Another year has passed, according to the anniversary of my birth.  As I assess my life’s condition, I can’t help measuring what is as it relates to what was.

“The past is our definition. we may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.” ~ Wendell Berry

What is better?  The last time that I declared to myself that my life would be better by allowing time for a relationship, my desired reality seemed to manifest.  When I met my former beau,  I thought my dreams had come true.  But they hadn’t.  The reflection of love in that fun house mirror was distorted and ugly at the end.  And the transition from joyful serenity to anxious un-joy was so … abrupt.

With the holiday season comes the traditional holiday movie reruns, like The Wizard of Oz.  This movie is an old favorite of mine.  As a child, the family would gather around our 12” black and white television and watch it every year. 

Each of the main sojourners in this movie have their separate quests.  The Straw Man seeks wisdom, the Tin Man wants a heart, the Lion wants Courage and Dorothy wants to go home.  At the end of the movie, The Wizard of Oz bequeaths each of them, except Dorothy, with those desired things.

Change is inevitable ... Progress is optional.

~Jack Welch

This is a statement not only about business, but also about life's ups and downs. Wholeheartedly, it is my belief that it isn't what happens to us that matters most, it is how we respond to things that have happened, especially if the circumstances are qualitatively negative.

As I struggle with my own version of the annual Holiday Blahs, I'm also working out ways to overcome them. It isn't worth the time wasted to slip into a funk that permeates the atmosphere of joy for the loved ones who now surround me and it’s  too much work to fake it.

The only alternative is to change my viewpoint.  Even if there were no others for me to affect, switching my focus to a more positive view is essential for me to reassemble my life.

A pearl of wisdom was delivered while watching the thought provoking movie, The Matrix, last night.  I don't recall the exact scene, but the words caught my attention. They went something like this:

You must choose between the past that lies before
and the past that lies ahead

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This is a movie that Julia Roberts starred in.  Although she excels in roles like this and I truly admire her skills as a performer, I didn’t rush to the movies to see it.  I guess I've become weary of the formulaic predictability of most romantic comedies.  As some of us know, real life is not all that predictable.

Thanksgiving is a holiday of note in the history along the path into my relationship with a Narcissist.  The first time he invited me to a family holiday meal was Thanksgiving.  I wept with joy at his invitation and played the voice mail message again and again to make sure that there was no mistake.  I may even have the recording of that voice mail message somewhere on my hard drive but I don't listen to it anymore.   He knew that my previous lovers had not included me in their family gatherings.  That is why his invitation meant so much to me.  I really felt that I had arrived in his life.

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A friend of mine sent me a link to a YouTube video from a show that he watches called Mad Men.  It was a clip from an episode called The Wheel and it was quite touching.  Here is the meat of the quote that I found online:

Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, "nostalgia" literally means "the pain from an old wound." It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards... it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel. It let's us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.

Considering our memories as sort of a time machine, is completely apropos.  When we are reflecting on our pasts, we are catapulted into it.  Sometimes it is the way a sunbeam crosses the trees or a song, maybe even a smell, that stimulates memories.  Once they are stirred, we have to revisit those experiences whether they are delightful or painful to recall.

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It has been a maniacal couple of months for me. I do apologize for not blogging during that time but, life IS.

Today I would like to share a video with you again.  The song is by a group named Sugarland and the music has touched my life. The underlying message of the lyrics speak to how events and experiences in our lives shape who we become, and how those memories never die.

Enjoy!

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You are quietly coasting back an forth in the gentle summer breeze on your porch swing, deeply engaged in conversation with your partner.  The warmth in the air mirrors the glow in you are feeling inside, until they casually use a confidence you’ve shared with them in jest.  Your partner studies your reaction.  You feel the clutch in your stomach, for their remark seemed more cruel than funny, but you don’t know how to respond.

It’s a turning point you will only recognize as a Narcissistic attack after the relationship has ended.  At the time, you whisked away your intuition and wrote it off to a joke at your partner’s suggestion.  How many more times did you do that during the duration of your narcissistic encounter?  How many turning points did you choose ignore?

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