Sometimes It Is The Little Things That Can Mess You Up

What do you got to do when lightening strikes you?

What do you got to do when you're hurt?

What do you say when it's all over

When sorry seems to be the hardest word.

I feel I made a mistake today.

I told Dina I didn't want to communicate with her anymore.

I started the communication saying, "Sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference."

I followed that remark with, "I have decided to not be in communication with you.

If and when you have value for me, give me a call. Until then..." and then signoff.

She opened up to me today.

So many communications between us,

It really made me happy when I told her she may not want to read what I wrote

She sent a reply that described the difficulties she experienced earlier in life.

This was because of this poem I wrote her:

A Love Like None Other

A love so fine
If it could only be mine
I grew to love her
It didn't matter where we were
The pleasure was way up high
To gaze into her eyes,
she was so shy
But the beauty was deep
To gaze upon her asleep
Was to see everything
I could ever want

She wrote this in reply to my being hurt:

"I do understand, believe me.
I too hurt and feel raw.
Good to have work to distract
And walk to clear head.
Alone, no one
the shadows are dark
the night is long
Alone with my thoughts
And living the drama of my mind
Tender emotions
Afraid of the light
Not allowed to breathe
To grow to be nurtured
New painful feelings
Not meant to be hid
But shared with this world,
To be loved is the greatest feeling
To have loved as best I can,
And yet wonder why can I revisit in my dreams"

and, finally this,

"So many good qualities of you shine through:
Sterling
Honorable knight in shining armor
Deep, deep, deep
Like dark blue water
Cool deep dangerous
But delicious indulgence
A chance to survive
A place to hide in this ugly world"

I feel that I just didn't understand she was starting to communicate.

I told her in the beginning she was a flower, waiting to bloom

And now she is blooming

And I cut her off

What a clod,

What a dolt

I am not sure, but I may be only one of a very few

She has to communicate with

And I shut her off tonight.

Nine long months of going through every imaginable kind of pain with her, from her.

Now, when she starts to open up I cut her off.

Tears running down my cheeks

Tissues by my side to wipe the pain

From my eyes.

I don't know how to make it better.

She taught me so many things I had forgotten:

How to be patient when I felt emotional
How to tuck my legs up to my chest to relieve tightness in my body
How to give long, slow kisses that meant so much
How to stretch my body in the prayer position
How to be understanding with her when she was in pain
And I didn't need to talk, just lie there with her and hold her
How to take it slowly when I was bouncing off the ceiling emotionally
How to save when I felt like spending
How to be slow when I always was going so fast
How to take a breath when I was harassed
She gave me so much enjoyment
She made the night day for me
I felt like I like had entered fairy tale land
And she was the princess
I wanted to be her prince

But what I did today may be unretrievable

She may crawl back inside her world and never come back out

She can be like that

What am I gonna do when Dina strikes me?

Now it is what is she gonna do when I strike her

...like I did in such an insensitive way tonight

I am only human

I am not perfect

I only love her more than life itself and now,

What have I done?

I don't think Elton can help me

Now she can say,

Don't go breaking my heart

When I'm sixty years of age

When the ragged dog they gave me

Has been ten years in the grave

When sorry seems to be the hardest word

Goodbye norma jean

Though I never knew you at all

You had the grace to hold yourself

While those around you crawled

This is how I feel about Dina,

All I have to say is:

What do I got to do to make you love me

What do I got to do to make you care

What do I do when lightning strikes me

And I wake to find that you're not there

What do I do to make you want me

What do I got to do to be heard

What do I say when it's all over

And sorry seems to be the hardest word

It's sad, so sad It's a sad, sad situation

and,

You're not a ship to carry my life

You are nailed to my love in many lonely nights

I've strayed from the cottages and found myself here

For I need your love your love protects my fears

And I wonder sometimes and I know I'm unkind

But I need you to turn to when I act so blind

And I need you to turn to when I lose control

You're my guardian angel who keeps out the cold

Did you paint your smile on, well I said I knew

That my reason for living was for loving you

We're related in feeling but you're high above

You're pure and you're gentle with the grace of a dove



I sing these songs because I believe in the words

And right now these songs so fit the sadness I feel

What did I do tonight?

How do I change the way I made her feel when I wrote the last note?

Sometimes you can't change what you do

Maybe this is one of those times....

