Deep Thinking...

[Lady_Kit]

thank you, Lady, for sharing your reality...your nemesis of self-doubt.
what i see? maybe, just maybe you are much stronger than you give yourself credit for...maybe, just maybe your color, your truth is that the shape of your world is getting to be just what you need it to be.
BRAVA~~~~

Hey, you & Lucky have shared your love, success, and sexual escapades (well not as many of those as I'd like, but then I'm an awful voyeur) so I feel safe in baring a bit of my soul to you (yes, I know we're not alone, but I'm also a closet exhibitionist). Maybe I am stronger than I think. I've always figured that it wasn't strength, or willful acts on my part that got me through, I just had no choice. I was the only adult in my marriage, and my kids needed me. Ya know? I think that a lot of women just do what they do, Big Girls Don't Cry and all that. At least we don’t cry when anyone who depends on us can see the tears.

Life is what you make it, isn't it. I'm trying to make mine better, but the urge to sacrifice for everyone else is strong. I combat that with Godiva chocolate instead of the cheap stuff. It isn't much, but it’s a start.

Kit

 

[Recidiva]

I think of the heart like a will 'o the wisp. You'd better follow it or it's lost. It's dangerous out there, but...danger is better than regret, I think, within reason. I'm a deeply reasoned person so that's always part of it, but every time my heart has deeply desired something that I'd have to reach for, I've reached out. Even or especially when I wasn't at all sure of the outcome or wasn't the slightest bit clear on where the resources would come from.

Now I get to have enough things so my life is full, and I very rarely wonder "I wonder if..."

The things I can't follow now are smaller whims, where I wonder what it would be like for an hour if I...

I don't go there because I value my life so much, and I got there by following my heart. Will 'o the wisp into the dark when you're already in the dark is different from wandering down funny-smelling alleys when you've built something beautiful and you're just kinda curious...

Mystery has soundly kicked my ass at times, but mostly when my ass needed kicking if I was going to get up and be a whole person.

I have a million places I'd love to be at once, of course...but no place like home. Many times in my life I've felt like I was just in the wrong place...with the wrong people...but I don't feel that way any more, so there's no pull to elsewhere or elsewhen or elsewho.

If something makes absolutely clear that it belongs to you and you want it enough to make sacrifices, reach out with both hands and all of your heart.

I think regret is when you know you were a coward in the face of something that had your name on it.

I don't have any regrets.

 

[rgraham666]

What holds me back is lack of faith.

I don't believe in myself. And more importantly, I don't believe in our society.

 

[neonlyte]

I am reading a book that has me in deep thought. I have been thinking about missed opportunities but not true regret.

Passage from Dancing Naked At the Edge of Dawn:

"... Some part of myself that had risen up to see if it was safe to escape, to chase after a dream, to live how it wanted to live had crawled back down right inside of me, but only to a deeper place. I closed my eyes in that bed and saw myself as a real woman, a defined woman, as a woman of the world might see me, and I pulled the covers around my head in an embarrassed, hurried movement that I hoped would make me invisible..."

I wonder if anyone feels like I do. I feel that I have reached a point in my life where I can look back and see, really see, the choices I have made and the reasons for them...good, bad, or indifferent.
What is holding you back, or for that matter, what? Remember when you were 16 and the future seemed endless and possibilites were wrapped about you like a fine spider's web, ready for you to crawl or fly into? Did you let yourself become ensnared or did you fly into that realm?
Quickly, think of one thing you need to do for you today....will you do it? why or why not?

~v, deep in thought

When I look back across my life and the path I took I'm aware most of all that I was able to exercise choice, this is something I have not appreciated until very recently, where the right to choose has been effectively taken from my grasp. We make thousands of choices each day, tiny ones with little or no significance, and big ones whose impact may not be felt for years, even decades, and we take the luxury of choice as a given, not always appreciating or understanding that for some there is no choice.

So the one thing I'm going to do for me today is to count my blessings for the choices I made and my freedom to choose.

 

[SeaCat]

Looking back at me when I was sixteen? Oh what a formative year that was for me. I had just turned sixteen and had bought and fixed up a car, (my first,) and was on top of the world. I had taken two longish drives in that car, one to New Hampshire and one to Maine. Driving home from school I had the misfortune of driving through an intersection at the same time as a drunk driver. I never saw him. I woke up several days later in Mass. General and was informed that I was lucky to be alive but I might never walk again. I was paralyzed from the neck down. (Talk about terror, be sixteen and have absolutely no controll over your body. Go from being horny, energetic, and unstoppable to having people cleaning your shit away from your body because you can't do it.)

182 days later I beat the odds by walking out of there under my own power. While I was there though I had what I can only describe as an epiphany of sorts. I realized that life was something to be enjoyed. When I walked out of that hospital I was intent on living life to its fullest and enjoying every part of it because you truly don't know when your time will be up.

I have slowed down somewhat but I surely haven't stopped. Every now and then i take the time to look back at what I have done and wonder if there was anything I would have done differently. Sometimes I think that if only I had stayed in school my life would be better now. Once in a while I think about what would have happened if...... but then I realize that if I had done things differently I most likely wouldn't have met my wife. I wouldn't be living in Florida, and I probably wouldn't be happy. Don't get me wrong I do have regrets about things I did or didn't do, but I can honestly say there is nothing I would change. (Yes there are still a lot of things I want to try, and I will keep on trying new things and enjoying life until they push me over. )

Cat

Vella, keep on thinking dear, but don't forget to dream.

 

[cantdog]

Cat,

I am amazed and humbled to hear this story.

Thank you.

