Have you ever noticed how some people can't stand to be alone? They are constantly surrounding themselves with people, even people they would just as soon not be around; just to keep from being alone. And I wonder...why is that? While I think being alone too much is never a good thing, there is certainly nothing wrong with being alone in and of itself.
Recently I watched the movie "Becoming Jane" about the life of Jane Austen and I found this to be a particularly inspiring movie in two ways. In this particular movie the love interest of Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) is Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy); the love between them is genuine and certainly the kind of thing most people hope for..even long for. The tragedy being that there is a simple truth about life that was just as true then as it is now...money is a necessity. And life is dependent on having it, and the quality of your life is even more dependent on it. For life in the time of Jane Austen and for every woman who lived before her, it was simple, you married whomever had the most money. Women were not believed to have any brains at all and were typically never educated in anything except in the domestic arts. Jane Austen was educated and certainly had a mind of her own, but it was at a time where few women had ventured into the world of supporting themselves legitimately. Well, lets face it, the world hasn't changed all that much. Yes, women can go to school, they can even be CEO's of major corporations. But no matter how I look at the world, I still see women raising children and struggling to do so. I see women trying to support themselves in a world that still pays men more than it does women for the same work. And more and more I see men and sometimes women leaving their children and moving on to start new families with someone else. And there is never...enough money. I still see women, and sometimes men, SETTLING for the best person who is available....which brings me back to Becoming Jane. Somehow I found that aspect of her life and the times she lived in...STILL parallel to the lives of people today. I know in my own life years could go by, many years...and I would not find anyone I felt anything for. Not so much as a spark. Which isn't to say that there were not many men available, there was just no one I thought was any different than all the others. And most often I would grow weary of the "selection" I had available to me and finally SETTLE on someone having grown tired of always being alone. Now what about that is so different than just picking someone in Jane Austens day just because they had money? Frankly, I don't see much difference. And I know plenty of men who are with women, not because they have money..but because they were the best looking available woman at the time who could meet their "needs". And something about all of this....bothers me. Why do we settle?
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in Soul Mates at all. I believe there are many people out there who are certainly suitable mates for each other on many levels. But I do believe that perfection and Prince or Princess Charming are complete MYTH.
I met a man once who was so perfect for me it was almost unbelievable. He was handsome and charming...rediculesly funny, passionate, sarcastic, strong willed and talented. And one of the best friends anyone could ever have. At the time that I met him, it was a bit dangerous for him to be around me...but that's another story. The point being, he took that on, and he remained in my life. And while he was perfect for me, the truth is, I wasn't perfect for him. And unfortunately it is not always enough to be the right person for someone, they have to be right for you as well. I had high ideals and morals...and his morals at the time were to say the least, questionable. And I'm smiling as I say that, because I didn't honestly care. He tried to convince me he didn't have a faithful bone in his body, and I knew he was right. And I think I'd have accepted that...then. Fortunately for me, he wasn't willing to be that way or allow me to accept it. I tried hating him for that..that didn't work either because on some level he did love me. Even if it was only because he knew I loved him and accepted him as he was. And so this person did something for me that taught me something that no one else could have. You don't Have to break someone's heart, you have a choice to be kind and loving and to tell them No..and to be their friend means to hold their heart until they are ready to give it to someone else. And without really knowing it, that is exactly what he did. I have loved other people since, for many reasons, but never as much as I did him for that reason. And twenty five years later, he is my friend and still holds a piece of my heart.
He also taught me that friends fight...seriously fight and it means nothing. Because the next time they need you at two a.m. and it means getting up in the middle of the night and flying to another state...you do it. You don't find many friends like that in life.
But...I've also seriously Settled at times in my life. And usually the ones you Settle FOR do more damage to your life than good because you usually figure out that you settled. You may try to convince your friends and family...but they will still be looking at you like you're nuts.
Because whether we like to admit it or not..our friends and family are usually right and they are also more objective than we are. They know us and they see all the red flags that we are ignoring because we want to believe we have found Mr./Miss Right.
I can look back at my life and see those red flags waving at me now. And wished I'd listened to them. I think we get into a habit of NOT listening to them and we have finally made so many mistakes we are afraid to move!
