1000 Words

[tiredofvampires]

I really enjoyed reading your last long post. I felt happy for you reading that. I had got the sense like you were starting to feel increasingly frustrated about trying to explain the situation and I personally didn't pipe up about that before (in your other thread) because I honestly do not have a good grasp of what the situation is like there and for you.

 

And you were right in your guess -- I WAS feeling increasingly frustrated. I appreciate your sensitivity to that, and for realizing this may be more complicated than could be fully explained; or, that my explaining wasn't turning out to be very effective. There are way too many experiential and lived and peculiar pieces that just do not fit into anything commonly understood.

 

It's hard for me to write about something that I know has "unique" implications and ramifications in my situation, with a number of elements that would take a lot of really dry, dull tedium to have to detail, to give a full picture. I was trying to stay away from that -- for the sake of the thread's cohesion and relatability -- but in the end, what I felt was that I'm standing in a situation that once again, is so hard to relate to, with so many caveats, almost no explanation could bring it justice. That's almost the worst feeling of all. Not that people didn't try, and I did get some interesting perspectives, so I'm not sorry I started the thread. I wanted to turn the question into something more over-arching and universal so that I could get some opinions on the theme itself, which was really the point. But after it got rolling, I realized that without all these contextual details -- which it was getting more and more bogged down with -- it was almost unanswerable. That the devil was in these details in many ways. At some point I realized there are situational nuances here that can't be conveyed properly.

 

This is what made me feel happy for you. That you don't have to carry this on your shoulders now; you know the lay out. You have a map of sorts. What you choose to do now is up to you, but at least now you have a broader insight into the situation. It isn't just you - iknowing the actual facts, funny how that can sometimes put the mind at ease.

 

Thank you for this, IAG. Yes…at least there is some clarity and definition to the issue. The problem and the facts are glaringly clear to me. I know what I'm dealing with. It's not a product of wrong thinking, or negativity, or inability to make efforts, etc. There are some cold, hard facts here that I'm faced with.

 

But there seems to be an almost impossible climb to scale here. So that's what I'm left with.

 

 

 

Old feelings are resurfacing. I really shouldn't look at other women's profiles from time to time on these sites, but it's almost impossible for me to not look.

 

A lot of people over the course of my lifetime have told me many truly wonderful things about who I am. When I was really younger -- 20's -- I couldn't even take those words in. Then I inched forward, and it felt more like taking a warm shower...but then stepping out right back into an unheated room, shivering. I've realized and experienced the truism that no one can convince you of your worth and value, or your good attributes in the aggregate that is you, if you do not believe in them first, in your own heart. There is no injecting anyone with self-esteem and self-worth. Funny thing is, people can bleed it from you -- when you're really small. Yet, no one but you can reinfuse yourself. It's unfair, how that doesn't work as a two-way valve. We see it here all the time, on this board. It's such a helpless feeling, to be grabbing someone and shaking them in front of the mirror, telling them to take the blindfold off and behold the marvel in front of them. The blessing, the miracle, the beauty, the importance, the sacred, I dare say -- and, down from the clouds, the everyday walking infinitude of amazing qualities and possibilities, latent or blatant.

 

No, you can't fill a syringe with this solution and push or drip it into someone's veins and transform their circulation.

 

But of course, it's never useless to express and validate. It's important to keep reminding people where to put their tapping stick.

 

But I know from living this life that it HAS to be a slow…or sudden…epiphany that one reaches in their own right. The epiphany that "this is good stuff." It has to arise from a place no one else has access to; it has to germinate on one's own turf, on a plot that one wakes up looking upon and goes to sleep near; and one has to assume the responsibility to notice that and then water and tend to that fragile shoot.

 

We can only make ourselves whole again through our own hand.

 

I experience becoming whole as a return of some kind. Not a return to an original state of mind or body. Too much water under the bridge for that. But a return to some primeval, a priori state of okay-ness -- before things became "this and that" (thank you, Jon Kabat-Zinn, for that in quotes).

 

So you have to be the one to locate that okay-ness. To relocate it. No one can show you to it, even if they've brought you to the water's edge. You're the one that has to drink, and taste it.

 

But then it gets hard again. You expose yourself to your biggest triggers, and you know you're in for the crash tests of your life.

