Rain, Service Projects, Old Boyfriends and Whirling Dervishes

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2009/rumi/particulars.shtml

Lot of things on my mind as I start up this day.

I'm just going to bullet them out for now...

Getting ready to go to the BYU Women's Conference. Time to recharge the battery packs of light and love everlasting. I always look forward to it and usually end up with a posse of friends and family that go with me. This year I am alone. Haven't gone alone for a long, long time. Lots of introspection time no doubt. I'm looking forward to the service projects the most this year and the 20,000 women singing together...yeah...that will goose-bump you right into the next day.

Loving working at the new job. It's mostly women in the leadership positions. I'm enjoying this. It is a big change from everything else I've done. I like it because women, while you have different personalities and blah, blah, blah and etc. usually think very similarly when it comes to the needs and desires of children and how things should be run where they are concerned. I have enjoyed not having to deal with men and all of their testosterone. Love men, but don't mind not working much with them right now.

Men make women messy...no offense...but it's true. Speaking of...

Got sandblasted from the past a couple of days back by an old boyfriend with a complicated past. That has been interesting--definitely knocked me back on my heels a bit. You would think 20 years would be enough to get over something--to put it firmly on a shelf in the past with a little note saying "Note to self: These are not the droids you're looking for. Don't look here...and definitely don't open this can of worms back up!"--apparently not. Apparently the stab and twist to the heart of a grand lost love, even if you were just a kid when it happened, always feels a little bruised when you poke at it with little memory sticks no matter how long ago it was. Probably because that level of rejection is a great blow to the heart and to the ego.

Let me briefly set the stage: I was 21 (and had loved him since 18) and everything is a drama when you're young.

Me...at about this time...

At the time, I was devastated, but also knew that it was permanently over. Not once did I ever doubt that. My best friend and another close friend and I dropped him off after a weekend together. I laid down in the back of the car and I sobbed my great broken heart all the way home. My girlfriends shushing and whispering "What happened? What happened??" and I could say nothing more than "It's over--it's over." Dreams crashing and burning to nothing but ashes all the while. I cried for 3 days straight. I couldn't get around it, but at the same time knew that there was no going back. There was nothing for it. He was gone and we were all moving on.

Anyone who has ever loved greatly and lost it, knows that time heals. New love heals. Being happy and returning to routine and life heals. And so it did. I moved on, like I knew I would. I found a new grand love and my pain faded into the past as love bloomed again within my heart and I moved on.

As a completely human side note, which no doubt many would understand--I would be a liar if I said that in the beginning, and on occasion through the early years if I didn't hope and eventually wonder if he realized he was wrong and still pined for me through the years. It didn't matter that I had moved on and was happy, but dammit--he should hurt too!! He had been wrong and he should regret it!! LOL Ahhhh the bruised ego of a slighted girl...you know the line...Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...yeah...well Shakespeare was right...at least a little bit. ;)

For the most part though--even from the beginning, I hoped that he found whatever it was he was looking for that was not me. We were friends and lovers, how could I love so deeply, and despite loss not still hope that somehow, somewhere he found happiness? I'm not so cold...and so I wished him well and now here we are.

Anyway...who knows why he looked me up now or what he was/is looking for. It's a moot point though because I doubt he would tell the truth if asked directly about it and it doesn't really matter anyway. I think it's the "40-ish" age group. Looking at where you are, where you were, and wondering what has happened in the in between.

I'll tell you what has happened in the in between--it's no great mystery as I have recently discovered myself. Life happened. And most of us didn't expect a lot of it. Should you have made other choices? Did you make the right choices? WHY did I make that particular choice? I know...we've all been through that whole rigmarole.

Everyone has perplexities, consternations, regrets, wonderings, and if wishes were fishes we'd all have a fry. The coulda, shoulda, woulda train is not one that is even ride-able. Going back in time never works. Hindsight is skewed with what you know to be now and...anyway, you can never go home...you can never go back...nothing is ever the same. All there is, is moving forward--packing your little hobo kerchief bag of regrets on it's stick over your shoulder as you make your way to the next train.

Time marches on and waits for no man and no matter what has or has not been, you need to keep moving along and make the best of where you are and decide where you want to go, or else your next pit stop at 50 is going to royally suck.

Anyway--so there you have it. The whirling dervish of my brain this morning. It's raining on top of it all...which I love...but is definitely perfect for introspection and contemplation.

http://wyong.ses.nsw.gov.au/Big_photos.htm