...a way of seeing beyond inner and outer.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Small me, the girlfriend and the smackdown.

Now that I've got you all ready for a cat fight I'm sorry to say, you're in for a disappoint.  If it makes you feel any better, it turns out I'm disappointed too.
Sunday, I sat in the yellow-white happy light of candles writing the original form of this post, when Pandora began to play Natalie Merchant's "Jealousy"and the weather Southern California isn't supposed to have began to beat dreary wet and on my living room windows. The poetic perfection made me smile.  It's an appropriate setting and soundtrack for the day after the conversation that started with his question
     "What are you doing?"
and my answer,
   "I'm blogging about your girlfriend."
Nothing has changed but the conversation hasn't truly ended yet, because, in my adult years, I've learned that dialog can and often should stop and start based on how productive it is in bringing me and another person together rather than whether or not I've gotten my point across, and in this case, by "I've gotten my point across", I'm really saying "he nods his head after I say,
    'You agree to buy me jewelry as a manifestation of how clearly you see how much you clearly messed this up. Are we clear?'"
     Of course that's my initial reaction.  I'm human and while I made the point to my husband that my larger self realizes there is no threat, my biologically programmed female self insists on totalitarian monogamy which, in fairness, is no more than was being asked of me by his very male self, when, for example, one of his buddies asks me to go to a movie.  That line-crossing he saw, but for the record, had it been a friend who respected his own wife, I might have wanted to go, which shows you that it wasn't really marital jealousy that was working my nerves. Nor was my husband's stereotypically male relationship myopia.
   What been bugging me about this is that even though I know she is worthy of my kindness, even though I am in love very deeply with my husband who I trust and respect only because I do know him so well,  and even though this friendship costs me absolutely nothing, and even though I know grace and love makes me happier, always, every time, with great consistency,  I think I still want my husband, of his own volition, to have called this woman to punish her for not wanting to be my friend too and I think I want him to have felt embarrassed, spanked and humbled as he called her because "he clearly messed this up."
     I was most bothered by the fact that I wanted someone other than me to feel bad and I wanted vengeance At least as far as the blogosphere,  I got it.  I was right and good. She was wrong and bad. "Oh hell no he didn't!"  "Girl, you ain't got to take that from no man." , things my sister and I say to each  in jest about men.
  So why did  that makes me feel a little bit small, then a lot small?
Finding grace is a work in progress that is a lot like double digging.  If you garden, you know what that is and what that means.  If you don't, it's removing the stuff you see to get to the stuff you don't, in the case of gardening, inferior soil.  In the case of myself as a human being, anything that doesn't serve me in the highest sense. While this friendship doesn't exactly serve me in apparent ways, jealousy, pettiness, vengeance don't either and those are things I am inclined to dig into and replace with something holy, with something that nurtures rather than punishes, that builds rather than tears down, that creates rather than humiliates.
 If you go down to the very root of your jealousies, your dislikes, your anger, there's always a seed of self loathing or even more insidious, self doubt What you are cannot be hurt.  That's what we forget.  To think that we as brilliant creatures are something that can be dinged and knicked in any meaningful way is absurd.   You may be disappointed that someone else forgot themselves and felt the need to attack you in some way, but you aren't really effected unless you take that story of "attack" and attach it to your own definition of yourself. Attack implies battle, which there cannot be with only one person participating.  Mine is a not quite tender enough head in need of a little more cooking but I'm done with smallness.  For now.

I have this budding bodhisattva to thank for the final form of this post. It was a hard post to write but it got ever so slightly easier after I read a comment he left on the "husband's girlfriend" post.

12 comments:

  1. Budding bodhisattva - haha! That's very kind and makes me smile. You know what? The same could be said of you. The way I see it, to grow, all we need do is be honest with where we're at - even when we feel threatened or afraid - and be willing to consider, and act on, another more loving perspective when we have the presence of mind to do so. And from what you've told us, you SO have that down. We all have those times of smallness...until we don't anymore. But really Tracy, you're rockin' who you are and where you're at!

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  2. What a wonderful post Tracy! I believe we all have Buddha nature. My problem was my husband's friends (he has HUNDREDS). But then I started chanting, and I realized that the problem was not that M had so many friends, that he had his own life. The problem was me not having my own life. The moment I began to look at my life instead of his, I became less lonely, less bitter - I became happy. I am a long way off from achieving your state of mind, but I am getting there.

    You are such a beautiful person :)

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  3. I do gardening!
    Plus, i like use the 'F' word; Forgiveness!

    xo*

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  4. Jeff,
    My humility insists that I tell you that you couldn't be more right about me, about us, about it all. We are, as we are, when we are. Compassion has to germinate with love for our own now-self. Wisdom is in knowing that.

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  5. C,
    Isn't it remarkable that all our discord with other people can be traced to some betrayal of our truest nature. The only thing more remarkable to me than that is being compassionate with myself has given me the ability to be that way with others.

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  6. Lenore,
    I wish I did. I gave up gardening for life in a townhouse close to the Pacific. A small potage keeps my green thumb alive but sometimes it longs for a shovel, compost and flats of seedlings fanned out on the ground. It's at that point I hop in the two seater and head up PCH ;)

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  7. Yeah Yeah, Buddha and all that! You have taken the high road in dealing with this gal so shouldn't feel small that your 'biologically programmed female self' needed a little support from your bloggy friends.

    I meant to comment on the other post days ago-- but I have been thinking about it-- even had a related uneasy dream. Thanks!! (I have my own silly younger self issues as both the 'girl' friend and the wife-- yes, I cringe)

    What I was going to say on the girlfriend post in response to 'I have a very high opinion of the quality of my hugs and I pity the fool who doesn't share my opinion.' was that the gal is a fool to not want to be friends with you.

    And I did know what was really bugging you because it would have bugged me too and did bug as I was reading the girlfriend post. Yes, hubby should be offended on your behalf and behave accordingly.

    Dr. Phil says men are doofuses and just don't know the nuances of these things and need it spelled out. Which is true in most cases, I think-- some men are disrespectful or malicious but the majority are just big ol' doofuses.

    I know you are letting it all go for now but I don't mind a bit a smallness so I remain incensed on your behalf.

    :o)

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  8. Lesa,
    You're too funny and too correct! For the record, letting it go is easier said than done because I spent a lot of last night talking about it with one of my girlfriends. So though I aspire to something larger, I'm still mud wrestling with it all if not the wench that's the center of this all.

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  9. "If you go down to the very root of your jealousies, your dislikes, your anger, there's always a seed of self loathing or even more insidious, self doubt What you are cannot be hurt."

    I believe this, too, although sometimes I forget to know it!

    Thanks for your very kind comment today :-)

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  10. It's been a looooong time since I experienced jealous feelings, but I remember them being very strong and destructive. You have reason to continue conversations with your Hub, but your new attitude will most likely make those times more productive.

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  11. Lavender,
    Ha! I forget to know with great regularity.

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  12. GG,
    I'll keep yah posted, and I suspect you're right. Either way it's dribbling its way out to a resolution.

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