when i first fell in love with what you were good at or what you were not. IT DIDN'T. I just wanted to be near you.
Why has that changed? Only because we have responsibilities towards other people now. When we first feel in love, that love was so consuming we didn't care who else mattered. But then we grew accustomed to being together, as we learned to manage those feelings we had for each other.. and as we gained reason once more, REASON TOOK OVER. Suddenly other people began to matter, and especially our children.

Our children. The extra we wanted to have out of life. When i first fell in love with you, having your child was a gift. For both of us. Now, it is a responsibility. A part of life that is part of everyone's life. Not just ours. And so, the gift lost its value.
They feel it. We feel it. But it's only because.. I have forgotten what i felt like when i first fell in love with you. Reason took over my heart.

I don't know why i love a man who has bipolar. I don't know how i stay on with him because it involves coping and overcoming issues with addiction, it means fighting to keep my strong family values and sometimes single-handedly keeping the family steady, it means accepting that he sometimes has limited or no control over his excessive passions, and that he can become aloof and rebellious towards life which can be downright inconvenient or even damaging at times. I don't. It doesn't make sense and i can see so clearly how i could end up miserable sharing living space and joined decision making with this man. But that is NOT why i first fell in love with him. Not me. I didn't rationally evaluate how life with him would be like BEFORE deciding that i would share life with him. No. When i met him, my heart took wings and all else in my life has been to make that flight continue on. Except that fight actually doesn't need anything to do with effort or reason to continue on.

Irresponsible, unsteady, bad boy...bipolar. Labels the world attaches to a man i feel happy with. Labels that make me feel a coward to love him freely... because i know it makes me end up being judged as foolish and wanting. The one great fear i have - being labelled a fool. And i have allowed it to rob me of the very wings i gained when i i first fell in love. Back when he didn't need to be successful, responsible, wise, mature, stable, a 'good' father. Back when he was just a boy, and all that moved my heart was the way i felt so right near him. Just being near him. It occurs to me now that's all i have ever wanted. To be near him, to feel right, to feel happy in my heart.. as if i am 'home'. That feeling i have never found anywhere else in life, and is the reason i am still with him.

Label me foolish. But i think i am logical enough to realise that all things we want in life come with a price tag. Something of value needs to be exchanged in order to gain what we treasure. And some things cost more than others. In my case, i am willing to pay a very high price to feel what i have never been able to feel anywhere else with anyone else. Now, if i can afford it, why does it matter to anyone else what i obtain? It is merely their judgement of what they would be willing to pay. But they are not me and so they never will be able to fathom my willingness to pay. Cost and value are NOT the same thing. And so by that reasoning, i can reason away reason itself and.. follow my heart.

And my heart wants him. If he will have me. Only me.

If it's only me he will share himself with, then that's all i want. Irresponsible, unsteady, bipolar, bad boy. Labels i will accept. Judge me foolish, i don't care. Cost and value are two different things. I have found my treasure, where my heart finds its wings. Where i grow and evolve the MOST in life. Where i become the true metal i was meant to be. Judge me to be lacking in all else, but what you fail to see is that i have what i most want - what gives my heart power to defeat the fears and limitations of my mind. For when i love him, i defy all reason and logic.. especially for myself. I am left completely helpless and undone, simply BEing a little girl who feels happy because she has that which her heart most needs to stay beating strong and true.

Fight Back Passive Aggressive Actions!

Fight Back Passive Aggressive Actions!

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I Don't Know

How do you make a life with someone who only wants to live in their own head? You can't. You make the life you want happen. And then hope they'll come along for the ride.

Limitations

No matter how much of an ocean of love mommy has .. some things in life are just beyond mommy's hands ....
So mommy can only pray and pray and pray...and love you the best you will let me.

Why the guilt?

i think those times when people feel guilt for something negative they cannot control..it is actually them grieving, but being unable to let go of the fact that they did not have control (much like a parent whose child inherits an illness)

for those time when people feel guilt for something seemingly 'inconsequential', it is them straining against the values they have been taught to adopt but are actually a mismatch to thier true essence.

as for those who feel genuine guilt over something that was done poorly, it is a regret, a wish within themselves to have done better.

in all cases, guilt is a SIGNAL..a type of gauge for our inner self love tank.. when we have guilt, we know we need to do some re-alignment within..whether it is to accept a truth we have been avoiding, or to evolve and sift out what is our true values that match who we truly are, or to take steps to forgive ourselves and move forward to a better today and tomorrow.

it is when i avoid guilt, and label it as a bad thing that problems arise. in fact, many of life's issues arise from a DUALITY VIEW of good and bad. when i reframe what has happened into what works/doesn't work or positive/negative and leave emotional judgements out of the picture..i can usually see better how that guilt can actually work for me, to help me re-align with where and who i really need to be..

