Fear. Acer. Him.

I will start by venting. On God. I got up this morning feeling all inspired and ready to write about three pieces today. So I log in and type away. Then some criminally-stupid error happened to the page and poof! went my deep and witty blog post. Man did I swear. After months of totally zilch inspiration, which is the most essential part of writing, the dwanzie of a computer eats up the first thing I put down. All swear words and curses to the silly computer fairy who was sleeping on duty. Msssscccchhhheeewww.

Unfocused Just.

Hours later, after I have gone over every possible way to re-acquire my handiwork, I have moved on. Life is short. Abusing this Acer gadget will not help. Let me put what's left of my inspiration to good use. New posting. Arise fairy. We've got knowledge to impart. Wisdom to share. Fears to confess.And you need to keep any form of article-eating, mind-flaming and talent-disrespecting bugs out of my way. Here goes;

Passion is underrated. Fear is the enemy. The enemy who knows all your deepest, darkest doubts, misgivings and character patterns and will not be shy about using them against you. The shrinks insist that that giving attention to fear is the surest way to have it wreck havoc in your life. But we do not give attention to fear. Fear pays us the attention. Fear clings to your heart and invades your mind and clutches your soul. Fear is not scared of us. Because fear has been around longer than any of us has. So it has the experience necessary to pin you down. Fair and square.

I have been engrossed in a battle with this enemy. Who seems to think that dragging images and replays from my memory bank will cause me to scare and like I always do, run. The fear is right. At least the tactic is. My memory bank is filled with scenes I wish I could erase. With faded but clearly-there reminders of past pains, past aches, past losses. The memories which are mine are being used against me. To eventually create more painful memories right after I give in and create a huge, dirty mess. Isn't life ironic?

Isn't fear devious?

How does one ever totally wipe away those stains to the mind? How does one let the past fully go so they can enjoy the now with no qualms about the past being repeated and causing the same past pains, with the same spirit-crushing results? Because I would like to go on. With life. With him.

But he scares me. He always did. Flame-hot passion doesn't exactly help matters. Especially since this is first-time-flame-hot-passion. Oh, there has been passion. The sort that warmed me.

This is burning me. And I am begging to be scorched.

Fire, follow me...???

There are things you do not believe in until you have seen them yourself. That I just might have found my human kryptonite is one of those things. I do not believe in kryptonites. I do not hold with the belief that one can have a great weakness for another human being. I do not understand being weak for another person. And I am not weak for this person. I am not being kryptonited, please. I am simply caught up in an intensity that has this rare but enduring ability to get deeper. I am running in a circle that for two years (albeit at intervals), has refused to come to an end. I am the girl who is being forced to question everything I ever stood for and believed in. Because what I believe in is simply that-beliefs. What I am in is words and everything else. Action. Feelings. Blood rushes. Everything deep and scary.

Pain is pleasure. And passion is pain. My body and heart have minds of their own. And I am no competition. That's a lie. I do not want to fight them.

There is something to be said about not being able to last an hour without touching someone and of the man who will not last an hour without turning to look at you. 

It is meaningless but somewhat deep things like these that are giving rise to the cold demons of fear within me. I do not like to be this way with another person. Yes, I wish for it. I pray for intensity and depth and friendship and that searing passion. I know I would not be in any thing that is without passion and intimacy. I pray for all these things and when they do show, I am like the dog that chases the car but doesn't know what to do when the car does stop. 

Because when you are this way with another person, you are vulnerable. Vulnerable and me don't make good friends. I prefer to have my head screwed on right at all times. But he makes my mind run away. And honestly, I don't exactly miss it.

Until it strikes.

Fear of the past repeating itself. Fear of the future that is unknown. Fear that if this the real deal, the battle is just beginning. Hell will break loose and commitments will be put to test.

I fear that because we have somehow failed to grasp the-let-us-leave-one-another-alone-and-actually-move-on part of this entire thing, we are in line for shocks and surprises. 