Just The Way Things Go Sometimes

Things just go a certain way sometimes.

Just when you think a bad thing has taken a turn for the better, it gets worse.

Such is the case with somebody I care very much about.

Today, after a long period of suffering, I had to make a decision to let go.

It was very hard for me and I still wonder if I made the right decision.

I have tried for nine long months to right what had taken a turn into something I still don't understand.

There are only so many paths you can go down in life, so you really don't understand everybody's trials and tribulations and what price they pay for what they do.

This is one of those situations.

When things went wrong, I gave it everything I had to try to straighten the situation.

Despite my best efforts, and some not the best, I finally gave up today.

It hurts.

And will continue to hurt for a long time as I try to get over something I lost that meant a lot to me.

Maybe it meant too much.

Maybe I need to get a more rounded life and not concentrate all my energies in one area.

Even if that area means the world to me, as this did.

I can look back and say, I gave it everything I had and I don't have anything to apologioze for. €

Sure, I made mistakes. I will always wonder if those mistakes cost me what I had.

I will never know.

Maybe someday she will see what a good person I am and have value for me.

I don't think so.

I wondered since the beginning why she was with me.

Now I don't have to wonder any more, she is not with me any longer.

I do wish she would have loved me a little more so that, maybe, things wouldn't have turned out the way they did.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Well, there are more important things to address now, like the rest of my life.

Up, Up and Away.

What's It All About Alfie?

So many things are churning within me.

The events of the past few weeks has stunned me into submission.

It seems like when one area of your life is up, another is down.

The music I have been playing has been literally off the end of the scale,

while the love affair has been going up and down and around and around.

I don't know if the woman I love is ever going to be able to see outside herself and be able to shine and shimmer in the light of the day.

She has a difficulty talking about herself to others.

She goes around amazing others with her wit, intelligence, compassion and caring, she is a star shining brightly and lighting up the heavens.

But it appears, if she doesn't get the ability to talk about her wrongs, (yuck, what an ugly topic early in the morning!), to others and herself she has hurt by her behavior, she won't be lighting up anything and her internal world will be dark.

There is a step in AA that says: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Resolving this has not been her forte.

She doesn't understand that to everybody who meets her she IS a bright and shining star.

Everybody wants to know this person and be her friend/lover/companion.

My dad said, don't hide your light under a bushel basket.

It applied to him and it applies to her.

But how do you assist someone who is convinced the way they are is the way they will be?

The frustration I feel about her opinion of herself and her inability to talk about herself is of concern to me.

This is only because her internal impressions appear to be stopping her from being who she could be, and the potential for her abilities and gifts is enormous.

She doesn't need to do anything further to realize these benefits, except one thing: realize who she is and accept she has done an amazing job getting herself to her current position in life and really accepting the compliments she has been getting for a long, long time.

Time will run out if she keeps waiting to be who she really is and can be.

There is no time to waste: here is another day waiting to be fulfilled and make her shine and shimmer!

Time does run out for all of us and you better make the most of it while you still can.

I am afraid the time we have together is waning.

Right now she is ensconced in her private world and she feels complacent about being in her little nest.

That is okay and her right.

It is also okay if she never gets to live up to who she could be and the sadness of this fact is hurting my heart.

But I guess that is my cross to bear (Mother Theresa get off the cross, we need the wood!)

I have met thousands of people over the span of my lifetime.

I started in life very young being aware of the differentiation of the human race and have met some of the scions of America's wealthiest families.

I have also met what some people would call the dregs of life,

and everything in between.

And I can honestly say I have I have never met anyone with so complete a package as she has so thoroughly been gifted with.

But insecurity and wrong self-impressions can be a personal disaster.

There is no substitute for confidence and understanding who you are and what you have to give in this life.

This is her plight: she doesn't really know what she has and how she affects others that she comes in contact with.

This is not only a shame, it is almost a misdemeanor, (it would have been a felony but the judge reduced it).

But she has the right to while away her life and her possibilities.

Somehow, this really bothers me.

I have special gifts that people have often told me about, but I am not in the same league with her. I had to work really hard to develop what little I have to offer.

She is way above me.

I have oft wondered why this superstar even knows me and I never been able to figure it out.

Meeting her has really humbled me.

