Posts by SPAZnik

The last time I had friends that were driving me nuts with how their relationship drama was impacting me, I first stated explicitly what I was observing a few times, then I threatened "divorce" (but only when I meant it, and only once).

Changes were forthcoming pretty quick.

7

I was a very bad boy!

by asilentone in

when i was about 10 or 11, i was at the district assembly, there was a brother that gave me a lecture after i was misbehaving, i gave him the middle finger, he was very shocked and my mom slapped on my hand.

.

SPAZnik

that's pretty funny

14

My madly in love friend and what it teaches us about Jehovah's Witnesses

by neverendingjourney in

jw
friends

i have a friend (non-jw) who's fallen for a girl who's no good.

she's very pretty, but has been coddled since she was an infant.

the girl is 25 years old and her mother still does all of her laundry, pays for her credit card, and comes over to clean her apartment periodically.

SPAZnik

if that guy was my friend i'd be doing everything i could to snap him out of it.

there's nothing like increased awareness of other options to help a person get over it.

from the sounds of that wench it wouldn't take much from another girl for him to start feeling like he's being treated well and realizing what he's really been missing.

it's that or a nanny cam'd convo with the hellion gal. the irrefutable truth may set him free. :o)

finding a guy to take battleax off his hands would be a good thing.

or at least get your friend to go on a nice long holiday so that the girl can do without him for a while.

the funny thing is, the day she decides she finally falls for your friend, he'll probably have already moved on without her even realizing it.

20

love, ideally

by SPAZnik in

show me that you love me.

show me that you know how little it is we all really know about love.

show me how to love you.

SPAZnik

A living, vivid experience is to a photograph what an intense emotion is to words .... Even though the words don’t contain the intended meaning, they do adequately convey the essence being described.

Thank you.

20

love, ideally

by SPAZnik in

show me that you love me.

show me that you know how little it is we all really know about love.

show me how to love you.

SPAZnik

Tank - not sure if you're still around here but wanted to say your comment about looking for love not a man was very profound. Sometimes I think we can forget or lose sight of the fact that love is so much more than a person, place, or thing. it's more like an ocean of emotion ... or maybe all the water systems in the world and we be de beach-dwelling fire-lighting surfers. except when we're landlocked of course.
thx again for sharing that, i loved it.

20

love, ideally

by SPAZnik in

show me that you love me.

show me that you know how little it is we all really know about love.

show me how to love you.

SPAZnik

free2think - thx so much sweetie! that which spawned this was very moving indeed.

rebel8 - oy.

((((Twitch))))

Alpaca - Thank you. You are right about not shrugging it off. At the risk of getting biblical ... it reminds me of jonah when i do that LOL. I still struggle with that, but I'm making friends with it. Yes, I have heard of Oriah :) I listened to "the Dance" once. Thanks for sharing that link. I think it is a perfectly timed reminder. Maybe I will listen to "the Call" next. thank you, Alpaca.

