Chinook Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 So.. I ran the marathon last weekend. Nothing. No congratulations or 'well done'. So I took the high road. I decided 'f***it, who cares'. Today was my birthday. I love birthdays because they're your own special day. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You don't have to conform to anyone else's ideals (well, not when you're single anyways). So this evening, I'm lying in a lavender bubbly bath with the whirlypool thing going. I had treated myself to a bottle of Lanson Black Label and I had Daisy Goodwin's "101 Poems to get you through the day and night" open. I was getting along okay. I won't deny that I was waiting all day for an email, a card, some sign that he remembered. Then... it came. With it came my anger. Why...? If you don't want to be with someone and you don't want them in your life... why...? Why bother wishing them a happy birthday...? Link to post Share on other sites
jerbear Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 Happy birthday! great job on the marathon! I didn't get one, a three weeks ago, got a VM w/o a message from her. Link to post Share on other sites
tikigods Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 congrats and happy birthday! I love warm baths and good books Link to post Share on other sites
KittenMoon Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 You should make sure silentcharon reads this.... http://www.loveshack.org/forums/showthread.php?t=87329 Happy birthday- way to go on the marathon, btw! Link to post Share on other sites
Sassy Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 So.. I ran the marathon last weekend. Nothing. No congratulations or 'well done'. So I took the high road. I decided 'f***it, who cares'. Today was my birthday. I love birthdays because they're your own special day. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You don't have to conform to anyone else's ideals (well, not when you're single anyways). So this evening, I'm lying in a lavender bubbly bath with the whirlypool thing going. I had treated myself to a bottle of Lanson Black Label and I had Daisy Goodwin's "101 Poems to get you through the day and night" open. I was getting along okay. I won't deny that I was waiting all day for an email, a card, some sign that he remembered. Then... it came. With it came my anger. Why...? If you don't want to be with someone and you don't want them in your life... why...? Why bother wishing them a happy birthday...? Happy belated birthday to you !! We were born on the same day. My bday wasn't all that great either went to eat and went shopping with the money my mom gave me for my bday! Some men can be very inconsiderate jerk's . Hugs to you . Link to post Share on other sites
shelters Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 Happy Birthday, Chinook. Link to post Share on other sites
the_alchemyst Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 Yes, happy happy birthday, Chinook! And many congratulations on the marathon running! It really is more than most will ever do. Link to post Share on other sites
jerbear Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 Happy belated birthday to you !! We were born on the same day. My bday wasn't all that great either went to eat and went shopping with the money my mom gave me for my bday! Some men can be very inconsiderate jerk's . Hugs to you . I guess this is one reason to move on. You want them to care and not care at the same time. Link to post Share on other sites
sick of it Posted April 29, 2006 Share Posted April 29, 2006 Chinook, the same thing happened to me. I was trying to have my birthday fine, trying not to think about her....of course it was hard, my first birthday in 6 years without her. Then i get an IM saying something along the lines of "im thinking about you, i hope youre having a great day." it ruined my birthday...she says this while living with someone else...while she knows i miss her... it was a selfish thing to do. its tough because maybe they actually do care about you, but youre not ready to be cared for the way they want to. Link to post Share on other sites
etherealism Posted May 2, 2006 Share Posted May 2, 2006 happy belated birthday! i didn't want to wonder if my ex would notice or even care (or even ignore) my birthday (march). but i did. part of me wanted to call him up to have brunch ... but i realized that a possible refusal would deliver a blow i did not want. even if its just 1 day out of 365 days this yr i was determined not to feel like crap and stay home. its just another day but i didn't want it to be. it would have been a nice excuse to acknowledge my existance on this god-forsaken planet. so i got drunk. and beyond drunk into messed up. and then i puked my guts out in the bathroom of the bar and in the freeway sobbing over how much i missed him. i should have tried your bubble bath! i had all the emails, txt msgs, myspace comments, free drinks. and i was waiting for the one that never came. but i got a dildo instead! Link to post Share on other sites
etherealism Posted May 2, 2006 Share Posted May 2, 2006 oh and how often to you train for marathon running? was looking into that myself actually... Link to post Share on other sites
