Understanding Cougar.....a journey to enlightenment

"I am strong because I am weak. I'm beautiful because I know my flaws. I'm a lover because I am a fighter. I'm fearless because I have been afraid. I'm wise because I have been foolish. & I can laugh because I have known sadness."

Johari House with four rooms. Room 1 is the part of ourselves that we see and others see. Room 2 is the aspects that others see but we are not aware of. Room 3 is the most mysterious room in that the unconscious or subconscious part of us is seen by neither ourselves nor others. Room 4 is our private space, which we know but keep from others. 

My journey is to really see and understand my blind spots, make myself known to others in a different way, make others aware of my unconscious self and delve into that mysterious room.

So 2012 is around the corner, most have resolutions they made up, some will succeed and some will fail.

As I reflex back on my life as a whole, I see a pattern that has repeated itself through the span of years.  It started at an early age.  I had many friends back then, we all hung around in a group, not the type of gangs of today, just crazy young teens drinking, smoking, experimenting with drugs and living life footloose and carefree.  At the age of 12 I had my first boyfriend, we were at a girlfriends house for her birthday, the guys back then liked to get together and play in a band, still the same today, nothing really changes.

At the party there was one guy who was trying to get my attention, after a few beers, there we were kissing like teenagers do.  I remember friends asking us if we were going out together, he looked at me and said are we, at that point I felt peer pressure and said yes.  What did I know about boys at that time, I was not looking for a boyfriend at such a tender age.  During the two years we dated, my thoughts of him changed from timid to first love, unfortunately for me, he set into motion the terms of my relationships to come.  The baggage of the past, the things we seem to always go back to, even subconsciously.  The baggage that destroys relationships.  When the end came, he didn’t have the balls to tell me himself, he had some other guy tell me, and that guy spared no mercy telling me that this guy was cheating on me with my brothers ex girlfriend, a girl who I came to think of as a best friend. No closure at an early age, why do some men prefer to leave things unsaid, do they not realize that damage it can bring?

From the age of 14 to 16 I held feelings for this first love, quite possibly rejecting others more worthy who I was blind to see, this first love cut deep into my soft and gentle heart.  I started going out more, drinking more, experimenting with less invasive drugs, the cougar is a flirt by nature something she can’t help, it’s something that comes naturally.  I think it was by a higher design that one fateful night I met the man who was to be my future children’s father.  By the time I was sweet 16 I was looking for someone to fill the void in my soul, and I guess I let in the first one who was able to get through my blind spot and pretend that he really cared about me.

After years of reflecting on the choices I made in life, I have no regrets, it has shaped and molded me, the good that came out of that near 20 year relationship were my children and stopped me from a downward spiral of drinking, drugs and free love lifestyle.  For most of those 20 years, I settled into a homemaker, a mother, a non-drinker, a non-smoker,  a committed government worker, but it did have its cost.   This man turned out to be a controlling man, sometimes violent and abusive, another cheater, and more knives to stick into an already non-trusting heart.

When I finally found the courage to break away, I found myself spinning in a downward spiral, drinking, taking up smoking, letting a man into my life, all wrong for me.  I call myself a caretaker of lost souls, my heart goes out to them, but it cost me 10 years and more money than I care to remember.  This one was not a cheater, but a drinker, a druggie and lived off a woman with a gentle soul.  The turning point in this was a bout with cancer and the death of my father; still it took me almost 4 years to get him out of my life with my pension and house intact and debts cleared up,

Enter another man attracted to the caretaker, this one was smooth and made me believe that I could attract a man for any other reason than to take care of them.  A legacy left by the first love and abusive one, low self esteem.  How wrong can a lonely woman be, I continued to drink, he liked to gamble, and he had no qualms about me paying for him or living rent free.  And of course in comes the trust issue that has been following me all my life, yes true to form another cheater, but a good liar or maybe I just didn’t want to believe that it was true.  I think back on this troubled 4 years of my life and am glad that I finally realized him for who he was, not that he was a bad person, he couldn’t help himself.  How can anyone love someone else if they can’t love themselves?   

The only thing I wish for from this past relationship was that I didn’t get myself almost bankrupt with him and that I didn’t let him tear up my house to not put it back together again.  I think that fact that my house needs tender loving care is stopping me from really getting to know someone, it does embarrass me sometimes.  I have no idea why, but I know it in my heart that the fear exists, perhaps it’s because I don’t want to let anyone ever help me again.  That same trust issue always rearing its ugly head.

So for three more years I reject potential suitor after suitor on the online dating circuit, the ones that I choose are all the ones I know are set up to fail, even my best friend tells me so, she knows me so completely.  I still continue to drink, sometimes too much, having fun, being loud, expressive, and the life of the party.  A facade to my real feelings, feeling lonely and dead inside wondering when the roller coaster ride they call life is going to end and I’ll be free.