JohnDoe - You sound like you know what you're talking about. I was secretly imagining ... (hoping?) you (someone) would challenge me on that. LOL I do it no justice when I try to deny it. It's damn hard not to feel inadequate when you are unexpectedly staring your own love in the face and it knows you so well you feel naked with every glance and when you know it so well you are simultaneously powerless against it and empowered by it and you just have to be brave in the face of that which you know could destroy you in a heartbeat if it found you wanting. But that is part of the beauty of it. It loves you inspite of all the inadequacies that millions of others wouldn't give you the time of day over. It comes at you from every direction it can until you get the message. It even prepares you in advance. It reveals itself to you, honestly. I never thought I was a liar and then all this emotion came out of nowhere and I didn't know how to handle it or what was even happening and I found myself wondering if I'd been lying all along, to myself. You know when it's telling you the truth and when it's hearing a lie. It knows when we are receptive to it or trying to hide in plain sight. It knows and we know. And it's just patient and enduring with us. There is no doubt. It's hard not to vomit though when you've been starving and then are forced to consume your just desserts. It's also hard not to end up just like Romeo and Juliet in certain politically ridiculous circumstances. It was blindsiding. It was karmic. It was scary as hell and as beautiful as paradise. I had all but given up on it so it rattled my cage. It rattled lots of cages. I wasn't prepared for the shame of that because I hadn't even realized I had given up. LOL. It may have been true and cognizant or selfishness and a projection. It may also have been genuine and riled the jealousies or fear or selfishness of others who fear it is too small to share or who disrespect it because they don't know or trust it yet. Or perhaps because they mirror that one small doubt within myself. Whatever it was, I didn't want to be a guinea pig or a pawn. Is that selfish pride or is that wisdom and humility about how much I can handle? Maybe a bit of both. We sometimes presume to judge that our human emotions like pride are somehow a bad thing. Perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, perhaps they are only meant for certain circumstances. Just like lying. When a small lie can reveal a greater truth. And just like lying, when we accept that we were given a lie as camouflage just like a chameleon is given its camouflage. We are animal too. It's the god thing we get wrong sometimes, doing the right thing for the wrong reason and doing the wrong thing for the right reason.

I wondered myself about the pride thing, but ultimately it seems it was just plain as day honesty, which I was duly rewarded for. I could only do my best and let my actions speak where words failed me. There is no being equal to love. It's impossible to be honest about everything at once. It ends up looking like this post and of itself being overly proud in it selfish desire to be understood rather than it's caring thoughtful desire to share. It ends up being mistaken for insanity. LOL What good is that? I could only do my best to stand and breathe. There are just unspeakable things you see and know sometimes and when that sustains itself over time, you can only surrender. Amazing things happen. We rode it out. We lived. We knew we would. We don't need to talk about it. We just know. We both learned and healed, unspeakably. Sounds insane, but has to be communicated that way, out of love or at least honesty. Probably I should keep some dignity. But I think there IS dignity in being honest and in sharing. And I honestly have a long ways to go yet in many ways, yet closer than ever in others. The compounding effect is ... wow. I haven't even had time to do the math on that.

You are also right about being strong enough in myself. That was the whole problem. I didn't know it wasn't a crime to be human. I didn't know it was okay to feel inadequate sometimes and gloriously strong others. I still hadn't given myself permission to feel and to trust the feelings. I had gotten carried away with myself. I was at a place where I knew I wasn't strong enough for what I knew would have been expected and neither was he, tho we both wanted to believe otherwise. But we rode it out. We lived. We knew we would. Lost, yes. And somehow found. And 36 years healthier this year than last. Probably so is he. It's a miracle. Rare indeed. Almost like friendship. It was very generous to both of us and to everyone around. It brought us all closer to love. It made us better people, better lovers, and that from opposite sides of an invisible force field keeping us at a safe distance from that which could consume us. We could only observe and surrender to that which seemed there to groom us. We had to leave our selfishness at the door. It clarified our vision. At the lowest point of my life, it showed me my beauty, my dignity. It challenged my beliefs. It gave me a thousand times more than I could ever have given it, because it wasn't there to take. It simply wasn't there to take from me and I wasn't there to take from it but it gave me that choice to whatever extent I could honestly handle it. It didn't force my hand. It was pure and lasting. One of the times something that profound happened, I saw my dub conditioning for what it was. This time, I saw ... other things I need to see and was more ready to see than I realized I was. The timing was flawless. I saw my own soul and I saw my mistakes. It's the kind of paradigm shift only love brings with it. It defies all man made boundaries and attempts at controlling it. It had it's pissy moments, to be sure. But it also loves those around and refuses to destroy them. It sacrifices itself, repeatedly, for truth and the greatest good. It lifted me in my darkest hours rewarding me for my endurance and my every effort to submit to the truth of it all even as it purged my life of all those that had selfishly abandoned me there in the first place, even much of "me". It was in my face saying, I exist, and I love you, and it never went too far. It wasn't man or woman. It was a taste, a glimpse, a surprise, a touch, a very very thin veil, a laugh, and a tone. It was closer than ever and it was okay. It had been there all along. It was just love. It brought me to my knees and made me laugh through my tears. LOL If you've ever caught a glimpse of the place I'm speaking of or if you've ever dished me out a glimpse of the place I'm speaking of, you'll know of what I speak. If you haven't, well, you probably find yourself questioning my sanity, or your own, in reading this. LOL

