"The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them." ~ Bernard M. Baruch
So, as in my post, A Thinking Body, I mentioned the very "interesting" occurrence that my D. O., Dr. J., had experienced happening within my body. Trying, in many ways, to explain what he truly felt was - unexplainable - and in the end, the line I took most to heart was him telling me that my body, was so slowed down, that it was as if it had just stopped to, "think."
As I said, I had left his office with a lot of optimism and hope... I had felt like my Spirit had been giving me clear signs that "things" were about to change for the better in my life, and then when Dr. J. told me that it seemed as if my body was preparing for the "peace" before some major change, it just made me view both my body and Spirit seeming to be on the same page as to the positive direction my life was heading, even if, my logical mind still had no conception that such a dramatically positive change was coming my way...
As always, I had my doubts - my lack of faith - but I tried hard to keep reminding myself of all the "signs" I had been receiving and that was enabling my “hope level” to remain high.
So, as per Dr. J.’s request I went back two-and-a-half weeks later to see him for my fifth appointment. This appointment being on a Monday. I had to tell him that I had my “deathly” ill feeling of nausea. I also mentioned to him, right at the start of my appointment, that my boyfriend (what do I call this guy who I can’t seem to let go of, despite every reason that I should, and who never seems to be able to let go of me either - the guy you know as, C.!) had just broken up with (I didn't mention to him - AGAIN!) me!
Following will be an explanation of what happened after the last time C. broke up with me... what was it in mid-July? My dear grandmother, may she rest in peace (though over my relationship with C. I feel sure she is rolling over in her grave!) would have titled the last year-and-a-half of my life with C. as, “As the Worm Turns,” in a sarcastic homage to the soap opera of old, “As the World Turns” - the one with all the shenanigans and drama!
Anyway, I mentioned to Dr. J. that the most recent out-of-the -blue-break-up had happened on Saturday afternoon, just two days before my appointment with him. He then explained to me that it very well could be that the stress I was under from that inexplicable breakup was what was making my body have its severely adverse nausea reaction. I then had to tell to him my “deathly” ill nausea had come over me exactly one week before the time of my "boyfriend's breakup!*
This time when Dr. J. put his hands under my body and began feeling what was taking place within, I asked him to compare my “thinking” body of my last visit to this one - the one that was as sick as I ever get - and he told me that my body was exactly the opposite of how it had been on my last visit. This time, he said, it felt like my body was under attack, that it was stressed out to its limit, that nothing no longer was the same as before.
I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed. I had had such high hopes about everything before; about my illness going away, about my relationship with C. once again seeming back on track and as good as ever, about my dreams finally coming true. But that wasn’t how it was. It was the opposite of all of that.
When I got in my car and began the two-and-a-half hour trip back I decided to forgo getting on the main highway that led to the interstate and home, but rather, to take back-country roads. I didn’t have a map; I didn’t need one - I knew west and from there it was easy to just head that direction, and whenever there was a road south, take that direction, too.
A whole other story developed just from that forty-five miles of slow, country driving - the short version being: I took a risk and overcame a fear, stopping at a place that I didn’t think I had any business being at - but it turned out to be exactly what I needed - because when I found my way back to the interstate that would take me home, I felt more confident of who I was, what I wanted, and where I was going.
So, now as I drove those monotonous, interstate miles I began to think on C. and why the “Universe” had “plopped” him so randomly, so unexpectedly, in my life. I questioned what reason the “Universe” had for making me endure everything I had endured with C. over the past year-and-a-half. I questioned why C. had come into my life without me seeming to have gotten one single thing out of him having done so! “Why?” I kept saying to myself. “What was the reason; what was the purpose for C. ending up in my life?” I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t understand the “game.” I felt a over a year of my life had been spent, and wasted, on this one person who, in the end, took so much from me and gave so little back!
It all seemed like a waste and I didn't know how to make it not seem like that! It felt like I was given heartache when all I believe I deserved was my heart's desires manifest!
I kept driving, on the auto-pilot of thought, on a road that went straight, for mile after mile, and yet everything in my world felt twisted into a meaningless wreckage of shambles!
But my mind kept shouting, over the music that loudly played through my car's stereo, that this whole thing - this year-and-a-half of ups and downs - the highs of excited anticipation, the lows of being cast off with no reasoning - had to have purpose!!!" I could not accept that the "Universe" did not have some positive thing come out of, what appeared to me now, to be nothing more than sheer shenanigans!
