I want THAT kind of love.

I want that kind of love - the one we all dream about but never really admit out loud because we fear that we would be deemed "dramatic" or "impractical" for the sake of speaking it. But I don't care if people call me dramatic for being a dreamer. I don't care if others see it as unreal... I don't care how realistic it is. Dreams are never realistic - that's why they are called dreams. What is reality now was once somebody's dream. So, yes, I want that kind of love - the one we only dare to dream about because we think that it can never be a reality. I dare to dream. Even if I never have it, my heart will always seek it.

I want that. I want a love that feels so good it hurts. I want to be so overwhelmed and overflowing with love that it leaks out my eyes and rolls down my cheeks. I want it to be so intense that it makes my hands tremble and my knees feel weak. I want a love that is passionate beyond words or comprehension. I want to feel so overcome with fervor and rapture that it renders me speechless. I want the "run into his arms and hug him so tight and beg him to never let go" reunions after being apart. I want to stand in the storm with the wind whipping my hair about my face, totally immersed in the elements, all consuming powerful profound moments of lust and desire. I want him to kiss me in the pouring rain and to fall to the ground together and to forget that the world around us even exists because we are so consumed with each other that nothing else can ever touch us. I want that.

I want cozy evenings by the fire, saying nothing and everything. I want lazy Saturday mornings in bed, snuggled under the blankets and all night long lovemaking. I want a man who puts his arms around me and tangles his hands in my hair and holds my face in both hands when he kisses me. I want him to look at me with a tenderness and yearning in his eyes. I want someone who doesn't have to hear me speak to know what I am feeling. I want him to be my best and closest friend. I want to feel safe to tell him anything and everything. I want there to be no subject too taboo, nothing off limits because we know each other so well that we share everything. I want that.

I want long walks, hand in hand. I want inside jokes and secret looks and stolen kisses. I want a love so powerful, so extraordinary, so heightened that it cuts through all obstacles and tears down all walls. I want to feel like I fit into his arms so well that he must have been made just for me. I want to draw strength from his mere presence, to give it back so freely that it is always an exchange, never something that is taken. I want to wake up with his arm draped over me, his body heat warming me, his breath on the back of my neck. I want that love to be so concentrated, so bursting with emotion that it touches everyone else around us and they see it and feel it and can't deny it and want it for themselves and strive for it.

I want that love. I want going to him to feel like coming home, like my safe place to land, my touchstone, my confidant, my heart and soul. I want safety and security and the promise of sanctuary and comfort in his arms. I want that. I will never stop wanting that. I will never feel ashamed of wanting that. I will always yearn for it and seek it out and hope for it to be mine. Never let the restrictions of society stop you from dreaming that it exists.

Never let the failures of the past stop you from continuing to hope for that love - because those were not failures. Those were the events that have been preparing you for this love all along, so that you would be ready and willing to accept it when it came to you. That love will not arrive to you quietly. It will come rushing in and knock you off your feet so fast that you are left wondering if you ever left the ground. That love will show you what it feels like to be alive. I want THAT kind of love.

I don't give a fuck. Do you?

Note to the easily offended: Exit stage left before you increase your chances of falling through the gaping hole in the middle of the stage. It is also a rather long read, but it's worth it. You have been warned.

So, let's discuss this, shall we? First, a background. Someone said to me, "You don't give a fuck what people think." To which I replied, "Yes, that is true... but not in an 'I don't care' kinda way. I don't give a fuck in a 'I know my own truth' kinda way."

You see, it is my opinion that there are different schools of thought regarding the "I don't give a fuck" mentality. There are the people who just genuinely don't care about anything, including (usually) themselves. Then there are those who generally don't care what others think, but not because they don't care about others - they don't give a fuck because their own truth is more important than the opinions of other people. Let's unpack this.

School of thought #1: I don't give a fuck about anyone or anything.

This is the product of pain. The types of people who profess to "not give a fuck" about anyone or anything, usually said with tones of defiance or anger, often do so because they've been hurt or they suffer from an abundance of insecurity. This is the "I don't give a fuck" that REALLY means "I'm not going to let you close enough to hurt me". In actual fact, one of two things is occurring here:

1. This person really does care. They just don't want others to see that they give a fuck out of fear that they might appear weak. This person is under the false impression that showing emotion is equal to weakness. For whatever reason, they believe that they must appear emotionless in order to be strong. I suggest to this person that they look up the definition of the word "strength". Hell, I'll do it for you! You're welcome.
   
   Strength: noun¹
   
   1. mental power, force, or vigor.
   2. moral power, firmness, or courage.
   3. power by reason of influence, authority, resources, numbers, etc.
   4. effective force, potency, or cogency, as of inducements or arguments:
      the strength of his plea.
   
   If you are one of the above described people, then it is now time to give up on your false notion of what it means to be strong. The character of someone with true strength is one who faces their fear head-on, someone who is bold enough to be vulnerable and STRONG enough to admit when they are wrong, or hurt, or sad, or angry, or happy, or any other normal human emotion that passes through their mind. If you don't give a fuck because you're just too terrified to admit that you are human, it's time to re-evaluate.
   