I get concerned about somebody having the amount of gifts she has and having a wrong internal impression of herself, thereby eliminating the possibilities those gifts really benefiting her and others she comes in contact with.

You know, getting a chance to shine, making herself ecstatically happy, and giving others the chance to benefit from receiving from her the bounty of her gifts is just wonderful.

But, as anything in life, it may be a shame, but there are a lot of people who suffer the same plight.

They live, never realize their full potential, and then die.

I feel there is the possibility she may suffer the same fate.

But that is her right and nobody has the right to say anything about it to her if she is not willing to hear.

Apparently, this has been a concern for her for some time in her life, in some form or the other.

She possibly has never met anyone who cared enough about her to be a friend and give her the support to realize her full potential, or she hasn't been a friend to herself.

Sometimes, it is not just a case of each of us being solely responsible for developing our talents, gifts, abilities, whatever you want to call it. Sometimes we need others to be there for us or we reach a certain level of life, based on the loving, nurturing and raising we receive, and that is the end of it.

We reach this level, have the ability to go much higher, and never make it any further.

Well, the sun is shining brightly and it is a wonderful day in San Francisco.

I plan to go out and do as much shining as possible,

I may even shimmer.

As April Ends, So Ends A Love

It all started after a very loving weekend, weekend before last.

She held me tighter than ever before in our year and a half together.

She had called that week and said, "I love you. I want to see you this weekend".

I was so happy to be with her.

Then, on Monday, the dam broke, badly flooding the rest of the week.

She called me and said, "I have something to tell you, but you can't tell anyone else. You have to give me your word.".

I agreed, wanting to hear what she had to say. I figured it must be important to her to tell me, otherwise why would she have asked for my word?

Later, she said I was the one person she felt she could have confidence in and I betrayed her trust. But that is a another whole story.

Her wealthy ex-boyfriend, for whom she worked for now and used to date before, had been in a hit-and-run accident. She told him to park the car in the garage until he could figure out how he wanted to handle it.

I knew she was very upset about this information and appeared to really need to tell someone so I gave my word and I listened. Not until I had this information for several days did I realize I had really compromised my freedom. I had this information for days and I didn't tell the police.

Monday was a bad day.

But it got worse as the week progressed.

Tuesday I had a difficult day and really needed the comfort of her voice. When I spoke with her early in the day, I asked her to call me that evening.

No call.

Wednesday, I took my daughter to a family therapy appointment and I called her again, asking her to call me later. I knew I would need to speak to her after dealing with my young daughter's family session. And I did.

No call.

I texted her later in the evening and said my daughter was having a supervised timeout with her young friend and had taken the computer and the TV. I really needed to talk with my significant other and asked her to call me if she wouldn't mind.

No call.

Thursday she was scheduled to speak with my psychologist to help with the problems we were having that week. She failed to confirm the appointment early in the day and ended up not making the appointment.

Bad day.

She had missed the appointment the week before to discuss why she thought my daughter would probably be pregnant by the time she was nineteen and the fact that I didn't own a house.

Because of these points, she had said she needed to consider things and decide what she was going to do. It appeared she was going to decide if she wanted to be with me or not.

This week's discussion was going to be about what had happened earlier in the week, which is what I am describing now.

She had agreed to take the hour with my psychologist and then didn't follow through with her commitment, just like she had done the week before.

She had a nine-month history of leaving me abrubtly and no contact until I went to her and we were able to make things clear. She had cried everytime I went to see her and then said she was glad I had come. I had thought we repaired the damage to our relationship and repeated this process six times in total over the previous nine months.

Needless to say, this was a ship that was in trouble and in danger of sinking.

So that history, in combination with the above-mentioned events left me with a sick feeling in my stomach when she missed the therapy appointment.

I drove down to see her to try to understand what was upsetting her and making her act in such an undecipherable way.

The meeting went terribly wrong and I realized I had probably lost my fiance, even though the reason for my being there was due to her behavior:

> Missing the two agreed-upon therapy sessions
> Missing calls she agreed to make two prior days in a row
> Relating information from an ex-boyfriend that had me
feeling she was going back to him - why else would she
be the only person he told? Again I was acting on the only
information she was willing to share with me. According to her,
the ex-boyfriend was just a friend, according to the ex-boyfriend,
she was his girlfriend. Just the way things turn out sometimes.
> Relating the ex-boyfriend's information jeopardized my
freedom by simply knowing about an unreported accident.