In Sync Posted May 2, 2006 Share Posted May 2, 2006 So.. I ran the marathon last weekend. Nothing. No congratulations or 'well done'. So I took the high road. I decided 'f***it, who cares'. Today was my birthday. I love birthdays because they're your own special day. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. You don't have to conform to anyone else's ideals (well, not when you're single anyways). So this evening, I'm lying in a lavender bubbly bath with the whirlypool thing going. I had treated myself to a bottle of Lanson Black Label and I had Daisy Goodwin's "101 Poems to get you through the day and night" open. I was getting along okay. I won't deny that I was waiting all day for an email, a card, some sign that he remembered. Then... it came. With it came my anger. Why...? If you don't want to be with someone and you don't want them in your life... why...? Why bother wishing them a happy birthday...? HA:bunny: Y BirthDAY! Please take all the good things that happened to you and claim it...especially all your accomplishments, i.e. the marathon! This is YOUR moment. Try not focus on what and why he sent a greeting. Although some might interpret that as caring I see it as also having the attention brought back on him...so now you have ended the day wondering all about him. All preocupation about his actions takes the shine off you feeling good about YOU. Once again Happy BirthDAY! Link to post Share on other sites
Author Chinook Posted May 5, 2006 Author Share Posted May 5, 2006 Okay. So, the day after my birthday I went on holiday. Alone. To a part of the UK called the Lake District... it is a beautiful part of the world. Renowned by poets and artists alike. I left behind everything. No phones. No email. No PC. Nothing. Completely uncontactable. I ended my birthday in a really s***ty place if I do say so myself. Today I came home. Today, I posted the following on my blog which I share with a couple of friends from my running club. Thursday, May 04, 2006 There's no place like home... Sometimes when we go away on holiday, it's because we feel we have to. Sometimes, it's just for a change of scenery. Sometimes though, it's because we really need to go and just get the hell out of Dodge. When I left on Saturday, I had absolutely no idea what I was going away for... afterall, I live alone, so don't I get all the peace I need there...? It would be nice, but no I don't because there's the phone, the PC with net access and email. There is always something to pull you in and even though it's easy enough to say, 'just turn it off', it's not quite the same as it simply not being there at all. The person who went away on Saturday was still lost in a way and broken, not sure of her purpose in life. She'd been pulled in all kinds of directions simply because she didn't know what she wanted in life, more importantly she still didn't know who she was. This break, has been the only break I have ever had to myself in the last 10 years. It was a long time in coming. It was more needed than I had realised. So, what happened was in a nut shell. I did alot of thinking, writing, reading, running (not so much of that actually), cycling, driving to the seaside in the sun, watching TV (had to see the news afterall) and basically... re-skewed my thinking straight. Rather than off-centre as it has been. So what did I work out...? I worked out that in my world... only me matters. Only I am responsible for my happiness and what happens with me. Only I can make me happy. It has to come from within. I worked out that as long as I'm true to me and look after myself both physically and mentally... then the rest will come as a bonus. It sounds simplistic because it is. But basically, I worked out that there is only me who can look after me, there is only me who can take responsibility for my life and there is only my life worth living. Back in January, I stepped away from suicide because I was cowardly... this is nothing like that. This is more a realisation of .... "wtf is your problem... there's a whole LIFE out there... all you have to do is have the courage to LIVE it!!" Yeah. Easy that isn't it..?! I've spent a lot of time in the last three years searching for something which I lost. My sense of self. I lost that sense of self because I was diagnosed with cancer. In the moment that the surgeon uttered those words "you have cancer" my life, the one I knew was irrevocably changed. I was stripped bare of everything I had and everything I knew. In that moment, I was stripped of everything which was important in life. Nothing mattered anymore. When you reach that place and you're ripped out of the comfortable lifestyle you have - everything needs to be re-evaluated. Everything. You do that because you're a human being. It's NORMAL to do that. At that time though, it was enough to get through the trauma of it all. Then over the following three years it was a desperate search for going back to that comfortable lifestyle, a desperate search to fit in again, to be a part of the everydayness of it all. Of course... I was searching for a dream. Something which didn't exist at all anymore. It was gone. All of it was gone. That life and the person I was, was never coming back and although there have been peaks and troughs of acceptance and denial... the search was always there. I always wanted to go back and be lost in the meleé of life without worrying again. Through all the relationships I have had and the time that has