TWO TO TANGO, BUT KEEPING THE BALANCE

Reminder to myself.


This is part of a message that I wrote a couple of a years ago. I was answering someone that I met in Paris who thought I was not playful enough because I refused to become his temporary lover:

"In this roller coaster called life the only thing that really matters to me it's my freedom, body and soul.  

I wouldn't sacrifice one minute of it but for someone whom I trust and doesn't act impulsively. Love at first sight leads to whimsical actions, and I'm well over the period  "live for now, life is short, then we'll see".  I want to have a real home and feel sheltered.  I lived on two different continents and on the Caribbean sea, without counting the months I spent in Portugal, Turkey or Uruguay, I lived fully and had all kinds of experiences, bitter and sweet. I am looking for serenity, stability, the calm of an active, balanced life. No drama, no fools' games and without having anything to hide from anyone.  

I am strong but fragile, and if I don't take care of myself, no one would, this is what is expected from a woman who made it alone and in shape at 37, that she could take all the blows and keep standing."


Why did I forget about it by the end of last year?

DEEP DOWN TO THE SURFACE (EMOTIONAL SELF KNOWLEDGE AND HEALING)

No matter how clearly someone tells and shows us that "you+me = over", we cling to it until we go through our own cycle and filters of understanding. Situations aren't good or bad, they're just pleasant or unpleasant, according to our perception/feelings, it's up to us to play our cards and learn the lessons. We all act according to the film in our mind, inside our own bubble. So when we get in trouble, the fault is mostly ours, as we act based on our "reading".

After 39 years and a few failed relationship tentatives I finally understood the way my emotions work and how do I sabotage myself. I should be actually grateful to the person who triggered this series of revelations, for helping me out in my life journey. Helping me to make one more mistake and finally dig it to the roots.

Several other people helped me out through it. One of my best friends gave me a spirituality book, that she never read, where I found my first explanatory paragraphs:

"Sometimes when we meet somebody new we start to feel emotion that do not belong to us.We might feel a great desire to please the other, to give yourself beyond measure, spend all your time with that person. This is due to the great need the other has to receive, he/she is asking for it very intensely, but without words.

In these cases appear questions like "Why am I feeling this?". The person may get to imagine that she/he's experiencing a big love, in fact she/he's only receiving all the neurosis of the other person. In these cases we get to channel the anger, the sadness, the desolation or the anxiety of the people we are in contact with. This is more certain when our emotions are not logical or related with the events in our life. [...]

The problem becomes apparent when you start to lose your balance (axis). You start to realise what is happening or to feel uncomfortable emotions. It may feel like a type of acceleration or exhaustion. We have to remember that our physical body always sends us two basic messages: comfortable or uncomfortable. According to its message we can realise if we are involved in a favourable energy exchange or not." (Horacio Valsecia, Argentina, "Los siete principios de la felicidad")

It was not the first time when somebody agitated and passionate crossed my way when I wasn't looking, when I was well and at peace with myself and the world, and turned my emotional life upside down. When it happens I start to cry very easily and become kind of neurotic as soon as my chevalier loses his initial interest, becoming moody and distant. Somehow I guess those men I met took me like some kind of prize, to fill the gap of their insecurities and confirm their virility: "if I can have this woman, then I'm an Alpha male" kind of thinking, or not even thinking, some kind of gut feeling.  And then things happen without a closer look to the circumstances, my position and my feelings.Probably also because I look cool and confident, and not like a drama queen or whining bitch. Well, sometimes I am a true drama queen, but not at first sight, and mostly avoiding to do it in front of the men in cause. I did enact some soap opera scenes in the past though:)

Getting back to my point, after reading that paragraph, I realised that I probably absorbed Mr. X's need of being loved, fears and other negative feelings that were developed meanwhile, due to an excessive workload and his need to control everything. My fault resides in going with his initial flow, the wave of enthusiasm, without keeping up my barriers, just surrendering to the moment. The passion, the nice dates, his courtesy and also practicality. I felt desired and protected, and at the same time he awoke in me passion and tenderness.

