If my life was a romantic comedy...

....right about now is when my first love would move back to town, having just ended a long term relationship and he would call me up.

Which is exactly what just happened, except for the phone call since these are the days of Facebook, so he friended me instead.

Can you believe this?

How do I know this is part of a romantic comedy that the Universe has scripted out for me? Because after years (and I mean years) of wondering what would happen if Tim ever came back into my life, I am involved with a man who is 1) Tim's opposite, and 2) really really really good for me. He has, actually, made me realize what a good relationship is. In fact, things JUST got more serious with my P.O.I. when Tim called. Well, friended me. Whatever. You know what I mean.

And all I can do is laugh.

There was a day when I would have dropped everything if I thought it would make Tim love me. The thing is I loved Tim but I didn't love me. I was that girl. I wanted him to fix me, to define me. To somehow redeem me.

Well, that was a long time ago.

My P.O.I. was here for several days over Thanksgiving and it couldn't have been lovelier. Normally I get kind of twitchy when someone else is in my space for more than a couple days but I didn't feel that way at all. In fact, I loved having him here. He fixed my stove and we watched football and talked about my freelance project and ate pho and spent time with family and friends and I enjoyed every single minute of it. I liked it so much that I promoted him. He's no longer a "person of interest" - he's my "significant other"* and on Christmas I'm flying back East** to spend almost three weeks with him. Yay!

So things there are good*** and I'm happy. And then I got this friend request. It's hilarious.

Had this happened two months ago I'd probably be pretty jittery. What does he want? Why is he back? What will he think of me?

But I'm not that girl anymore. And it's not just because of my P.O.I. - no, wait, my S.O. - it's because of ME. It's because I know who I am. I don't need anyone else to fix me or define me - I've done those things for myself.

Will I get together with Tim? Probably. It's been a long time and I want to close this chapter in my life. We might open a new chapter of friendship, but we might not and I'm not worried about it either way.

Because I'm way more interested in the new chapter that begins when I board the plane to Albany on Christmas day.****

*I know that still sounds vague, but it's not, really. He's significant and he's my "other" so the title fits. He's happy with this promotion and I'm glad about that.
**Albany. It's 19 there right now.
***In fact, I'd say they're really good. Yes, that's right. Really good.
****With every warm piece of clothing I own packed in my suitcase.

I tried procrastinating and got a sign

I am at home working on my freelance project and it is tedious right now. I feel like I'm going 'round and 'round with the same bits of data, but there's so much, it's just hard to sort through and I feel like I'm moving at a glacial pace, which is frustrating. I am dying to get this project done with and I know I have to get through this part to get to the end - I'm not 100% sure how to get through this, which is what is what stymies me.

So I went decided to procrastinate a bit - I went online and read my horoscope and you need to see what I found. Are you ready for this? Here's what it says:

Things may not be progressing at the rate you'd like them to, but at least you're making significant headway. It might be tempting to give up on projects that have been a long time in the making, but you're closer to completion that you think you are. Buckle down and really focus on what you have to do. The more you put off the tedious, more painstaking steps of the process, the longer it will be until you complete it and can finally wash your hands of the whole thing.

One one hand I feel like such a dope, like the Universe really has to knock me over the head with messages. But on the other hand, I kind of like the clarity here.

So I'm off to find index cards and try organizing this data a different way. Again. And I'll keep trying until I get it right, which will happen. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

Dreams lately

Last week's dreams were all around the theme of excavation and construction. The only one I remember specifically involved me at a luxury resort (somewhere tropical). I was walking around the grounds and came around a corner to see a big hole that had been dug in the ground and a huge mound of dirt beside it. The hole - the pit - was so big I was sure some sort of heavy machinery had been involved in its creation, though none were within view.

I turned to a person who worked there and asked what they were building. She looked at me and asked "what do you think we should do?"

"I think the first think you should build is a bridge" I said, looking at the huge hole. "Let's get started on that and then make a plan for the long term."

It went something like that.

