Deep Love & Who I Know

"What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?"~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer
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I'm falling in love again.
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With some important lessons finally learned.
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In 2006 I willingly welcomed myself to a state I called 'deep love.' JB and I had just moved here to #9, I had left my job to give 100% to writing my first book, I had started my blog only months earlier, and I was beginning to make room for the importance of friends.
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Since then I spent two plus years with more highs and lows than I'd ever experienced from one relationship in all my life, and I have spent the last two plus years trying to repair sad regret and harmful fallout from that relationship.

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In time I hope I will mostly see the blessings, and those were as real. I'm learning that deep connections don't end when a relationship ends. If left on its own the cord continues to hold two people together. I'm learning this from a wonderful woman who is both friend and teacher.

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A friend and I once joked that maybe hearts can bounce instead of break. I do think Resiliency is underrated. But my heart broke. It did. What was my part? I jumped too quickly. I allowed myself to feel adored. I became intoxicated by passion. I was naive. I (probably) chose the wrong person.

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But.

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Still.

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Here I am again, feeling very much like I'm surrounded by "deep love" again. I hope this time I'll let things be and get it right, because I know in my bones that love and loving is at its core everything that matters.

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I can't remember another time when I've had so many wonderful people in my life. All ages, all backgrounds, all perspectives, kind and h0norable and interesting and talented people.

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None perfect.

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I spent last weekend with some writing friends I've known now for five years. Several stay at my house twice a year, we laugh over breakfast, in our pajamas even; we write, we talk about the world, we sing. I know how to recognize a good friend when I spot one. I'm lucky in that regard.

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I have a friend from work who makes me laugh my ass off--she's so irreverent, and smart as in PhD-still-working-on-the-dissertation. Another knows every laborious detail of my screwed up parts and I know hers back. And how sweet and honest and comfortable is this: I can't even remember who recently said to me, with a delightful absence of judgement, about said relationship above, "kj, how can you be so together and so fucked up?"

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In the last year I have made two wonderful friends and I love learning who they are. I met both through this blog. How many times do I remind myself that it's important to have in-person friends, not just blog friends, and it's so true, but god, the friends I've made from the blogs...

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I could go on but no need. For whatever reason I've heard a lot of talk this week about 'What's it all about?' Honestly, I don't know. I don't know why I'm so vulnerable some times and I don't exactly know what's expected of me here on this planet.

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But I know there are many many good people in my life. I haven't even mentioned JB and my Jessica and my Mom and my family. That's everything right there. But there is MORE. Relationships that challenge and teach and astonish me. I think I am reaching the edges of Deep Love again.

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I am not interested in asking if I'm a good person or if I am good enough. I am.

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So there. I'm wanting to live that way. That's my answer to every question. For all of 2011. And maybe longer, even. :)

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love

kj