When Bumpy Things Happen Between Good People

Sometimes when you least expect it, life just suckers you in the jaw. At such a time, you get to see if you've learned anything at all, during the abundant times. If you've filled up your bucket with enough confidence, enough trust, enough remembrance of goodness and connection, a poking in the bucket, shouldn't drain it of all the previous things.

I have a little issue you see. I am a spawn of the Incredible hulk and the Green-Eyed monster. Whenever I feel like my partner, as any previous ones can attest, wants to spend a significant amount of time with a special, single, unattached and looking, queer friend, my ears go back, like a threatened feline. I am ready to pounce. It can get pretty darn ugly. I am not proud of this fact. I did come by it honestly.

I could say that it was my ex's fault, the one who took off with our couples' therapist. I could say it was a different ex who had an affair with a man while we were together. I could even say it was my mother's fault for choosing to meet her own needs instead of her children's. But that really won't help anything. It won't transform it. It would be the easy way out. It would be a way to continue to feel not chosen. To feel abandoned. To feel badly. I've done that for years. At this point, I feel it's very passe.

The more honest thing is to take a look at what my part in that is or was. The more enlightened stance would be to realize that people don't always act in the most fair or trustworthy way, but that they really are just trying to navigate their own journey as best as they can. The most revolutionary act, on my part, would be to choose to see every instance as a new one, rather than build an ammunition of doubt, distrust and fear.

It would be quite a different scenario at the corral, if I showed up not with a loaded gun in my left full of "I told you so", and another one in my right brimming with "You are just like everybody else" bullets.

No, It would be a miracle if I showed up with a bucket of tears for the longings of what did or didn't happen in one hand, and the other, an outstretched open hand to hold yours or let it go.

It isn't an easy choice. I'd have to give up the familiar. I'd have to give up the need to blame anyone including myself. Then what would I feel? Then whom would I be?