I fear that because we will not let go, because even when I am tantrum-ming like a three year old and we are fighting like cats, you are there. You never really leave. Some of the things that you did in the past are begging to be revisited. In the name of experience being the best teacher. The stories of your past are little arrows that pierce me each time someone unknowingly speaks of you. The extent of your drama pushes the run alerts so hard, I have to stop myself from picking the phone and cutting you completely out of my life.

Heaven doesn't seem to be in any hurry to help me. And I am only human. I am a girl who has come face to face with the stuff real life is made of. 

I am the girl who doesn't understand how pleasure and pain can go together. Because I am the girl who always had it figured out. Now I am the girl searching for answers. In not-so-clever-places.

His eyes for instance do not hold written-in-stone-answers. 

You Are Back. Or, Are You?

I smile at the world. The confident, sassy smile that I have come to call my own. I am witty all day long. I am the rock my friends have come to naturally lean on. Sorting out crises, keeping secrets. I am the person they all want me to be. Beacuse to be otherwise would just scare them away or worse, arouse their pity. So, I keep my fears to myself, I tuck my nightmares away. Deep into this mind that has been termed all things; beautiful, astute, intelligent, silly and mad. Stark-raving mad. My exterior is the stoic person I have turned into over the years. My interior is the graphic resemblance of an-after-tornado experience. Yet I smile on. My fears shake me all day long...and the shadows do not go away like the books said they would. They stay with you. They follow you.

The past has a life of its own. The past doesn't go away unless it decides to. Erasing all memory of you has not helped much. Staying away from the places you frequent has not kept you away. Strangling everything I felt for you has not quite committed the murder I was aiming at. 

You never went away. Not really. You were in every song that played. Your silhoutte accompanied each single-person gin and tonic date I had with myself. But how couldn't you be gone? How could the mention of your name still make me smile...on that rare occasion. Most of the time, it made me stark raving mad. The rest of the time, it weighed me down. With a heaviness so profound and achey, I felt I was suffocating.

But you sauntered in. Not giving a second glance to anyone. Until you saw me. And you smiled. And faltered. And hugged me. How three hours passed by, I will never know. But they did. Three hours of part accusations, part apologies, part nostalgia. Three hours of careful, accidental touching. Three hours of shutting the rest of the world out. Three hours of forgetting that this was a bar. We were meant to socialise. Not semi-make up. 

Three hours and we were apologising. We were cursing at fate. We were angry that so much time had gone to watse. Because those three hours put the truth out. Life played a dirty on us. Life took a year away from us. Three hours and we knew. That warm holds would be closing this night. That no way were we not ending the night on a high.

Three days and 160 text messages later, we were back. To the very thing that that had given fate the chance to tear us apart. The same question that racks my insides and jumbles my mind. Three days later and we still couldn't decide...or rather, you couldn't.

Four days later and we are back to the repeat scene of what always pre-marked my running. Me, screaming at you and doing everything in my power to anger you. How could you not see that if we lost this time, we were forever gone. How could you not see that this was the time to make the tough choices. How could you not see that when we are, life takes on an unsual explosiveness. How could you possibly still want to draw this out? How can I not see that again, here I am. Scared, again. Frustrated, again. Hurting, again.

I am a mess of emotions, thoughts and prayers.

I do not know exactly what it is I am seeking from God. I do know. I am seeking for my heart to ache in only the good ways. I am bargaining with heaven to give us a chance or find a way to forever separate us. I am begging all deities to speak sense into your stubborn self. And with all the self-control I can muster, I am staying away from the phone. Because we never stop. Because one text will lead to twenty more and then you just might drive over to my place. One touch and I'll be putty. Gullible and willing putty. And then I will be running. Because you frighten me. The intensity scares me. But right now, your downright foolishness is annoying me. 
I am going to the bar. Where we made up. I will get drunk on foreign-named cocktails then I will try to not call you.

One year later, and you are back.

Or are you?

Is this the final scene?

