Saturday, January 05, 2013

thoughts

A good friend commented on my blog, using different media, therefore not published comments... and his comments had me thinking back to old stuff and ....

what do I find physically attractive in a man? Ignoring his intellect, wacky wit, and just focusing on the physical... what attracts me? Cleanliness is huge. Not being a smoker is big. He needs to smell natural but clean and.... be very hairy. When I mentioned this to my husband he made a noise that was a cross between a snarf and a giggle. But it's true - I am attracted to very hairy men. As in rugs all over, front, back, limbs, feet, back of hands.... hair.

What else attracts me to a man would include his intellect, how he presents himself, cleanliness, very twisted sense of humour, and a unique balance between some aspects of John Wayne masculinity and outright androgyny.

Any questions?

Friday, January 04, 2013

a night of freaky dreams

It's morning. I just got up. I slept poorly due to freaky dreams. This post might not be the most coherent. You have been warned.

Dreams..... symbols including a higher level of consciousness regarding old issues, being in the dark (unable to turn the light on) but having the light come on spontaneously after, and using curtains to shield myself from the (perceived) judgemental glares of.... strangers? Former friends? I'm not exactly sure. geographically speaking would be former friends but bore no resemblance to actual people I know, just people whose prying eyes I didn't want on me. Not physical threat as only barrier was a curtain, not a locked door. Next dream involved driving over crumbling cobblestone bridges to a boat filled with decay and dead bodies - died from respiratory illness. Next dream involved the Chinese taking over our government and economy as current socioeconomic conditions caused government to collapse both here and in the US.

I am quite certain that the first dream relates to the post I wrote yesterday, specifically in relationship to the development of my sexuality. But I'm not entirely sure just how it relates, or what it is that I'm supposed to have learned from it - I obviously sorted something out subconsciously because the lights came on. The dream took place in the house I grew up in in Spruce Grove, more or less. I have had many dreams about that house, mostly having to do with needing to lock doors and shut blinds and curtains to keep bad out. Occasionally fleeing the house has also been involved. Because of that I'm not entirely certain what part of my consciousness that house symbolizes.

I have very little to go on for the other two dreams either. The one with all the dead people and crossing a crumbling bridge likely represents my own rebirth as a new me which will take place when my baby is born. I guess that one's not rocket science. But a decaying ship full of dead people? Really? Why'd my subconscious have to pick such a completely creepy symbol to tell me something I already know?

And the last dream? It's strange because I don't think of our economy from one day to the next. My microeconomy with my husband is somehow flourishing even though he's going to school in another city and the baby's about to be born and our only income for the next 2 months is (kinda sorta - I don't really understand how it works when I also make self-employment income) my EI... somehow we actually have enough money in the bank between us to cover emergencies. And I'm not concerned particularly with any economy outside of our own because no matter what happens, something will happen, people will move forward. We won't all just suddenly starve and die off because humanity is better than that, and I'd like to think we wouldn't all turn into looters immediately either. Then again, I have at least a month's worth of food stashed in my basement, so why would I be the least bit concerned?  So... last dream.... I have nothing to offer in terms of interpretation.

I think that's everything I had to say. I feel like I'm missing things but oh well. and feel free to comment and offer thoughts or suggestions too. I'm all ears.

Thursday, January 03, 2013

It gets better.

I just finished reading this post on one of my favourite blogs. (Incidentally, friend, I follow your blog too, but I'm not sure if Tumblr is able to count stats of followers from other parts of the blogosphere...)

Anyway...

it got me thinking. 20 years ago is a very long time, and I had to think hard about where I would have been in life. School, particularly early school, is confusing for me because I'm not sure which ages are associated with which grades, and with my birthday in January it means I was 2 ages for every grade. And I associate my elementary school years with grade levels as opposed to my age at the time. Therefore, this required some serious thinking.

Where was I when I was 12? What was my thing?

If I remember correctly, 12 was a rather significant winter for me, in that it was intensely frustrating. And the time I'm thinking of I actually would have been 11, but almost 12. It was just near the end of Christmas "holidays" and I was at an age where the whole staycation thing felt like it just went on too long. I couldn't tell you what I got for Christmas that year, although I'm sure it was awesome. And I'm pretty sure we ate turkey, which was also awesome.

Christmas in Spruce Grove. At the time (as I remember it) I had two real friends, neither of whom I went to school with, and a couple of "friends" at school, people I associated with but with whom I never felt entirely comfortable or certain of my status as friend.

This particular holiday I had invited one of my school "friends" over to play. I'm not entirely sure what we were doing but it involved her wanting something I was using, some sort of inflatable toy like a beach ball maybe? Anyway, she pulled on it while I was trying to inflate it, and as a result the air intake tugged rather sharply on my teeth which hurt quite a bit. This was after I'd asked her repeatedly to wait until I was finished. I responded by hitting. She responded by saying she had to leave.

I felt awful that the chain of events had finished with me hitting her, but at the same time, for whatever reason, she wasn't taking my polite requests seriously.

Looking back I wonder if that was maybe the first example of me having to defend my person against someone who wouldn't take no for an answer, and if perhaps I was so upset by it that it disarmed me against a couple of future entanglements....

I really hadn't thought this would get so deep, now that I'm getting into it.

20 years ago I learned that using violent means to stop an aggressor known to me as someone previously likeable would make me feel like an awful person for hurting the other.

I think this explains why I seemed to have a bottomless capacity for staying in really bad relationships.

(Three cheers for learning something about myself?)

I did eventually figure out how to not stay in bad relationships though. My marriage is amazing, and I honestly don't know what I'd do without my husband. I'm finally in a secure enough emotional space to be able to actually need my husband, as opposed to just being in love with him. And it's amazing to be okay with that.

But back to 20 years ago. The incident left me feeling completely awful. I was convinced I was somehow a bad person (as opposed to a good person who made a poor decision) and when my "friend" gave me the cold shoulder at school the following term, I felt very hurt. I didn't understand why she wouldn't talk about it with me so that we could both have a chance to explain ourselves, learn from our mistakes, and move on. Instead I spent a miserable, mostly friendless (at school) last part of grade 6. I could hardly wait to get to grade 7 and a different school than most of my classmates. It didn't mean making friends would be any easier, just that there would be new people to choose from.

I know how awful a period of life that whole coming of age time can be. But I survived it. And I did make friends. One of my grade 7 friends was maid of honour at my wedding. And as long as you're willing to accept yourself (or try to), learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others, and keep trying... it gets better. Twenty years past the age of 12 you'll be able to take a deep breath and know that it was all worthwhile because now is a pretty amazing time and place to be alive.