 

And I find myself here, now.

 

I find myself asking once again…why me? Why choose me?

 

It's an old -- too old -- and familiar thing, clawing at me.

 

Why make me your "one"? Look at all the others out there that don't have such scars, don't require sophisticated, elegant, and artful explanations to even enter the contest. Why choose the one that cannot be understood even after 20 pages?

 

I show up every day, play as hard as I can. I have recrafted my "right view" many times over. That's my vow. And it sustains me. It preserves me with its inarguable rightness. I waver, then I come back to standing. But it's not something people need to go out seeking in a partner.

 

Everyone prefers to see someone who makes lemonade out of lemons. But when lemonade-making is a full-time occupation for someone...it's just a whole lot easier to buy a glass and keep on walking.

[tiredofvampires]

“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” ~ Rumi

[tiredofvampires]

And I don't know who penned this one, but whoever it was, god bless.

 

"Love is like a fart -- if you have to force it, it's s/t."

[90_hour_sleep]

kinda makes my heart smile.

 

1000 words...lol.

[tiredofvampires]

kinda makes my heart smile.

 

Thank you for smiling at that with me, "getting" that...and for stopping in.

 

1000 words...lol.

 

I know, yeah? Har har...

[DancingFool]

And I don't know who penned this one, but whoever it was, god bless.

 

"Love is like a fart -- if you have to force it, it's s/t."

 

LOL...thank you for a good laugh. Needed it.

[tiredofvampires]

Probably the best birthday card on record:

 

Front cover: black and white photo of a scruffy-looking owl peering out of heavy-lidded eyes, with this quote above:

 

"I am tired of acquiring wisdom. Somebody bring me a drink and a whoopie cushion."

 

By Cornelius Talbot. Whoever that is...and I did try (feebly) to figure it out.

 

Thank you, Cornelius. You made me laugh.

 

And thank you, sis.

[ballerinababe]

Happy birthday!

[tiredofvampires]

Thank you, BB!

 

I should elaborate on this very weird juncture in my life...this spot I'm in. I can't believe I'm now officially "pushing 50". Or am I supposed to be thinking, "this is the new 35"?

 

No, no. This happens to other people.

 

What? It's my turn?

 

Cripes.

 

"One foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel." ~ my friend Tom. lol

 

But! But but but! I still wouldn't go back. Been there, done that. And that. And that. The grace is that once you do it, you're kinda done with it.

 

I'm torn between continents and oceans. I'm torn between leaving my birthplace for the proverbial "greener pastures", and staying where I've spent nearly half a century putting down "roots." I'm torn between continuing to devote my life to a series of battles that both drain and inspire me, with unknown and unpredictable outcomes, some potentially extremely treacherous to my being, yet again...or turn radically on a different course, where I jump this burning ship and leap into a lifeboat of...of...the stuff people wish on stars. A companion and lover...a new lease on life. A chapter that resuscitates my art, and my creative side because I am not living on a thin string of moment-to-moment survival breaths. A new topography...fresh goals, taking my bags of tools elsewhere. Which is all wild fantasy on one level, but not beyond the pale of possibility either...which means that a certain sense of paralysis is coming up.

 

But I've got a plane to catch tomorrow, and a flu I'm still recovering from. So it'll have to be after the tornado of eventfulness...the en-route quarterbacking contemplations.

 

The more I live, the more I feel some uncanny certainty that our lives are books already written, and living them is just a matter of reading through the pages to the end.

 

A week lies ahead of me to meet people who may or may not just flicker out of my life, after a few months of tentative hoping, wondering, reaching out vulnerably, and pessimistic predicting. It's all ahead of me. And the story will be told by next Saturday. The words, the voices and touches and no-touches and eye gazes just have to be filled in. This could be substantive, or it could be a short story with a completely underwhelming conclusion.

 

It's all written already.

 

But that was some good red velvet cake last night.

 

Ok, I need to mellow out about this...whatever happens, life will go on.

[tiredofvampires]

And so what's been writ has been read.

 

Sometimes there are experiences that require so many words, where there aren't enough words in the world, one word is too much.

 

Healer, heal thyself.

[ballerinababe]

?

 

What happened? It doesn't sound too good...

