I remember thinking that the YOW would end softly and just peter out... Looking back on the end of my YOW, that was not the case. It ended violently, just like it began. I was sharply thrust into a new world, no longer the soft, contemplative world of the YOW. And I was not expecting it.
The YOW may be likened to a powerful Entity, Who influences you for one year and stays with you. And when that Entity arrives or departs you *feel* it. At least that is what my experience was like.
I am sure that there are all sorts of different experiences of the YOW, just like there are all sorts of different marriages and souls. Each individual will experience the relationship between themselves, their marriage and the YOW Entity differently, because they are all different.
My hope for people who are within a YOW is that they manage to learn everything from their interaction with the Entity that they can. Looked at another way, that Entity may, and the acuteness of the year, may also be likened to one's interactions and relationship to the Laws of Baha'u'llah in general.
For me, I experienced first hand the awesome Power of the Law. The Power with which it began and the Power with which it withdrew it's influence.
I wonder if others experience it like this too? Those who remain steadfast at least.
For those who disregard its purpose and take it lightly, I just feel sorry for them that they won't taste the sweetness of obedience and gain the growth that comes from it. It's too bad, but it's their choice.
It is an opportunity to deepen ones relationship with God. An intimate time of communion with the Creator, through obedience to the Laws.
Bahá'u'lláh says: "In all these journeys the traveler must stray not the breadth of a hair from the 'Law', for this is indeed the secret of the 'Path' and the fruit of the Tree of 'truth', and in all these stages he must cling to the robe of obedience to the commandments, and hold fast to the cord of shunning all forbidden things, that he may be nourished from the cup of the Law and informed of the mysteries of truth."
I offer this quotation to all those Loved Ones of God who are in a YOW, in the hopes that they may turn their hearts towards God and direct their feet along His straight path, that their minds may be illumined of the mysteries behind the mystic veil and their souls rejoice in the knowledge of Him.
Blah.
Bored. Feeling blah. Things are peaceful in my life, but I feel like I need some stimulation. Are things too peaceful? There is a discontent brewing. It's only around today. Let's see how it develops.
A Year
"Things take a year."
"What things?"
"All things."
Look at the cycles of nature, the pregnancy and post-partum stage, a year of waiting.
It is a reminder that whatever you are fretting over and worrying about or working on, it will take a year for there to be any change or visible growth.
The growth is occurring of course throughout the year, but you cannot see the effect of it for about one year. A year is a magical time. It's also nice to watch the seasons go by and contemplate them while they are growing, that is part of worshiping God and knowing God, appreciating and loving all stages of the growth.
It yields peace.
"What things?"
"All things."
Look at the cycles of nature, the pregnancy and post-partum stage, a year of waiting.
It is a reminder that whatever you are fretting over and worrying about or working on, it will take a year for there to be any change or visible growth.
The growth is occurring of course throughout the year, but you cannot see the effect of it for about one year. A year is a magical time. It's also nice to watch the seasons go by and contemplate them while they are growing, that is part of worshiping God and knowing God, appreciating and loving all stages of the growth.
It yields peace.
Twinkle twinkle
I don't have my girls. They are at daycare. I miss them already. It is difficult to focus on the tasks ahead of me. It is difficult to tear myself away from just feeling glum and sorry for myself.
I am mad at my ex. Separation and divorce are absolutely stupid ideas. I am mad that I don't get to have the kids, the husband, the happy home, the support.
I just have to keep pluggin' away.
As Rumi says "Keep walking, though there's no place to get to" & "Mysteries are not meant to be solved".
I feel as if I am floating on a sea of emotion, being tossed one way and then as soon as I orient myself with my direction, I am tossed into another random previously unknown direction. I felt jealous today, about a friend of mine. It was unexpected to feel this related to him, and I realized that I care more than I should about something he did.
What is with male relationships being so compelling and so complicated at the same time?
I realize that the relationships that are around me are the ones that I depend on and that grow and that are supportive. The relationships which are not around, simply pass, they aren't vehicles for mutual growth. My children are examples of the first kind. Even though I am clearly the one supporting and nurturing them, it is also clearly an interdependent relationship. I don't rely on them, but their presence, their love, their joy, their need supports me. And spiritually, they are a strong source of support and I can rely on them in that realm. Praise be to God for my wonderful children and for this dynamic of unity in our single parent family.
It tough not being with them.
How does a partner (a husband) fit into this picture? I don't see what that might look like.
I am grateful that I am not in a disunited marriage. It is a most painful place to feel disunity. Marriage is the one relationships upon which all relationships in society are built. We sense it on an intuitive, gut level how important the maintenance of unity in that relationship is. And it is devastating when our efforts do not yield the desired outcome, the sought after goal.
I am an excellent mother. I am an excellent wife. A wife without a husband.
