To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer. Not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness.
- Woody Allen
As most of you know, the past year and a half has been a bit of a...well, "challenge" would be a bit of an understatement, but we'll go with that. After all, I don't want get all melodramatic here, because I don't have anything with me to clean up the mess. Work with me here, and I'll try not to confuse you...or put you to sleep.
Divorce is an ugly, life-changing, gut-wrenching event under the best of circumstances. I can speak to this truth, because I've been through two. Not what I would have thought I'd have endured at this point in my life, but there you have it. You might think, and not without some justification, that I'd be somewhat reluctant (dare I say "gun shy"??) to put myself in a position where I could in goodconscience risk getting hurt. Again. Am I stupid? Do I not learn lessons? Am I a masochist? Or am I just not willing to let go of what hope and optimism has yet to be beaten out of me?
Over the past year and a half I've been hurt. A lot. Hey, a lot of it I've brought on myself, and I have only myself to blame for that. So why, then, would I even consider putting myself in a position where it could possibly happen again? How the Hell would I know?? Well, actually, I do know. There's still a part of me not willing to let life beat me down. Apparently, I'm still naive and optimistic enough to think that good things can still happen to me. ;-)
We all want to be happy. We all want to feel valued and needed. We all want to feel as if we're important to someone. Well, OK...so I probably shouldn't presume to speak for the entire human race. I have enough trouble speaking for myself in most cases. Even so, I still want these things. Now I find myself in a position where maybe, just maybe, something good might be happening to me, even after all the crap I've been through, and I almost don't know what to do. So...rather than try to figure out whatever it is I think I'm "supposed" to be doing, I'm going to do the only sensible thing I can think of. I'm going to relax, enjoy the ride, and see where it takes me...because, really, why not? While I'm at it, maybe I'll also try to lose the conviction that good things really don't happen to me. I'm done censoring myself, and I'm going to try to be done with the idea that I don't deserve what so many others seem to have in their lives. Why not? Why the Hell not? I may not know what I may not know, but that doesn't mean I can't relax, enjoy the adventure, and allow it to unfold as it may.
To be continued...hopefully.... ;-)