Just like with other guys in the past, realism (mixed with worry and depression) took over his enthusiasm when the family and worldly obligations claimed exclusive attention and effort after the holidays, when I was out at home. Then it was the realm of the uncertain: we'll just be friends for now and we'll see later on. Then communication became scarcer and scarcer, culminating with two weeks of no kind of contact whatsoever. In January I started being the one generating the dates and it all ended up in a big confusion, aka break because I felt emotionally drained and abused. I went through some serious crying quite a few times and felt abandoned and shattered, as sometimes silence is worse than a clear cut response: "Denying emotional responses to another is deeply abusive.  The “silent treatment” is a cruel way of controlling people and situations.  Where there is control there is no love, only fear."  I kept it to myself and my friends so I won't increase his amount of work stress, worsened by the gray and rainy weather. He would seem very touched about me looking for him and showing up, telling me at the same time that he doesn't want to be in a relationship, maybe because he's not over his latest one, that ended up about 9 months ago. We can always find reasons. It's hard to understand when there's attraction, a good feeling about being together, and apparent compatibility. What's missing is the wish to commit.

At some point not long ago this book of Horacio Valsecia that I mentioned above came to me. When reading it I suddenly had a image if myself as an emotional sponge, absorbing other's states of soul and moods. My mother made me feel this too, because she tends to whine a lot. Looking up the net I discovered that the expression actually exists, it's also defined as an "empath". So Mr. X's depression, restlessness, suppressed anger, etc. were probably reflected by me. When I was close to him and he wasn't ok I felt very uncomfortable and deeply emotional without knowing why. So after all I decided to walk away, at least as a temporary break, because it seemed like he doesn't know what he wants and I need to focus on other things, myself coming first, and stop bothering him. Because I did bother him, with me becoming also a needy, love&attention hungered person. And he was obviously troubled by it and the incapacity to give me what I needed/wanted/pretended.

Photo by Ilia Alexandrovich Jerebtsov - Nov. 9, 2013

I have to admit that I have strong emotional responses to all kind of situations, and I tend to overreact. At the same time, when somebody is creating expectations, then is withdrawing, but not completely, and gives you contradictory verbal and emotional responses, it takes a lot of nerve to resist it. The bottom line is that I'm taking it with a grain of salt, as a way to self-knowledge and self-acceptance. Now I know how to respond and treat better my emotions, and how to prevent others from damaging me.

These last weeks I felt better and better every day, enjoying the spring sun and fragrances, the blooming trees and three good dancing nights in a row, with Latin dances and tango. I was lucky enough to meet some visiting tangueros from Romania and Italy, who made me feel like I was flying through their embrace, comfortable about myself and my contact with them. It was very sensual, without a sexual connotation, just the type of report I deeply needed. This physical activity combined with my psychology reading really improved my thoughts, feelings and general state. I feel like I overcame the dark  neurotic period, becoming again the person I used to be, even wiser. Free to enjoy the spring and embrace my life.

LATER EDIT, AUGUST 10, 2014 / Falling into the same mind trap, I tried to see the fellow again after he showed up to a group event I organized, posterior to one month without any contact. But this time with me being totally available and consciously open for a possible relationship, that would imply taking time to know each other better. Total nonsense, there was still attraction, X was still aloof and although I didn't cry anymore I still ended up chasing him and feeling frustrated while trying to play cool.

We had another final explanation after 4 months of playing hide and seek;  he came up with almost identical arguments and firm on "I want to see you from time to time as a friend because I really like your energy, but this is it". To me this didn't sound like a friendship offer, but more like a superficial social contact. Well, sorry, no, I have real friends in my real life that have and make time for me. Friends are not circumstantial social connections, they take and offer help and support when needed. Mr. X looks like he doesn't know how to engage in the giving/receiving exchange. I felt like he's interested in keeping in touch because I look special, "interesting", not because he genuinely cares about me. But a lot of things I saw in X are also part of me: selfishness, ego-centrism, impulsiveness, stubbornness, no real will to change, being a control freak, judgmental, aloof, elusive, oscillating, inflexible, impatient, needy.

The day after we last met I found out accidentally that he was maybe seeing someone else when he started chasing me. And it got all mixed up while I was still on vacation in Romania, coming back on December 31.

