I'm checking off these goals left and
right, which is really awesome.
GOAL #6. Visit a Peruvian city.
I don't want to jinx anything, but it looks
like I'll be going to Trujillo
to visit a friend in February, so just maybe I can check off exploring another
Peruvian city very soon! Woohoo!
GOAL #2. Read a book in Spanish.
I’m also in the process of reading my first
book in Spanish, Merengue Dominical by Andrés Vanderghem. I am making my way
very slowly through it. When I first started reading it a week or two ago, I
stopped to look up every word I didn’t understand, but that made reading very
cumbersome and unenjoyable. So now I’m just reading to read. I took it to the
beach with me yesterday and after a couple pages passed out to nap. I tried to
read it yesterday evening and today since I haven’t had internet since
Saturday, but I made it through only a couple pages and passed out again.
Apparently me reading in Spanish makes me super sleepy. Well, no matter, maybe
I need the rest. I don’t really know how much I’m missing, but I’m able to
follow along enough, I think, to understand where the characters are located,
what characters are speaking together, how their personalities are developing,
and what the storyline line is. So, all is well.
GOAL #13. Take a meditation class.
The meditation class is going really well,
and we're already halfway done. I was hoping the sessions would last several
weeks, but alas, no, only three. The leader asked me how well I was
understanding everything, and I told her pretty well, explaining that she
speaks slowly enough for me to comprehend a lot of what she says. Then she
mentioned having a meditation class in English, which made me smile for two
different reasons: it's really thoughtful of her to consider me, but I don't
need one in English because I already grasp the concepts I need to in the
Spanish one.
I'm quite proud of myself for taking this
class in another language; it makes me feel a part of something. Though
admittedly I was a little embarrassed twice in Saturday's class when I didn't
understand a reference to some famous woman that everyone in the room knew,
(the teacher caught my eye and explained she's a Peruvian artist, but still, I have no
idea who she is), and when the leader directed us to stand up, close our eyes,
and try to find another seat, I didn't quite grasp all of the directions but
figured it out quickly enough. Those instances aside, as well as the instances
aside where I'm not concentrating in Spanish, I feel really good about taking
this class so I really don't need one in English. Unless it's about getting to
know the leader more, and then I would appreciate some extra time with her
because she seems like a lovely person. So I don't know, maybe it's about pride
coming after establishing a relationship. We will see.
Besides pride in taking the class, I'm
getting a lot out of it. Saturday we talked about the soul and karma. I was
surprised that no one in the room was able to describe karma, so next thing I
know, my hand is up and I'm explaining how karma is when you give positive, or
negative, energy, you will receive the same energy returned. I think my mom was
the first person to explain karma to me when I was little and it's part of my
spiritual philosophy that has guided me ever since. Karma falls in line with
the previous session's lecture on thoughts and feelings being positive,
negative, and neutral. If you think positive thoughts then positive energy will
come to you.
The discussion about the soul was
particularly interesting to me. She described the soul as white light that
comes from a source in the forehead. This personally I disagree with, because
when I think of my soul, it comes from a place within my chest that encompasses
my heart. I had not thought of it as white light per se, but definitely as a
form of energy moving within me.
She went on to describe God as coming in
the form of the soul, and I thought that was a lovely image because I've always
imagined that people who believe in God must feel a part of God residing within
them. I don't believe in God, but I do believe in the Universe's energy, and to
me, we all are all forms of energy sharing the same atoms, constantly in
motion. So the Universe's energy is within me, outside of me, moving all around
me, flowing here and there, taking me with it, and guiding me in all different
forms.
This concept of the bright white light of
energy that forms our soul intrigued me yesterday. Because it finalized some
reflections I've had over the past week and longer about love.
For one meditation, she asked us to imagine
peace and love within us. And for that, I was able to imagine all the instances
I felt love in my recent relationships. And I felt truly loved for however long
or brief a time, and I was so grateful for experiencing these different forms.