[itsallgrand]

I hope you are feeling ok, TOV. Whatever happened, are you glad you gave it a shot?

[tiredofvampires]

Thank you so much, both of you, for your care and checking in with me.

 

It's been very hard to wrap my mind around all that happened, and the way it happened. And so it's been hard to know what exactly I need to say here, about it. There's so much, and it feels as if I might not stop writing if I started. Yet at the same time, I can't get the words out. So it's overwhelming. It was only a little over a week spent there, but I feel time kind of expanded to encompass all the echoes of my life...and so reverberating, took on the cast of years. Years of work, years of lessons learned the hard way and still not completely mastered, the many visits back to the drawing board.

 

It was definitely something I would not change in hindsight, though. So yes, IAG, I AM glad I gave it a shot. I feel it was a test of sorts -- a test to see how much I'd progressed on the fortress inside me, since the last time, now almost 10 years ago. Yes...that long. I can't believe it. It opened every wound I've been trying to suture, triggered every old, painful message I've been working on as a mental tattoo removal process. It was like shooting at Achilles' feet, to see how fast he'd learned to skip. So it challenged me in every way. To stand by myself even as someone was abandoning me full stop, to discern what was true and what was a not, to take up defying my own self-slaughtering lies, to lose a hope without losing hope, and I saw and felt so many incredible things that I wouldn't take back. Yes, I'm very glad I saw it through. I'm even stronger and more clear where I'm weak, now, after this. It's clearer after this screening what's been done and what needs to be done. So back to the drawing table...or the ongoing draft.

 

I'm sure I'll have more to say...when it becomes clearer how and what that's supposed to look like. It's kind of a disorganized, choppy scramble in there, right now. Still fighting for words. So exhausting.

 

But this time...I don't feel like I'm drowning.

 

 

 

 

GOING HOME

 

 

Some kind of dove,

a desert bird

is calling from the bougainvillea

again.

I tip my head, lean my thigh

towards the bobbing voice

and two diamonds escape:

one tear tracing

one sweat drop crawling

out of this carbon-soot anvil forge,

free

 

I draw a warm tiny circle

over the secret place

I'd saved for you;

and let them go

 

I'm leaving you

and taking the mossy brown floor

of Green Lake

with me

I'm taking the grass I lay in

when I fell from reeling,

and the pines towered above

saying, "It's okay."

I'm taking the bridge's high wind,

the bite of air too cold for

sheltered blood

and the passersby

who did not notice

I was leaving you

in the river rushing below.

I'm taking the hot froth

of sweet vanilla on my lip

that I drank alone

before the late bus,

and the shrouded skies

that hid stars

I might have thrown

my wish back to.

I'm taking the clouds and

powdered rain

to a place of hard bright blues,

unrelenting sun,

heat and burn

and scorch.

I'm taking the conifers

and cones to plant where only

decadent flowers are noticed.

I'll keep the cool pewter grey

and turn it back into

the forge by night,

deepening it to black;

I'll wait as long as all the nights left

for the Elemental,

diamonds.

 

This bird's warble

is the soft and unpretentious

goodbye

your tongue could

not speak

 

I'm leaving you

and going home.

[quirky]

What a lovely poem..and I am glad you are ok, though just 'ok' perhaps doesn't capture the amplitude of emotions you touch upon.

 

Just wanted to also add that I learn so many words when I read your journal, I go to Google translate and look them up, so thank you! For the 1000 words

[tiredofvampires]

Thanks, quirky -- and you're welcome, about the words! I actually developed this *little* obsession/lifelong love affair with words and learning them when I was around middle school/high school...vocabulary was one of my favorite homework assignments. Looking up words, their different uses, their derivations. And I would even read the dictionary, haha. Still do, sometimes...one word looked up leads to..."Hmm, wonder what THAT word means?" Or random browsing (though context/provocation is hands-down more fun, and memorable). So, bonified werd nerd. (even letters are fun...like, I couldn't write that "word nord" and have it comes out right.)

 

I just wish there were more occasions to use the ones I love but are more obscure, to enjoy their variety, without being interpreted as snobbish or smug (which has happened). It's a lonesome hobby, lol.

 

I'm so glad you've joined me.