That's kind of how my freelance project feels right now - I feel like my client has just dug this huge hole over the past several years - they've just been digging and digging and digging because it's what they've always done (and what their past leadership instructed them to do) and now they have this huge hole and they don't know what to do with it and don't know how to do anything different but dig. It's like they've all put down their shovels for the first time and are looking at me, asking "what do we do now?"

The first thing we're going to do is build a bridge. I'm going to give them a short term plan so that this massive crater isn't blocking their progress anymore. And then I'm going to take all the hopes and dreams that they've shared with me, all the ideas and suggestions and ambitions and complaints, and I'm going to use them to create a plan for what comes next.

After the construction dreams came one in which someone I've never met hires me out of the blue. She sends me a check and a three-year contract to do work that I'm going to love, that will give me flexibility, room to grow and pay me well.

I've decided to take these both as signs of things to come. I am stressing about finishing my freelance project (due on 12/23) but I'm trying to just put that aside, be present here and now, do the work for which I was hired and worry about the future in the future.

This Little Bird

I've been having vivid dreams the past week and they've all been about my freelance project and me wondering what's coming next. All of them are some variation on discovering a big challenge and realizing that I'm the one who can help make things right. I used to have terrible anxiety dreams in which I felt helpless and that's not the case anymore, I'm glad to say. I just wish my dreams would tell me exactly what was going to happen next, you know?

In the mean time, the song "Little Bird" by Annie Lennox has been in my head a lot lately. I've known and loved this song for years, especially this one part:

They always said that you knew best but
This little bird's fallen out of that nest now
I've got a feeling that it might have been blessed so
I've just got to

put these wings

to test

It wasn't until just today that I understood that this passage isn't some far-off aspiration for someone else but it is, in fact, instructions. For me.

I don't know what made me notice this morning how many little birds I have around me but it made me smile when I realized that there are little birds in every room of my house. There's a tiny little crystal bird on the kitchen windowsill. There's a red bird-shaped box in my bedroom. And here at my desk is this print, which I love like crazy.

I don't know what's coming next. I'm anxious in many ways about what I'm doing with my life. But I know with absolute certainty that I will be fine. I just have to keep moving forward and follow where my interests lead me until I find the place I'm supposed to be next. Because I've got a feeling that I might have been blessed. I have always felt that way.

Now I've just got to put these wings to test.

What I used to think

Until about four years ago I believed that I was unlovable.

I believed I wasn't worthy of love, I didn't deserve it, that I was strong and didn't need it, which was good because I was never going to have it. I thought everyone else got to have whole, healthy love and I got whatever was leftover.

It's not something I said out loud or even said directly to myself, but I believed it as the truth. Isn't that sad? It hurts me to write it.

Now I don't believe any of that stuff anymore, but I did for a really really long time. Funny thing is I thought I was "cured" when I changed the message in my head. I didn't realize that changing the message itself isn't enough - nobody told me I also had to change the way I react to being loved. If I didn't do that, I'd still react badly to love but I'd be even more confused (and confusing to others) because even though I truly believed I could be loved and that I deserved to be loved, I didn't act that way.

That's been the lesson of late.

I think it's because my reaction to love had become instinctual based on the bad old messages. Anyone who expressed interest in me was immediately suspect. I was instantly on guard, sure that there was something wrong with them, otherwise how could they like someone as clearly broken as me?

Before I go on, let me say for the record, I am talking only about men. This unlovableness did not extend to women friends and you, dear souls, are the ones reading here. So it is important to me that you know how much I love being loved by you and how grateful I am that you all let me love you back because it is from all of you that I learned to love and be loved, which for me, was no small feat.

But I am writing this because it has come up a lot lately and I have had some moments I would describe as not among my finest.

I know now that it's not enough to change the message - I have to actually listen to the new message and behave accordingly and I can do that. It doesn't come easy, but that's okay. I can do it. I want to do it. Because I am infinitely lovable. I am.

I get to have love. I get to be loving. And it is all very very good. I understand that now, and even if my actions don't quite show it right away, they will.