2. This person really does NOT care. They are selfish and self-serving. This person probably used to be like person A and was never able to rise above it. They became so overcome with bitterness that they stopped caring, they are a victim of circumstance (OR) they were just born/raised to be uncaring. Parents are often heard telling their child that "words don't hurt" and are sending the message that hurtful things should be ignored rather than addressed immediately. We've all heard the saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". I call bullshit. Words CAN and DO hurt. If words didn't have the power to wound, then our emotions wouldn't freak out when someone else spoke to us harshly. Words hurt. Offense happens. If you were taught to ignore it instead of addressing the issue, you were taught wrong. If THAT statement offends you, ask yourself why. Do you see my point yet?

School of thought #2: I don't give a fuck, in general, because my own truth matters more.

This person listens to constructive criticism and uses sound judgement skills to make a decision on said criticism. This person is able to self-evaluate effectively and is strong enough to admit when something is wrong or needs to be changed. This person cares, but not so much that they let the opinions of others warp their own perception of the truth. This person lives by their own truth. For example, one thing I'm CERTAIN of about myself is that my eyes are hazel. If someone told me that my eyes were brown, I wouldn't believe them -- because I know that my eyes are hazel. They could do everything in their power to try to convince me otherwise, but I know this about myself so I cannot be convinced. My eyes are hazel, not brown. This is a truth that I am certain of.

Similarly, if someone offered their opinion of me based on my actions/lifestyle/character/etc, it would have little impact on me because I know who I am. I know to be true the kind of person I am. Nobody else's opinion makes much of a difference, because I'm certain of who I am. It isn't that I don't care or that I'm immune to getting my feelings hurt. I just have the ability to evaluate a statement as either true or false and either act on it or throw it out as invalid. So, I don't give a fuck what others say about me. I know me, and I like me. IF I see something that I think needs to be changed, I'll change it -- for myself, not for them -- because I want to believe MY truth, not theirs.

So no, I don't give a fuck what others think...not because I don't care, but because I. Just. Don't. Give. A. Fuck. No fucks were given today. Not a single fuck crossed my path. This is me, not giving a fuck. Zero fucks were had. Do you have any fucks to give? I didn't think so.

*EDITED to add: I just came across this video on you tube that pretty much says what I'm trying to say, but with a different spin on it. Go watch this!! She says it brilliantly! Just love yourself. Don't Panic. It's Not Real.

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^{1. [Definition obtained from dictionary.com]↩}

This is what happens when head and heart collide.

In the quiet of the early morning with the rain falling in drifts outside my window, as the motion of the rocking chair lulls me into a sense of reverie, I ponder over the mystery of the heart. I find my thoughts drifting to that sometimes near debilitating pull between what one's heart feels and what their mind knows. It is a real thing, you know - the disconnection between your conscious waking mind and your deep down gut feelings and beliefs. The part of our brain that controls emotional reasoning is located on the opposite side of the part that controls logical reasoning. We have an "emotional mind" and a "logical mind", and somewhere in the middle of that is what some may call the "wise mind". It is so difficult to find the balance between the two and to rest comfortably in the wise mind space.

Living in a wise mind space is possible. It requires the ability to recognize and be aware of both your logical thoughts and your emotional thoughts. Many people are either ruled by their emotions or rely too heavily on logic, with little room for the other in their methods and thought processes. To live in a wise mind state, one needs to be capable of not letting either one overtake their decision making. Both the logical and the emotional are necessary. One wouldn't make a decision (at least probably not a good decision) to buy a car based on emotion alone. Logic would come along and say, "Hey! That's too expensive! You don't need a vehicle that seats 7. There is only 1 of you." Similarly, one would not choose a life partner based solely on logic (I would hope). We don't choose who we fall in love with based on facts such as age, hair color, height, annual salary, location, etc. I'm sure we would like to think that we do, but we don't. Those things obviously do affect who we choose, but they are merely background noise compared to the emotional connections we share with a person.

So what happens when your logical mind is telling you that it's time to let go of an unhealthy relationship, but your heart is still begging you to hold on? Have you ever felt as if your emotions were scattered, as if you couldn't "make up your mind" regarding a "matter of the heart"? That would be your logical mind wrestling with your emotional mind and neither one really being able to push the other to the edge of the mat. This is what happens when "the head and the heart collide", so to speak. Your emotions are still tangled up in the past, all of the memories you have shared with someone, not wanting to let go of the high that you get from being in love, not wanting to give up because of what could be. Your mind, however, is trying to tell you something. Logic dictates that if the relationship does not help you grow, if you do not feel loved or safe because of the actions or repeated hurtful words of another, that it will most likely always be that way.

Things such as friends or family full of well meaning advice do not help. Half will tell you to follow your heart, logic be damned. They will try to sell you on romantic notions of happily ever after and the concept that "you only live once, so do not waste a minute of it. Tell someone you love them before it's too late". The other half will tell you something along the lines of "there is a difference between giving up and letting go". They will try to sell you on the concept of valuing yourself above all else and learning to let go of things that no longer serve you. Both have merit. Both sides of the argument have equal value. So what should you do? If you've stacked the blocks of the logical and then stacked the blocks of the emotional side by side, you have then created a tower in which to sit upon. I suppose the only thing to do now is to wait and hope that the tower remains stable, that the blocks of one side don't overpower the blocks of the other side and push you off.