Rumi also says not to be to eager to give up your loneliness, for it is in this loneliness that we grow closer to God. That works for me. The heart was created for loving God. The only true loneliness is of the lover separated from her Beloved. And the Beloved is an eye twinkle away, at all times. Ya Baha'u'lla-Abha!
I am mad at my ex. Separation and divorce are absolutely stupid ideas. I am mad that I don't get to have the kids, the husband, the happy home, the support.
I just have to keep pluggin' away.
As Rumi says "Keep walking, though there's no place to get to" & "Mysteries are not meant to be solved".
I feel as if I am floating on a sea of emotion, being tossed one way and then as soon as I orient myself with my direction, I am tossed into another random previously unknown direction. I felt jealous today, about a friend of mine. It was unexpected to feel this related to him, and I realized that I care more than I should about something he did.
What is with male relationships being so compelling and so complicated at the same time?
I realize that the relationships that are around me are the ones that I depend on and that grow and that are supportive. The relationships which are not around, simply pass, they aren't vehicles for mutual growth. My children are examples of the first kind. Even though I am clearly the one supporting and nurturing them, it is also clearly an interdependent relationship. I don't rely on them, but their presence, their love, their joy, their need supports me. And spiritually, they are a strong source of support and I can rely on them in that realm. Praise be to God for my wonderful children and for this dynamic of unity in our single parent family.
It tough not being with them.
How does a partner (a husband) fit into this picture? I don't see what that might look like.
I am grateful that I am not in a disunited marriage. It is a most painful place to feel disunity. Marriage is the one relationships upon which all relationships in society are built. We sense it on an intuitive, gut level how important the maintenance of unity in that relationship is. And it is devastating when our efforts do not yield the desired outcome, the sought after goal.
I am an excellent mother. I am an excellent wife. A wife without a husband.
Rumi also says not to be to eager to give up your loneliness, for it is in this loneliness that we grow closer to God. That works for me. The heart was created for loving God. The only true loneliness is of the lover separated from her Beloved. And the Beloved is an eye twinkle away, at all times. Ya Baha'u'lla-Abha!
Changing Gears
I spent the last two days with my kids, just me and them, some outings, some visits, Holy Day celebration. I was nervous and anxious about it, about feeling overwhelmed or pressured by them, being tired. But then I realized that my girls are so good at being understanding and about giving me space. And in fact, we have an excellent dynamic. Praise be to God!
So now our two days of hang outs are over. Tomorrow they go back to daycare, and they spend the weekend with their Dad. I have work and school work to do.
The last weekend that they were with their Dad and I was home alone, even though I had lots to do, I spend all day Sunday in bed, watched two movies, prayed, read, reflected, journaled etc. I am afraid that tomorrow morning after I drop them off I will again sink into my moods and reflections. The problem is that these moods aren't very effective. I think that there is a certain degree of healing that goes on while I am in them, and it's easy terrain for me to traverse, the reflective, contemplative, musing, creative, exploring terrain. However, I end up being un-productive. And I am not entirely sure how to manage this tendency. How much reflection do I need? At what point do I fight it and force myself to start to do something?
Perhaps the concern with being unprodcutive is unfounded. I am not being productive in an external sense, but perhaps the musing and wandering through the landscape of my emotions is productive in a different sense? I suspect that it is and that I am learning through it. The question is what am I learning? And is it serving God ultimately?
I am nervous now about the upcoming weekend and the space I will have to myself.
My kids regulate me, they stabilize me, they give me a structure and a routine. As much as I dislike it and wish to just do my thing, it is actually very good for me to parent them, care for them, nurture them, structure them, and I am serving God while doing these things.
So while I am alone, with everything that I need to do - schoolwork, workwork, paperwork, housework ... how does that figure in with service? "Give me Thy grace to serve Thy loved ones" 'Abdu'l-Baha prays in the Tablet of Visitation. While saying that prayer recently, I've been thinking of my kids and it has been confirming. Being with them is hard work and it is a challenge.
Now with being alone coming upon me, I am feeling daunted, unsure, nervous, anxious.
It is changing gears and my transmission feels like its sticking.
From a little more of a detached perspective, I observe myself and think that it is change that makes me anxious. Which is a pretty normal thing, right? Change is difficult to manage and adjust to. Life is full of changes.
"If you want things to stay the same, everything is going to have to change around here." ;)
I struggle with how much time do I need for me and at what point do I need to do something else? At what point is it indulgent? At what point is it necessary?
My tendency is to forget myself and not take the time that I need. So I think that in some ways I go to the other extreme too and I take too much of it. And I am good at both. And I am creative and creativity is hard to manage. But I am also driven, organized and effective, these qualities create a tension with my reflective, creative musing side. Where is the balance between the two?