 

[Guest]

it has been very awesome to get a peak into some of you viewpoints...some of the things that have shaped the way you are now.
there is a raw energy, a fascination within me with how what we do really does make a difference in the world. i know it seems like minutae...and alot of it is but really, if i bend over to pick up a piece of trash and a baseball narrowly misses my head...ive just avoided a concussion...or making a descision not to take a certain roda while driving home and avoiding a massive pile up. maybe its a subconscience thing...i dont know. im rambling. sorry. just many thoughts tumbling together in the clothes drier i call my brain.

 

[Recidiva]

iim rambling. sorry. just many thoughts tumbling together in the clothes drier i call my brain.

Hey, your brain sounds like my brain! Maybe we have each others' missing socks!

 

[Guest]

Hey, your brain sounds like my brain! Maybe we have each others' missing socks!

i cant wear socks after seeing what my ex did with them.
*cringe*

 

[Recidiva]

i cant wear socks after seeing what my ex did with them.
*cringe*

Now I'm curious but scared. What if they show up in my dryer.

 

[Guest]

Now I'm curious but scared. What if they show up in my dryer.

bleach.
or toss them and start from the beginning

 

[Recidiva]

bleach.
or toss them and start from the beginning

Fine. Now I'm not going to wear socks. Dryer solidarity.

 

[Guest]

Fine. Now I'm not going to wear socks. Dryer solidarity.

just remember that is a choice that may have consequences. dont come running to me if you cut your foot, get gangreen and have to have an amputation. you have been warned!

socks are the debil.

 

[Recidiva]

just remember that is a choice that may have consequences. dont come running to me if you cut your foot, get gangreen and have to have an amputation. you have been warned!

socks are the debil.

It's true, I love bare feet. Unfortunately I also have low blood pressure so I'm always frickin' freezing. I have four animals so there's usually something nasty on the floor. My feet have been ripped up so many times cause i wouldn't wear shoes in rickety barns, going on midnight walks...but I can't bear an oogy on tile. Go figure. Now I live near fire ants. They win. My love of nature has been overcome by the fact that nature can really kick my ass. My love of the feel of things on my feet has been overcome by most of them working out to be yucky. My desire for contact with the world has had to bow to the fact that it usually leaves me cold.

Oh me oh my oh walking contradictions!

 

[rgraham666]

"That's the problem with nature. There's always something crawling or drooling mucus on you." Calvin as in Calvin and Hobbes.

 

[Blackie Malone]

bumping out of obscurity.

 

[Guest]

first step is to admit, yes?
fine.
i admit i need to let go more often. i dont need to say yes if i really want to say no. i dont have to do everything on my own.
compassion colors everything i do and sometimes it hurts but i cant stop. wont stop. this might be my undoing but i think ive chosen this path long ago and am just now understanding some of it.
i love you
i dont know you.

 

[Recidiva]

first step is to admit, yes?
fine.
i admit i need to let go more often. i dont need to say yes if i really want to say no. i dont have to do everything on my own.
compassion colors everything i do and sometimes it hurts but i cant stop. wont stop. this might be my undoing but i think ive chosen this path long ago and am just now understanding some of it.
i love you
i dont know you.

There are people that understand this and will return that sort of love.

There are people that will never believe they could be that deeply loved and that in itself is the full tragedy of loving people so deeply.

 

[SeaCat]

Cat,

I am amazed and humbled to hear this story.

Thank you.

CantDog,

it is nothing to be either amazed or humbled by. It is just a little thing called life. As I see it you can either wander lost through life while crying about what might have been or you can walk through it with your head held high. I'm a proud one, I prefer to hold my head up.

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

There are people that understand this and will return that sort of love.

There are people that will never believe they could be that deeply loved and that in itself is the full tragedy of loving people so deeply.

In order to truly love another you must first love yourself. Unfortunately too many people don't truly love themselves. the tragedy is that they lie to themselves about this and end up hurting both themselves and others.

When you reach the point in your life that you love yourself then you realize some simple truths. Your love does not need to be limited to one person, in fact it grows stronger the more people you love. Love is not something you can controll, it has it's own logic. Love is the most powerful of all emotions, it is stronger even than hate or greed. It will make you do things you never thought possible.

Cat

 

[cheerful_deviant]

My spirit is fed by what I’ve learned from my mind and body. I’m a firm believer that the connection of all three is key to my existence. My aches and pains remind me of my mortality, my religious viewpoints are defined by my moral beliefs and my logic in necessitating a journey into unknown spiritual planes and exploring faith in my own tentative way. I need only to interweave this all into the fabric of my existence and become whole and healed.

Abs, in case I've never said it before, I'm saying it again, you're one of the most brilliant and fascinating people I have ever met.

 

[Recidiva]

In order to truly love another you must first love yourself. Unfortunately too many people don't truly love themselves. the tragedy is that they lie to themselves about this and end up hurting both themselves and others.

When you reach the point in your life that you love yourself then you realize some simple truths. Your love does not need to be limited to one person, in fact it grows stronger the more people you love. Love is not something you can controll, it has it's own logic. Love is the most powerful of all emotions, it is stronger even than hate or greed. It will make you do things you never thought possible.

Cat

The first little shreds of compassion, when you hold onto them, can lead to despair, but eventually it really leads to an endless wellspring if not of understanding, then of forgiveness.

There's so much we don't know, so much we can't control, so much we're ignorant about.

When you realize the same thing of other people, first you can be disappointed, then you despair and forgive, and then that's just the way it is and you can't imagine it being any other way for anyone else.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

bump in the hopes that others are deep in thought today.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Blackie Malone]

bump