I forgive you for breaking my heart..

How is it possible to forgive people who lie and steal from us..whether the impact is material or our time/energy even our happiness..?

I think that happens when we see that in forgiving them it is WE who are letting go of the hurt and negativity their poor choices have caused. We forgive not to bless them, but to bless ourselves, as an act of self love. Being positive does not mean we allow others to bully us and we become doormats, it is not to become foolish and lay ourselves open to attack. Rather, it is to always CHOOSE to reframe what is before us and inside us in a better light.to turn on the light sometimes. Darkness after all cannot be explained..it isn't really anything except the absence of light. So being positive is merely bringing light and love to any situation we are in..it's a choice that affirms our own soul's right to be free and to be loved. It is being able to CHOOSE for ourselves a happy ending within us, if not without, so we do not stay trapped and helpless by what has hit us hard.

I may not get back the item/time/energy stolen, but i will come to a point where i will also no longer believe that losing whatever it is that was taken away has impaired my life. I can overcome and thrive even..

All My Love

I married just before turning 23. It was a love story of 8 years and many obstacles conquered. So u can say that i married a man i had great hope of being happy with. And he truly loved me..still does. But we are of vastly different cultures and while it didn't affect us before we were married, it did after, especially when the children arrived. The way his family understands love and family is different from mine. Cultural differences, family style differences. And then of course he has Bipolar Disorder, a disorder that causes the person to become emotionally unstable and affects their ability to think and function when they relapse. So for a long time, although we had a great love..we had serious trouble living together, and working together to build a family.

And then i know a couple who fell in love because they had so much in common - the same dreams and ideas about life – and were the perfect complement to each, both sharing the same culture and outlook on life. They have had no illnesses to throw them off track but are struggling to understand each other now after 10 years..as children have come along and both partners can't seem to agree on the best way to handle their family.

And then i know another couple who have had children, were doing very well together as a family.. but then the wife started working after being home for many years to raise the kids and her new freedom and confidence made her a different person. They are having a rough time now because she has changed so much..and both partners feel they are married to people they no longer know or understand. They are committed to each other, but it's a lot of pain right now..as they are still trying to work out how best to carry on together from here.

And yet another couple who have had children and are enjoying their marriage tremendously.. because both share same family values and culture. But they hardly have time with each other, as the husband has a very demanding job and it's what he has to do to support them in the comfort and style they want for their family and for each other.

In each of these marriages (and i believe now) in every marriage, every person struggles with loneliness..in one way or another.
And so i wonder.. is my marriage truly hampered by this medical disorder? Or is in fact every marriage tainted by some disorder after all, varying only in the apparent visibility and intensity of the consequences brought on by that disorder?

If this is true, then perhaps the only difference between partnerships that survive and those that suffer is that strong relationships are those where people (either one party or both) accept that they need to work hard at STAYING TOGETHER, MAKING IT WORK BY WORKING THROUGH THE CHALLENGES TOGETHER. If you accept that and decide to stay against all odds, it's almost as if you can't let go because you started out so in love with each other and it's someone you chose out of everyone and when it gets super rough, you remember..your heart remembers..that once long ago..it was so good..before kids, mortgages, bills, exhaustion, illness. And you can't help but think that maybe.. just maybe.. we still love each other deeply and if all these were taken away, we would see that love clearer.

Which is why maybe when you go away together and leave your daily life behind for a while, you get to see whether you are still good together. And if you are..then you realise it's not you don't love each other anymore..but you are both stuck being a grown-up all the time in a very grown-up world with very heavy grown-up burdens and THAT'S the real problem. You realise that as long as there is a desire to love and be loved, and the openness of heart to accept that over the years people age and become tired and you don't stop loving someone and move on just because someone has become ill/tired or too grown-up (also a type of illness if you ask me) ..then it CAN still work out somehow and work out well even. You have HOPE.