I should have walked away from that swamp of confusion as soon as he told me that he's got mixed feelings, he basically almost opened the door for me to leave and I kept standing with one foot in and one foot out, looking at someone who wouldn't even see me. That was just one more story that started with fireworks and ended up going nowhere, and I refused to accept it, thinking that if I try hard enough, THIS TIME I CAN MAKE IT WORK. Well, no, it shouldn't have happened from the very beginning! History repeating is history repeating, it ended as it started.  I guess we have both shown some form of erratic behaviour. For the last seven months I went back and forth through the mourning stages of Denial, (mild) Anger, and Bargaining. I hope that now I finally got to Acceptance and to a better knowledge of myself. Well, closing one door means giving space to open another one.

UN POINT C'EST TOUT

A dot is all...could be translated in English as full stop, but I like this expression. All's that's left is a period. I tend to live too much in the past when it comes to relationships, digging through sweet and bitter memories, sometimes just to have someone to think about. It's probably a sign that I can't accept the absence of a love interest in my life.

When do relationships start or end? I can't tell precisely when I did fall in love with my ex, it was a slow process, that I didn't pay much interest to. I thought it won't happen,  thought we weren't a good match, but he insisted, on and on and on, we even broke up a few months after we started. Then I chose to go back to my beloved Europe and stay in a place I really really liked, eventually doing the job I really really wanted to do. When I left him in the airport I was in tears and hoping he would follow me. Probably our relationship finished that very moment, when we lost sight of each other. He wanted it, at least, he had no intention of having a long distance continuation of something that has lasted almost three years. We tried to pick up the pieces last year in May, when he visited for a while, we even discussed about marriage, but he decided that moving to Europe was not a good idea, considering the economic situation. Second occasion to put an end to it, so I looked towards the future, I lived in the present, went on dates, even had a story with one of his fellow islanders (probably attracted by the same accent, same expressions and some ways of acting).

My road shifted again by the end of 2011, I landed in a lovely country that I happen to know from long before, and I'm doing what I really wanted to do for a long time, planning and marketing cultural events. It's been a long way since I finished my studies and entered the work market. It took a lot of travel, work, more studying and over all patience, faith, believing in my star, my skills, my force. The news of my ex getting married came like a brick breaking a window, especially because when we spoke in January he was still single. Apparently someone else wanted him more than I did and went all the way to Canada to fetch him. Just one month after I'm finding out that he will be a father and move to his wife's place, in the countryside, not too far from me. And all this happened about seven or eight months after our second and final separation. Basically the same plan we tried to agree on, only it came unplanned. It hurts, also because I thought we could be a great team, sharing so many interests, being both creative people. Now it's clear that there's no coming back and I don't even feel like staying friends, we went such different ways that it looks impossible to start from scratch and re-invent our emotional and intellectual ties.

I guess I was well over it from before, and what happened was dans l'ordre des choses. What I thought to be an experience proved to be a relationship, then the other way around, beware of definitions. But it would have been better for me not to find out anything about it, just let our story blend in the canvas of the past, until I was ready to take it with more serenity, which I am trying to do now. There's a sunny day out there, the jacaranda will be soon in bloom and there are many roads still to be traveled. 

GENTLY SETTLING AND DRAWING LINES

A few months more since my last post and there are so many changes I contemplate now from a short time distance.

No. 1: I managed to get a stable job, after a one year not-easy-to-live-with gap. I work in a park inside of a palace, with a big window that lets in the sun, the chirping of the birds, the smell of resin in the heat. When I look outside I only see the various shades of green of the many types of pine trees trying to reach the sky. At lunch time I can have a half an hour break reading in the shade, eventually looking at the cotorras argentinas or the urracas. The ducklings I saw a few months ago swimming in the ponds and fountains are now as big as momma duck. My fellow workers are fun and kind, almost all of us get along nicely and I get to use almost all my languages on a daily basis. At the beginning of July I had to organize a reunion of about fifty government experts coming from 21 countries from Europe, North Africa and Middle East, everything went very smoothly and my department head thanked me in front of everyone at the end of the meeting. My writing skills were also put to work for the final public information text. So all together I feel useful and well treated. I was never extremely ambitious and the more I grow inside, the more I learn how to enjoy and be thankful for the good side of things in my life.