passed, I was simply searching for me. The me that was lost. The me that I loved and cherished. The bright shining me... who didn't have a care in the world. The me who didn't think past the problems in front of her. The me who was so threaded into life that it was a traumatic horror to find herself pulled out of it. The problem was, I was left with a life I didn't want and a person I didn't know. I guess it takes time to get used to that. I guess, the last three years have mainly been spent looking back at that shining golden dream and wishing for her to come and rescue me. This last week. I realised... she's really not coming back and in some ways... that broke me and it saved me too. I'd searched within other people and never found what I needed. On Saturday, I arrived at the farm without a single clue why I was there. I was supposed to go there with XP. I had continued with the holiday because I knew that I needed it. But I had no clue what was going to happen. All day Saturday, I cried. I felt lost and alone and I didn't even have email or any other means of reaching out for people. I started reading... and thinking. I read the following books by Don Miguel Ruiz (I've already recommended them to a couple of people) The Voice of Knowledge, The Mastery of Love and The Four Agreements. These books are inexpensive and they are easy, simplistic to read. They are also common sense too. I wouldn't say they changed my life because they didn't. All they did was point out what to do with what was already there, a bit like if you're sitting with a puzzle in front of you and no clue where to start. When you pick up the instructions, it gives you a clue how to fit things together - you already know what to do, you already have everything you need to do it. So what was it which I found that I needed...? Me. Very simple. I think some of it occurred when I was lying in the bath on Monday evening. I'd finished reading one of the books and I decided to go have a bath and to think. If I tried to write everything how I came to this place, I'd be here all night. So I can't do that. All I can tell you is that I hadn't had a single bit of alcohol all weekend (there was no need, no problems to run away from see) and I was thinking as clearly as I ever have. I lay in the warm water with my head half submerged and my eyes closed. Finally after some time I realised I was listening to something. I could hear my heart beating, and my lungs breathing. I could hear the rhythmic bumping sound of my heart beating... no excuse needed. No permission asked. It just was. Me... my body... doing what it does. Living. I listened to the lungs breathing in air... the soft swoosh, in and out. Again, no excuse needed, it just was. I realised... right then that this is what it's all about. This is why I had treatment. To live. I got out of the bath and went into the bedroom and the window in the room stretched right across that whole side of the room. The curtains were open, so I turned the light off. I could see a million points of light out there in the darkness and the moon shining brightly. I felt small and huge all at the same time. Why..? Because I realised, I'd been put in that place at that time, to see such beauty... to see that, I'm a part of it all... this thing we call life. Not anyone else. Me. So, I went to bed thinking that... the girl who is lost... really wasn't lost at all. The girl who had such brightness and capacity for love and living... isn't, wasn't lost... at all. She was just a bit off course. I worked out that there is no greater beauty than seeing the truth... before my very eyes and ears. I know it's what people have been telling me for months and months. I know it. I did know it. But knowing it in your head... has nothing to do with knowing it in your heart. Now, I know. I have a life. I intend to live it. I don't know where it goes, I don't know what the future holds.. but looking back is fruitless. Going back is not possible, and to be truthful... why would I want to anyway...? When all I have and all I need is right here inside me..?! So, today... instead of Saturday... I came home. I came home because I realised it was time to come back. It was time to rejoin life. It was time to continue. I have a strategy too. I intend to pay attention to one of those books (the four agreements) and I intend to ensure that whatever I do in life, I always respect myself and put my self-preservation first. Always. That's mentally, emotionally and physically (I'm not going to be joining a convent but the days of excess are done). I'm glad to be home. I'm ready to pick up now. I'd like to thank Bendit for recommending those books and for helping me to find the real reasons why it's over now. Nothing else matters. It's done now. Finished. Link to post Share on other sites
Author Chinook Posted May 5, 2006 Author Share Posted May 5, 2006 oh and how often to you train for marathon running? was looking into that myself actually... I trained four times a week with one day of cross-training. You can find marathon schedules here under the training section. Link to post Share on other sites
shelters Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 Very powerful, Chinook. I read it with a lump in my throat and a smile on my face. Welcome back. Link to post Share on other sites
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