Things I’ve tried to deny

Tags

commitment, couple, expat, fear, feminism, guilt, life, love, marriage, motherhood, relationships, shame, travel, twentysomething, who am i

When I think about becoming a mother, I think about losing everything I am and ever could be. I think about the loss of my freedom and my body. If I had to choose between never traveling again and never having a carefree day in my life, I don’t think I would choose to be a mother. Being a mother is different than being a father. You are on the hook in so many ways. I don’t think I need to have a child to give my life meaning. I think adventure, exploration, the search for truth might be the meaning of my life. I know I want to experience great love, but this is also something I may only want because of rumors I’ve heard about how great it is. To be perfectly honest I kind of love the way my life is now. I don’t need a steady partner, and I’m far from ready to be a mother. There is so much more world out there to see. I’ve been seeing the world in a frenzy thinking of the day I would have to make some choices based off biology and circumstance and in my mind, if I had a child I would have to give up traveling. Financially, that would be the case if it happened tomorrow, and that’s not something I want. I know that theoretically, hopefully, there would be someone there to bear the burden with me, but honestly, I have absolutely no interest in having a child if I don’t have the support of another parent. I am not someone who would use a donor or go to some other somewhat extreme to get pregnant without a life partner. I love babies, and I love children, but besides biological urge, it’s hard to picture myself doing the day in day out work of being a parent without regretting it. I have the image from my mom that being a mother is constant drudgery. And i don’t think sacrifice is the only meaning of life either. I’m not a martyr, and I don’t want to become one. I know that a fair amount of people manage to travel and do interesting stuff even while having multiple kids, but no matter what, your life is different and your resources of time, money, and energy, sometimes even health, are diverted from yourself necessarily, and you no longer get to be your own first priority. Maybe reproduction only works by ruse. If you had a completely fulfilled and happy life, why would you want to turn it upside down by having a child? Right now I can’t picture either having the kind of partner that would make me want to take that leap into the unknown. I guess another way of thinking is that everything you gain you do so for your children and it takes on new meaning, and I’m sure it does, but honestly I think it’s ok to just consume what you manifest yourself and leave a bit to nourish the world, right? I don’t tink I’m against having children, although I know I’m perfectly against having children with a partner. I don’t know if life has begun to or will one day begin to feel repetitive without having a child and having that greatest adventure of self sacrifice and love and responsibility, but at the moment I can’t contemplate having a cat or buying a car or even leasing an apartment for three years. I know if I had a kid, I would raise to the occassion and really love it. But I don’t think I will ever need it, and I don’t know if I will ever want it enough to disturb all that I’ve got going on now. My logical hunch is that having a kid never really makes sense in the long run, although I’m sure you do get to grow as a person in new ways. I doubt that having a kid is ever “worth it” for the mother if she’s already fulfilled in her life. And yet, I know a lot of women who seem pretty happy and still decide to have kids, so maybe there’s something about being with the right guy that changes things. I’m so enjoy my Aprodite and Artemis archetypes that being a mother feels like it would be sacrificing literally everything I am. I feel like I’ve got it in me, and my body is begging for it, but besides taking care of another person to avoid confronting life, the universe, and everything I’ve got going on within myself, I don’t see the point. Maybe this is the dirty little secret of feminism, and why European birth rates are so low. Or maybe there will be a day when love will win over reason, and somehow it won’t need to make sense anymore. But it would have to be a great love, and even greater trust.

As for men, it’s true, I theoretically want to have kids some day, and more to the point for these days, I do think I want to be in a relationship. But again, why risk having someone break your heart, or even more painful, breaking theirs, if you can get along just fine on your own? If I struggle to imagine owning an apartment (mind you, an apartment and not a goddamn house with a lawn, etc to maintain) because I might have to give up a trip because something needed a repair, how hard is it to imagine genuinely sharing your life with another person, and how many goddamn vacation days you would spend visiting their family when you already don’t exactly begrudge but are a little stingy with the time you accord your own, because you would rather be off adventuring, most of the time?

The real thing that kind of made me start wondering if it would be worth it is thinking about having less passion potentially over time, no matter how creative and romantic you are (also look at what science says having kids does to your relationship), and if you already have respectful and happy relationships in your life, and deep friendships, and high quality lover (s), what can a man really add without taking away quite a whole lot? Would the benefit ever be worth the risk? I’m not afraid of going to quite a lot of countries a lot of tourists shy away from, but I am terrified of choosing the wrong person, and being hurt again, and probably even more terrified of doing the hurting. I want to know or at least have the strongest possible feeling it will work out and that it’s worth it come what may, but I don’t think you “just know” all that very often. And I have fooled myself into just thinking I “just knew” enough times that I know how little my mind can be trusted. Also how much do I actually want love versus just the validation of having someone? To what extent is it lazy to go with being a relationship as the main form of companionship versus cultivating others if in the end, you aren’t sure if you are biting off far more than you can chew?

I am not in a relationship not because I don’t love myself, but because I am terribly terribly afraid of them. I want to come close to the fire without burning myself. I am chicken of all chickenshit because I don’t want to take emotional risks. I may have been to my fair share of therapy, but I don’t want another person in my life to disappoint or hurt or be disapporoved of. I know my family loves me as I am, and they ahve come to accept my role as a wanderer, but damn.

The truth is that I have very rarely, and pretty much never without shame, really let myself be who I wanted to be. And having a man or baby seem like a perfect way to put a muzzle on my soul, toss it in a box, and throw away the key. Fuck you, Personal Legend, put a bun in the oven, get back in the kitchen and take off those shoes! Not to mention a house. The homeowner dream in lieu of the man/baby dream, whether it’s a McMansion in in the burbs or a Hausmanien dream in the City of Light, while it might seem appealing at times to have one’s own “home,” the sky is already all mine.  The road belongs to no one, and yet, by naming myself for the wanderer that I am, I claim every mile for me, and me for myself.

