2014-04-13

Love Yourself, Dude

I used to need retreat, and need to have a ton of time with nothing but me, nothing coming up. I think now that it was the product of an over-busy life. As a kid, I loved it when there was a lull in the hectic run from swimming to ballet, from running to journalism, to the Y, to Washington Park... the feeling that I always had to get somewhere. Or somewhere to get to.
I've carried that feeling with me into adulthood, and now that I work at home, I have a chance to re-learn the pace of life. I welcome it, too. It's allowed me to feel more social, and like I really will get everything done.
Now, when I have somewhere to go, I'm mostly happy to leave my house, often embracing that I have to get in my car and drive somewhere. I used to resent it, like such a brat.
I'm not ready to date, but I'm glad to learn that I'm social. I was, when I was younger, but I'm learning who I am now and that may sound really weird, or self-indulgent or something. But... my life underwent an enormous change when the weight came off. Sure, I'm still the same person, but not really since the way that the world interfaces with me now requires a different set of skills, and it has different queues to look for, different warning bells and so on. Obviously, dating is different, I guess. I assume. I dunno. It must be.
I met Chris when I was still pretty heavy. I was down-sized, no doubt, but I was still 25 pounds heavier than today. On a woman who's 5'2", that's a lot of pounds. I guess I've not really met anyone being this small, or this blonde.
On the other hand of that same idea-bod is that I've never met someone and been this wise, or this confident. I've never trusted myself this much, so there's no doubt that if I were to ever get so involved with anyone again, and I have no doubt that I will, I know that it'll be at least that deep. I know that I'm not able to keep hanging onto the thing that I used to use as security blankets. He wasn't comfortable with himself, ever - not at a surface level, or one speaking to any internal workings of emotion or intuition. I know how that feels, and I know how to apply a practice to unfeel it, to feel confident most of the time.
I learned that you can't teach it, either. It's so deeply personal, these shifts and roots and crack and fortresses. They're so intrinsically unique to each human that there is no way for one to teach another how to love himself.
But, once you do.... your life is entirely ready for you to reach in, to twist yourself into whatever moves you, to know that no matter what you can do that which you want, and you will always feel supportive, always be loved. It flows in you, and only then do you truly have enough to nourish someone else. Only once I learned to love myself could I love someone else.
And he just can't love himself. There may be a darkness there; it may be some construct of his own psyche, believing that there is darkness where none really is, none but the flicker of an imagination over-driving a delicate transmission.
I don't miss him today.

arizonasarah at 6:49 p.m.

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