Self-Love; A Delicate Art.

"Love Thy Self." With flowers, if necessary.

"I love you, Maureen."

That is me sending myself off at the start at each day. Yes, I look myself in the mirror,try to look beyond the new zit that has comfortably lodged itself on the most visible part of my forehead, and tell myself or my mirror reflection that I am loved. It is sorta corny. It has a desperate ring to it. And I will be the first to tell you that it works. Not the mean-staring at the zit in the hope that it will melt away. Pimples do not respond to psychological torture.

The expression of self love. That works. We as human beings are greatly flawed. We have shortcomings, laced with quirks and to top that off, a pile of sins that would call for Christ's second crucifixion. Yes, we as a species can be very unlovable. Most humans in fact, go out of their way to make themselves especially unlovable. 

I believe for most people, it would be okay if the lack of love was limited to the rest of the world. Who cares if the girl at your office loathes you because you have all the major designer labels as permanent residents of your closet? Eish!!Find a good knock-off dealer.

It IS the real thing.

But when the lack of love for self emanates from the self itself...well...Trouble looms.Trouble that can be spelt in many different ways; low-self esteem, self-depreciating thoughts, self-hate, negative self image, and in the case of Gilbert Arinaitwe, plain old stupidity. If you're going to vandalise private property, attack defenceless political figures in full view of TV cameras, wear a hood, or cap. I mean, there's a reason all these crime series are all over our TVs. And it has nothing to do with mastering forensic science.

The majority of us lucked out when we majored in literature and divinity. Self-love is necessary, as necessary as breathing. In the long run, anyway. Self-love means you look your majorly-injured self in your impaired-eye and learn to:

Fully Accept

That you will forever be 5"2" tall or short, that your hips are actually dependant on bone structure&; no amount of dieting will lessen their width. Or girth. For one to even have a slight element of success in loving one-self, one needs to fully comprehend that most of our flaws, or assumed flaws cannot be overcome. You cannot change the fact that your father decided his love& commitment came with a shelf life. You will not change the fact that you gave years of irreplaceable time to a man that woke up& decided those years were not enough. He had to take your heart& belief in all men good. No, you will not change the fact that your only show of family wealth is your university degree. 

But you have an education, and so you can start a whole new family drama where your name will be a force to reckon. You can grieve over that man and understand that loving someone with all of you is no guarantee they won't walk all over you. You can realize that while you missed out on fatherly love, you maxed out on motherly affection& sibling rivalry. Which teaches you self control.

Acceptance doesn't mean you let yourself stay in mediocrity. It doesn't mean you remain in an unhealthy relationship-romantic or otherwise, because you feel its your " Burden to carry." 

It means, you allow that the powers that be already decided how your body will look. The people you love have their own minds (even when you know you have a better mind)& most importantly, we cannot control most of what happens to us or change what happened. We can forfeit denial. We can accept it.

At least the tape still fits.

Forgive.

My very first lesson in forgiveness involved forgiveness of another. You know, the Bible story where Jesus tells those people that they must forgive one another in multiples of seven? That one. I believe that to forgive others who have in some way, caused us pain is noble. I mean, how could they stop writing "Friends"? That took time to get over. I know that to forgive spells maturity in character and spiritual evolution. But I also know that when someone causes me any sort of harm, I prefer revenge. Served frozen. With second helpings; my anger has a healthy appetite. Forgiveness of others is difficult. You're telling the one that caused you irreparable damage that you're choosing to grant pardon. That you're willing to put away their painful act as one of life's lessons. Okay, while at it, don't lose the lesson. Forgive. NEVER forget. Not me. I am-an-eye-for-an-eye-woman. I do not owe any one any forgiveness. You hurt me, I deal how I know; frozen responses.

But to forgive others is not my problem here. My mother has made it her life mission to instil this virtue in me. There's hope. She did get me to start cooking. I am at the sausage-grilling stage. 

The greatest lesson in self-love is forgiveness of oneself. 