[tiredofvampires]

Despite the rest...

 

Tears well up for me today in happiness and triumph -- one Titan step further towards love and against bigotry.

 

The wheels may grind slowly...but they do grind, if you keep them to the stone.

 

 

 

I can stand the sun today.

[tiredofvampires]

Great article -- as swiped from someone's online profile. (Funny how lately, I've gotten a ton of great reading ideas and links from people's dating profiles...even if I don't contact them [though something like this would inspire me to contact...but he's looking for someone considerably younger].)

 

link removed

[Silverbirch]

Big Big a hugs TOV

[tiredofvampires]

Thank you, SB. Right back at you...

 

I just got done posting something on this thread ( , post #45) about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...and then saw this. Haw haw haw!...sad but true...

[itsallgrand]

Hahaha. Mmmmm Wi-Fi.

[Capricorn3]

The next 1000 words are way overdue. Just sayin ..........

[tiredofvampires]

So, with a heavy rain falling outside (my favorite), it seems a perfect time get a cup of hot tea...and vent a little.

 

I'm having some serious qualms about remaining on the dating sites I'm on, which may be another post entirely. I think it's fair to say that I have absolutely ZERO hope or expectation that anyone remotely on my wavelength is going to appear here, where I live, locally. I've said it so often, I'm tired of my own refrain, but the problem is, there is nothing I can do to change it, and I'm someone who doesn't do well with the notion I can't change something that isn't working. I can't move, not now -- and that's DEFINITELY another post for another day. But I KNOW I can't find the sort of person I click with here. Which is to say, within a zone a few hundred miles around, interspersed conveniently by water bodies requiring plane fares to traverse, all of which lies several thousand miles from other human civilization. Here on this little plot of earth, where I'm marooned -- ironically the honeymoon destination par excellence worldwide -- I open my email each morning when I get up, and put it to "sleep" each night to the tune of 2 or 3 more new batteries of profiles sent my way, either from the main sites or their subsidiaries. It's almost becoming a Pavlovian trigger for getting into a funk, just seeing those emails in my inbox. "[My username]...you have 24 new matches!" Wow, a score and four! Or, "[My username]...[some other username] is checking you out!" Or some other come-on to get me to perch on my hind legs and start wagging my tail, as if any of these pickings are going to produce something new. Something other than cocky smiles floating below sun-reflecting shades; or well-oiled torsos dimly backlit; or the random body-part close-up with a sinuous tattoo; or a longshot into some wave, at some helm, accross some panorama from atop some precipice. And all these write-ups utterly interchangeable, to the point that I could recite the key phrases in my sleep. So many men here seem to be, as a main life activity, living life to the hilt. Or living life one day at a time. Or living life and enjoying the hell out of Paradise. Or my favorite, living life to its fullest. Wait...I mentioned that one already. No, wait, I said "hilt", this is "fullest." Difference.

 

Fine dining and hiking and wine-tasting and quiet nights by the fire and movies with bowls of popcorn and finding my next big adventure. And spending time with my family and friends, being grateful for each day.

 

I could flip through a hundred, a thousand pairs of glittering sunglass rims, looking around for the windows of the soul and not find anyone telling me anything more -- or less -- spectacular than this. None of it would I not do (well, maybe except for the wine-tasting), if I had the chance with the right company. And yet, none of it do I find myself seeking to do. I'm seeking a person, someone with whom I feel "home" with, who I can laugh with about absurd things, and joust with about what's going on in this crazy world, and toy around with ideas with, and talk to about "the places that scare me", knowing he will love me anyway. I know this is asking for a lot. Because I'm "a lot." But. All this other stuff...it feels like mounds of acrylic gold-painted nothingness. Invitations to charades, endless potential for dead-ends sprawling out in front of me like a marketplace of spices that have had their flavors removed.

 

It's probably got something to do with the way I've found out how many men must lie on their profiles, lately. Starting with the guy I traveled so far to see. But that's another story, like I said...and this isn't supposed to be a dedicated dating journal. It's just this is what's arising now. There are so, so many competing and extraordinarily daunting forces pounding away at me now, that I question the wisdom of trying to date. A little voice keeps nudging me towards throwing the towel in...if not in a melodramatic way, just for now. "Just for a while." But because none of these things I face involve any solutions in the near future, I guess my governing approach now is, "why not?" Why not keep the fishing pole mounted, even as I wander off yonder or spend the afternoon snoozing away. If the little bell rings...it can't hurt to see, can it?

