where to from here?
Posted on Oct 30th, 2007
by 
drumming_diva
drumming_diva
more and more i find myself questioning patterns i've repeated for some time, feeling now like they are no longer serving me
a new relationship this year has inspired me to make changes, remain open, examine how flexible or inflexible i had become
i think it's this bend-ability that determines whether or not we walk our path in life solo or whether we walk with someone else, sharing the journey. neither is good or bad. but they are different. they feel different. and it's important to know what you want, what you are willing to risk or sacrifice to live one way or the other
i believe we get old when we stop even being aware of our inflexibility. when we can no longer see that there is more than one way to walk on this earth. that there are different paths to reach the same destination, and different paths to reach different destinations, and most importantly, that if we keep following the same paths, we'll keep ending up in the same places.
for the first time this year since i was 18 years old (and i just turned 36) i became carl-ess. this was intentional: my car died this spring and i finally listened to my intuition and didn't run out and immediately buy another car. this was scary, exhilarating, and risky. for some reason it really affected people around me. some were actually angry. some asked me many questions about it: why? what's wrong with buying a car? what was i thinking? was it to save money? etc etc etc.
my fears about being car-less quickly dissolved, as i easily learned first to navigate my city's public transportation system, and then to confidently ride a bicycle - everywhere - for 6 months. i hadn't taken the bus or rode a bicycle since high school. when i first started riding this past spring i could barely ride around the block without becoming out of breath. now it's not unusual to log 20 kilometres in a day, just going to work, to the radio station where i volunteer, then back home.
i'm trying to apply the same open abandon approach to my relationship with my boyfriend. this is the longest relationship he's ever been in, and it's possibly the most interesting one i've ever been in. we both know ourselves very well, we've both got a lot of life experience, we both lived alone for a long time... and these things sometimes mean we both think we know what's best. in a good and bad way, we both know quite well what it's like to be single, meaning we know it's not that bad and can actually be very fulfilling... and easy on many levels. sharing your life with someone else requires more energy in some ways. more bending. more flexibility. more attempts to understand someone else's point of view.
so where do we go from here?
a new relationship this year has inspired me to make changes, remain open, examine how flexible or inflexible i had become
i think it's this bend-ability that determines whether or not we walk our path in life solo or whether we walk with someone else, sharing the journey. neither is good or bad. but they are different. they feel different. and it's important to know what you want, what you are willing to risk or sacrifice to live one way or the other
i believe we get old when we stop even being aware of our inflexibility. when we can no longer see that there is more than one way to walk on this earth. that there are different paths to reach the same destination, and different paths to reach different destinations, and most importantly, that if we keep following the same paths, we'll keep ending up in the same places.
for the first time this year since i was 18 years old (and i just turned 36) i became carl-ess. this was intentional: my car died this spring and i finally listened to my intuition and didn't run out and immediately buy another car. this was scary, exhilarating, and risky. for some reason it really affected people around me. some were actually angry. some asked me many questions about it: why? what's wrong with buying a car? what was i thinking? was it to save money? etc etc etc.
my fears about being car-less quickly dissolved, as i easily learned first to navigate my city's public transportation system, and then to confidently ride a bicycle - everywhere - for 6 months. i hadn't taken the bus or rode a bicycle since high school. when i first started riding this past spring i could barely ride around the block without becoming out of breath. now it's not unusual to log 20 kilometres in a day, just going to work, to the radio station where i volunteer, then back home.
i'm trying to apply the same open abandon approach to my relationship with my boyfriend. this is the longest relationship he's ever been in, and it's possibly the most interesting one i've ever been in. we both know ourselves very well, we've both got a lot of life experience, we both lived alone for a long time... and these things sometimes mean we both think we know what's best. in a good and bad way, we both know quite well what it's like to be single, meaning we know it's not that bad and can actually be very fulfilling... and easy on many levels. sharing your life with someone else requires more energy in some ways. more bending. more flexibility. more attempts to understand someone else's point of view.
so where do we go from here?
Access: Public
October 2007 