Caffeine

I have always been sensative to caffeine, but I started having a coffee in January when faced with a test and knowing that coffee is known to increase test scores.  But we had a test every week, so I started to have a coffee every week.  Then I started to need diet Coke too.  As I became more exhausted I began to need caffeine more.

But caffeine has disrupted my sleep and I always feel unwell, almost ill.  So Thursday I gave up caffeine and Friday I had a horrible headache.  I got a green tea which alleviated the headache for about 2 hours, then discovered ice on my forehead worked best; and sleep.

Fridai I woke up feeling better than I have felt all year.  So now I have a chance, a prayer of a chance.

If

Enclosed in the word gift is the word if.   What if First Love wanted to come back into my life?  How would I react?

 It would depend on how he presented it to me.

 If he just wanted to reestablish a friendship, yes I'd love to be friends with him.

If he wanted to date me?  My heart would skip a beat, an answer to a prayer, but with so much distrust part of my feelings for him.  How could I, or would I even want to try to learn to trust him again?

The question has plagued me only because a psychic told me that would happen; or at least that is how she interpretted the message she was getting.  I no longer seek psychic fortune tellers.  I sought 2 psychic fortune tellers when I started the divorce in 2010; and they gave me contradictory information, and it made me so nervous, my intention became unfocused and filled with fear.  I eschew psychic fortune tellers. Now I think of fortune tellers like the witches in MacBeth - wreaking havoc and tragedy whatever they touch.

She was an unsolisited psychic with an unwanted message.  But I listened to her.  She got a lot of details right.   Things no one but me knows, not even First Love knows.   She gets messages from living people frequently she said, dead people too, but living people.  I think she misunderstood the message though.  I can't imagine First Love ever wanting to be part of my life again.  Still, it would be nice if he did want me.

There is a famous Indian tale of a woman who was madly in love with her husband, but then she was kidnapped by another man who wanted to have her.   She fought off his advances and escaped back to her husband, who didn't believe she had been virtuous to him so he left her, abandoned her. She lead a wretched, heart-aching life.  !! ALERT:  SPOILERS -->  Then many years later he repented and returned to her.  When he asked to be reunited with her, she asked the gods to open up and swallow her into hell, they did and she jumped in, rather than return to her beloved husband.

Sita Sings the Blues 

What if First Love wanted to date me in future?  It's a luxury to allow myself to think about that fantasy what if.  Yet I worry too, that I'm not moving on.   Worry that I'm allowing this past hurt to continue to hurt me.  Worry that I'm just a skipping record, over and over repeating the same lines.  I need to lift up the needle into the next groove -- move forward.

The psychic asked me why I would want to be with someone who would do what he did to me?  I agree, why?  Why have I loved men who betrayed my faithfulness, devotion and love?  Why?

What if I allow myself to now fall in love with someone new who has the capacity to love me and treat me well?  Am I ruined?  Since I loved and was maimed, am I now unable to love fully?  Can new love heal me from old wounds?  How does love work? 

What if I can choose to be happy and that leads to more happiness?

p.s.  I need to remember what my friend asked me recently:  she asked "Back then it was considered responsible behaviour; now people have villified it."  I remember, now that you asked this, yes, I remember.  Thank you!
 

Gift

Nature poet Mary Oliver wrote a 2006 poem called "The Uses of Sorrow".

"(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved gave me

a box of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift."

Now this poem was written about someone who died; and that situation is entirely different from the situation with First Love who is still alive and consciously chose to leave me, twice.  Nevertheless I am hoping there is something I can learn.

Last night I realized he was not very nice to his own dog, I had to stop him from hitting his dog once, and possibly might likewise be not very nice to my dog too.  That would make me feel guilty to have put my dog in that situation.  My ex-husband used to pinch my dog.

When I went to the zen sangha, when I asked to meet him one last time but he did not show up, the dogen gave this advice "Keep your heart open".  I don't remember if I asked a question or someone else did but I felt as if that advice was meant deliberately for me.