Is it really a new adventure to truly love someone? Is it really so much of a great new world to have a child? Is it childish and selfish not to jump on board for these commitments and the life experiences they offer? Is it silly to even think like that, and to realize you bear children for the human race or your community or to propagate your own genes, and any satisfaction you get is a side effect of that?

When the world loves you without asking for anything back, is it not silly to put your heart in fickle human hands?

Whetther I ever love a man or have a baby, I love myself, and I love this world. I need no other justification or joy.

I love my fire. Fire might consume nearly everything it touches, but it also brings light and heat to the world. I love my fire.

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The monster that isn’t in the closet

Tags

choices, coaching, dieting, exercise, expat life, fat, fitness, growing up, love, parents, relationships

so I’ve been pretty afraid to try my best at things, because that has often been linked to rebound eating, hunger, bingeing and overdoing whatever behavior it was that I was trying to curb when my inner self destruction, mean girl, inner critic, what have you, Demon of Low Self-Worth appears on the scene and ruins whatever I was trying to create.

This feels deceptively like a very authentic part of me, like something that is fighting for the real Megan to come through, to be loved for her faults/with her faults in a way. It is deceptively human, and humanizing. I think, I deserve to be loved for not being perfect, I deserve to not be perfect, and I deserve to indulge myself. loving becomes indulging and is more about giving in to impulses, especially when they are ill-considered and unlikely to actualy satisfy true need.

Like sure, have that hamburger. If you give yourself what you want, you will be happy and authentic. If you do something you don’t want to  get a result you claim to want, you are a cold bitch Machiellian, so eat the goddamn sandwich or next time i will get you with a dozen cookies two sandwiches and a bread bowl.

I have long, lonve feared this part of me. Because this part of me is what gave me limits, and comfort.

But i didn’t want to let it go, it felt too much like home. Not that my family isn’t proud of me in their way, but they are people who have built their lives with trying to be happy with what they have and mostly focusing on relationships, friendly and in their marraiges.

so what I am doing is completely authentic , to leave, and not even for a relationship, which also wouldn’t have been tolerated from me since my role in the family these days is badass independent woman adventurer- is she selfish or just fearless?

does she even really love us?

She only sees us once or twice a year but she always finds the money to travel.  When we’re gone, then she’ll regret it but i wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

But i’m a dutiiful daughter and that didn’t happen to me, guess there was some perks of staying at home.

No wonder she can’t find a man if she’s always traveling and never stays in one place. SHe cares too much about her career.  Acually she doesn’t care enough, all she cares about is travel, and what is that but an escape- where is she escaping to, isn’t France enough?

 

She was always the strange one anyway- that’s why she fits in so well with the frogs.

It makes me sad that i think people do sometimes thin this way about me, and even more sad that I can particularly

remember the instances of some of the above coming out of someone I respects male. Ouch, that hurt.

No wonder I don’t want to go back, and I”m not sure if I want to go home for Christmas.

But I do because I love them and they love me, and a lot of this is just my inner critic talking- who they did in fact help create, much as they will say I always had that “drive” and they didn’t expect anything great out of me.

But they did, I think, and this life while fun to tell the neighbors about is not what they expected. Oh well, sucks for tehme.

 

As for me,  know I do well enough in the making people jealous of my life contest.

Because I don’t give a fuck anymore.

My childhood babysitter says I’m not the little girl she used to take to the library- now I’m out traveling the world. I”m ure no one would have seen me doing it, least of all me.

I feel like I’m speaking out of turn, too much about me, too much about what’s importat to me than what category I fit into, and if I’ve checked the boxes, and if there can be some schaden frude about the fact that I, while living a prety authentic life ahat I really enjoy, have not crossed off all the milestones yet

 

ANd I will sometime. That I feel pretty confident abou , because it is a part of what I desire. A part.

Maybe f I was a full time traveller I wouldn’t like it as much.

 

I am happy that i’ve been going on quests of my own now, rathe rthan just oging to see something that didnt know what I wanted.

 

But anyway, back to the demon.

The demon is the tempestuous God outstairs who bangs the broom on their celing to disturb me when I”m having sex, or a moments peace.

That’s just how it is.

But no more.

There is no more reason to be afraid of the demon than there is to be afraid of the monster in the closet.

But you will continue to be afraid of the monster in the closet unless you can see that it’s not real.

Like the creatures in M N Shaymalan’s the Village.

When you are loved by people, and truly taken care of, it helps light back up the star within you. And I’m not talking about validation, I’m talking about love, the kind of love that can be tough and adjust you back on your right path. The love of a coach or teacher, not a sycophant, not a positive affirmations specialist, not that person taht doesn’t respect or care for you enough to tell the truth. More than likely this person will witness both good and bad things about you, and will reassure you you that you are only human and it’s ok, and you are still worthy of effort and love.

And little by little, your spark will be reignited, and you will start to be shiny.

And only by your own lifht, which it might take months and years to grow, will you see that there never has been anything in the closet–

That when you came out of the closet of your own making, of your limitations others false beliefs and iill intetions imposed on you, the revenge of the weak amongst the strong, the resentment that causes you to write a song like Jenny from the Block because your success threatens everyone around you, especially if they have helped you on your path. It stings, and if they are not entirely happy with the life they lived and they lacked the courage to live the one they wanted, which more or less might resemble yours.

And love is making love in the light of a dying fire, of being together in a rough corrugated metal shack, two souls in the middle of no where, just feelign each other.

And love is when you have to trat yourself better than you have ever treated yourself, because someone believes in you and has invested in you.

