I’m finding it odd that the more work I do on myself the less energy I have for those with excess anger, stress and/or without the ability to just let things go.
After yoga class today, feeling all peaceful and happy I went for tea with someone I would categorise somewhere between an acquaintance and a friend. He is so angry. and aggressive. Even the way he ordered his espresso was condescending. Within 30 seconds of him interacting with the world around us I could physically feel my chest tighten. My muscles actually registered the stress I was feeling. As he spoke, I tried very hard to listen, empathise, but as present as I tried to be I couldn’t help simultaneously talking to myself, encouraging my breath to normalise and my muscles to relax.
It seems to me that the more peaceful and centred I become the more space I should have available to hold other people’s sh*t, but I don’t.

I guess the more important thing is that A) I’m back and B) I have news that while scary as all get-out makes me feel overwhelmingly proud of myself. Perhaps not unrelated to the ‘my babies wont have grandparents’ freak out, and perhaps also not unrelated the string of married or partnered men who I have met in recent months, I decided to FINALLY tell Mr. Makesmecrazy that I am in love with him. It wasnt flowery or poetic or even very romantic. It was maybe 20 sentences long and without much fanfare told it like it is. Truth be told I expect nothing to come out of this with regards to him. What I do expect, which has already started to happen, is that for the first time since meeting him my mind is clear of all the white noise of all the ‘what if?”s and “if only”s. The cards are on the table, I’ve played my hand and at the very least (though not at all insignificantly) I will never again be unsure of what might have been.

I tried though, I did. Until a little after lunch I was present and (relatively) focused, but then after lunch I crashed physically, and was then no longer capable of holding my shit together emotionally and out of nowhere burst into tears. Luckily I managed to leave the room first.

The biggest trigger was that I realized that if I ever have children (this if alone is enough of a weight on my ovaries shoulders), that they will likely not have grandparents who are capable of interacting with them on any real level. My parents are now just shy of 66. If I have kids it wouldn’t be for at least another 3 years. By the time my first child will be old enough to truly interact with their grandparents, my parents will be 72 years old. Just typing that triggers tears from me. I see my mother with my nephews and they have such a strong bond. I know how much my maternal grandmother means to me and it makes me deeply sad that in all likelihood my children will not have anything close to the same relationships with either of my parents. Plus, on a selfish level, I will not have access to the support my brother has which is astronomical.

So anyway, this was just one of the many thoughts that swirled in my head this week and came to a volcanic explosion this afternoon. I’m feeling marginally better now but I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be toting the residual ickiness around with me for a while… To bad too ’cause I met an interesting, attractive man tonight and I left early because I felt like Eeyore.

In other news, this blog made me laugh: http://notesfromtheboss.wordpress.com

I signed up to do the twist. My cousin (her uncle) volunteered the I’m a Little Teapot, and her grandparents (my aunt and uncle) were harangued into entering with a waltz.

It was refreshing to have a young one at the table. For the longest time I was the youngest and then when I was 13 my sister was born, but she’s 18 now, so and 8-year-old seriously shifts the energy of the evening. My family can be prickly and terribly cerebral, so having my particularly curmudgeonly uncle sing Que Sera Sera was a real treat. My dad even did a soft shoe, accompanying himself with an A Capella version of I Won’t Dance.

Because I don’t name names on this blog I can post video or photos from the evening but I have them, and I can’t wait to share them with her parents. It was really the most adorable thing.

They stumble in like young fawns, their ability to walk freshly minted. Teetering with all the grace of toddlers paying dress up, their high-gloss lips shine like eyes in high-beams.
There is an inverse relationship between self-assurance and hem line I think to myself as the hunters eye the prey.
I imagine a mounted head, chandelier earrings tinkling softly above a mantlepiece. “I got that one in 2009, Victoria Day week-end” the man says depositing the scotch glass back on the coaster and smacking his lips. And I wonder about my unborn daughter and about the outfit I’ll wear the night she is conceived and about how I’ll feel when she stumbles out into the woods.