And so here i am still with a man i sometimes struggle to understand and feel so frustrated with, and at times a man who fills me with fear and uncertainty as i care for our very young children in the presence of his unstable emotions and less than desirable actions. Because you see.. every marriage has a lurking disability and every partnerships its share of challenges. To judge mine tougher is merely to accept that i need to work a lot differently from the others and what works for most doesn't work for me. But to say it doesn't work? Only if i don't try with all my heart, with all my love.

As Good As It Gets

19 August 2009

Before the diagnosis i spent many years trying everything i could think of to engineer circumstances and lifestyle choices, thinking our love would help cure his insecurities that were causing the drama and bad choices. I finally came to accept at the end of 2007 that perhaps, all he needed was me being affirming. That seemed to work best. And for a while.. it was really good because i had let go and accepted what was, and moved on to making magic from whatever we did have. A lot like playing when the sun shone and accepting that rainstorms were an eventual and inevitable part of life.

But when he got diagnosed, i had HOPE again of a cure to the drama and bad choices, and more importantly all the accompanying consequences. Of course BP has no cure but i thought maybe with meds and alternative healing, with better insight into his complex past that triggered the BP..he could really get 'better'. But today i accepted that 'better' is such a pressure for him, for me. What if this is as good as it gets? But most of all, what if trying to make him 'better' is perhaps what is keeping us a prisoner to the BP? After all, only the broken need 'fixing' and only what is substandard needs to be made better. I can imagine him daily, feeling a need to get 'better' and nurturing a sense of low self esteem with each passing day he stays acutely aware of the fact that he needs fixing. If this is as good as he gets, then i'm choosing today to be okay with that.

As my cousin, a beautiful doctor with a heart, said so clearly to me today- for BP, the best you can really do as a significant other is try and get relapses farther apart, reduce the intensity and damage during a relapse, and be there to accelerate recovery.

It totally freed me..to realise that i can't make him 'better', but that i can support him through relapses. I can't prevent rainstorms, but i can open umbrellas and prepare hot coco. That's the BEST i CAN do.

I have been living with guilt all these years that maybe if i had been more vigilant, more disciplined, more alert..maybe i could have circumvented some of his disastrous episodes; avoided the despair not to mention the financial damage. So that's what i have been like in the past years..ever vigilant, ever alert. I eventually progressed to living without fear of possible doom, but when he got diagnosed, i became obsessed instead on him getting better. But i have just pushed him away, pushed myself into a corner, made everyone a distant friend..because i have been living on a timeline hoping for a cure. Waiting for that breakthrough.. AND THEN i can finally LIVE.

But if this is as good as it gets.. then my waiting is over. I can start living RIGHT NOW. No more waiting means i can release the pressure on myself and on him to reach for 'better'. Better can just come if and when it's ready, and we can instead give our all to making life good as it is, with what we have right now..AS IS.

There will always be relapses around the corner. Like rainstorms, I need not feel bad when a relapse does become imminent, because it's not my lack of love or his lack of care that has caused it. If you live in the tropics, it WILL rain. No point dreading it, blaming it, or grumbling about it when a downpour does appear. But we CAN both try to minimise it affecting/damaging our lives and work at getting back on track as soon as possible. And for this, i also realise that it's okay for us to need special friends.. friends who realise along with us that relapses aren't a sign of failure, but a real fact of illness, and that we will need understanding/emotional support through such times and that we will possibly be less available in some/many ways until we are past the storm. Friends who know we have much to give, and who let us be our best..AS IS.

At least i now know..what to ask of myself, of him, and all the world.
And that means i can finally..freely live and love again :)

A Beautiful Life

I have just spent the last 20 minutes crying because i realise that he has never loved anyone the way he loves me. As damaging as he has been, he has loved me all he could.

It's odd but i have had to travel down this long painful, complicated road only to come back to where i started in life with him, except as a different person. I have been looking back lately, as an emancipated woman now, and wondering if i rushed into marriage for the wrong reasons, if i sold myself out.

But i can't imagine a more beautiful life than caring for and loving a man who genuinely needs me and on my deathbed knowing that i loved him the best i could against all odds..and that because of me, he had a LIFE, and a GOOD one..and my life would have been worth every breath i took loving him despite each and every setback ~