And you know, because of them, that you really deserve it. And you don’t do it for them, you really truly do it for you. And that’s a reason.

You stop wanting to change the world adn start wanting to live your life. You stop grasping for control and want freedom more than power.

And that my friends’ is how to tame the green eyed monsters, inside and out, wherever they may be.

 

Pssst turn on the light.

PS and maybe it’s all called into being by dualism, and the beleif there has to be an eternal battle of dark and night, live and sun. And es, all is well.

 

Best,

MJ

 

The secret reason I don’t have a boyfriend (yet)

Tags

dating, personal growth, relationships, twenty something

So basically at some point I got it into my head that the relationship would happen when I was “finished” and I should wait until I get my shit figured out. Even a good friend told me that it wouldn’t be possible for me to be in a lasting relationship because I am growing too fast.

But I think the real reason Is because I thought that my growth would stop or slow down. I didn’t tink my relationship woud be my teacher and I did think there was something kind of brave and proud and feminist and holy about being a woman alone in the world, not answerable to anyone.

i was/am afraid of altering my life for someone who might not be there to morrow.

I have been very afraid of not being my full self because of whatever person being around there, that there is so much to discover in me that might remain buried due to the desire to stay the eprson that my lover fell in love with.

But I think a real good love sweeps the sand off the buried treasure, even if I will have to do the heavy digging. I think it is possible to be with someone and continue to grow, even though there’s a possibility to grow beyond or in different directions from each other and the relationship.

And the truth is, my growth is the most important thing to bme, period. I wouldn’t consciously sacrifice my growign self for a relationship. And perhpas alwas going for guys who were in some way unavailable was a way to get the high of romance without the commitment and chnage.

Well, I think that I would learn a lto from letting a great person into my life.; I think there’ sno reason why being in a coupl ehas to be the endof wandering, solo travel, r just the many aspects of my life I’ve come to enjo/

But I think I can finally trust myself to fall in love, because I really really know that I love me first.

Growing up to be happy

Tags

adolesence, alan watts, career, growing up, happiness, life, love, perfectionism, philosophy, relationships, single, twenties, zen

I think there’s a very basic fear that comes from declaring one is happy, adult, whole complete: that this is all there is, and this is all your potential has come to or will come to. The drive to be special and extraordinary and successful may in some way be linked to a basic fear of inadequency- and the problem is that once you say you are whole, then you have no more excuses for not being Superwoman or Barbie or whatever other mythic, perfect human and are forced to accept your limitations and the choices you have made up to this point that have rendered you less than pluripotential. You are no longer a stem cell, but a stomach; no longer a young girl with acne who promises to be very beautiful but instead concerned at 27 you are as beautiful as you can ever hope to be and on a downhill slope. The person you were in college is not there any more; luckily both her shallower concerns and anxieties no longer eat you up and you have more inner peace, yet in your maturity you get to wonder instead, “Is this all there is?” And the things about yourself that you hate are still there, and you can no longer claim that you will grow out of them or its just a phase.

You are drawn into reckless habits; you subtly sabotage your largely succesful and very fortunate life; you avoid love because you are afraid of settling for less than a dream and it’s hard to give up on Prince Charming, because if you don’t find him you’ll be admitting you are less than a Disney princess.

You rage against educational debt, but what you are really concerned about is the fact that by making one choice other avenues are less open to you, and you didn’t become exactly the person your ridiculous younger selves would have dreamed of. You have fallen short of perfection, of your ideal of where you’d be by now; you have experienced much more than you could ever have imagined and are living dreams that you never dared to whisper aloud to yourself for fear they could never come true, yet, you find yourself obsessing over the checkboxes you have yet to fill and thinking that this can’t count as real happiness

Because you think they must have been right, your youthful dreams, conventional wisdom, and what your parents told you, and when you find them to conflict with reality as you experience it, you assume you must be wrong. That is what FOMO is, believing other people are enjoying the party more than you are and there’s something wrong with you for not having fun in the same way. Because you have been blessed in that most of the time, you are indeed having fun it just doesn’t look how you pictured it.

And this collision course between dreams, collective and individual, of what you would be like, of what you should be like, and the reality of your happiness coming in a different shape is terrifying. What if they are all wrong, and everything you’ve done to fit in your whole life, and to achieve what they wanted of you, was a total waste? Those As gave you the freedom to go to the college you wanted, but would you have been happier now had you staged a teenage rebellion and had a better time experimenting rather than achieving your whole life instead?

And now you are experienced that delayed teenage angst, the turbulent Sturm und Drung. You are a bohemian in a bildingsroman even as you are a yuppie planting yourself on the corporate ladder. And you hate yourself in both directions.

The sad thing is that it’s almost over, this period of your life where you were in denial over your wholeness, completeness, and raged against the reality of your own happiness, blessedness, good fortune, and the fruits of your labors. WHen you should have been enjoying them, you hated yourself. Questioning everything wasn’t such a bad idea but you didn’t have to destroy yourself in the process, and that was maybe a bit of a waste

Although you know now that no experience is wasted, that everything is both silly and serious, that you can be as stable as you’ve ever been but life can turn on a dime. You feel guilty for enjoying change so much when you are supposed to be settling down, and you are terrified of missing your window and wandering the earth alone, single, carefree but lonely, forever. You wonder if those white picket fence people are on to something and covet every child you see but you know that living life the way your parents did just isn’t for you, and you are terrified that you are the most selfish person on the planet and you’ll never find happiness because of it. You refuse to lower your standards when looking for love, and you have vowed not to sacrifice your creative path, not even to have your own family or find a partner, certain that you can only have those things honestly if they come to you on the path. ANd if they don’t, you know you’ll be ok but your heart is breaking, grieving the possibility anyway.

