Everywhere

I see you everywhere.

Every bike rider who sweeps passed on the street turns my head. The confident ones, no matter their colour, make me double take to see if it is you.

When my apartment is buzzed, I answer and wait to hear that it is you. It never is. There is a gasp of hope and anticipation and then a thump as my heart is bitch slapped by reality.

You are gone.

That is OK.

I'd rather you be happy.

I lie in bed and close my eyes and imagine you sleeping next to me. With my insomnia, I used to watch you sleep. Your eyelids would flutter and you'd sigh at whatever you were dreaming. I'd kiss you and like the kissing ninja you are, you'd kiss me back mid-sleep as if you saw me coming every time. Those were the moments I spent with you that you didn't spend with me, consciously.

For all the drama and the pain that you caused, I will confirm that it was worth it.

Thank you for the ride of my life. Thank you for the first true love of my life.

I'd change nothing. Nothing.

Now, go do amazing things and know I love you.

Stoopid immune system.

Mirror, Mirror

I sat at dinner with my two closest Seattle friends, Vanessa and Candace. We spoke of many things but one thing resonated with them. I know this because they both mentioned it in days to come. To me, it was a passing comment but to them it seemed more. I realised that I had said something so true and personal that most people won't admit it... out loud, at least.

That however is my signature stupidity/charm.

I am a mirror.

It is a social skill and helps me build rapport faster than any other skill.

People think mirrors are out to mirror behaviour and that it is insincere. That is not the case.

Being a mirror is a great social skill. However, it is not about giving up who you are to satisfy the audience No. It so is not.

Being a mirror is about understanding the level of authenticity and emotional investment that each individual needs. Not about giving up who you are.

Some people need to connect intimately, some superficially. Some need to fall in love and others need to emotionally bounce off you and boost their ego. We walk in and out of the lives of people to give them what they need. That's a good way to see the world.

Recently, I felt a lot of emotion for an amazing man. He didn't want a relationship but needed support. I gave him that and we are no longer friends. That challenged me because I fell in love a little. My sadness is warranted because I helped him and thought we wanted the same thing but I was mistaken. I needed to remember that sometimes we give and don't receive and that is ok. We walk in and out of people's lives but mirrors carry a massive weight.

We know what you need and we give it because we care about you. Most people don't get that.

Sitting with two mirrors at dinner, I realised I am not alone. We find each other to help carry the weight that is thrust on us. I'm grateful to you two, Nessy and Candy. Even when those we carry for don't ever realise it.

I think true love is...

I think this thing we refer to as "true love" is a combination of many loves.

Some get it from one person. Some get it from a few. Others get it from a stadium full of fans.

Whatever it is to you, it fills you up. It makes you feel whole. Books have been written about it. Battles fought. Lives lost, even to the still living.

Since my life feels like being wrapped in an unending everlasting Righteous Brothers style love, I realise I am one of the lucky ones. It wasn't always that way or I wasn't always aware it was.

Take it in. Breathe it. Walk it. Swim in the salty waters of all the loving tears. Don't waste it.

Let the people who love you express that. Let it soak in like warm monsoonal rain. Let it be.

It might not be a partner. Maybe your folks suck. It could be your children always scream at you. I don't know.

Just take the good bits and realise that true love is unconditional, unending and effortless love.

Friendzones and Fury

This afternoon, a male friend told me that men and women can not be friends. He is a little upset about what he sees as me putting him in the friendzone. I don't know about all these stoopid rules. I have a lot of friends, male and female. We can all be friends IMHO. If we go through life assuming everyone of the preferred sex wants to bonk us then that would be just strange. Instead, I choose to have lovely friends and let life be what it is.

Acceptance Criteria

In software engineering we have a way of working that we refer to as "agile." It means that we behave in a way that makes it easier for us to adapt to change.

I often joke that I work as an agent of change so that I can make others change and not myself :)

There is an idea we work around that says that before we start any task, we must define upfront how we will know that a task is completed.

We call this the Acceptance Criteria.

Today, I applied this concept to a life situation and it helped me accept that what I thought was a case of friendship was really no more than a case of me being played.

As readers of this blog well know, I can be easily be convinced that 'gullible' has been removed from the Oxford English Dictionary. This often underwrites my tendency to believe people when they tell me something and that they are not lying to me. As a logician, I see the flaw in this statement immediately but apparently not in reality.

The acceptance criteria today involved checking what it means for someone to actually care for me. A friend for instance. A person who cares about how they make me feel and care that I am not made sad by their actions. A person who takes the time to understand where I am coming from. A person who gives me the benefit of the doubt. A person who would not act against me, no matter the situation.

Application of said criteria resulted in a fail.

I am a good friend. I am learning that I can not expect that from everyone.

Thank you for being my friends

This last seven days has seen me lean on my closest friends and on my family to get through the challenges. My support network is amazing and if I don't say it enough: Thank you.

Thank you to Allison Carleton for being my voice of reason and for giving me sanctuary in every storm.