Thank you all for patiently and generously loving me all this time.

xoxo

PS - the owl in the photo was carved by the sculptor Cabot Lyford and stands in Piper's parents' house in Maine. Isn't he marvelous?

I'm still here...

...but I feel like I'm at capacity right now, between my freelance project and my P.O.I, both of which are stretching me,* so I have not done much writing or reflecting here.

But an interesting thing happened last Friday (yes, in yoga) - my teacher Nicole who usually asks if there are particular things we want to work on, did not ask. Instead, she said "I have a big class planned tonight." Then she looked straight at me. "I'm glad you're here" she said, "I picked a pose just for you" and she told us the night's theme:

Fear.
Facing fear. Sitting with fear.
Working through the things that scare us.

The pose she had picked for me is more of a transition than a pose - it's moving from standing still to a backbend by "dropping back." Imagine that you're standing upright, arms at your sides, when you start to lean back. You begin to arch back and tilt your head looking for the floor and only when you see the floor** do you raise your arms over your head and then plant them on the floor where they catch you in the position of a backbend.***

I told Nicole a while back that dropbacks scare me. But I know (and I told her) that's partly because when you learn to do them, you learn with a partner. The partner plants his/her forearms at your waist/hips and really holds you down. They help you feel like your feet won't just fly out from under you as you lean back. To do the transition - to drop back into backbend - you have to trust that your partner has you.

It didn't matter who I was paired with - I used to hate dropbacks because I never trusted that someone else had me. But, as with most things that I've tried to pin on someone else - this fear wasn't about my partner, really. It was about me. I didn't trust my own ability to work with a partner. I was actually less afraid to try dropping back on my own than I was to try it with someone else spotting me.

When faced with partner dropbacks, the bad radio station in my head would switch on automatically and blare all sorts of noise:

No partner will be able to spot me.
I'm too heavy for anyone to help me.
I can't do this pose.
I'm going to do it wrong.
It will be embarrassing for this partner to be working with me.
I should just do this on my own so that I spare everyone else the embarrassment of working with me.
I don't really need to do this pose anyway. I'm not that good a yogi.

And all sorts of other nonsense.

It really addled me because the messages weren't just about yoga, they were about life. And this anti-dependence, this inability to accept help, the idea that I wasn't a good partner and the complete resistance to partnerships of any sort - all became "normal" to me.

But they're not normal at all.

I feel like I keep learning this lesson over and over and my poor P.O.I. gets to experience a good bit of it these days, but the good news is that I am growing. I am stretching. I really am not that person anymore - I just have to keep learning how to be the new me - the real me - the one who can and wants to collaborate, partner, contribute and receive - in all parts of my life until that becomes the new normal.

And it will.

Here's how I know: when it came time for someone to demonstrate dropbacks in class last Friday, Nicole turned to me. "Are you game?" she asked. "Yes." I said, "absolutely." Then I stood up, trusted Nicole, and dropped backward from standing tall into a backbend.

Twice.****

Do I remember a single thing about the actual experience? No. Not this time. But next time I will be more aware and I'll be even more aware the time after that.

Because I know how to accept help (in yoga, at least, but that's a great place to start and practice things that are new.) In class and in life I am learning to trust my partners and, to my great surprise:

I am discovering that having - and being - a good partner is actually more grounding and more liberating than doing everything by myself ever could be.

Which, for a girl who is used to doing ABSOLUTELYEVERYSINGLETHINGALLONHEROWN

is progress, indeed.

*In great ways, both, but it's a lot.
**yes, it's as terrifying as it sounds. Your arms are at your side until what feels like the very last minute so you spend at least a couple seconds thinking you're going to fall backward onto your head.
***It's the kind of thing we did when we were kids. You know, back when we were tiny, pliable and fearless.
****woo hoo!

total non sequitur - Owl In A Box

Shout out to my sister Megan who emailed this link to me today:

Owl in a box

It's a post from a woman who rescued a Great Horned Owl from the side of the road. Her photos crack me up - he does not look pleased to be in a box.

Enjoy!