A Gift

"What is needed is not a change of circumstance, but a change of perception."

Someone really smart said that at some time, somewhere.  I haven't felt the meaning of that sentence so intensly for quite awhile .... until today.

Today a lovely friend reminded me that the second I get over how I'm feeling, I can start looking at other people's inner workings and appreciate how different we are.  Nothing is wrong unless I make it that way.  Every experience is an opportunity to appreciate myself and other people on a deeper level.

The other very insightful gift this friend gave me today: if I continue to close my heart the way I have been, people will continue to be a different version of themselves in my presence.  Energy naturally responds to energy.  I have seen this, and experienced this, over and over again.

Today I am set free by a few inspiring words from someone who is so not the average individual.  

Today I can finally see the gift in the disappearing act.

Today I can let it go.

Today I can accept ALL THINGS without judgement or shame.

Today is a new day and I am a more luminous, better version of myself on this day.

Today I have embraced The Gift.

Disappear

It happened again.  Another lover disappeared.  I've worked hard to choose ones that uphold integrity, honesty, communication.  I am so careful.  I screen, test, examine to make sure that THIS one won't just disappear.  

It happened again.

Silence is the worst kind of torture.  When someone yells in your face, at least you know what they think.  You know why.  There's no mystery. 

Silence.  What do I do with it?  I can make up any number of reasons why everything was cut off without warning.  But I can never really know.  With all of them, I have never really known.  Even the ones that have come back don't ever give me a straight answer.

I've gone to a lot of work to choose men who don't disappear.  And yet here I sit, in silence, with not a word to work with.

The good news: it's impossible to do anything but establish just a little bit more independence, strength, and knowing about who I am.

The sad news: I'm losing faith.  I had a gust of anxiety suddenly overtake me today in the middle of a store aisle.  I was frozen.  I didn't know what was happening until afterwards.  For a moment the numbness parted and the overwhelming fear was there.  Nothing else.  Only Fear.  I could feel how my heart walls are thicker than ever and I can't see any light through the seems.

The ironic thing: I am a disappearing act myself.  I have always had a tendency to disappear- with my friends, lovers, family.  I've worked even harder on this than on what kind of men I choose.  I've come a long way.  But even now, I sometimes unintentionally do it.  It happened just the other day and I was amazed.  In the middle of me wondering about the one who has disappeared from my life, someone was wondering why I had disappeared from theirs.

So I carry on.  Everything is connected.  And even now I know there is some sort of Divine Perfection inside all of it, especially if I can't see it.  I'm still unsure if this experience has opened my heart or caused it to close even more.  I guess I will know the next time I have the opportunity to enter into another risky scenario.  Without a doubt, I refuse to disappear.