I am waiting, excitedly, for the weekend.
Not like I wait for most weekends. It’s not that type of wait. It’s not about being off from work, doing household chores in between bouts of hiking and writing and workout out and spending time with the kids. As a single dad, weekends can take on a meaning some would find hard to understand, but for those who do you’ll understand what this type of wait means.
My beloved has created a wonderful weekend. We are heading to someplace loaded with nature coupled with workshops based on the ancient Toltec philosophy (minus the human sacrifice, I trust). For those of you who know me, you know that parts of that philosophy have had a tremendous impact on my life, beginning with the book The Four Agreements. We are also sharing our anniversary together, and expanding our relationship to a new level in what has been our process, our way, our time. It’s not my way, and it’s not her way. It’s our way. We share in the challenges, the triumphs and the growth equally.
This weekend, I get to increase my knowledge while expanding my openness. Best of all, I get to do this with the woman I have a deep love for, someone who has not only opened me up further than I’ve ever been, but also someone who has shown me that all of the effort I’ve put into my transformation has been both successful and well worth it.
(Channeling Johnny Olson) But that’s not all!
The last few months have taken their toll on me. I’ve had to move, deal with the absolute selfishness of some, try to meet the demands of fatherhood, employee, writer, long-distance lover, meditator, philosopher, friend, ally, enemy, and relative lone-wolf. While those things on their own don’t ordinarily bother me, having them all heaped together in a short period of time is like trying to run a marathon in about 20 minutes. I can feel the stress taking its toll on my body, my mind, and my desire to engage in the world. I can feel myself losing control of some parts of me in order to maintain the focus those other things have demanded.
Sometimes the fighter in me, the warrior, takes over. He is that same beast that helped me survive the many traumatic events that distorted my views of both the world and people who live in it. That fighter is often cold, distant, and can isolate himself with great skill (he’s had much practice). Yet he has softened much in the face of the warrior’s transformation. I have sought isolation recently, but I have not built the walls around me I once built. Instead, I have sought that isolation in the vast wilderness within, sans the walls I once thought protected me, accepting whatever would come into my space while I went about my business of living the experience.
I realize that this, too, is part of the cycle. Life ebbs and flows in a wonderful rhythmic tide that keeps us learning while providing opportunities to exercise what we have learned. Education is in the learning, but wisdom is in the exercise of what we’ve learned and seek, if nothing else, to be wise. I could not find the joy I have found if I had wasted the many lessons this life has taught me. Instead, I need to find wisdom so that those lessons can have a positive value. Otherwise, the pain and trauma I’ve endured will serve no real, positive purpose.
That, in my heart, would hurt worse than the trauma itself.
What this weekend represents is a wonderful opportunity to learn, to love, and to sharpen this warrior’s Wisdom Sword. It’s an opportunity to reset my mind, my heart and my intentions toward my truest purpose in life. It’s an opportunity to share, for the very first time in my life, my intimate process of expansion and reestablishment with the woman who lives within my heart each and every moment. She has always been a part of what is the normalcy of expansion, contraction and existence for me, but never the deeply intimate process of my rising from bent knee to stand, rather than kneel, before the altar of life.
Of course I’m not sure that the outward expression of this process will be as profound as the inward process is. I’ve never shared it with anyone in order to get that feedback. These moments have always been mine and mine alone, experienced in isolation and solitude.
(Channeling Johnny Olson again) Tom Grasso, come on down! You’re the next contestant on The Moment Is Right!
While I’m not jumping and screaming like the contestants on the Price Is Right often do, I am excited about what this weekend offers in potential as I set my personal intention for Self. I am excited about spending these moments with my solemate, of learning something new, of walking in the forests and staring at the Pacific in a shared moment of intense love. I’m excited in employing the wisdom I’ve sweat and bled to realize, and in expanding my eternal horizons.
There will be volumes written, I am sure. Some of that may even be shared. Regardless, I will be resetting at what appears to be the exact right time in the exact right place with the exact right person.
Peace.