It feels a bit like inaction, doesn't it, to just sit there and wait? Well, you could climb down. You could go find someone else's tower of blocks to pull apart (in most cases, it will be the blocks of your partner/significant other). You could push the whole tower over and walk away to start a new tower. You could stand at the bottom of the tower and remove blocks one by one, hoping that it doesn't all come crashing down on your head. You could encase the entire tower in ice, never allowing the tower to either grow or topple. Or you could accept that your instincts will tell you what to do when the time is right, and all you need to do is sit on top of that tower and wait to hear from them. In case you haven't caught on yet, to sit on top of the tower and wait is what your wise mind is telling you to do. Life is not stagnant. Something will happen to that tower, no matter what you do. You can take it apart yourself, driving yourself crazy and stressing yourself out in the process, or you can just wait and see who comes along to help you build or take it down.

Taking the advice to do nothing is never easy. We are creatures that need to feel as if we are being productive, but sometimes being "productive" means letting things happen in their own time without forcing them. And so I sit here in my rocking chair, listening to the clock tick and the rain fall, and I let go of my ideals of "productivity". I give up trying to keep all my blocks from falling or being damaged. I'm just going to wait and see what happens.

Blog Rename

I named this blog on a whim. At the time, it was sort of humorous and amusing, but the truth is that it isn't very specific, is it? I didn't think that I wrote about any particular subject, but now that I read over past posts (and my journal), it's pretty apparent that I lean towards self-empowerment and women's issues. I also throw in some creative writing from time to time, but I think the platform I have been focusing on is that of empowerment.

With that in mind, I have decided to rename this blog to something that better encompasses the genre and style of the topics I write about most often. When I thought about what defined me/my blog, the answer hit me -- I define me. I define who I am. I get to decide. After all, that's what it's all about, isn't it? Self-empowerment. I'm on a journey towards self-empowerment, self-respect, and self-love. My blog should reflect that. So, the new name of this blog shall be *pause for dramatic effect* .....

.....

As Defined By Me

Thanks if you've gotten this far, and I hope you choose to journey with me and perhaps chime in with your own self-empowerment stories and experiences.

I'm not hiding, I'm transforming.

All my life, I've been the type to retreat into solitude periodically. Every few years (sometimes more, sometimes less), I feel the sudden urge to cast off my old self and retreat into a safe place within. A lot of work is happening inside my soul when I do this, and I have always come out of it again as a better person. I always emerge from my solitude wiser and different, yet somehow the same. I always have felt as if I've somehow changed and transformed, and have never regretted these times of solitude. Many in my past have tried to convince me that this solitude is unhealthy and damaging. Many have told me that I'm simply being "stubborn" or words to that effect. But the truth is, there was nothing that anyone else could do to help. I had to use that time to look inward and transform myself. It's akin to the journey of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Nobody else can help the caterpillar transform - it has to do that on its own. It relies on its instinct to know what to do.

When a caterpillar is ready to transform into a butterfly, it creates a safe barrier around itself and retreats into a world all its own. When it's time for the caterpillar to transform, it takes itself off to safe place to form a chrysalis that will protect it from the outside world while it undergoes the transformation. The caterpillar forms the chrysalis by shedding its skin one final time in preparation for its upcoming metamorphosis. What few people know, however, is that a caterpillar doesn't just grow wings to turn into a butterfly -- it is a literal transformation of the entire body structure. The whole body breaks itself down into tiny cells, similar to stem cells, and then put themselves back together again forming an entirely new body.

Think about this. Think about the process involved... An instinct tells the caterpillar that it is time to become an adult, to transform. Nature tells this tiny being that its old form is no longer working for it, and it's time to transform into its new self and carry on with life. But before that can happen, the caterpillar needs to retreat from the world, shed the old, go inward, and spend some time in solitude. When the time is right, and it varies for each individual caterpillar, a butterfly breaks through and emerges, but it takes some time before it can fly. The butterfly has to strengthen its wings before it can take flight.

There is also a mythical creature that uses a similar method of transformation: the phoenix. The myth says that when a phoenix has lived its life and has gleaned all that it can from this world, it bursts into flames and turns to ash. Some time later, a new baby phoenix emerges from the ashes, reborn -- a new being formed from the ashes of its predecessor. The life cycle continues in an ever constant circle, always producing something new but also intrinsically linked to the essence of its origins.

I may be the only one who identifies with this unfailing cycle of transformation, but I doubt it. I believe that there are others out there just like me who occasionally take the time to look inward and reflect, shed the old, and eventually start new. I do not mean to say that I become a recluse by any stretch of the imagination -- only that these times of solitude are necessary for me (and those like me), and that we should not give much attention to those around us who wish to dissuade us from our transformation. It is a beautiful thing, and we should embrace it. It is OK to find your safe place, to retreat and look inward for a little while, and to not come out again until you know you are ready. Do not be afraid to follow your instinct. You will re-emerge as a better version of yourself, and that is never a bad thing.