All I can say is....don't Settle. Never settle. Being alone is not a bad thing, and anyone who has ever done it for very long will tell you...they like it. You get to live life on your own terms all of the time. If anything you have to remember that someday if you ever do find the right person..you will have to learn to compromise again! And that's a small concession for the Right Person. I have to admit that at this point in my life I wish I'd given my girlfriends much more of my life. I wish we'd traveled more than we did and not spent so much time looking for Mr. Wonderful. In retrospect it seems like so much wasted time. The time spent with my Friends are the memories I cherish the most. Men come and go....your Friends and your Children are forever.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Abandonment
Abandonment....a universal human condition that happens to everyone at some time or another in their lives. I used to think in terms of the abandonment of a Mother and Child; when a Mother gives her child up for adoption. In writing my book and doing a great deal of research, it occurred to me that abandonment is truly a human condition that affects everyone. Fathers leave Mothers and in turn leave their children behind and move on to create new families and have more children. Mothers leave children with Fathers to raise and move on to someone else as well. The point is, people who love each other leave each other all the time. And all of these people have valid reasons of their own for doing so. Fathers often leave their children and sever contact of any kind in avoidance of paying child support. Women give up their babies because they are under-age, have no money or means of support and their parents do not wish to raise another child. Women get pregnant by people they want nothing to do with and therefore want nothing to do with the child. There are literally thousands of case scenarios for children being abandoned by a Primary Caretaker; and therein is the issue. A child who has, in no way, the capacity to understand the complexities of the human mind and spirit; much less the adult world, is incabable of knowing what happened to their life. A child only knows this; someone who loved them, whom they loved; is gone. As a parent we all know what it is to have to teach our baby that when we walk around a corner in our home, that we are not gone, and that we are coming right back. We spend a great deal of time teaching our kids this lesson. It is something all babies must learn. We gradually move it up to perhaps going to a movie for a couple of hours and leaving the child with a sitter, and we return and the child learns; oh, yes, they do Come Back! And then one day, one of them doesn’t. A child cannot understand that. They don’t know where you went or why you did not come back. The child can be a small baby and they will still know you left. Even they don’t remember, it will be obvious as they grow up, that this parent is missing. Even if that parent has been "replaced" with a Step-Parent, even a great Step-Parent. Somewhere in the back of the childs mind they are thinking...and thinking...and wondering....why?
And worse. Sometimes, and often, that the reason that parent left was because it was their fault. That they were flawed or broken in some way and that is why their parent left. Because they weren’t good enough or lovable enough for that person to Stay. Children are incapable of anything else and unless adults are aware of what happens in a childs mind, they are apt to say simple truths such as Daddy went away and he has a new home now. Rarely is a child told Why Daddy or Mommy went away, or that it is in no way that childs fault.
The child may spend years living a kind of dual life and being perfectly happy on the outside and feeling flawed and broken in their moments alone. They long and wait for the parent to return. They make up stories about the parents new life and how they will come for them someday and somehow validate the love they feel they feel they deserve. And sometimes that parent returns; but without explanation or the grand gesture the child expects, and they are disappointed once again. Or, they never come back at all.
The truth is that people are selfish, it is, another human condition that we all share in some degree or another. It’s iresponsibility to the children they have created, and sometimes...they just don’t care. It is the Adults responsibility to care for the child and it is the Adults failure when it does not happen. It has NOTHING to DO with the child AT ALL. It is truly a failure on the adults part and the child cannot see that, cannot fathom the possibility...it MUST be something THEY did. But it isn’t. These are lovely, loving little children. Perfect in their own right, and innocent of the world they came into. Their love is bright and pure, valid and forthright. And had not one thing to do with the failures abundant in the adult world. Adults are subject every human condition and possibility imaginable and this is simply a child cannot understand or comprehend.
And worse. Sometimes, and often, that the reason that parent left was because it was their fault. That they were flawed or broken in some way and that is why their parent left. Because they weren’t good enough or lovable enough for that person to Stay. Children are incapable of anything else and unless adults are aware of what happens in a childs mind, they are apt to say simple truths such as Daddy went away and he has a new home now. Rarely is a child told Why Daddy or Mommy went away, or that it is in no way that childs fault.
The child may spend years living a kind of dual life and being perfectly happy on the outside and feeling flawed and broken in their moments alone. They long and wait for the parent to return. They make up stories about the parents new life and how they will come for them someday and somehow validate the love they feel they feel they deserve. And sometimes that parent returns; but without explanation or the grand gesture the child expects, and they are disappointed once again. Or, they never come back at all.