So, no one else will....

You need. No, you MUST learn to forgive yourself. It is easy to cast stones at others. It is easier to point fingers, since stoning might damage one's recent manicure.  But how do you cast a stone when the finger is pointing at you? How do you look yourself in the mirror and reconcile the reflection to that insensitive thing you just did? Like look that girl in the eye& tell her you are not kissing with her boyfriend. Then proceed to send said boyfriend a text. Complete with a kissey smiley.

Say," Auntie!!!"(Stock Photo)

To get past the fact that you have caused hurt. You, have broken a heart. You, are the reason someone else is crying. Not because you just keeled over& died, but because you are bringing their world down, passionately. Heartlessly. To forgive yourself for poor choices, for opportunities not taken, for decisions that took the lift and life out of your character. That is difficult. Because it is kinda norm for people to disappoint. Expected even. But when you are the disappointment, that is....sad.

Since I can't serve myself iced reactions to callous behaviour, I have learned that forgiveness of self is best. It soothes my guilty soul. It makes it easier to point fingers at others. But it is no easy task. Mostly because I have such high standards of behaviour for myself that when I fall even remotely short of them, I freeze. 

And panic.And hate myself. Then I drag me from the mud I've slung at my sinful self. And make smarter choices. You grant yourself permission to be human. You walk away from other girl's boyfriend.

Un-cautioned borrowing affects the borrower. Ditto unforgiveness. Of self.

Moving On.

Anyone that has read any of my posts knows I am kind of stuck in that time zone. I miss Schweppes. I miss, miss "Friends" I have failed to move on with "How I Met Your Mother." I love Sean Connery.

I love you, I love you, I do.

Enough said, I believe.
So it is no major wonder that I have failed to fully let go of things and people that in the first place, had no business being in my life. That I let them in is shocking enough. That I am still attached is beyond shocking. 'Tis baffling. And liable to make you feel really silly. Not in a funny way. Me?? I granted myself full permission to be silly eons ago. That was when I realized my affinity to the past. Probably why I still am stuck. Because moving on requires for a sound reality check. It means you have to look at the phone& realize he is NOT going to call. Again. Ever. And then stop yourself from wondering what you did wrong.

To move on calls for courage; to leave that familiar office job& start at a new venture, doing something you truly love. Drat less money& hence, less new shoes. Inner satisfaction is a greater treasure. I believe half the issue with moving is is the getting out of the familiarity zone. The cheating boyfriend still knows which spots to kiss best. The never-there-when-you-need-them friend still knows your darkest secrets and greatest fears.

And the said-brighter future which is promised for those that move on is...well, it is the future.
Why move on when you have the comfort of old hurts, the solace of beautiful-turned painful memories? Why move on when your heart says it doesn't think it can do it? The poor heart has resolved to love meanie boyfriend just as he is. Why not let it be?? Why move on to mountain dew??

Because Schweppes is NOT coming back.

Because if he missed me even an iota of how much I missed him, he'd have called. Because if he didn't love the other girl enough, he would not have married her. Because the new job will start to pay off majorly. The universe blesses all work done with love. Because staying in a  bad situation, actively or memory-wise is wasting precious time. Because self-love requires you pluck yourself out of the past.

The future awaits. It favours those who carry no remnants of previous bad times. Nanti it is also on a roll. No time to back track.

One past step at a time.

Self-love is a delicate art. Because mastering it today is no promise you'll remember how-to tomorrow. Because practice doesn't make perfect in this case. It makes acceptance. It brings forgiveness. It leaves the baggage behind. Self-love requires you to daily perform small acts of compassion to yourself, because each day brings more reason to dislike yourself. Self-love is looking in the mirror and loving the unique magnificence that is you; flawed, broken, chapped, bruised and sinful.

Self-love is doing this each day. Self-love is the greatest lesson you can learn.

Also, it is the one easiest to lose.

And what a biiig hit, it is.

"I love you, Maureen."