No. 2: My stand-by relationship got to a very inglorious cold end after my Cuban (future) ex paid me a one week visit enclosed in a six weeks trip to Spain. We started talking about marriage and a common future here and somehow on the way I realized that for one whole year I was floating in a beautiful and fragile soap bubble that suddenly broke and let me fall on the hard evidence that after all distance and time torn us apart. We were and we are very different, in terms of background and lifestyle, and this year our ways split to the point of no return. It was an emotional break for me, that I had to cope with after he left, that very moment was very short and I didn’t realize what was happening, that it was the last time we were seeing each other as a couple. When I left Canada and we said good-bye in the airport, there was sudden pain and many doubts about doing the right thing or not. It was a separation between two people that were in love and shared a home. It still hurts to know that the three years we were together and the one year of waiting and hoping were reduced merely to memories in no time. But at least I know there is no other way, it was a fine, sharp and clean cut, I can almost imagine a steel blade, guillotine style that suddenly falls and leaves no shreds.

No. 3: I managed to move from my cage aux folles, the Romanian run home, crowded and filled with cigarette smoke and too many times with strong cooking smells. My room was nice though and they were good people, but living in a different bubble. Now I stay in the same Sagrada Familia neighbourhood, on a street that bears the name of one of my favourite cities and above my tree level balcony there’s a blue metal plate that reads “La Ciudad de Buenos Aires”. I share with a nice Catalan girl who’s almost like a younger sister to me, and her dog, Ganja, a lovely half-blind and extremely affectionate cocker. The sitting room is big enough to be able to invite people for dinner again. When I wake up in the morning and I open my door, instead of cigarette smoke there’s Ganja happily wagging her piece of tail waiting to be cuddled.

No. 4: Last but not least, I managed to start moving around (one of the main reasons for coming back to mother Europe) and go visit friends in Lisbon and Toulouse that I have not seen for 13 and 15 years respectively. I was received with the utmost generosity, more like a long lost parent than like a friend that’s been away. Their home was my home and I was moved to tears to find out once more that friendship after all is probably the most beautiful and deep thing in my life.

Lisbon was celebrating the national day and Santo Antonio, the streets were blooming with colourful decorations and the smell of grilled sardines filled the hot air. On Saturday night I went alone to a fado concert set inside the Sao Jorge castle on the hill, overlooking the Tejo estuary under the stars. Besides, the city is as beautiful as ever and I got to visit other spots in this small and charming country by the ocean: Alcochete, Montemor-o-Novo, Evora, Cabo da Roca. Fabulous blue, green and pink (roofs) landscapes, great food, not to mention the company…so I’m going back in August, to spend more time with my Portuguese soul sisters and keep discovering the Lusitanian hidden treasures.

Toulouse, la ville rose aux bords de la Garonne, en plein Midi, with amazing Gothic buildings still standing up, especially le Monastère des Jacobins (I have a special weakness for cloisters) and the scrumptious French desserts. Not far, on the shores of the Tarn, there's Albi, home of Toulouse-Lautrec, dominated by its high episcopal palace and the Ste. Cecile cathedral, masterpieces of pink brick Gothic, so far from the cold gray stones that usually served as building material.

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I am at a point in life where I dreamed and wanted to be ten years ago, is it still the same, am I able to enjoy it and appreciate as much as I would have then? I won some things and lost some things on the way, I’m a little stronger, a little emptier, a little wiser and even bitterer and less ready to believe in the beauty of things and expect the unexpected. But the sense of balance is here; my life is in Barcelona now. Although, after changing places quite a few times, I know nothing, no one and nowhere is for life, there´s no real security in anything, and that’s probably close to the Buddhist teachings about accepting change and transiency as unavoidable. I feel peace, there's only love missing.

Home strange home

It's been almost two years since last time, meanwhile Bucharest got better at some points, and worse at others. Some parts look nice, restored and cleaned up, others are dirty and falling apart, with certain areas that fall just in between, like the one where I happen to stay. There is a seriously hideous building, sitting on the spot where there used to be an open air cinema. I feel like home...at home, in my old room, a yellow/green aquarium, as I cannot pull the curtains apart so the gypsies who are squatting across the fence won't see inside. Toshka, my young black cat is here, sleeping on my big red and dark blue suitcase, you'd say she never lived on another continent, in a different house. I didn't quite unpack as I am not too sure about the end of this road, or rather about the next destination.

