Red Cedar

phew – glad that is over… the birthday, the new moon – and now for a new (lunar) year….

after i left work last night i headed straight home which was probably the best decision… i thought once i got there i would just mope around all night, but in fact, the really bitter sadness stoped flowing somewhere around the lion’s gate bridge and after watching a beautiful sunset (and recognizing that the longer days mean that soon i will be commuting entirely in the light rather than entirely in the december dark) – i went to the grocery and got decadentally unhealthy food (perogies – yum)…..

i spent the evening after dinner in reflection and meditation – being that a birthday falling on the new lunar year is supposed to have some mystic strength, i thought i would try to take spiritual advantage of the timing. making time to do this regularly is something i think would help with my internal balance immeasurably, as i have found that just doing breath focusing daily really does help keep things level – meditation can only add to that. while i psych myself out of it often by building up how difficult it is for me to tone down my thinking process, when i actually get down to making the time, i find i am able to meditate for much longer periods than i ever could in my younger years. maybe this is a benefit of getting older…..

somewhere in all of that evening activity – i also managed to have good phone time with friends on the prairies (sharai in regina and bear in winnipeg)…. two people i haven’t spoken to in awhile and was quite happy to hear from.

so where did all that sadness come from in the first place? this is the part that i hate to admit (because i am so damned fiercely independent), but occasionally i get sad about being alone in the partnership sense. of course i have lovers, many friends, and lots to do in my life – which means i am rarely lonely – but there are times i become frightened about the fluidity of it all, and long for an anchor in the form of the “someone who is always there for me” that is apparently available in partnership or marriage.

when examining this question honestly, however, i do not believe that a partnership would be the thing to make me happiest – but it becomes something to fixate on (as in “the one thing that could make my life better”), an easy psychological hook on which to hang my sadness, my anxieties and my fears when they get uppity and start knocking on the cognitive door. my reality is, no partnership has ever taken care of my emotional or physical needs – but i have drained a lot of my own energy in relationships trying to attend to the emotional and physical needs of my partners.

three years ago, my last partnership ended between february 8th and march 8th (yup – the process started with my birthday and ended with his, which is why the dates are so fixed in my mind). our relationship was fraught with difficulty, due to our lives as activists, the number of days we spent in courtrooms and under surveillance, and our own personal baggage. i loved that man as much as i could ever love anyone, and there was a lot of heartbreak between us at the end.

but even as much as i loved him, and still maintain a close friendship, i know in my heart that i would never want that relationship back – and when it ended, it was because we both knew it had to. because really, true love does not conquer all, and very few partnerships or marriages are forever – this is something that i’m quite clear on…. i think it is just a foil for which to obsess over when i get a bit low.

so yes, perspective. things here are fine again.