First Love did introduce me to Mary Oliver and Zen Buddhism which I hoped would become more important to me, if I lived closer to a sangha.  But it can still become more important to me, can't it?  What I learned can still grow inside me.  That's partly why I cherished him so much, he introduced me to so many things that ignited my curiosity about the world.

Perhaps incongruous, or not, to a growing importance of Zen, what I'm trying to do is believe that god has a purpose for everything, a purpose that is the best for me. There is a line in the M. Night Shyamalan movie "Signs"

Graham Hess:  People break down into two groups.  When they experience something lucky, group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence.  They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching out for them.  Group number two sees it as just pure luck.  Just a  happy turn of chance.  I'm sure the people in group number 2 are looking at those fourteen lights in a very suspicious way.  For them, the situation is a fifty-fifty.  Could be bad, could be good.  But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own.  And that fills them with fear.  Yeah, there are those people.  But there's a whole lot of people in group number one.  When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle.  And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them.  And that fills them with hope.  See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you?  Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles?  Or do you believe that people just get lucky?  Or, look at the question this way:  Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

After thinking about it, what I have realized today is:  I have used First Love for many years to justify my sadness.  He's been an excuse for why I am sad.  I don't need to be sad, I choose to be.  I can choose something else.  And the Oprah shows that I mentioned in yesterday's post, plus that enlightment I realized when walking in the woods in autumn about the life of  leaves being the transient experience of god made manifest, living for a season yet part of a larger living organism, the tree, and by extension the earth, water and air too, all of that made me realize that I might not be so small as I think I am. I might just be god experiencing this body for the moment like the life of a leaf.  But that I'm just one expression of something larger than this body, I'm part of god.  I might be god.   I have access to god because god is animating this body, this specific collection of atoms that experience life in Time and Space, in a 4-dimensional way.  But maybe I'm not really so limited, maybe I'm larger than this body and therefore I too, like god, am limitless really.  Maybe.

Restart

New moon.  New START now.

It's July.  One week after the anniversary when First Boyfriend blew me off to start dating ugly Raggedy Andie - an ugly, tall, red head with bad taste.

Do I sound bitter?  The first time First Boyfriend blew me off when we were in our 20s was the hardest time in my life.  Then last year he did it again.  So maybe I have bad judgement, huh?  I guess we are all entitled to our own mistakes; I have to forgive myself, and him, but mostly myself.  Partly I do, I learned this second time that he most definately is a bad breaker-upper.  He makes you feel all loved and secure then out of nowhere, nowhere, he drops you cold.  Cold.  Stops communication ubruptly, no explanations.  He did that to me both times. 

I got to meet the girlfriend he dated in 2010 and he did the same thing to her.  Its so shocking.  And to a girl in her 20s in love for the first time, it was completely and utterly shattering to me.  No wonder I never got over him.  So with this second break up it was sort of gift to see what happened the first time, but with new more experienced eyes.  Tohelp  forgive myself, if I can, for ruining my life up till this point because I was pining over someone all my life who would do such a thing to me, and to other women too.  Still how could I be so stupid to have ruined my whole life just trying to get over him?  Its a lot to have to forgive myself for.

Oddly enough when we started being friends again in 2010 he asked my advice about that 2010 girlfriend; he had already broken up with her but she was angry and demanding he meet her for an explanation of why he broke up with her. I remember talking to him on the phone and very clearly thinking, "I have to be careful.  I have to give him the same advice I would want him to follow if he was talking to me."  So I told him to be honest with her and answer her questions to help her find closure.  He argued with me, he said no explanations help, they are all an insult and so its better to give no explanations.  When I became acquainted with her I never spoke with her about him very much; I could tell she still had feelings for him and I did too, so it was too close and too raw.