While I have the kids, it's a situation that is more familiar to me. The default is serving and being externally focused, the internal side gets listened to only when it really needs it. But when I am alone, with not many direct external pressures to do, the reflective side doesn't have boundaries directing it and I sort of allow it to take over. And, to repeat myself, I am not sure how much I *should*.
So now our two days of hang outs are over. Tomorrow they go back to daycare, and they spend the weekend with their Dad. I have work and school work to do.
The last weekend that they were with their Dad and I was home alone, even though I had lots to do, I spend all day Sunday in bed, watched two movies, prayed, read, reflected, journaled etc. I am afraid that tomorrow morning after I drop them off I will again sink into my moods and reflections. The problem is that these moods aren't very effective. I think that there is a certain degree of healing that goes on while I am in them, and it's easy terrain for me to traverse, the reflective, contemplative, musing, creative, exploring terrain. However, I end up being un-productive. And I am not entirely sure how to manage this tendency. How much reflection do I need? At what point do I fight it and force myself to start to do something?
Perhaps the concern with being unprodcutive is unfounded. I am not being productive in an external sense, but perhaps the musing and wandering through the landscape of my emotions is productive in a different sense? I suspect that it is and that I am learning through it. The question is what am I learning? And is it serving God ultimately?
I am nervous now about the upcoming weekend and the space I will have to myself.
My kids regulate me, they stabilize me, they give me a structure and a routine. As much as I dislike it and wish to just do my thing, it is actually very good for me to parent them, care for them, nurture them, structure them, and I am serving God while doing these things.
So while I am alone, with everything that I need to do - schoolwork, workwork, paperwork, housework ... how does that figure in with service? "Give me Thy grace to serve Thy loved ones" 'Abdu'l-Baha prays in the Tablet of Visitation. While saying that prayer recently, I've been thinking of my kids and it has been confirming. Being with them is hard work and it is a challenge.
Now with being alone coming upon me, I am feeling daunted, unsure, nervous, anxious.
It is changing gears and my transmission feels like its sticking.
From a little more of a detached perspective, I observe myself and think that it is change that makes me anxious. Which is a pretty normal thing, right? Change is difficult to manage and adjust to. Life is full of changes.
"If you want things to stay the same, everything is going to have to change around here." ;)
I struggle with how much time do I need for me and at what point do I need to do something else? At what point is it indulgent? At what point is it necessary?
My tendency is to forget myself and not take the time that I need. So I think that in some ways I go to the other extreme too and I take too much of it. And I am good at both. And I am creative and creativity is hard to manage. But I am also driven, organized and effective, these qualities create a tension with my reflective, creative musing side. Where is the balance between the two?
While I have the kids, it's a situation that is more familiar to me. The default is serving and being externally focused, the internal side gets listened to only when it really needs it. But when I am alone, with not many direct external pressures to do, the reflective side doesn't have boundaries directing it and I sort of allow it to take over. And, to repeat myself, I am not sure how much I *should*.
External / Internal
There are internal boundaries and external boundaries in relationships.
What bugged me about Boy during the YOW was that my exploration of the relationship was blocked by external boundaries, ie: my perception of how I should be acting towards my feeling during the YOW and therefore remaining faithful to the marriage.
I dislike external constraints. What I like to do is explore the internal boundaries in relationships, explore what the relationship, any relationship, (family, friendships, romantic) is made of. Now that the YOW is over I can do that with Boy and with others. There is this other relationships which was remarkably compelling for some time, and is still, but only mildly now. For a short period of time there were external boundaries only in that relationship and it drove me mad because I couldn't explore it. I paced up and down that external boundary fence like a wild cat looking for a way inside. I found one, and now the relationship is growing again, still respecting its external constraints, but still developing along its nature. And now I can explore the internal constraints inherent within it.
On another thought, my YOW is over. I am a single mom, two kids, school, working, and actively creating a lot of music. There's no romantic interest in my life, and truth be told I am not that interested in there being one. I am, however, really digging the new friendships with guys that are developing, and I am digging exploring those relationships. What I realize with all of this is that it's admittedly still a difficult situation for me, there are a lot of demands on my time and energy, and I am tired most of the time, however, a real blessing and something which I am experiencing for the first time in my life is that there is no one who is purposefully sabotaging me. While I was growing up, it was my mother, due to her mental illness mostly. And then, it was my husband. There's this saying about person A who wants person B to be free, but piggy backs on B all the time, forcing B to do A's work. That is what is felt like to be married to my husband.
As for that guy I was obsessed with during the YOW. There's nothing really there now. He is distant. And I am not interested. I'd be interested in potentially getting to know him and seeing if we can be friends, and maybe that will happen over the next year or so. We'll see.
