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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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12:09 p.m. - 2010-09-15
Today's word is����.OW!!!!! I was a big old stupidhead at the gym yesterday. Didn't seem so at the time. Yeah, I upped weight and reps on a couple of things, but only because I felt ready to. Also because after such a long break and then being able to assume my pre-break workout with minimal repercussions I figured I wasn't working hard enough to begin with. I know my original intention at the gym was to keep MIL company, and just enjoy whatever benefit came my way from getting off my rump- increased energy, maintaining bone mass, maybe firming up a little. But certainly I had no grand ideas about whipping myself into becoming Wonder Woman. Then�.(ominous organ chord, crash of thunder)�I got hooked. Suddenly it wasn't enough just to go and have fun, I wanted to be a gym badass. Not to anyone else, but to myself. And maybe Mick, since he knows from being a gym badass and could appreciate the work involved and be impressed that his indolent princess could actually kick butt with the grunty lifty shit. Not that I need to impress my husband, at least I don't feel that way anymore. After that horrible rocky start to our marriage things have shifted around wonderfully. Mick isn't blowing smoke up my ass when he says he loves and respects the way I live, he's taken it upon himself to BE like me. He's so appreciative of how much better he feels about himself and life in general. Mick likes himself in ways he never thought were possible. Instead of raging against the universe and feeling himself a victim of life's indignities, Mick has learned to deal. To be in charge of himself in the ways that truly count. To use a clich�- Mick feels empowered. And he puts it to me with gratitude and love for showing him the way. My formerly off-balance Irishman has found his center and is delighted to be at peace. Sure, he's not ever going to be Gandhi. I wouldn't want him to be. However so much of his former snarling and angry bellowing was just his howling at what he felt was the unfairness of life. He's also found out that maybe he wasn't the good guy he believed he was, at least the way he carried on and barged around wasn't doing him or anyone else any good. Mick's realized how much he'd been shortchanging himself too. Denying himself the pleasures and responsibilities that come from being okay with who he is. He credits me for believing he was allowed to be more than an angry jerk and for insisting that if he was going to be with me that he step up and be the man I knew he always wanted to be, but didn't know how to be. His essential goals haven't changed at all, what has changed is seeing what can be had for real and what was just a lot of indulgent nonsense. Nonsense that he gave far too much importance to so he wouldn't ever have to see how empty his life actually was. Metaphysical and somewhat obscure? Sorry. I can't totally explain in an A to B sort of way. I guess it's just that for the first time Mick feels allowed. Allowed to be happy. Allowed to want all the good things- love, peace of mind, satisfaction, happiness. That it's okay to have a good life even if the world isn't perfect. I tell him that his love gives me permission too. That I don't have to be perfect to be loved. I am not just the sum total of what I give to others. That I am allowed to want and have things too. For the first time in my life I don't feel like I'm only here on other's sufferance. I have just as much right to be here as anybody. I don't 'owe' for the space I take up. I know it's supposed to be the truth that no one can love you until you love yourself, and yeah, it's sort of true. But there's also something to be said for finding someone who has the other half to the Big Picture. Mick and I each had what the other needed to be whole. It took some doing, we're both stubborn as mules. We both had big ouchie places we protected fiercely. Ultimately we both wanted the same thing- to be loved and more importantly- to be understood and accepted. He was coming toward that from one direction and I from the opposite. We met in the middle. And it's good. Damn good.
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