 

And that’s ok, it’s all part of being an adult and facing the fact that not just our life choices, but who we are is not what we expected or perhaps wanted, and that is the deepest source of shame- that we are not the people we think we should be. The deep self loathing and shame that sabotage your success and happiness when it doesn’t come in the form you intended even if it was a dream you fought hard for. The little girl part of you that is terrified your parents were wrong and feels overwhelmed by the choices and lost without the absolute authority of family, tradition, church, country. The conservative backlash part of you mixed in with your deep insecurities and unwillingness to own your own views on life, in fear that they are wrong, that you are wrong and deeply flawed and different and will always be alone and not quite enough.

I know you are at the tail end of this thing because it finally has a name, and words are starting to come out to do it justice. Not the pages and page of existential crisis, but the real, deep engagement with your whole self, and te fact that the fog has largely cleared and you are starting to love yourself enough t ohave a l ittle perspective again.

And once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” Haruki Marukami

And you are also afraid that the storm will never be over, and that you will never have anything to stand on, just open sea and sky, that there will never be certainty again. And some zen part of you is born, and your new religion is

“You must love life more than the meaning of it.” Doestovsky

“I had a discussion with a great master in Japan, and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, ‘That’s a waste of time. If you really understand Zen, you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.’”

– Alan Watts

“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”
― Alan W. Watts

 

“The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”
― Alan W. Watts

ANd you’ve realized, not only is the crisis the healing, as mentioned by Pema Chodrun, but both are eternal and there’s no one point at which you’ve healed or grown up or reached your goal. ANd most importantly, all that you have experienced as sickness was actualy growth:

“Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.”

ANd all of this drama and angst and pain was actually necessary to rid you of your illusions and to make ou finally be who you are.

And now, looking at this person, you have to remember that in every moment you are a newborn baby and a hospice patient at the end of your life, and that this monent and the self ou are in it will never come again and are to be cherished, if only for that. ANd life is much more lovely than you give it credit for most of the time, and you are a wonder.

And yes, you can continue to win and achieve and be awesome if you finally cut yourself some slack and stopped being pissed that you couldn’t jump up to the stars on your trampoline or dig a tunnel to China.

And the more important thing is just to enjoy things as they are now, to enjoy yourself, and to be kind in the way you look at t things.

When Paris falls off its pedestal

Tags

buddhist, career, dating, disillusionment, expat, france, immigration, jake bugg, life, London, love, Paris, Philadelphia, philosophy, relationships, solitariness, twenties, zen

“If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”– Linji, Zen Master

–This post composed to/ inspired by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkoOQoaWLY0

So I just got back from Georgia, the country not the state. People were so lovely and things were very different from France and especially Paris. I’m sure people were especially kind because I was among friends of friends of family much of the time, and America is well loved by young people especially for helping protect the country from Russia.  Perhaps being an American abroad used to be more like that before some of the misadventures of the last 15 years or so.

“I got out, I got out, I’m alive but I”m here to stay.”

I thought this had to do with Paris, and getting out of te bullshit of the “anglo-saxon,” and particularly American world. Heard this song with a friend from a wealthy Southern family who had married a French bouge for convenience in part and had a baby with an aristocrat she passionately loved who is now fascinated by Brits and wants to get in touch with the anglo side of Paris and apparently has trouble meeting American people, after more or less a decade trying to avoid them. We were in an Irish pub listening to the most velvety voice I”ve ever heard live with Irish, Scottish, and Welsh/ENglish dudes we’d met in the Scottish pub in Paris.

THe more I listened to the song, and met some Brits and thought about life, I realized that maybe it would be imaginable to leave Paris for London as work seemed to be dictating, and the new boss who would be there seemed amazing when I met her. And maybe the BRits have something to teach too.  Plus it could still be possible to come back to Paris and back to my current type of position.

A lot to think about.

I feel so disgusted with the French. I’ve been here for years trying to fit in but have nearly no French friends outside of work. I find plenty of French guys to go out with, particularly the not classically franco francais de souche types, and I got disgusted and jealous of the friends with their French life partners who can barely hold a conversation (in French) who have fully Americanized or nearly so partners. What is so wrong with me that I am scorned?

Nothing.

Not a single thing.

As my Georgian host suggested, “You are too open for them.”

And I like my openness, and I hate their pettiness. THeir claim to universality that is really just assuming you are a barbarian if you don’t know all their fussy unwritten rules or worse, challenge their monopoly on Civilization.

The worst is how I have become randomly rude and nasty to people, especially French, in retaliation for all the small slights and unkindnesses I have experienced. I hate that part of myself. I love my openness.

“I hold two fingers up to yesterday, light a cigarette and smoke it all away.”

I don’t smoke, still too American and health conscious for that. I fucking hate all of them who feel like they have the right to comment on my weight, by the way, and tell me what a shame it is to have a pretty face and a fat body. They mean well, but that doesn’t make it right. And note, the French do not have a monopoly on such types of compliments and in a way I appreciate their forthrightness.

“Hey, hey it’s fine, I left it behind.”

There are so many things I love about it here. When I was a teacher, the pounds fell off me and I lived a simple if boring and isolated life. Things seemed enchanted. When I was a student here, it was truly the first time in my life I felt truly accepted for who I was. Working here, I’ve become a higher breed of professional and found motivation to stay and fight things out and learn what I could from business because of the amazing quality of life I have here. By which I mean, vacation and reasonable hours and nearly universal acknowledgement of the fact that work is not life’s number one priority or the surpreme arbiter of a person’s worth.

“There’s a story for every corner of this place.”