This other guy, he and I were good friends while I was in my YOW, and he was in one too. However, when mine ended, suddenly, there was attraction between us, so we chose to do the prudent thing and we stopped hanging out. That is something that I am curious to see play out as well, over the next year or so. I'd like to continue exploring the friendship we had, not a romantic relationship.
In fact, I feel totally allergic right now to romantic relationships. And I really don't get them. I'm sick of society's preoccupation with "co-dependent romantic love". As I told my daughter and her best friend, when her friend mentioned "boyfriends". I said, "boyfriends are waste of time. You can have many friends who are boys and one day you will choose one of them to marry and he will be your husband."
We are told in the Writings to develop spiritual bonds of love. So what does that look like between a man and a woman, immersed in a society and culture that encourages any opposite gender relationship to become romantic and/or physical? I think this question is what I am exploring now, definitely through the internal / external boundaries within the relationship with this other guy and with many of the other guys I know too.
One thing that is very interesting, and not really surprising, is that with non-Baha'i guys there is almost no possibility of having a friendship, and therefore exploring this concept of spiritual bonds of love, as they are too blinded by sex.
What bugged me about Boy during the YOW was that my exploration of the relationship was blocked by external boundaries, ie: my perception of how I should be acting towards my feeling during the YOW and therefore remaining faithful to the marriage.
I dislike external constraints. What I like to do is explore the internal boundaries in relationships, explore what the relationship, any relationship, (family, friendships, romantic) is made of. Now that the YOW is over I can do that with Boy and with others. There is this other relationships which was remarkably compelling for some time, and is still, but only mildly now. For a short period of time there were external boundaries only in that relationship and it drove me mad because I couldn't explore it. I paced up and down that external boundary fence like a wild cat looking for a way inside. I found one, and now the relationship is growing again, still respecting its external constraints, but still developing along its nature. And now I can explore the internal constraints inherent within it.
On another thought, my YOW is over. I am a single mom, two kids, school, working, and actively creating a lot of music. There's no romantic interest in my life, and truth be told I am not that interested in there being one. I am, however, really digging the new friendships with guys that are developing, and I am digging exploring those relationships. What I realize with all of this is that it's admittedly still a difficult situation for me, there are a lot of demands on my time and energy, and I am tired most of the time, however, a real blessing and something which I am experiencing for the first time in my life is that there is no one who is purposefully sabotaging me. While I was growing up, it was my mother, due to her mental illness mostly. And then, it was my husband. There's this saying about person A who wants person B to be free, but piggy backs on B all the time, forcing B to do A's work. That is what is felt like to be married to my husband.
As for that guy I was obsessed with during the YOW. There's nothing really there now. He is distant. And I am not interested. I'd be interested in potentially getting to know him and seeing if we can be friends, and maybe that will happen over the next year or so. We'll see.
This other guy, he and I were good friends while I was in my YOW, and he was in one too. However, when mine ended, suddenly, there was attraction between us, so we chose to do the prudent thing and we stopped hanging out. That is something that I am curious to see play out as well, over the next year or so. I'd like to continue exploring the friendship we had, not a romantic relationship.
In fact, I feel totally allergic right now to romantic relationships. And I really don't get them. I'm sick of society's preoccupation with "co-dependent romantic love". As I told my daughter and her best friend, when her friend mentioned "boyfriends". I said, "boyfriends are waste of time. You can have many friends who are boys and one day you will choose one of them to marry and he will be your husband."
We are told in the Writings to develop spiritual bonds of love. So what does that look like between a man and a woman, immersed in a society and culture that encourages any opposite gender relationship to become romantic and/or physical? I think this question is what I am exploring now, definitely through the internal / external boundaries within the relationship with this other guy and with many of the other guys I know too.
One thing that is very interesting, and not really surprising, is that with non-Baha'i guys there is almost no possibility of having a friendship, and therefore exploring this concept of spiritual bonds of love, as they are too blinded by sex.
Thank You
Thank You God that this is over. Thank You for delivering me from the hell of my own choosing of my marriage. Thank God that he is gone from my life. I feel so grateful. I feel so peaceful. I am done. I will only accept what God gives me now. I am so blessed. The only men around me now in my life are men that love me and that will be good friends to me.
Thank You for "curing me of my ridiculous obsession with [romantic] love."
Praise be to God, Who hath created existence from non-existence and carried me safely through the raging rapids of my choices.
If for all eternity every droplet of my blood would cry out with millions of tongues in thanks to Thee it would not be sufficient.
Ya Baha'u'l-Abha!
Thank You for "curing me of my ridiculous obsession with [romantic] love."
Praise be to God, Who hath created existence from non-existence and carried me safely through the raging rapids of my choices.
If for all eternity every droplet of my blood would cry out with millions of tongues in thanks to Thee it would not be sufficient.
Ya Baha'u'l-Abha!
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