TONIGHT ... I'VE GOT TO GET TONIGHT...

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you? - Rumi

TACTICAL

Put what I needed to mail in the post regarding my transcript and was able to obtain the study materials for my personal trainer’s certification.  Thanks for the offer Alaina, but my understanding of the process is that it is going to take the DPS 10 days to dig through their well-maintained and up-to-date archival filing system to find my transcript from the last century!  You know, each time I encounter a song or have reason to call on memories of the 80’s and 90’s, I get the “Oh my, I am old!” feeling!!  But it isn’t a regretful feeling… I am so HAPPY to have made it this far!!

While I maintain that I have no residual insecurities from my childhood of any kind, I still recall the feelings that were manifest in my tormentors, as well as the ‘complexities’ that were ‘pondered’ by those around me.  Given the connections that I have with my memories of being picked upon and ostracized, that NONE of that stuff has any connection to the life I actually have led, almost everything in my life is a BONUS and I do think that I am on ‘Extra Time’ (which is a concept borrowed from soccer).

HAVING ALL THE TIME YET HATING THE CLOCKS

“Be quick, never hurry.” - John Wooden

Yeah, sometimes I think about the breaks that didn’t go my way… the fights that I didn’t win, the classes that I blew off, as well as the relationships and love that I took for granted.  But I don’t ‘unwish’ anything (though my starter marriage is something that used to gnaw at me), as I truly believe that I have been given all the opportunity that my life has called for.  The result is the fervent belief in who I am… that I can be no more and I dare not be any less.

The way that one handles time… how they prioritize the events and occurrences in their lives is a reflection of their character that I pay great attention to.  It began with my nascent agnosticism and how it appeared that the ‘let go and let G-d’ and ‘...in His time and by His will’ camps acted in contradiction to those precepts.  Anywho, the whole “waiting” ideal that many found in those statements were the polar opposite of one say that I most definitely feel emboldened by… “He helps those who help themselves”.

With regard to time, I am going to rely on the simplest of concepts of time for this entry, so don’t expect this to expand into some of the more extraordinary (and yet perfectly valid) ideas of time that I am piecing together for my own understanding.  The fragility of human life should be THE prime motivation for living a life that one considers,’worthwhile’.

Often in the early processes of a relationship, there are false fronts and barrier constructed to keep one (or maybe they are built by both participants) ‘safe’.  The problem that I have with this form of emotional defense is that it wastes TIME.  

When we make a claim to love someone, to be a friend or when we give our allegiance of any kind to someone, it is important that we learn to show up when we are needed. When we show up for those we say we love or have given our allegiance to, we are engaging in an act that develops strong bonds and relationships.

It's not enough to say we love someone. It's not enough to say we will be there or to say that we are committed to whatever relationship we may have with someone. It only becomes enough when we prove our words as true by showing up when it really counts.

Let's show up when it really matters.  - Jada Pinkett Smith

Instead of a retread quote from some dead German dude, this thought expressed by Jada Pinkett Smith says clearly what I expect from myself and my POTENTIAL PARTNER in a relationship.  Many times when people call themselves in a relationship, they are often partly invested in the relationship.  Because of my nature, I simply cannot abide a person who wants to be a part of my life and only gives back a carefully measured portion of themselves.  Nebraska was someone who I thought could only offer pieces of herself, not because of circumstance or relativity, but out of conscious planning and calculation.

The Rumi quote… which I am sure that I saw over at Thomas’ blog, confirms the longing that I sense in people and that aches to be filled.  When people are drawn to me or I find myself pulled into the orbit of someone else, I think about what I am supposed to do, what I am supposed to be, what lesson there is to be learned or imparted through the relationship.  And that is the dividing line that marks the boundaries between Nebraska and Princess in my heart.

I would like to consider myself a good friend to people and I am sure that if you were to ask the people who I interact with, that more than a few would affirm that by labeling as ‘a friend’.  With that said, I am completely comfortable with where I am at in each and every dimension of my life.  At no level of my human experience do I feel any distress beyond the normal condition (whatever that may be; varies from individual to individual).

Monday we will be at Metro Community College and finding out if I can sign up for a couple of classes.  It isn’t as though I am not working through the appropriate channels to get my transcript, and I believe that Tee Jay can be counted on to get my request into the Douglass Academy.  As to my social life… well, I am “back on the reservation” again, and it is a very good thing!!