I don’t know if I will actually leave France, but I see a lot less value and meaning in becoming French. I bought a magazine on Frenchness and identity and read all kinds of historical texts and essays in it, realizing the French are the most idealistic and also bastardly motherfuckers out there. Universal declarations of the rights of mind and petty, petty persecution of a Jewish civil servant just because he’s not a “real French” and all that, luckily the leading lights of the literary establishment came to his defense, but Emile Zola got sent to exile to London in the last years of his life. And now he is claimed as a French hero. I guess wherever you go, the radically important people who stand up for the truth get kicked up. Also, don’t forget to keep in mind that the artistic bohemian set we revere from the 1920s and all that weren’t so well accepted, and Cezanne was never exhbited in his hometown of Aix en Provence because the local curator there thought his work was dog shit.

It’s not exclusively French to deal in this type of hypocrisy, but somewhere I read that France had not produced any real genuine larger than life eccentrics, and somewhere else that in Paris all the moves of life are choreographed and everyone is policing everyone else thta they behave according to the codes. A civilization toppling under its own weight.

But please god, please odn’t collapse. Please show us there is another way in the Western, benighted world than what we boorish materialistic concrete dolts of anglo saxons have cobbled together. Let there be culture and rayonnement and gloire and not just cruelty.

I hope France doesn’t turn to just any country.

But I think the ugliness in France and in the US is a bit in reaction to losing some of their national glory, and it’s not pretty. Fuck the authoritarians.

So yes, I am perhaps a wanderer. No, perhaps I don’t need to stay here until I have a fully gestated French self and passport. And maybe there is no ultimate truth I will ever find, and all my idols will be shattered in due time. It feels like nearly all of them have.

Hopefully the false beliefs holding me back will be next to go. As it turns out, all this myth of national glory and Catholicism and even business school rationalistic thinking is all holding me back I think. Just as much s the save the world idealistic make a difference not a buck silly liberal arts school cant has.

I feel a bit alone and helpless. Is this nihilism?

“Something is changin, changin, changin.”

I think this must be the post modern jumping off point where I finally construct my own values and stop looking outward for meaning. Maybe all there is is art, and French civilization was right about a few things: wine and madeleines.

LIke Proust, I will note with gladness the care and soin and terroir that went into the wines I tried today at a salon des vins. There was even convivialite and someone told me she didn’t think I had an accent.

“Running too hard you got out but your knees got grazed.”

Maybe part of it is my abrupt and desperate exit from America in hopes of something better, and yes, another emperor has no clothes, and it is devastating. Devastating.

I’ve known this for a long time without admitting it.

And in the past week, I had coming back from Georgia, seeing a bit of TUrkey and realizing they are a bit of a center of the world too, and most of all, an amazing massage, which was followed by an amazing Crossfit session and some intense sex later that night, the three amazing physical things all within 24 hours, and me feling like I lost 15 pounds and walking up straighter. The thing is, during the workout, I realized what I love most about myself: my heart.

Also called hustle by my old basketball coach, who gave me the number 23 like Michael Jordan, not a little bit symbolically since I was chosen to be a benchwarmer but ended up starting as the season progressed, I can get hit and keep going, when I am literally 10 minutes behind the res tof my peers for a 30 minute workout I can just keep going anyway and finish it, thinking to myself:

“It Ain’t How Hard You Hit…It’s How Hard You Can Get Hit and Keep Moving Forward. It’s About How Much You Can Take And Keep Moving Forward!”
― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa

Fuck Philadelphia, I hated it there, but I have something in common with the place.

And today, I realized I am the only person not coming from an upper class background living the life in Paris, and I am earning more and doing more than my peers, at least at this point. I am the one in a position to offer career advice. I have done something rare and heartful in that. Yes, I have a very supportive and loving middle/upper middle class fmaily, but my parents have never been to Europe and I didn’t go to Disney until I was an adult.

I did graze my bit on the way here, and getting up off the ground here. I didn’t start a new job, a new life, a new career path in a new country without some bruises. But I made it.

And perhaps if I went somewhere else things would be easier, but it would be because of the strength I have developed here, in part.

Perhaps it’s due to the claims ot universality, and the vacation time and places I’ve been able to see, that have made me realize Paris is not the center fo the world, and I could be happy in many places, even, and becoming Frenchis not as important as becoming myself, it’s not necessary at all really.

“I got out, I got out, I got out, but I”m here to stay.”

Don’t know what will appen now. Do we ever? I know I am not going to keep fighting to be here if it’s against my best interest, whatever that is. I don’t want to be ruled by my ambition, but I don’t want to put a ceiling on myself either.

And my ambition is not and has never been really corporate or job oriented; it has been about saving the world, living the lifestle I want, but most of all, finding the truth.

ANd what I have found is, the truth is kind of malleable. ANd the truth cannot be contained.

It’s not in Paris, city of LIghts, it’s not in Goergia not even among the “wild” Svanetians in their mountain paradise and unbroken traditions from Colchis.

IT’s not in AMerica, not in Captain America who I just found out has been working for hydra all along.

It’s not my first boyfriend who I “loved,” or at least was bonded to and lsot my viriginity to who put a ring on my finger. It’s not in “my Marine” who thinks he’s Captain America and loved the notebook and is the  only person I fucked because I loved and for no other reason, just because I wanted to be close to him.

I don’t even think it’s in the babies I love, even though they are not mine (yet). I don’t think it’s in marital bliss or motherhood or the Catholic Church.

I’m not even sure it’s in God, or if GOd exists in the way I was told He did, or even in a round the world trip to seek myself and find Him/Her.

It’s not in vending machine madeleines or binge eating, it’s not in the bottom of my Coca Zero.

Nt even in guarded sex with strangers or less guarded sex with friends or boyfriends. Though God, I wish I could really love someone again.