My VIM (very important meeting) about a job ended up in the air, maybe there is something and maybe I'll hear about it in May, the earliest. There are no jobs, there are no money, only expectations and hopes, mostly followed by disillusionments. While waiting for my Romanian residence ID I'm trying to set up a presentation about my thesis research in Uruguay with their Embassy, I want to take one to one salsa classes with a cubano and most probably I will be in Barcelona/Valencia in May, seeing friends and joining a couple of poetry/spoken word nights with two Montréalers. Canada seen from here is almost exotic, and I'm quite surprised I don't miss it yet, maybe it's too early as I'm still enjoying the embrace of the familiar. My friends surprise me with nice messages inquiring about my arrival and my stay, I must confess they touch me deeply, as their care crosses the ocean and so many countries and reaches me hiding behind my laptop and the green curtains, hearing the spring birds chirping and enjoying the sight of the buds, as much as I can see through a narrow opening.

The magnolias and forsithya are in bloom and I'm absolutely thrilled by the small violet carpets in the nearby park - dark purple, lilac and white. Viola odorata, so delicate in shape, so strong in colour. Our street is quiet at night, and the soundproof windows are of great help. I feel quiet too, waiting but not breathless, enjoying the cultural life, staying with my family, meeting my lifelong friends, like Adriana, that I've known for 29 years and my new ones whose blogs I've been following. It's a real pleasure to recognize a person from their writing. I have a little time to sit and wait, do little things that I really want to do, that you never find time for. My man is also in a stand-by mood, wait and see, maybe we'll last, maybe we'll break, and there will be just you and me, again. Things can only get better, I say to myself.

September 25, 05 - Am I too much?

1235 days ago

Being told I am, by several guys that never met each other but whose presence made a difference at some point in my life (one is just a great friend)...I felt today sometimes I'm too much even for myself. Sometimes I'm having a hard time trying to manage all my thoughts and feelings.

I have too many worlds inside, and their combination with the real one makes life hard to bear.

I saw a Czech movie today: City of the Sun - the bittersweet kind, I came out smiling by myself - then I thought how close I am to this Eastern world, it's a special kind of laughing and crying way of living that makes us go through all troubles. I suddenly missed home.

Then I remembered how emotionally close I feel to Latin-American films, and how challenged I am by the sophisticated ideas vehiculated in the Western European movies, and I started wondering where do I belong.

This way I started looking inside, to all this worlds that try to live in peace inside me and I saw them filling me up to the point where it was hard to bear with it.

Then I understood what my friends and lovers meant...if I can't put up with it, how could they do it?

May 22, 05 - Existing

1361 days ago

I am what I am continously becoming - the being, adding every day new shades to my colourful personality, getting rid of some of them that don't match the pattern anymore.

So...what I've been up too, these few weeks: Started seeing someone, sometimes, as he is in Ottawa. Do like him, distance is a matter of time too, sometimes I'm doubtful, trapped in my cosmopolitan Eastern European immigrant scheme. Worried about this feeling that everything is so temporary in my life right now: house, job, friends, who knows if I will settle here, who knows if I'm done running around the globe? In Romania we're used to live for long in the same house, same city, have lifetime friends, here people change much more often the town, the appartment, it's true that nothing really belongs to us here on Earth. But I'm more vulnerable here and now, because there is really no one I can rely on, or maybe there are a few people, but I don't want to admit it.

Anyway, I really want to make it work, every now and then on the week-end, tried long distance unsuccessful relationships before, maybe short distance, same country would be better. Especially because we seem to look at the world through the same window, have similar lifestyle and interests - including other people, their lifes, ideas, cultures, the will to help when necessary. I guess this is what most matters to me now when looking at somebody, not just the attraction, having a good time together, but the deeper motivations, what moves us through life. Bottomline - if we both put a little effort in it, this relationship has no reason not to work out fine.

Trying also to figure out my life - what I really want to do, need to look for another job in autumn, I will move soon with a Romanian friend, until September, then finally alone. Bought furniture, for the first time in my life, not cheap, but cheap quality doll furniture from Ikea, so breakable but nice looking. Actually when I was little the doll furniture I inherited from my mom's childhood was real wood - how ironic.

I have a few groups of friends, Romanians too, mostly very mixed though, go out a lot. Hopefully if weather gets better I shall go out of the city, I miss Mother Nature soooo much, although the trees in bloom all around Montreal help a lot. Spring here is an explosion, maybe because it comes so late too.

Gotta go now - Brasilian music time, tomorrow we don't work - Queen's day!