I remembered how my husband would look at
me with his lovely dark brown eyes growing bigger and his chest breathing in
deeply and this sweet smile on his face when I would do something silly or
adorable to him. That's some of the most beautiful memories I have. Then I
remember laying in bed with my next boyfriend when I came to Lima, him exclaiming over how clear (light)
my eyes are, just amazed at how they looked in the lamplight, and I felt so
much love at that moment. And then I remembered my last
"relationship," how he looked at me while he made such a cute fuss
over how small my feet are and how cute my worn out tee is that I wear to sleep
in, and I felt love then.
These were all different forms of love. I
know of all my memories my husband was the one who truly loved me, all of me, and accepted me for
most of the time we were together. I never felt such love before, and I know
that was the truest form of love. Maybe one day I will be fortunate enough to
experience it again, but maybe not. If not, then I will always have the memory
of being loved to such an extent that I can't even begin fathom feeling more
love than that.
I think the other two were forms of
adoration, more like being in love with me, and not the ultimate true love my
husband felt for me. I think that love like that takes time, and these other
relationships were too new. But they were lovely just the same.
For our final meditation, she asked us to
imagine a white light in our forehead, and this one took me by surprise. For
instead, I imagined this white light beaming so strongly from the center of my
body to the boyfriend I had when I first arrived here. I remembered him coming
to see me sitting on a curb in the park the first evening we met, a year to the
day of my meditation class, and this bright white light encompassed that entire
memory. I felt such gratitude for him. During the meditation, tears of
happiness streamed down my face, and I just kept beaming that white light
toward him. And then it turned it to me, sitting there on the curb, nervous and
excited, without a clue that this was the start of the next phase of my life.
And I reached down with my white light to kiss me on the cheek and tell myself
it would all be okay, that I would survive this next year that’s already passed,
and I would be okay. Todo va ser bien.
And when the meditation stopped, my tears
of joy wouldn't. And I realized that perhaps while I was never truly in love
with him, it was always about feeling gratitude. I confused gratitude with love.
It's not to take away the times I told him I loved him, or the times in the
beginning three months when I did feel real love for him, but what would have
been better and more true to say to him was how grateful I was and still am and
always will be. I was coming here to South America no matter what, but meeting
him presented me with an opportunity that made it all happen for me sooner and
he was someone—no, not just someone, but THE person—who helped me get my start
here.
Nearly all that I know about living here I
learned from him. It’s like the book, All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Well, my story goes more like All I Needed to Know about Living
in Lima I Learned in My First Two Months from My Boyfriend. People are always
amazed about how I know to get around, how I know how to act, how I know this,
how I know that, and it was all from him showing me everything.
And that, my friends, is what I'm grateful
for. And that is all. This gratitude was a form of love, but it wasn't the
"te amo" kind. That's the ultimate kind in Spanish. That's the kind I
had for my husband, and only for him. Maybe I had this with my first serious
boyfriend, and I do have a few fading memories of feeling that for him, but
that was so long ago now. I know my love for my husband far eclipsed the love I
had for that boyfriend or any other boyfriend before and since.
So I've been thinking about all the
different forms of love that make up humanity. There's respect, there's
gratitude, there's adoration, there's joy, there's peace. These are all forms
of love to me. But the ultimate is Love, and I only know how to express this in
Spanish, not in English because we use "I love you" for everyone, for
our friends, for our family, for our partners. I say "I love you" a
lot to my friends and family, and I truly mean it. But only in Spanish can I
truly express how I feel. I say "te quiero" or "te quiero
mucho" to my friends, which all translate as I love you or I love you a
lot, but they still don't mean the same as the ultimate “I love you”: te
amo. And this I only reserve for when I
truly feel it. I can tell someone "I love you" in English, but until
I say it in Spanish, “I love you,” for me, will never have the same intensity as
"te amo."
With my husband, I felt "te amo"
almost all the eight years we were together. For me, this meant not only did I
love him, but I was in love with him. I always careful to observe these two
sentiments within myself because I knew the day I didn't feel this way was the
day we could not be together. I had learned my lesson with that first serious boyfriend
I had from 18 to 23, and I recognized at some point along the way that though I
loved him, I was not in love with him. With my husband I was always happy to
observe that not only did I love him, but I was totally in love with him, too.