I think it’s somewhere in the fact that you can someday look at someone, realize they are no perfect and time can’t make any promises and neither can they, and not so much commit and make a plan to control the future and shape it as youplease, but more in that moment of total vulnerability, long before a ring or a ceremony, when you open your heart knowing that in some form, “this too shall pass.”

Not only that we are ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and more irrevocably mortal than Snapchat or any video game character, but that we arjust cherry blossoms and fall leaves, here for a season and no more.

Not the cosmic gardener, not the might eternal tree, but just leaves.

And yet perhaps of all of them.

And our only task is to be beautiful, and wear our colors boldly, bravely, and truly, from tenderest green shoot to ethereal blossom to green summer vibrance to fall foliage fading to yellow to brown to becoming part of the ground again. Back to the ground of being.

I hope we get to keep some measure of individual consciousness, and all my love and life and memories and even my complexes and fears and so called revelations aren’t lost.

But most of all, I hope that now that I’ve killed the Buddha and realized aht I have perhaps outgrown my spiritual teacher and seen all the ugly dirty PETTY PETTY PETTY flaws, I can still find the light within, and without.

But something tells me now is the time, I have to find the light within.

But until you start believing in yourself, you ain’t gonna have a life.”
― Sylvester Stallone, Rocky Balboa

Time to go back to career plan #1, where I can never lose my job: artist.

PS GOd knows i did the best I could tonight and couldn’t go to sleep before letting the words out. t was urgent, not ego pleasing, and very hard to say these things. Not painful, just that it took all my courage. And so far, life has met me more than half way every time I’ve been honest with it, and myself.

 

 

 

Getting good at saying no

Tags

couple, dating, love, relationships, single

At this point when I go on dates, I’m not particular hopeful but just try to keep an open mind. I have a better and better idea of what I want, which of course, could go out the window if I meet the right match, I try to base my criteria on values and desired lifestyle, which seems reasonable, but I definitely date outside of that, although perhaps that is a waste of time.

What I have learned is how to say no and how to say goodbye, and when to walk away.

Thanks to my many swipes left, failed first dates, and heartbreaks, I am getting closer to myself.

Rather than constantly try to force something to work and wonder what if, I have learned it’s better to just walk away.

This was not an easy lesson, but realistically, if you don’t meet your true love at 16 or something, you are going to have to say no a lot more times than you say yes.

Here’s hoping you can “no” your way to true love- at least you’ll be open when the moment comes.

If you say no to what’s wrong you are halfway there.

Happy

Tags

adventure, expat, experiment, france, fun, life, love, philosophy, psychology, relationships

I know, not a very typical tile for me. Typically I came to the keyboard with all kinds of hurt and resentment and aching that the empty page and your listening eyes provide a refuge for, the idea that I am not alone and that I matter.

I still have reasons to complain, I do live in France afer all where complaining is a national sport, and I’ve recently been incredibly hur and disappointed and angry. Basically the guy I thought could be it, not only randomly stopped responding to me, but I also realized he had reactivated his facebook for months and did not see fit to ask me to be his friend.  it might sound petty but i use facebook very often to post things i think are interesting and maybe i flood the airwaves a bit but i was sad and angry to s he was consciously creating more separation and hiding something from me. Perhaps it wasn’t conscious, but it probably was. I’ve been feeling really mad and hurt about it all, but seing that he had done that just confirmed my intuition, and that of my friend, that he’s not really a straightforward guy. In the past I always gave him the benfit of the doubt when he did things I would consider almost as lies of omission. In any case, I still hope he’s well but I”m happy he’s out of my life. It definitely feels like a weight has been lifted and I”m finally free.  I realize that at some level I had never fully trusted him, and now I don’t trust or respect him so I see no reason now or in the future to pursue any kind of relationship. And that’s a huge blessing. I don’t feel anymore that I have to divert my own path to find love, or that I have missed out on what ould have been the greatest thing in my life with him. I feel more an more accepting of the fact that France is not a detour, it is the path.

And it’s so light and easy to not be wishing to be somewhere I’m not, to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with me, to want something that on some deeper level I know is incredibly flawed and impossible but feeling guilty at even the thought of letting him go. I loved my image of him, but that’s the greatest trap of all.

And now I’m free- and happy.

This has also helped me to realize that as long as I’m happy with where I am and what I’m doing, for the most part at least, all good things will find their way to me. But if I leave a life I really love for the promise of meeting someone or simply more money, or becaue IS feel guilty about being so far from my family, I am going to be royally screwed up. I know that I am going to eventually find peace with wherever I am and whatever mistakes I make, yet at the same time, it would be a pretty grievous sin to go against my heart. I already know how that turns out. And I know the benefits of letting go too, knowing that I will find my way back if it’s meant to be.

I also disabled my ddating sites, because I wasn’t finding what I was looking for and maybe I was looking too hard. I’m also, fially, realizing I don’t have to go out and look for love as it is surely going to find me, even if not in the way I expect. I choose trust over fear.

Do I want to stay in France for the rest of my life?

Don’t know, but I don’t think it should make a difference in how I conduct myself most of the time.  Right now I don’t see any compelling reason not to stay, but that could of course change.

Everything changes.

I often feel that things are moving alone almost without my help, or even my conscious desire. Does the path choose the walker or does the walker choose the path? These days I feel like the path chose me.

I don’t know what I am here for, or why I am here, besides a love that makes no sense I really can’t understand, and maybe the fact that the moment I let myself be happy and wise was here, and for that reason I have no desire to leave.

Does the environment dictate the person’s life and feelings or does the person make use fo their environment and change it to suit them? I don’t know.

But what I do know is that I’m happy, and I’m grateful for that.

And the fact that I will be home in one week for Christmas!