 

But this is hardly the attitude I'd want someone else to be bringing, so why would I be bringing it? If nothing else, I hold myself to being able to deliver what am looking for in others. Somehow, it has slipped from what I felt was a healthy non-attachment to results...to a more insidious form of apathy. An almost imperceptible, yet significant shift, I feel.

 

And I don't know, maybe it's just a mood. A REALLY LONG EFING MOOD. Maybe it's the unrelentingly humid air, with its murderous lack of wind and near 90-degree temperatures. Maybe it's the madness with the housing situation, and seeing no end in sight to the fight. And maybe it's the physical pain I've been enduring, which disrupts every moment I have with background static, awareness of parts of my body that no one should have to be aware of (especially when considering dating). But it's all adding up to my not feeling like the date I'd like to be, or the me I'd like to present to the man I want to meet. And then I look around at the only men I think I'd like to meet, and they are 30 billion miles away in great cities with chicks I would date if I were even slightly bi.

 

So maybe I should just for now fold...and bide my time...and risk missing that one guy who I'll miss the very moment I take my profiles down.

 

Of course, that's sort of just happened, but the other way around. While I was gone on my trip of over 2 and a half months, I indicated interest in a guy with the sort of look that tends to draw me in...a bit rough around the edges, with a sort of mischievous (but not in a self-satisfied "I'm a badass" way) smile. This was also the site I'm on with the somewhat "alternative" more "spiritual/green/hippie" crowd, which I prefer to OKCupid in the sense that people are much more open-minded as a general rule. And for the most part honest. And of a more mature age, if you took the mean of the age spectrum. This is the only site where I almost regularly (even without a profile picture up) get interesting and articulate messages from men as far as New Zealand, Ireland, and Sweden. But anyway, this dude lives in Savannah, Georgia -- just about the LAST place on Earth I can imagine relocating to, if I were to do so to be with the man I'm taking a lifetime bet on. But I enjoyed the groundedness of his profile. Not afraid to mention his divorce, and without excessive detail, compared it to an "I Love Lucy" situation in reverse (a reference lost on me, since those were the days of missing out on TV shows, ala my parents' viewing choices, so if anyone out there knows what that might mean, please enlighten me.) I liked that he called himself "roadtripper" (part of his screename), and described in some colorful detail a bit about his adventures through the backroads -- something he aimed to be doing more of. Breaking with most others on the site and their folksy, jazzy leanings, he cited as one listening preference "heavy metal", making note of the fact that he realized it wasn't really all that "green" of a penchant. I thought it so cute that we might think of a music genre as "green" or not, and his implied apology. He spoke of his interests in antiques, playing his guitar way too loud, various forms of calligraphy (as he had been trained in printing and typsetting), and was an interesting blend of IT professional who could work from anywhere (yes! yes! yes! look my way!!) and someone who didn't care to spend his whole life behind screens. I wasn't wild about the fact that he mentioned wanting to get more tattoos, and labelled himself as "not political" in that box. But all in all...someone who I think I could carry on a decent conversation with, over a myriad of things, I'd think.

 

And not only did he respond to my interest, he wrote back a meaty and well-composed message about how he had really dug my profile, and found it really out of the ordinary (for some reason I get that a lot, especially on OKCupid). He told me that it was really refreshing to read something that someone had written that was more than just...well, the kind of things I talked about above. Five phrases of supremely forgettable nature, or otherwise something so minimalistic, there was nothing to respond to. He then said something that no one else had said -- that I had piqued his curiosity and interest because I'd mentioned in my profile that "the epistolary arts are a dying art I refused to let die", and that resonated with him, with his interest in the act of writing itself -- the aesthetics of the written word, and his love of calligraphy and typeface as an art, and how this really appealed to him.