In 2009 my best friend gave me a writing journal; I start writing down my thoughts, the blank pages before me, and the song “Unwritten” resounding in my mind.  It felt liberating to write down the things I usually kept deep inside my mind, never releasing to anyone, very therapeutic.  When 2010 rings in, I decide my life needs to change, and that year it did, I retire and start working again, more so to get myself free of the debt the last guy and myself put me into.  At least this is one job and not the two jobs I had to been accustomed to doing those three years.  I feel I want to bring good things into my life, I’m still drinking, still going out having fun, but something is sadly missing.  My weight has been a problem like a yo-yo since my cancer; it’s always up and down due to a thyroid problem and to be perfectly honest the drinking. I start to think that perhaps it’s my weight that is stopping me from finding someone, a wrong choice in men made a reference to it once after dating me for a month, he must have been blind the whole time to tell me a month later he didn't realize I had a thick waist, good thing I respected myself and didn't sleep with him.

End of 2010 and I meet a man off of a dating site, he is different from the ones I’ve chosen, not an alcoholic, gambler at least to any extent, or a drug addict.  I feel he is gentle and also feel the chemistry, he seems to like me very much, but that is usually when I turn tail and run.  Only after one month he is on his way for a three month vacation and although I stay faithful to him through his journey when he returns I do something to set him out of my life, even though I could see that I did really like him, I’m rejecting him as I usually do the ones that could work for me.

 My life in the next three months take flight, I join a women’s group and start experiencing life from a new prospective, the bar and dancing stop for the most part in the spring/ summer.  Then as fate would have it, he catches me at my favorite dancing spot on a rare night and I, not him, ask to start over. He agrees but seems to have his reservations.  I can honestly say that during the next 3 ½ months I fell deeply in love with him, so much that I open up myself completely, a first for me after a life of being distrusting of men and their motives.  I try to let him know how I feel about him with the things I say, the things I do, but he seems to always be holding back expressing the same things to me, a thought I push to the back of my mind to my subconscious state, perhaps I don't want to believe that he is not feeling the same love towards me as I do him.  I’m experiencing some health issues, and find a new diet in September of 2011 that means no drinking, no coffee and only 500 calories, I start losing weight, and I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in a long time.  I look forward to the time when he returns from his travels, he is a long distance trucker, each time we are together I get butterflies in my stomach, and I realized that I have found the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, even though we don’t have a lot of interest in common, life is what one makes it, you don't need the same interest just a few common ones. I know and accept that he is out on the road, I also know that in the spring/summer and fall I can come out with him to.   He made me believe that I could trust him, to let my walls down, let him into my heart that he loved me but........

They say people come into your life for a reason, season or lifetime, I so wanted him for a lifetime, but god or this guy thought not.  One night over for dinner at his place and only the second time I’ve had alcohol since I started my diet in September, I shared a bottle of red wine with him only because he was making me dinner, something I thought was special.  We are going out to the bar in his town, one of my girlfriends is suppose to meet me.  I know I had one glass of red wine at the bar, but don’t remember anything else of the evening; it’s a blackout to me.  I’ve anguished over it many times, trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why I had this blackout.  I thought of  everything from Reactive Hypoglycemia (I’m borderline and the reason for the needed weight loss), to someone putting a Rufi in my drink at the bar, which can’t be ruled out and seems to make sense when it was told to me, one does and says things they normally would not do, being beyond one's control.  All I can speculate is I must have behaved in a manner that was unbecoming to him and probably me if I had known what I was doing at the time, but he never explained to me why he wouldn’t talk to me again after that night.  He refused to answer my calls, refused to tell me why he didn’t want to see me again.  Just told me "I knew what I did", well I’m glad he has my memories and kept it all to himself.  If you love someone as much as I loved him, you would communicate with them as you want them in your life.  They will have good qualities and negative ones, but love will endure even with the negative if the love is pure and true.   I tried writing him many times to get through to him, but perhaps I set him further away from me in doing so.   If you’re reading this blog, I wish someday you would find it in your gentle heart to enlighten me why you ended us, finally give me my memories that I do not have of that night and whether you really loved me as I came to believe you did.  A kind man would give a lady closure but most people I find would rather run and leave things unfinished.

So I guess that brings me into my enlightenment and to the biggest changes I have to make in my life this coming year and it took the loss of someone I loved deeply to realize that.  Trusting in men and their motives has always been my biggest baggage, stop drinking to hide the hurt my second (drowning ones sorrows so to speak); losing the weight to keep me healthy and active in the summer of my years and opening up my heart to allow someone worthy into it.

My good friends call me angel, a sweetie and I know deep down that I’m a good person; this tarnished halo will be getting a new polish, and knowing that by expressing my thoughts in written form I will open myself up to still be that spirited, confident woman with a new outlook on life, liberated from the chains of my past. 

"A window to my soul, keeping a journal is my way of giving my feelings an outlet like no other, a place where my deepest thoughts can reside without fear of judgment, blame, or need of justification. Journals allow me to be just who I am, and are a place where I can travel through life's emotions with gentleness, compassion, and deeper understanding."

Now that I understand myself let the adventures begin...tomorrow it's my last adventure of 2011 skating at The Forks.....