In hindsight, I made all the wrong decisions due to a lack of information. Again, not her fault, just the way things turn out sometimes.

Friday she was speaking with me, emailing me on Saturday and Sunday. Things had the appearance of getting better.

And then, to start the final end of our relationship, and as part of the 12-step program, she writes emails that end with a misplaced apology that did not fit the rest of the email's content.

As far as I have been told, per the AA Big Book and the Twelve Step Program, the purpose is to make amends with yourself and others and then cut communication with bad relationships. This was a hurtful relationship and, apparently, while you were going through your steps, you had to cut these type of relationships because by continuing, she would be hurting me and subsequently herself, and vice versa. Assuming this was correct, I could understand the value to a person trying to straighten out their problems with past alcohol abuse.

The way our relationship was tanking, appeared to me to be because of her inability to decide if she wanted to be with me or not. This is what had been happening for quite a while with her.

I wanted to be with her, as she was, no changes. Just wanted to love her.

Not being able to decide if she really wanted me - lack of money and no home owned - caused a dilemma that resulted in behavior that didn't make sense, at least not as far as I could see it. And this resulted in my responding to situations that didn't make sense and you can figure what a mess that can make of what once could have been, in my humble opinion, and, at times hers, a fine relationship.

See, sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed.

As a matter of fact, it can be downright debilitating to one's future with the person you love more than any other you have ever met in your life.

So unprobably true, it has to be fiction.

Which is what I wish it was - just a bad nightmare I would wake up from to find my true love truly loves me. And my future is bright and shiny and paved with flowers. Birds are chirping in the trees overead and deer play in the meadow. But there were storm clouds brewing.

Instead, what is left now is like an ugly, blackened landscape: burned trees; no life anywhere. No hope. Just a burned out, mishandled version of it's fomer self. An insecure person wielding nonunderstanding and pain from past mistakes - alcoholism, bad relationships - like a club. She said she had lost the highest priority in her life: having five children.

There is a large feeling of hopelessness and despair in the above, only to be brightened by the success of her nine years of clean and sober living after 35 years of alcoholism. Alcoholics Anonmyous had served her well in relieving what was obviously a very difficult habit to give up.

Kudos to her for accomplishing this difficult-to-achieve feat.

These things all added together, including a case of dyslexia and all of my mistakes, and you have what brought down the best relationship I had ever had. This is not fingerpointing. This is just the way things turned out. My fault as much as anybodys; I stayed with her when things starting going horribly wrong. I should have left, but I already loved her too much.

Totally my responsibility.

Now anything we had was all going away like it was being sucked into a hellish whirlpool going nowhere for no reason.

Just lost, to me and to her.

Yes, I made mistakes.

Big ones.

But I loved her more than anyone I had ever loved before.

I would have done anything to save this relatioonship.

Now I only have the ability to let it go.

This is her wish and this is what I will have to do.

It could have been a really good relationship.

One filled with happiness and joy for a lifetime, or so I had thought.

Aside from the mishaps, we loved each other. We didn't argue and were glad to just be alone with each other. Cuddling together, playing and singing music, lovingly loving each other, finding common interests together and sharing wonderful times. So hard to find and welcome when you do.

Something most people dream about but only rarely achieve.

Worth fighting for in my opinion.

Now to be only saved by a miracle from God.

If she would have told me what was really on her mind, instead of making decisions in a vacuum, with facts that were not true or, as in a lot of cases, just misinterpretations of events that had happened, we might have had a chance. This is not her fault; just the way things work out sometimes. My reactions to her actions had as much to do with this relationship failing as
anything she did.

Now lost for no understandable reason. At least not to me.

How about you?

Now what do you make of that?

