Do You Love Yourself Enough To Be Happy?

Interesting question:  How do you know you are happy?  Well, for me, I'm happy when I have a lot of people in  my life to love, in all the facets of love.  How do you know it's love?  When you can go out without each other and still the only person you want to share it all with, is the one that isn't there.  When you can't wait to share your life with someone, you want a life with them to start as soon as possible.  Everything you experience without each other, is somehow diminished from what it could be if you had been together.  And you may or may not realize this 'in the moment' but you will realize it.  Usually when you are at the height of the enjoyment and that person(s) face flashes across your mind and you find yourself saying, "I wish so-and-so were here."

If you have a healthy relationship you can do this, experience life apart, while still being together in your heart and mind.  Tallying up experiences you can't wait to share.  In fact I can't imagine a more boring relationship than one where you get no time to experience your life....your loves and the things that you want to do, alone.  Couples that are 'joined at the hip' are as dysfunctional as couples that have nothing in common anymore, or have no desire to share their interests anymore.  Sharing your life with someone special is wonderful, rewarding and the best personal growth and the journey of your life.  And you will find someone to share with, even if it's not the person you are committed to.  We are human, after all.  

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we can't be with the one we love, and if Fate has temporarily forced your greatest love from you, then being able to live apart, happily is also love.  These couples can't wait to share their individual experiences because they know it will strengthen their love, and bring new interests into their lives...and growth to the relationship.  If it's love, and if you want it bad enough, your time together will come.  Both the hardest and the easiest part of love is understanding that there is more than one person for you in this life.  And that you are on an individual journey.  It is up to you to make sure that you are living the life you want.  It's the only life you get, so no matter what 'obligations' you may believe your life has, to be a truly happy person, you must remember your first 'obligation' is to yourself.   Your individual happiness.  Because if you are not happy with who you are, and what you are doing, and where your life is going, you cannot and will not be able to make anyone else happy.  In fact your unhappiness at the state of your career, love life, relationships, spiritual life, all of that will effect the people that love you negativity.  And then you find yourself in a real kettle of  fish...your loved ones have given up on you and moved on, because they understand what you don't.  This is my life and I deserve to be happy, and being with this miserable person is making me miserable too.  It's not selfish.  It's a part of being aware.  It's part of wisdom to know what battles...obligations... are worth fighting for and what obligations you need to walk away from.

When you love someone, you want them to be happy, even if you don't always agree with their decisions, you still are behind them because of that love.  Or even if it's letting someone go to be happy.  Think about it logically, if you feel that way, they do too.  Your loved ones don't want to see you unhappy, depressed or trapped, if they do, then they do not love you.  I've watched some couples I know hurt each other with words and actions but stay together, when it's obvious to them and everyone around them that they are miserable, and I wonder what kind of love that is.  I know it's not a real love....you can't even call it love.  Some people call it commitment.  And I get that, the loyalty to another person by the commitment you have made to stay together until death.  But is it better for your self, to stay miserable until a physical death, or is it better to admit an emotional death and move on to be happy in your life?

If you know me, you know what I think the answer is, but it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what you think, because it's your life.  This is not easy to learn, but then growing up is not easy.  Most people don't live honestly, most people have something they devote time to they do not enjoy.  For most of us that is what we do for a living.  Which is not ideal, but livable if everything else is honest, after all it's only a job, and that can and will change.  But if your personal life is a lie as well, then you are really stuck, because you have no where to live where you are happy.  Except maybe in your sleep, which is like death, hum....so maybe that phrase, 'until death do us part' is not just physical....perhaps it's meant to mean an emotional death as well.

Walls: Not A Time Saver

There is so little time to do the things I want to do.  To be with all the people I'd like to spend time with.  I wish I had more time, wish they did too.  But time marches on, and we can only do so much.  It's not really the quantity of the time we have together it is the quality of that time.  Do we take every moment to tell our loved ones that we care, in words or deeds; or do we waste time while our fears creep in and still our tongue and freeze our motions?  It really is as simple as that.  I've heard it said that it's a bad thing to 'wear your heart on your sleeve', but i disagree.  I think that your emotions should be easy to read with the people you love the most.  Walls are for strangers and enemies....they keep people out....why would you ever want to keep out someone that loves you?

Finally Some Good News from Chicago!