The truth is that people are selfish, it is, another human condition that we all share in some degree or another. It’s iresponsibility to the children they have created, and sometimes...they just don’t care. It is the Adults responsibility to care for the child and it is the Adults failure when it does not happen. It has NOTHING to DO with the child AT ALL. It is truly a failure on the adults part and the child cannot see that, cannot fathom the possibility...it MUST be something THEY did. But it isn’t. These are lovely, loving little children. Perfect in their own right, and innocent of the world they came into. Their love is bright and pure, valid and forthright. And had not one thing to do with the failures abundant in the adult world. Adults are subject every human condition and possibility imaginable and this is simply a child cannot understand or comprehend.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Why Jane's Dragon...and What I Believe....
I have chosen this title for several reasons the first and foremost is that my life began as a baby who was abandoned in a hospital in Orange County California by an extremely heartless woman who had herself hypnotized to forget about me, her name, was Jane.
And I am...her Dragon; for all intents and purposes there are good Dragons and bad Dragons.
I believe we all have them in us. Throughout my life there are countless stories of things and people who will make it clear to you why I have chosen this Animal and this Title to tell my story, what I believe and why I believe it, and why it is important to share your "story" with people.
I believe in Truth, Justice, Loyalty, I have faith God and I believe in Miracles and the Human spirit's ability to transform itself. I believe we are here to grow and learn and to be the best version of ourselves that we can be.
I do not believe we came here to be "HAPPY", find Prince or Princess charming and live happily ever after. If you wanted to be Happy all the time and in a place where there was no bad/evil...you'd HAVE STAYED HOME IN HEAVEN rather coming to HELL to learn a few things about People, Yourself and the trials of having a Body.
There IS Nothing to learn when you are HAPPY. We have glimpses of Happiness in our lives, moments we wish would last a lifetime, but happiness all in itself is a relative term. No one is Happy all the time. We are Content to be where we are, who we are with, what we are doing...or, we are not. We are lucky to find moments of happiness in our lives, those are the things memories are made of and life itself is about love and making memories. Love being the one thing we all need, crave and perhaps the ONLY thing that no one can take from you...ever. Even if the person or thing you LOVE goes away...the love You Gave is always yours. It is the tie that binds us together even beyond this life. And I do believe we have many lives and come here many times, as we have much to learn. We will fail at many things we Planned for Ourselves before we came here, we will make changes to our original plan simply because we have Choices. And failing is Okay, as long as we Learn from our failures.
I believe in facing your fears, working on your "not so good points" and working through the tough times. After all, wherever you go, there you are. You cannot hide from your YOURSELF, your mirror has the same person in it and that shadow behind you...it's Yours. It may get bigger over time, but it's yours.
We all have issues, we all have pain in our lives and we all handle it differently. We also show it differently, but you can count on one thing; that person who "has everything" has all the same fears and problems you do, just in a different way. Why? Because we are all human and though we have different lives and live different places, know different people and have a different economic status....yep, you guessed it, we are human; we eat, shit and get old just like everyone else. And you may be beautiful and thin now, but you won't always be...so you head on out and enjoy that while you can because the same thing that happens to millions of people of every day is going to happen to YOU. And don't go Assuming (you KNOW what they say about that!) that you have eighty or ninety years to live because some statistic says you will live that long. I have plenty of dead friends to prove it isn't true; and I've come pretty close to losing my own long before anyone should, the first time I was only 29 years old. Twice now I can claim to be here the sheer grace of Miracles because there IS no other explanation for it.
Live...like Tim McGraw says in his song...Like You Were Dying. Because you never know how much time you have left.
I've lived. Truly lived and I can say I have done damn near everything I ever wanted to do. Loved the people I wanted to love and I have had the time of my life. I am honored to have known the people I have, people who brought great things to the table, people who lifted me up and loved me with all their hearts. People who gave me Unconditional love and supported me in ways most people can only imagine. And if there is something in my life that will help someone else, lift someone else....make their life more valid, cause them to think or live their life better; then I am happy to teach it.
If there is something I say that you do not agree with...that's fine. You have your own beliefs and your own mind and your own life and I am totally cool with that. No one says you have to listen to anyone else, that is why you HAVE a mind of your own and the ability to sensor information. God forbid anyone put anything in your head that isn't good for your Soul...but I seriously doubt you will find that here.
Life is full of things to make you think and learn and grow...I have THOUSANDS of those things in my life, are they all pretty? No. In fact I can tell you two complete versions of my life, same person, same life...one very pretty, one very ugly. And they occurred at the SAME time. Some people would look at my life and think I had been very lucky and had a marvelous life with nothing at all to complain about. And I would agree with that! But there is another version that very few people know, perhaps only a handful...and it's not pretty and I you would think I was extremely unlucky. My Dad used to think that I DID things to bring on the things that happened in my life. And only recently did he tell me...."You could be standing still in a churchyard alone on Sunday and something awful would happen to you, it is the damndest thing I've ever seen. All I can say is that you must have an awful lot to LEARN in this life." And I agree with that too.