 

There are a number of canned responses people can send from that site (the cheesiest thing about it), and this was anything but. There was so much to want to say to that...and then, since that was the beginning of an eventful trip, and I wanted to answer him properly, I decided to wait on a better time. I thought about quickly jotting off a note to say I was in fact in the midst of a somewhat-roadtrip myself...but I didn't want to sound like I was brushing him off, as these things can be misinterpreted. So the weeks passed and I bounced from destination to destination, and met up with Mr.-Boeing-Engineer-Triathlete, which fell through (which I still haven't said enough about, here), and then there was the return home, and the ensuing craziness on the home front...and, and, and...I logged on a few times to re-read his note to me, and saw that his picture changed a few time (which always indicates to me that someone may be having poor luck and trying different shots)...and then. Over last weekend, I decided it was time. So I log on and his message to me is deleted, along with the stock icon when someone's picture is gone, a message saying, "This user is no longer a member on this site. The system has automatically deleted the message."

 

PERFECT.

 

So that was like 4 days ago, and each day I've logged on just to at that blank stock graphic, and make it go away, make his picture come back. After 4 MONTHS of barely logging on that site at all.

 

ROADTRIPPER?.....I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you how you stood out from the pack.

 

Roadtripper...you did what I may be about to do myself. Unless the reason you left was because you found your lady, in which case I do hope you will be happy, and you shatter her eardrums with your humbuckers and drive her so far, you fly over the sea in whatever bang-up car I'm sure you drive. Maybe you can wave down at me as you journey and pass over.

 

I guess there are a few less grim tales to tell about it all...but this has made me especially sad. I couldn't stop thinking about it all weekend...maybe just as much for my foolish waiting for some "perfect" moment to write, as for the opportunity itself. I keep trying to tell myself that it's quite possible we wouldn't be a match at all...but what kind of solace is that? That's 100% true for 100% of anyone I might contact. I mean....just a couple of weeks before, his profile was still very much up, and he had been on the site. What's wrong with me? I can't stop kicking myself.

 

There's never a tomorrow quite like today to do something, as they say.

 

But now on to my aim with this post -- since despite all this blue and grey color, I am a big believer of not writing in the negative on one's profile. That is, I don't like to read or write things along the lines of "If you're into _______, don't bother contacting me/move on/skip this profile." Lists of no-go's (however efficient they seem), and strident statements about who can go shove off are such massive turn-offs to me. I'd much rather weed people out by enthusiastically stating what floats my boat than speaking about how its opposite is something I won't touch.

 

So in the spirit of keeping that kind of negative sludge off my actual profile, I think I'm going to need to spew it here instead, where no one's going to be judging my smile in a Crest strips line-up (I don't think! haha...)

 

Tossing my cookies, then, on what will get you tossed off my list practically instantly, when I see it on your profile...

 

Ah, stay tuned for Ventation II.

 

I suddenly feel a bloated curmudgeon.

 

And I need to save a little crotchetiness for dessert.

[tiredofvampires]

Roadtripper?....It's okay if you think I'm rude to eternity. That was so rude...

 

And you know, I even stopped in and looked at his profile (which on that site they don't let you do invisibly, which I truly HATE there) more recently...so he saw me do that and in turn, checked out my profile again. Which I'm sure looked like I was scrutinizing something about him, but rejecting him for some unknown reason.

 

UCHCCCH. I could tell he spent time on that message to me. It's the kind of thing you write when you're pretty damn sure the other person will reply back.

 

It's just awful. Me and my perfectionistic crap.

[tiredofvampires]

The next 1000 words are way overdue. Just sayin ..........

 

HAHAHA!! Ah, Cap!! What can I say, my ENA diviner. Just as you were asking...I was in the middle of it...

 

 

image removed

[Capricorn3]

HAHAHA!! Ah, Cap!! What can I say, my ENA diviner. Just as you were asking...I was in the middle of it...

Indeed. I thought it was time to send some messages via mental telepathy. Glad it worked cause a 1000 words was way way waaay overdue.

 

After reading the latest news I find myself, once again, banging my head on my desk and asking, WHYYYY, why, whyyy doesn't ToV just write a book already! I don't care what the topic, I don't care if it's your life story, someone else's life story, or a story about your dog (if you had one), just write and get a 500 page book in the book stores already! I swear you have a way with words which would keep me totally engrossed 24/7, seven days of the week and still asking for more.

 

That is all. [/end vent]