I continued my thinking, if the "Universe" is going to have dropped some random guy, fatefully in "my lap," make me fall in love with him, allow him to break my heart time after time, and think "It" was going to get away with that without a quibble from me then, it had another thing coming!
I literally could not accept that what I got for all my time and effort over this long period of time with C. was for nothing - and further, that the "Universe" thought that it was acceptable!
And as I began to think, how could I get one freak'n positive thing out of all the shit that I went through, out of every negative aspect of this "randomness" that the "Universe" dropped in my life - C. - of everything that I endured, a thought came in my mind. And what was this thought? Where did it come from? Musings, yes, but what "inspired" it, i.e., where did the idea have its inception; how was it "conceived?" I can't say exactly, but what I can say is, that I came to realize that there was a way to say to the "Universe," "You got to play your game, now I'm going to play mine!" Sort of like, check and then checkmate!
In that brief, clear moment of space and time, I decided that I was going to take one sentence that C. wrote, in over a year-and-a-half of writing me, and I was going to make something happen. I wasn't going to sit by and let the "Universe" toy with me. I was going to go and "toy" with the "Universe!"
"How," you might ask, "does one "toy" back with the "Universe?" Well, my thinking went something like this: as I said, I felt like the "Universe" had plopped C. randomly into my world and in my entire time with C. all he seemed to do was shake my world up. My feeling was that that was all I got out of my situation with C.: my world being so shaken up that at times it felt as if the North pole became the South and the South the North! And for what, I kept saying to the "Universe?" Just to "shake my life up?" "Really," I thought, "just to shake my life up?" And negatively, shake it up, my thoughts persistently added. Well, that just was not acceptable to me! Nope, not acceptable, my dear "Universe!"
All these thoughts were racing through my head much faster than the speed with which my car zoomed down the road, and they all led to that one sentence (I actually thought on two very different sentences he wrote over the course of our relationship, but my mind seemed determined to concentrate on just the one!). And the sentence that persisted in my thinking was something C. wrote in his first email to me from New Zealand after his last breakup with me in mid-July! The sentence that wouldn't leave my head was, "Maybe you should come down here and have a look for yourself ... lots of very virile young males on the street, overall, and very healthy-looking population."
BOOM! That was it! Those were the the words written that were going to make something positive come out of something negative! And it didn't hurt, that further along in this particular email, he had written: "There really are some fine looking guys here... I think you might find a handful of acceptable ones within a few days. Happy hunting!"
My heart felt like it had been broken, once again, into a thousand pieces and I was turning 50 years old, I thought to myself, virile men are exactly what I want (read: need!)!
And it was right then that I decided that New Zealand was where I wanted to go! I wasn't going to be going there to look up C. (hey, I ain't the stalker type!) I was going to go there so that I could "plop" myself randomly, and unexpectedly, into the lives of some people who had no idea I was going to come over there and shake their world up!
However, unlike C., I was going to go over there and try to make some positive things happen. I was going to change the course of my fate (and quite possibly!) the fate of any one I might come into contact with, simply because C. had come into my life!
In other words, if C. and I had never so "fatefully" met, i.e., the "Universe" had decided not to bring him to me and me to him, then I would never have known him and those lines would never have been written and I would never have been heartbroken, and I would certainly not be contemplating a trip to the other side of the world!
But I was! From that moment on I decided that that was exactly what I was going to do. I was going to travel to New Zealand, spend a month exploring that country and its people, and have adventure - of only God knows what kind - all thanks to a boy, the "Universe" felt compelled to put in my path. And now, because of that, I was going to put myself in other peoples' path.
And after my decision, after I had bought my ticket to New Zealand, (I'm GOING TO NEW ZEALAND!!!) I wrote C. an email about it all (but of course I didn't tell him I was going to New Zealand, I told him I was going to Scotland - the other place he had mentioned, and of which I had briefly thought might be my destination!)
This is a condensed version - actually two separate emails - (though all the words are exactly as I had written them, I'm just leaving out the superfluous things I had said before I got down to the "brass tacks" of my idea):
The first:
Also, C., I want to let you know something I think you may find interesting (and good!)! Who knows, but it may be that your breaking up with me will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened at this moment in time! You see, because of it, well, mostly since after having spent this past year-and-a-half in a relationship with you and never getting the fucking reward (literally!), I have decided, that because of everything I went through, I am going to give myself a fucking reward!