I am seeing someone nice. He is nice.  He lives too far away.  He says I'm "different" all the time; that kind of puts me off.  It's not like the first time someone has thought I was weird, in fact, that is my most frequent experience, actually.  I'm weird to many people, or they are weird to me and I mirror that -- I'm not sure how it all works.

I watched Oprah channel on Sunday with interviews of a singer named India Arie, the Secret of abundance encourager Wayne Dyer, and new age healer Caroline Myss.  They were all good interviews.  Very helpful, the singer India said things in such a way that really hit home, intensely personal and touching.  India Arie spoke of integrating the shadow self with her song "Break the Shell".  It was illuminating.  I have to listen to it more.  I wish I could see that interview again.  Caroline Myss expounded on that by talking of archetypes, and learning from the archetypes that we identify with.  Wayne Dyer spoke of how we are a soul who is constantly inhabiting a new, ever changing,  body.  How the cells in our bodies change, every 7 years we have a totally new body.  Interesting the way those stories fit together.

So I have to start positive self talk now, today, this instant.

Fingers crossed to me and all of us.

Damp

I feel moldy and lost.  Humid and too warm. Ungrounded.  What I once believed; that rug has been pulled out from under me and I'm unfamiliar with the ground that I stand on.    Much of what I used to value and care about, no one around me values those same things.  The music and art I love are not understood and valued by those I now know.  Basic human values differ.  I'm in a foreign world.

Ok, since I feel lost I need a plan.  I'll start with what makes me feel good.  Being slim and working towards staying slim makes me feel good.  I feel confident in myself, and optimistic, and wear cute clothes.

I faced the scale. . . .starting point is 178 lbs.  Hear that world?!  I'm going to be slim! I'm going to make my first goal to reach 148 lbs by September 2013.  From there I'll decide what next to do.  This is a very aggressive 3-Month Plan:

May 2013 178 -->170
June 2013  170 --> 162
July 2013  162 --> 156
Aug 2013  156 --> 148
Sep 2013  148 --> ?   see where I am and assess from there.

Eventual long term goal is 115-121 lbs  or 18-23% body fat.

More goals are to eat healthy veg and fruit, take vitamins. Start daily walks. Weigh everyday. Drink lots of water.

A new goal is to do more exfoliation and moisturizing of my skin because it feels so good to the touch and makes me feel more attractive.  No more nail polish but yes to keeping nails manicured and buffed.

Countdown

With only a little more than a month of school left, I have to find a way to  look forward with optimism and hope.  I have to find a way to start dieting again, to lose fat and be slim.  To hope; to believe good things can and will still happen in future.

Soup

I am so hungry for gilled cheese and tomato soup -- GOOD home made tomato soup with grilled cheese.  I'll look up a recipe for delicious thick tomato bisque and buy some very good bread.  Yum!

Here is a vegetarian version of a recipe from Soup Co.  Creamy Tomato Soup.

4 Tbl unsalted butter
1 Spanish onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
5 Tbl all-purpose flour
4-1/2 C low-sodium vegetable broth
28 oz can whole, peeled tomatoes
3 parsley sprigs
1 bay leaf
1 C heavy cream
1-3/4 tsp kosher salt
freshly ground blak pepper

1.  Heat the butter in a large soup pot over medium-high heat.  Lower the heat to medium, ad the onion, carrots, celery, and garlic and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until soft and fragrant, about 8 minutes.

2.  Stir in the flour and cook, stirring for 3 minutes.  Pour in the broth and crush the tomatoes through your fingers into the pan.  Bring to a boil while whisking constantly.  Tie the parsley springs, thyme, and bay leaf together with a piece of kitchen twine and add to the pot.  Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from the heat and let cool.

3. Remove and discard the herb bundle.  Working in batches, transfer the mixture to a blender and puree until smooth.  Return the puree to the pot and reheat over medium heat.

4. Whisk in the heavy cream, salt, and pepper, to taste.  Divide among warm soup bowls and serve immediately.