The Woman I Love

When I met her, I knew this was going to be something special. Our first date lasted 13 hours. I wanted to see her again and again. Within a few weeks, the tightness in my chest grew as the love grew, sometimes making it hard to breathe. It didn't matter where we were, as long as we were together. We didn't argue, just loved each deeply. I thought this was a love that would never end. I thought it would grow to the heavens and beyond. There was no limit. The times we spent together were so precious to me. To listen to her fine mind spin thoughts that amazed and made me feel wondrous. I had never met a woman like this in my life and I wanted to spend the rest of my days with her in loving bliss. She made an ordinary day seem special and a special day seem like no other. There appeared to be nothing she couldn't take on and handle while making it look easy. A dinner in a few minutes. A jumble sorted in no time, like it was always orderly. It seemed like confusion moved away from her as she strode valiantly into the disarray of ordinary life. I admired so much about her. There was very little that wasn't of the highest interest to me. The way she bounced around when she was excited. The joy and happiness she could bring to the gloomiest day. A special woman indeed. Like none I had, or ever will, meet in my life. It was a real honor to know and love this woman. She had so many fine qualities, there were too many to list. She was a gift to anyone who encountered her. Like a fine jewel among ordinary stones and bits of glass, she sparkled with the radiance of her life. Any man would be priviledged to know her and be with her. I certainly was. A love once new has now grown cold.

A Love Like None Other

A love so fine
If it could only be mine
I grew to love her
It didn't matter where we were
The pleasure was way up high
To gaze into her eyes, she was so shy
But the beauty was deep
To gaze upon her asleep
Was to see everything
I could ever want

When You Find Someone You Love, But Can't Have

Sometimes you find someone you can love. You give that person everything you have to give and there is no holding back. The loved one gives everything they have and it makes your chest tight with the love that is growing within both of you. Suddenly, events occur that make no sense and you still love, but now it hurts. Nothing goes right for more than a few weeks and then, bang, you are dipped into the hurt and pain again, and again and again. Now it seems like where there was love, there is constant pain and pressure on you. You try harder and nothing changes. You are now in a constant swirl of effort that bears no fruit; just more hurt. It turns into anguish and you pretend nothing is wrong. If you speak about it, you only swirl in a faster losing downward cycle. You try to keep your head above water, but you feel a losing feeling like water filling your lungs. Now everything that was beautiful is now dark and dirty. You wait for the moment when your love, dreams, and even awareness of your loved one is now about to expire at the next rounding of an unknown corner of the relationship. Will this be the last time you go to your loved one's house? The last time you gaze upon your loved one's countenance? The last time you feel the excitement of the drive to your loved one? The sorrow when you leave? The moment of anguish is about to die like the flash of a just-lit match. Why did you prepare for the uptake of the love as it swirls and shimmers before your eyes in the beginning. The careful nurturing of your entwined loves as you so carefully move forward over time. When your love puts a requirement on you to perform in an impossible timeframe, you twist and spiral in a downward fall. Now, the moment of expirationn is momentarily upon you. Your breath gets tight and halting, escaping in staccato bursts. When does the axe fall, killing your love with the silent, swift slice of the blade as it drives its way home? When do you lie like a discarded carcass by the side of the road? To roar no more with the happiness of a love just founded. Looking forward to a growing love is now no more. What do you have left? Just memories of something that could have been, perchance for a lifetime. Now no more...

Today April 21st: What's it all about?

Seems like everything we have known is changing. The way we understand the world around us. The way we expect people to interact with us. The government. The economy. In the beginning of every century there is change: last century it was going from the horse and buggy to cars, etc. This century it is vast amounts of information, technology and relationships of every kind. Of course, this does not count the turmoil the world is reeling from in regards to the world economy and struggles within nations. In some form or another, these are factors that seem to be in turmoil anyway. A lot of times, we don't notice how things are changing around us because the changes happen so gradually and they are taken for granted. Some things, like finding someone to love, becomes more important than at other times. People acting stupidly, or wasting our time, has become less acceptable and more irritating. Communication is ranking up in importance and there are so many ways to interact with each other. Our time has become so much more valuable. We use to be willing to go out to hear music, even if we didn't know the band. Now, unless we know the band, or have been given a recommendation, we don't have the time or inclination to take our valuable time to chance hearing something we may not like. The pressure to be the most we can be seems to be most important. This was not always the way it was. People used to not pay so much attention, nor care as much as they do today. A lot of things used to be accepted, i.e. the Fifties way of a man's home being his castle, despite what he may be doing behind closed doors. This is no longer accepted and a lot of the puritanical ideas seem to be fading into the past. Sexual content and innuendo is more acceptable now. How will we use all this new found information and freedom? Who knows? Has the differentiation in the human race hit a point where it is so extreme and so open that we are not able to accept it? Has it become so well known the ability to accept has become more difficult? Who knows? Hang on kids, it is going to get wilder.