And the reward I am giving myself all has to do with you, i.e., if I had never met you I would not be doing this particular thing now, if ever!
I am going to go to Scotland!!! For a month!!!
Well, first I will fly to London, maybe stay a few days there, and then on to Edinburgh! I'm sure I'll do half my time traveling by rail and then the other half I'll probably rent a car and go wherever the fuck I want! But, damn, C., I wanted/needed to get something positive out all the energy I put into "us" and I thought, that randomly deciding to go to a place that you had so vividly described, which had such ancient history to explore, such seeming sense of spiritualness about it, would be the perfect way (maybe the only way!) that I could take something from our time together and turn into some fucking amazing thing!
Just think, I will go places and meet people who I never would have come across in my life except for having met you and deciding to put my own bit of serendipity into this crazy equation that had been "us!" I'm really excited and it'll be interesting for me to visit that ancient town by the sea you so thoroughly recounted to me, Crail! I just feel pleased that my world had been shaken up by you and now I am going to use that shake up to shake up some totally unsuspecting people whose lives I will cross during my travels! It just feels so right to me! So, as that old saying goes, I'm taking my lemons and making lemonade : )
Best,
L
______________
And the second:
C., I met you, spent a year-and-a-half of my life being your best Pen-pal EVER, and got nothing out of it - that is until now, when you broke up with me and set me free!!! Kind of me (finally!) saying my, "C., go to hell" moment!
So, basically, since you fucked me over, I have already, in a circuitous way, been introduced to so many possibilities and people who otherwise would never have come into my life... so far the best introduction being by a grade-school friend, to this freak'n awesome guy - (he's married so it's just purely his freak'n awesomeness and the fact that he knows the world, never mind my travels in the UK and Scotland, inside and out, that makes me goofy over him... and interesting tidbit: he's actually from NZ... thought that ironic!)
So, thanks C.! And whoever said getting fucked over by your boyfriend for another girl, was the worst thing EVER, obviously didn't turn it around to make it the freak'n BEST THING EVER!!!
And I do find the idea of you having "fucked" me over (or maybe the opposite of that?!) as my sole reason for going - as a means of serendipitously plopping myself in the middle of some unsuspecting people lives, purely because you were unexpectedly "plopped" into my life, and mentioned a place... fascinating - and so me to the core (which I guess, in essence, means I find me, and the workings of my mind, fascinating! Haha! ; ) )
I look forward (if you should be interested) in telling you of all the shit that has happened since I decided Monday, a week ago (the day after you wrote me your, Serious - READ email!) that I was going to put "Operation C. Fucked Me Over So..." into effect... and holy shit, I can't believe all that has come out of you fucking me over! Some of it is hilarious, some of it is so six-degrees-of-separation, and some of it is just sheer exciting... but all of it, as good an imagination as I think I have, I couldn't have possibly begun to have thought up! It's truly amazing!
It just shows me that if you can't change a situation, you can still change your attitude about the situation... and that can make all the difference in the world!
C., you think you're flourishing? Hell, I think I've bloomed! : )
Best,
L
________________
Hahaha! And this is what he wrote back in response to all that I had said in the above emails: "I am positively delighted for you that you are going to take a trip to Scotland, and I hope that you find it all that you are looking for and more. If you see something you might otherwise have missed but for me, I'm happy about that, too."
Wow! C. obviously completely over-looked all of the, "because you fucked me over" part of my message and took my meaning to be that my meeting him was good! Good, grief, but that's C., everything always on his terms.
Well, who knows, maybe my meeting him will turn out to be "good!" After all, I am going to New Zealand!!! I leave Wednesday, with a stop in the Hawaiian Islands, then leaving for Auckland October 28th (arriving the 29th!) and not departing that beautiful country (I've seen the amazing pictures!) until November 28 - Thanksgiving Day!
Believe me, this is the beginning of a story within a story, and I can't wait to tell of it all!
Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers!
*In a future blog post I would like to delve further into the mind, body, spirit connection of which I feel doctors' only have an understanding of one "part." My talk with Dr. J. makes me feel as if I would like to discuss the other "part."
