Tag Archive | open relating

Self Portrait Sunday

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I almost forgot, AGAIN, that it was Sunday. I was trying to think of a picture I could take that would go with today’s writing when I remembered. And that’s good, because today is a two-fer. You get the outside in the picture, as usual. But I have also spent some time today sharing my heart on relationships with a friend, and that, cleaned up, will be the bulk of what you read or skip today. 🙂

And truly, it’s okay if you skip. I will never find out. And I know it can be very uncomfortable to read about other people’s inner thoughts. Unintentional mirrors and flashlights and such. I get that.

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I like to laugh, to play. I have a lot of serious moments, deep thoughts. And then a flash of humor. It’s important to me to be able to share both. I want a man willing to both think and laugh with me.

Let me revisit that last statement. Not “I want a man…..”. I want people….who can accept me as I am in this moment, and in the next, different moment’s incarnation. And I want that badly enough that I am intentionally seeking it out. I want that depth of connection, because anything less feels false.

The interplay of love and freedom has been particularly salient for me of late, likely because I am spending a good deal of mental energy figuring out what open relating and relationship anarchy is going to look like for me. Letting go of that societal imprinting where the body is the person. And also figuring out what makes me feel caged and what makes me feel free. And how to approach people, but stay large, stay me even as I forge connections with others. I’m very busy pulling the lessons from the experiences.

I’d rather look at my fear and get to know it, get comfortable with it, than to set yet more artificial boundaries between myself and others. People hurt each other, as much as they try not to. I know that in any relationship, that’s going to happen. Because we are human.

There are two things about that. First, I can decide not to even get started because of fear, or I can accept it as a “cost of doing business” as it were and proceed. And the second thing is about when it happens: whether or not we move past it when it does happen relies to a very great extent on whether I make it about the other person or about me. And if I own my own feelings on that, sit with them, look at where they really originate, then that’s the better choice.

All of this is part of what my tattoo means. I was able to get it after I changed my perspective on some things. I’m not actually fearless. But I can act that way because I don’t let fear call the shots. I don’t let should call the shots. Should is another link in the chain of fear.

I let the shots call themselves, and attempt to walk in grace and beauty, treading compassionately in the lives of others.