Love you all,

MJ

The melancholy sweet song of abroad

Tags

American., belonging, career, cross-cultural, expat, france, journey, learning, life, living abroad, love, Paris, relationships, self love, working abroad

In an introspective, cuddle under the covers, maybe go to bed early, possibly watch some How I Met Your Mother and Vicky Cristina Barcelona mood. And maybe call my best guy friend. I feel bouleversee. upset, overturned. Not in a partiuarly bad way, but just epuisee.
And sometimes the fact that my stream of consciousness comes half in English half in French seems awesome, and other times I worry that I will always be forever alone.
And I just met someone nice, but I don’t think we have enough in common to base a relationship on. In fact, I have a feeling it would be quite a pickle to really find someone I’d want to have a serious relationship. Because cross cultural everything is super hard, and it is 90% of the work of my job. ANd I just want to understand and be understood sometimes.

But we exist in this life for one reason and one reason only: to break. To see our selves shatter bit by bit, to test and see what is real, and to realize that even though we are a part of the air and it appears to all be an empty mind there is something besides the ALL, there is also the me. And for me that gets mroe and more strengthened every time something breaks.

When I was a child, I read books to learn about the world. After I finished college, I learned by traveling and working. As an adult, I live abroad so that I never stop learning annd I just took up Crossfit.

but I find, bit by bit, that some of the things that once broke me open have become a protective shell. Living abroad is challenging, difficult, and great in many ways for my personal and professional growth. Yet I don’t at this moment see myself staying, and I have to wonder what I am procrastinating, and what I was escaping from.

I really see it more and more every day because there are some questions I”m just having trouble answering over here, and the main question just seems to be whether my heart is in America, is my husband in America, would I be happy living in America as a young professional, how would it be?

And to face the fact that I feel lonely, not because I’m abroad, not because I am far from family and friends, but because in some ways I have isolated myself. Including trying to stop myself from experiencing deep connection. And there’s only one person I’ve ever felt that close to, but time and chance made it not possible, and I know that this person can’t save me. Even if he was in the other room rather than quite far away.

To find your soulmate, you must first discover your soul.

Funny how things go.

And the guy that I’m dating that my heart didn’t go pitter patter for right away and who reminds me sometimes of that special someone, if a more mature and seemingly more attentive, wiser, chiller version of him, just texted me too.

LOLZ. there is no such thing as coincidence, and every day it becomes more clear to me there is nothing but mystical energy in this world. Even if the reason my mirror broke is not to damn me to seven years bad luck but to protect me cause it could have fallen in a way that hurt me instead and because of the shopping trip to get the mirror, I got a bunch of other cool stuff. And have to admit I honestly like decorating and buying junk for my little nest. However transient or at times, uncomfortable, it may be.

And I realize how therapeutic this is, that being here is one of the few things in my life that didn’t have a very clear goal. Some might call it procrastination, and I might not know exactly what I’m here for- but it’s my life, and it’s beautiful, and I wasn’t procrastinating on living. It wasn’t a mistake- it was just the beautiful unfolding of life. ANd learning that I had another skin to shed.
And it’s not about sticking to plan and mkaing something clear and smooth and beautiful-

no it’s just a bricolage, it’s like the sea glass and shells and doubloons accumulating on the ocean floor- not really by design, but by chance, made beautiful by some higher order.
And finally, little by little, I’m willing to let go what is lost, and let the truth find me, again.

And let myself be happy.

~

And sometimes I feel like a bridge, or a mermaid, who belongs neither to one side or the other, who needs both the sky and the water.

And it’s ok that I let myself be happy like that, today is a good day and tomorrow I will raise, transmuted, like a phoenix. What I will be then, I don’t yet know- but I’m becoming, beocming.

me me me
you you
Here now
All is
[ ]
breath

incredible.

Hope, Mystery, and a dash of loneliness

Tags

change, dating, friendship, life, love, men, relationships, transformation, vulnerability, women

The truth is, I am single on Valentine’s Day, and I am a bit sad about it.
Not because I don’t think that one day I’ll have a wonderful man to shower me with love and attention;
A little bit because there is someone in my life I would like to be with if destiny, and he, permit;
Mostly because I realize how much I want a soulmate, a life partner, dare I say, a boyfriend, a husband, someone to love, my Prince Charming, my hero, the perfect combination of nerdiness and sexiness, and so forth.

I am 25 and really “starting my life.” Just this week I began a real job, one where I commute to a big office building, get paid well for my time, and get to be a professional. I’ll soon be moving to France, making a dream come true. I’ve travelled too far and lived too long to think that I know where the road will take me. I love my own life enough, and my independence, that the idea of giving something up to let someone in is scary.
The truth is that love does require some sacrifice. maybe it wouldn’t feel like that, but I certainly wouldn’t be the same person if I had the love I want. My life would be different.
I would have to think about another person, more and more, in every decision I made. Maybe my man would support all my dreams, but just the dislike of separation would be a tether. I fear I’d be a little less wild, but my heart leaps at the prospect of that one person I can show my entire self to.
And our lives would gradually intertwine. He’d meet my parents and my family would love him. My friend would expect to see him around, and I’d get to know his. My “me” time would decrease I guess. We would have to navigate all the litle milestone of a relationship, all the tension filled, dramatic moments- wondering when to make it official, how it would fit in with our careers and future plans (as a traveller and expat that makes things complicated),
Maybe we would get married. And then everything would change.
Maybe we wouldn’t, and the life we had started o build together would crumble, and I’d be sad. This happened to me once, and just the thought of having to bear that loss again, to feel your best friend and other half and constant companion torn from you, as well as a whole way of life along with someone to get you a present on valentine’s day, just terrified me. I think it’s a pretty good part of why I havent’ been in a serious relationship since.
I’ve been too busy doing me, much as I have pursued flirtaions and wanted to be in a relationship and even fallen in love. It wasn’t in the cards. So much was changing in my life there was no real foundation for a relationship to stand on, and I’ve changed a lot.
My self image has even changed in the week since I started work. I feel different, prouder, more confident, and I realize how much I do care about my career.