I'm so superstitious that I'm not sure I want to start talking about all my good news because I don't want to jinx myself.  But I do need to share the good as well as the bad, maybe more so.  So here goes.  Last week was a huge relief.  I wrote insurance on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and should see money for that next week.   Just in time to save July, and not be homeless...yet.  Then on Thursday I got things rolling to open a new group next week.  Plus I hopefully found that part time job I needed to supplement my insurance business...I start on Tuesday, so we'll see what it turns out to be.  Just part time, for a few hours in the evening, shouldn't upset my social life, or my business, which is what you want.  And I'm lucky to have found that.

Then there's my love life...I was sure I wouldn't be able to see Mr. Hopeful last week, we were both so busy, but I did.  Somehow, something feel through and we were able to meet before I left for Chicago this weekend. It was, as usual, a stolen moment in time, but it was well worth it, for I do love seeing him whenever we can.

And then it was off to Chicago on Friday morning and was Chicago fun or what!  We left at 9 am to get here by 2 or 3 and spend the weekend with my Second Daughter and her Husband.  Saturday night was her re-do of her Dirty-Thirty Birthday party and her announcement was that they will be giving me another grandchild!  WEEEEEE.  And we are hoping for a girl for little (4yrs old) Timmy to protect.  Her party was a blast, and I enjoyed meeting more of her friends, however, because of the trip and the EVENT of the night before...I was so tired by 1 am that I had to bug out and get some sleep.  I had been working on only 5 hours of sleep because Timmy was up at 6 and we didn't get back to her house from our adventure until 1 am...  Our adventure you ask...well...

My daughter and I were lucky enough to have gone to see Roger Waters perform The Wall at Wrigley Field on Friday night.  And that had to be one of the best concert experiences of my life.  And I've seen a lot of concerts.  I would go into great detail, but I think the 180 pictures I posted to my facebook say it all.  https://www.facebook.com/jill.stelter  there is a link, and once I get some more sleep, and can catch up, I'll put them in their own album...but for now they are in my mobile uploads.  Enjoy.  time for coffee and chocolate cake for breakfast...Thanks Bill Cosby....

I guess this was my Groundhog Week.  If I could have this week all the time it would be perfect....well maybe not perfect...maybe more time with Mr. Hopeful, and being able to game tonight (D&D)  THAT would make it perfect...but it was close....
Cheers

I'm Even Boring Myself With This

I used to be a fantastic conversationalist.  Loved to listen to someone rant or discuss or debate something they were passionate about, and I can dive right in there with the best of them because I'm never afraid of what someone may think of my opinion.  I figure once I'm talking with you about a topic...once I've opened that door to listen to your beliefs on religion, politics, sex, or even easier passions like books, movies and writing, then it's fair game for you to listen to me too.  And since I'm really picky with whom I talk to anyway...I'm not usually disappointed.  And I come away with new things to be passionate about much more often than any negative result.

But lately, just in the last couple of  months really, I'm so preoccupied over my financial issues, that I find I can't communicate verbally, and I'm only a slightly better texting.  This is shocking to me as if you know me, I'm a motor mouth.  I'm finding that my attention span has dwindled.  This is also not good news because I think I'm one of those adult ADHD with HDTV adults.  Of course if you knew  my mother you know she would have believed that no daughter of hers had any disorder of any kind.  Her generation didn't believe in that kind of thing.  They just rubbed dirt on any wound, said get up and get your shit together.  But I'm so obsessed with needing a job, that I can't focus on pleasant conversation anymore.  At parties, I'm either a lump of no comments in the corner , imagining myself homeless or being all wistful about the one that got away, or depending on the alcohol level, I'm commenting almost too passionately about my opinion.  And well, you know that person at parties, and that conversation is over, so I'm then back to gazing at nothing and imagining what I can actually take with me to live in my car, and what would have to go into storage.  

I've heard comments before from friends saying they wish they were as passionate about their beliefs as I am, and frankly I'm not sure how not to be passionate about what I believe in...I believe in it after all.  But with my mind so focused on what I'm going to do in four short weeks without a weekly paycheck, I've become a bore to myself.

I used to be intelligent and have my finger on the pulse of many topics, and could at least ask questions or comment.  But now I'm finding that my entire brain is either focused on trying to find a job, or day dreaming about what could have been with that one that got away.  I find I just don't care about anything else but finding a job that pays me so I can get back to being me.

So, let me take this opportunity to say I'm sorry to all my friends and family for being such a bore.  And thank you for listening to me worry about my future.  Thank you if you are one of the friends that has tried to distract me with weekly trivia events, or movies, or video games, or lunches.  I do need to keep my mind occupied or I might just...well...Oh Snap!  :)