Oompa - wow, it amazes me how everyone gets a different piece of this. thank you. i'm okay. yes, i think i posted it in a paragraph so that only the bravest would tackle it and the sanest would understand it. LOL I will consider your encouragement to putting parts of it into a more consumable format. lol Just need to distance myself from it a bit for the best perspective, i think?

Everyone - thank you all again for sharing your thoughts and comments and wisdom and insight and for bearing with my unabashed terror on this one. LOL It was 36 years worth of healing in just over a year. In no way do I think I can even begin to know how to express all that in one post and I'm totally self-conscious of how insane it all sounds right now. I don't expect you to read it all. not even sure what to share and what not to. Some of this is verbal diarhea. Some of it is something more. All of it is as honest as I can be at that moment. it's just emotional honesty. a real challenge to convey, particularly online.

20

For those who chose not to have kids--any regrets?

by Alpaca in

jw
friends

when i was younger i didn't really have any second thoughts about deciding not to have kids.. when i think about the great relationship i had with my non-dub dad, i now wish that i had at least one child.. the decision was based on the borg's encouragement to put "spiritual interests" ahead of personal interests.

this is just one more of the long-lasting detriments to my life caused by the borg..

SPAZnik

Wow, deep question.

Hmm, okay, so I'm about four years away from "expiry" myself and really not sure about the whole kid question.

Was a form of surrogate parent to my siblings growing up, through some serious thick and thin, so maybe that was enough for me.

Also not sure if I'll ever be able to bring myself to trust a tolerable sort of guy to actually stick around when the going gets rough, which
the going has been known to do sometimes.

Stranger things have happened, I guess. Never know. Maybe I'll freeze some eggs. hahahahahaha
Or maybe I'll just give up the ghost for good and get on with my life.

I don't know. I've been out of the dubs for nearly 9 years now. I guess if kids were my number one priority maybe I would have jumped the first really likable guy to come along and wow me into ... making some. But I didn't. (I'm self-controlled like that ... and sane ... oh, and way too distracted by math ... which could be my downfall yet. It just stuns me to no end when good things threaten to happen to me. I'm like, what are the freakin' odds?! It's quite distracting. And usually by the time I overcome the shock the threat has moved on to pick on someone else. LOL)

I read my horoscope recently and it said "you've been questioning your purpose lately, won't you be surprised when the answer is to 'have fun'." With everything I've been through in life, that may well be the way to go. What that means in practical terms remains a mystery to me.

Who knows.

If there's one thing I've learned so far in life, though, it's that we never really know what's right around the never corner ... um, I meant to say the next corner. I could delete that, but I'm leaving it in 'cause it's kind of a cool freudian slip. lol

Don't get me wrong, I love kids. Love 'em. The bro I helped raise watches me with his own kids and can't figure out for the life of him why I've never actually had any. Being part of the 'village it takes' has it's upsides though (and it's downsides too). But "mine" have grown up and built happy lives and have kids of their own and as I sit here in my own empty nest, I ponder how much sincere convincing it would take to get me to risk going another full round. Love can be pretty convincing. Especially if it sneaks up on you when your calculator isn't on. *sigh*

Regrets you ask? I dunno. Every good, bad, and miserable thing I've ever experienced has in some way or another brought depth and colour and richness and beauty and fulfillment and amazement and strength to my life.

Kind of hard to regret any of it.

20

love, ideally

by SPAZnik in

show me that you love me.

show me that you know how little it is we all really know about love.

show me how to love you.

SPAZnik

Werds, schmerds.