Those timelines I planned when I was thirteen no longer seem so sane. To be married by 25, have a child around 30? Now I still think I want kids and well before the age of 55 like some people are having them these days, but I really can’t imagine myself doing the constant, messy, tedious, self-denying work of being a parent at this point. I think it would be the greatest experience ever undertaken and dare I say it, I think I’d be a great mom, but right now, I can’t imagine getting anyone dressed in the morning but myself.

Getting involved with someone now would be so much differnt than a high school boyriend. It could be a time to play for keeps, legitimately, since I’m a real person now iwth a job and bills and career and real dreams for my own life, finally having found my voice and going after what I want- and incredibly, with the grace of God, achieving it. Just this in itslef is a miracle, let alone my newfound confidence realizing how competent I actually am and that you DON”T have to be perfect all he time as I always told myself.

And then I think about, mostly in particular, this guy. THis person I can see myself climbing mountains with, going to cocktail parties with, having witty banter and pillow fights with. I am going to be moving a continent away, but he wants to live abroad too. HE WANTS TO LIVE ABROAD TOO! And he has really supported me as a friend at some crucial times. I don’t need to have sex with him to feel love or closeness to him. A phone call after months of silence is all it takes to bring back that craving for his presence. I haven’t actually seen him in person for about two years.

Spending a day with him wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe spending a lot of my days wouldn’t be so bad, with him. Maybe he wouldn’t totally upset my apple cart and just make me more me.
And since we are friends, and I have seen some of his demons and he’s seen some of mine, some ofthe illusions I had about my handsome prince are gone. He has disappointed me. He does have real flaws. And right now we are truly just friends. But if we are soulmates, that hasn’t changed one bit.

It is scary, the thought of letting any imperfect, not-me, other human being into my life who can so easily walk out of it. Who can disappoint, scare, hurt, leave a scar. Who could “waste” the “best” years of my life. Who I could be, quite simply wrong about. Whether it’s my friend or any other guy, I have to admit, as mch as I might have thought I needed and wanted a boyfriend so many times, there’s a reason I haven’t found one. I just haven’t chanced about the right person at the right place and the right time.

But I do have this burning feeling in the pit of my stomach, thinking of a special someone.

And moreover, my gu just aches, it wans me to be with somebody.
Even though hings are, in their way, so great now. Even though that would mean even more difficult change in my life. Even though I imight get disappointed and lose.
What is love? Courage. And Courage couldn’ exist wihou this fear, could i?

Not just to love, but merely to desire to love is a highly unstable, difficult stae. It is vulnerable, a compromised position. Leaving your heart open, even if only the most discriminating of circumstances, is serious business.

But wherever, and whoever youare, my other half of an already completely whole, my soulmate, my love- please come get me. I miss you. Soon!

Some Feelings (for writing not for eating)

Tags

dating, drama, feelings, life, living, love, relationships

So a person who was and is special to me came back into my life.
I felt like the relationship was not reciprocal and had no future (by relationship, I mean friendship with someone I would have liked to have a relationship with but who lived far away and was seeing someone else) and the connection just seemed to be missed.
Granted, I had not before or since really felt a “soul sister” kind of connection with anybody quite like this dude. The moments we did spend together are still cherished.
So I felt like it was wrong to totally cut him off as I did so I sent him an email, with the caveat that he shouldn’t feel obligated to respond I just wanted him to know I was thinking of him and doing well. May have included reference to one of those moments, not totally sure if he got it.
And he did get back to me, and wanted to hear more. I sent him my regards and encouragements- apparently he seems to have changed his life plans a bit- and invited him to call.
God, I hope he will.
Even as I realize that my version of the ideal man today and when I met him (HIM) have changed somewhat. I also realize that he had a lot of stuff going on and some growing up to do probably before he could have made me happy.
Maybe it is in the stars and that FEELING I had when we first met was correct, however crazy.

But I don’t want to be crazy anymore. I don’t want to look for excuses to get in touch with him, to read into everything he says, to hope that somehow there’s a way for us because I jsut haven’t met anyone else. I have had a relationship since falling for him, although I don’t know if it’s one that bears rekindling in the same way I feel like he and I just pick up where we left off no matter how long it’s been.
Because the truth is that I love him, I want the best for him. I want the best for me too, even if it’s not him, and even if I’m not what he wants. I don’t know if he would be best for me.
It is tantalizing just to send him an email, beceause there’s history there that goes deep and fairly long. I know about his daddy issues. I don’t want to save him anymore, but I would love for him to save himself. (especially since I finally realize I can’t.)
And the truth is that, I miss him, simply because there is intimacy there. There’s no need to explain. I have embarassed myself declaring my love more than once for him (three times).
I know he couldn’t accept it because it was impossible (even I knew that) and because you accept the love you think you deserve it. At one point there was a giant emotional circle jerk going on of him obsessing over someone who didn’t want him and me declaring my love for him who didn’t love me.
It hurt, it hurt so bad to have such high hopes and to see them dashed.
It hurt most of all to think I couldn’t trust my feelings.
And the saga, well, that hurts too.
Sorrow opens the heart. But it needs to make room for something better, healthier, happier.
God, I want to see him again.

I may have made some “mistakes,” done unconventionally things, and felt like I made the same mistake a million times. Maybe I was just brave.
Come what may, I have no regrets.

Namaste
MJ