I did learn and I will continue to learn.
And I am...her Dragon; for all intents and purposes there are good Dragons and bad Dragons.
I believe we all have them in us. Throughout my life there are countless stories of things and people who will make it clear to you why I have chosen this Animal and this Title to tell my story, what I believe and why I believe it, and why it is important to share your "story" with people.
I believe in Truth, Justice, Loyalty, I have faith God and I believe in Miracles and the Human spirit's ability to transform itself. I believe we are here to grow and learn and to be the best version of ourselves that we can be.
I do not believe we came here to be "HAPPY", find Prince or Princess charming and live happily ever after. If you wanted to be Happy all the time and in a place where there was no bad/evil...you'd HAVE STAYED HOME IN HEAVEN rather coming to HELL to learn a few things about People, Yourself and the trials of having a Body.
There IS Nothing to learn when you are HAPPY. We have glimpses of Happiness in our lives, moments we wish would last a lifetime, but happiness all in itself is a relative term. No one is Happy all the time. We are Content to be where we are, who we are with, what we are doing...or, we are not. We are lucky to find moments of happiness in our lives, those are the things memories are made of and life itself is about love and making memories. Love being the one thing we all need, crave and perhaps the ONLY thing that no one can take from you...ever. Even if the person or thing you LOVE goes away...the love You Gave is always yours. It is the tie that binds us together even beyond this life. And I do believe we have many lives and come here many times, as we have much to learn. We will fail at many things we Planned for Ourselves before we came here, we will make changes to our original plan simply because we have Choices. And failing is Okay, as long as we Learn from our failures.
I believe in facing your fears, working on your "not so good points" and working through the tough times. After all, wherever you go, there you are. You cannot hide from your YOURSELF, your mirror has the same person in it and that shadow behind you...it's Yours. It may get bigger over time, but it's yours.
We all have issues, we all have pain in our lives and we all handle it differently. We also show it differently, but you can count on one thing; that person who "has everything" has all the same fears and problems you do, just in a different way. Why? Because we are all human and though we have different lives and live different places, know different people and have a different economic status....yep, you guessed it, we are human; we eat, shit and get old just like everyone else. And you may be beautiful and thin now, but you won't always be...so you head on out and enjoy that while you can because the same thing that happens to millions of people of every day is going to happen to YOU. And don't go Assuming (you KNOW what they say about that!) that you have eighty or ninety years to live because some statistic says you will live that long. I have plenty of dead friends to prove it isn't true; and I've come pretty close to losing my own long before anyone should, the first time I was only 29 years old. Twice now I can claim to be here the sheer grace of Miracles because there IS no other explanation for it.
Live...like Tim McGraw says in his song...Like You Were Dying. Because you never know how much time you have left.
I've lived. Truly lived and I can say I have done damn near everything I ever wanted to do. Loved the people I wanted to love and I have had the time of my life. I am honored to have known the people I have, people who brought great things to the table, people who lifted me up and loved me with all their hearts. People who gave me Unconditional love and supported me in ways most people can only imagine. And if there is something in my life that will help someone else, lift someone else....make their life more valid, cause them to think or live their life better; then I am happy to teach it.
If there is something I say that you do not agree with...that's fine. You have your own beliefs and your own mind and your own life and I am totally cool with that. No one says you have to listen to anyone else, that is why you HAVE a mind of your own and the ability to sensor information. God forbid anyone put anything in your head that isn't good for your Soul...but I seriously doubt you will find that here.
Life is full of things to make you think and learn and grow...I have THOUSANDS of those things in my life, are they all pretty? No. In fact I can tell you two complete versions of my life, same person, same life...one very pretty, one very ugly. And they occurred at the SAME time. Some people would look at my life and think I had been very lucky and had a marvelous life with nothing at all to complain about. And I would agree with that! But there is another version that very few people know, perhaps only a handful...and it's not pretty and I you would think I was extremely unlucky. My Dad used to think that I DID things to bring on the things that happened in my life. And only recently did he tell me...."You could be standing still in a churchyard alone on Sunday and something awful would happen to you, it is the damndest thing I've ever seen. All I can say is that you must have an awful lot to LEARN in this life." And I agree with that too.
I did learn and I will continue to learn.
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