He made my heart sing and I so loved him coming home to me every evening,
jumping for joy when he walked in the door, excitedly telling him about my day
or sharing the latest whatever, just wanting to spend as much time with him as
possible. The times I was out without him, I was always happy to rush home to
him.
Until one day, I wasn't.
At some point in our last year together, I
realized I was no longer in love with him and in fact didn't like him that much
anymore. And then I knew that wasn't something I could get back, that was gone
forever, and my marriage was well on the way of being over. And that's sad, but
it's honest and real, and it happened.
Relationships are really hard. You think,
great, it's calm now and we are doing a great job communicating, and yeah,
we're gonna be just fine. That's complacency, because the day you think you've
got it made is the day when something goes wrong and you've got to work at
something else. It's all communication. Constantly communicating.
I remember the first year I was with my
husband, I was constantly feeling hurt about this and that. How we made through
that first year, I don't know. He really stuck with me when I tried again and again to get out of it. We, meaning me, created a lot of drama. But then one
day he told me that his actions were never meant to hurt me. What he was doing,
or what I perceived he was doing, was all because he was oblivious. It seemed
so obvious to me that he was doing things to hurt me, but in fact, he had no
idea what he was or wasn't doing was causing me pain.
So that opened my eyes to common sense,
which, as I think the saying by Voltaire goes, isn't all that common. All I had
to do was communicate my feelings. Gasp! It's really true. All I had to do was
open my mouth and let him know how I felt about what was going on. And if it
was something he was doing, he'd correct it in a second to make me feel better.
Because he loved me that much that he would do anything in his power to show
that.
And let me tell you, our relationship only
grew stronger from there, and for several years, we had a lovely existence. A
truly lovely one. That's not to say we didn't have problems, but we worked on
them, and we didn't have much drama. We just communicated what was going on.
Until we stopped. And then it was over.
One of the best quotes I've ever heard
comes from, quite possibly my favorite movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind where Clementine, Kate Winslet's character, warns Joel, Jim Carrey's
character, "I'm just a fucked up girl looking for her own peace of mind.
So don't assign me yours." I've always loved that line because it's raw
and honest. You can't help someone who doesn't want help. You can't make
someone happy unless she wants to be happy. You can't make someone feel good
about himself unless he wants to feel good. You can't communicate with someone
unless he wants to communicate with you.
And when that communication stops, boy,
you're in trouble. Love isn't going to save you then. No, only dedication will.
And if you don't have it, then you're lost.
After nearly ten years of knowing my now
ex-husband, I don't have any grand epiphanies from our long relationship. I
remember asking myself in the first months after we separated just what
the hell was it all about if I didn't
have any big revelation come from it. But I think I was missing the point. It's
all a bunch of little revelations and lessons learned about what to accept and
what to not accept in another relationship. I know the signs of trouble to look
for, but I also know the signs to look for that signal this will be a strong
partnership, a compatible one, based on love and respect and mutual admiration
and loyalty and honesty and dedication, one that we challenge each other to
grow as human beings and to grow as partners together.
I'm sure it's possible to have that again.
I'm too young to go the rest of my life without finding this again. And I won't
settle for anything less. I know what true love feels like, and it's worth
waiting a long time for.
May you, my dear faithful reader*, find and
keep true love for the rest of your life.
-----
Thank you for following along. It means so
much to me when you post on Facebook or comment here that you enjoy my stories.
And I love when I meet you for lunch or a drink that you talk to me about what
you’ve read. As I wrote to a couple friends who read this religiously, it’s
lovely that something cathartic to me brings you pleasure, too. I love how many
people from different countries read this, and I hope that you’re able to find
some peace or enjoyment from this in one way or another. Te quiero a los extranjeros por
todos lados el mundo y te quiero mucho a mi familia y mis amigos en los EEUU, Perú,
Alemania, Singapore, Francia, Brasil, y más.
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