accepting what is

Yesterday was a full day.  As I drove down to my acupuncture appt I heard myself saying to myself "I am falling apart".  I wasn't alarmed.  Something in me knew this was a good thing.  Although it sounds scary to think about losing arms and legs, to have pieces fall away like jigsaw pieces, there was a freedom in it too.

It meant that I didn't have to hold it all together anymore.  I didn't have to strain and stay tight holding all these pieces together.   When I stopped all effort, the pieces fell apart.  They didn't fit.  Maybe they never did.

I let myself stand there looking at the parts on the ground.  I thought I would die.  I didn't.

When the pieces fell, I wasn't nothing.  What was left, was me.   Less thick, less troubled, less burdened, less stuck.  It wasn't what I expected.

I told my acupuncturist (I see her rather than have surgery to fix a torn rotator cuff) about a dream I had, a very intense dream.  She told me a few weeks ago that the energy being moved around can cause shifts in many forms, including dreams.

The dream is about me running away from a man, a mafia king type of guy.  I am racing around trying to figure out how to get away from him, where can I go where he won't find me.  I realize he pays off the police and everyone else, I have no resources.  The dream ends with me in another country with a friend realizing fully that there is no rest for me, none, ever.  He will not rest until he gets me back.
There is no where to hide.  No where.      

It was quite a wake up call for me.  Where am I running in my life with such intensity?  I am trying so hard to be other than I am.  I don't want to hurt other people, I don't want to end friendships because then I will have no one.  I've been denying my feelings about things and people.  My mind has been dictating to my heart what to feel, what is okay, who I am, and who I am allowed to be.

I feel what I feel.  I am who I am.  It seems as though it would be so simple but I find it a struggle.  I judge myself and tell myself what I SHOULD feel.  (I AM the mafia guy.)

There is no safe place to run away from the truth.  There is no running away from myself.

There are friendships to end, honest words to be said, and the people I love who do not love me, well, I need to accept it.  Connections are connections, I cannot dictate to my heart who to love.  I've tried, it's ugly.

Loving is not a choice.  What I do with that love, that is a choice.  I will no longer beat myself up over it. I will no longer tell myself it is wrong or a waste of time.  It's been over 2 years now, this isn't a crush or an animus projection.  (I've tried to make it into something else, anything else but love.)

I realized last night, I am fortunate to feel this depth of love.  Regardless of the situation, I can feel it.

It is similar to when you need to tell someone something and you KNOW it will not change anything, but you need to say it for yourself.  This is what this is, I love someone.  How lucky for me, I am capable of love.  Although it is not returned, I do not lose.   In some ways it feels pure, knowing it will never be returned.  To love with no hope of it being returned.  Is this what they mean by unconditional love...when there isn't any gain by it?

Most people love, to be loved in return.  I love because there is no choice.

Now I go on.  The love stays with me and I go on.  The love doesn't have to be a burden, it can be fertile, it can be beautiful.  It is beautiful.

My sisters are dead, but the love I feel for them is still with me.  It grows still.    It's that kind of love.  The love that asks for nothing.  Love for love's sake.

No more running.  No more pushing back what is true.  No more denying who I am and what I feel.

Endings and beginnings...ending friendships and beginning to feel what is.

Starting the new year, new.   Here I am.  I've let the pieces fall.  I'm okay.  I'm real.  I'm grateful.