giving_and_receiving unhinged tonglen there is something, once again, on the tip of my brain that i wrote here a long time ago, that has some resonance for me again. but once again, i can't remember the link. too many links in space; i can't keep track of them all. funny how in the past six months, my life has changed so drastically. at this time six months ago, i was so petulant and sad and angry and bitter that i felt very small. i struggled so hard against my life that i couldn't eat anymore. i had to take pills to fall asleep. i was giving myself stress and receiving all kinds of health problems. every moment felt like the next moment might be the one that pushed me over the edge. then i ran into him. there was something immediate about us. i went looking for him when he didn't leave me much to go on. we were the sun in our own little universe. he reminded me how bright i was, in a way that i had not been reminded in years. my heart overflowed. everyone around me noticed. and then just as quickly, maybe because of the intensity, we burned out. we were so blinded by our own light that we never prepared for it going out. ugly things have passed between us. i feel like i owe him more than avoidance, but i am afraid he is incapable of understanding what he means to me. i am afraid that he is so small minded he can only see his own pain and will keep trying to deflect it back to me. all the while not knowing that i already took some of it for myself. part of the process of tonglen is that you do not tell the other person you are doing it for them. it is a secret practice that you do quietly, without the expectation of anything in return. the power of the practice is diminished when the other person knows you are doing it because then they might feel obligated to return it like it was a favor and maybe they are not able to return it. the coincidence of two hearts really is so rare. i am currently incapable of falling in_love. my heart is still climbing out of the last hole it fell into. i think he may be done calling me now, but i have once again gone out looking for him. part of me wants to put it back on him, part of me wants him to ask me. i need him to ask otherwise i can't tell. because if he isn't ready to ask then he probably isn't ready for the answer. i'm not sure if he was ever ready for my answer. and in this process, i feel my small minded, hurt, wounded self coming back to the top. being alone most of the time only intensifies it. so i found another someone i thought could help counteract the shrinking of being alone. not in a romantic way, but when he reached out to me that way i didn't push him away. he started to feel guilty, maybe because he wasn't head over heals, but neither was i. but he felt like we couldn't do what we were doing, that someone would get hurt. no_expectations i didn't expect us to be a supernova sun. i still wasn't recovered from the last one. but maybe a distant star that i wished on when the weight of my lonely little life became too much for me to carry. in every person i talk to, i am giving them something and receiving something back. it may not turn out the way i wished, but that doesn't mean i cannot appreciate it while it's happening. i wish i could have been more mindful for you. i wish i wasn't so afraid to show you who i really am. 091118 ... unhinged . 100527 ... unhinged ( there_is_nothing_wrong_except_you_loving_me ) why do i still feel like for all i put out there i'm not getting any back? damn expectations abandon_expectation 100726 ... h|s|g so_far_as i_can_tell i_am_extremely ocd deep_ending how you look at it that's the_good_news the_bad_news is I'm_not_gay why_bad it would have made sense out of a lot of things, but I'm not so it doesn't. Which leaves me dealing with OCD that is making a lot of sense but I'm not too happy about. Model: there is a small circle inside and tangent to a larger circle. Previously I have seen this as ego. It is but more subset to it rather than containing all the ego. OCD repeats cycles within this smaller circle and is subset to ego. How did I manage to break_the_cycle so far? Relaxation. Breathwork. compulsively_relaxing until that itself faded. letting_go of fear, of "here". much_work_remains 100727 ... unhinged the next time i want to give someone my heart i should ask them if they are ready to receive it 130212 ... unhinged ... 180620 what's it to you? who go blather from