Thank you to Bernarda Maia for never letting me apologise for who I am and always offering to help me bury the bodies.

Thank you to Taylor-Trina Kadiba for being my loyal, loving and always supportive sister. You are my best friend.

Thank you to Candace Wong for making me laugh when I wanted to cry, usually at her but also at myself.

Thank you to Ola Kl for reminding me that I am awesome even when I don't feel like I am. And for making it ok to have You're So Vain as my life soundtrack.

Thank you to Bruce Cartland for tolerating my stupidity and always lifting me up.

Thank you to Evelyn Moreno for showing empathy and letting me be myself.

Thank you to Janet Wong for being endlessly kind and sincerely celebrating and sharing every achievement with me for my entire career.

And although we are not facebook friends, thank you to my boss who kicks my arse at the right times and sits and shows compassion when it counts.

Thanks to everyone else for always being kind. It counts whether it is in cyberspace or meatspace. I am honoured and humbled.

Benefit of the Doubt

I have been good at giving people the benefit of the doubt lately. No matter the situation, I have been able to find it in myself to look through the anger or negativity or coldness and see that there is a person feeling something behind that aggression.

Not everything makes sense to me. The recent events have left me sad that my privacy could be so violated and then those around me think ill of me.

Sometimes, you can't control what is happening to your life and you just have to accept it. This is one of those times.

The cruel words. The false accusations. Being discarded and rejected as if I did something wrong, has been a learning experience. It is most well learnt when you realise that neither you nor the person angry with you did anything wrong. Someone else just kicked you both.

Oh well, I never expected more than friendship from my friend. I got much less and it all wrapped in blame.

Life is teaching me something. I'm learning. Somehow however, it feels like I strayed in to the wrong lecture room of life this day.

Now to move on.

Always feel compassion but move on.

The Lieutenant

My eighth book of 2014 is The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville. This is the best book I have read this year and Australians should have to read this. It is fiction but based in facts around the First Fleet.

The story is so relevant to recent events in my life that I related to the point of tears. Even if you aren't where I am in a place of hopelessness and acceptance, you will find this book brilliant.

Without the usual guilt you get from tales of the English meeting the original Australians, this book bases the history we all know in compassion.

You will see that world and moment in time through the eyes of a physicist who falls in love with a black girl but can not love her because he has made a commitment to a life that he chose before he discovered who he was.

There is a scene in the book where the protagonist realises that he didn't find the person he was until he met this amazingly brilliant woman who he could be himself with. As if he became a person because she accepted and expected he was that. They shared a love of language and a great intellect but existed in a time and place where it was not allowed. They shared a mutual respect.

There is so much more to this book than a love story. There is a love of science and of history. Kate Grenville is an amazing writer who took me there. There, where everyone should go.

Should I read this? Oh my goodness, yes.
What did I learn? Life is not something that you should let happen to you. You should experience it. Live it. Love through it. Fail. Get up again. Learn and learn some more. Regret nothing.

Cruel To Be Kind

I was in a crap situation until today, where there were two awesome people who were going towards a place of pain and suffering for more than just themselves.

So, I broke it. Stopped it. Took it beyond recovery.

Sometimes, the one who ends it is not the coldest but the strongest.

The most she will do is throw shadows at you

Once there was a mountain. It had always been what it was and would always be.

Mountains do grow and change with the weather, over the ages. Inside, they may be holding an upset tummy of molten rock or just be solid all the way through. Apart from the world breaking open beneath them, nothing phases a mountain. It always has been what it is and will always be.

Once there was a tornado. It had been other things prior to being a tornado and would most likely be something else in the future.

Tornadoes change so often and without warning that it is best to describe what stays most constant about them. There is the air bit. It is tumultuous. It is swirly whirly. It is looking for something but it has no idea what that actually is. It is still looking. Uplifting houses and breaking so permanent roads and throwing stuff around.

Once a tornado met a mountain. A tornado, mid-mix. A mountain, mid-consistency.

Now, tornadoes and mountains are not meant for each other no matter how much each tries. No matter how sincere the effort. No matter how noble the intent.

This tornado burst on to the scene with the immense energy that only a tornado has. There is no off button. There is no volume button. Buttons are for controlling things. Tornadoes don't have buttons.

The stoic mountain saw the destructive tornado arrive. They both appreciated that the other had amazing talents and latent power inside them. They both saw the merits of the other that would be good habits to adopt themselves. They became friends.

The problem with mountains (according to tornadoes) is that they move at a pace that challenges a snail but frustrates a tornado. And the problem with tornadoes (according to mountains) is that you can't get a tornado to maintain consistency long enough to get a message across.

The tornado and the mountain became great friends. They seemed for a while to find a stable middle ground.

The thing with tornadoes is that a stable middle ground seems an anti-pattern and they start to spin faster trying to re-centre until there is little method or control. This scares mountains. They see the destabilisation and plant their feet so as not to be moved by anything but damn time.

The thing is, a tornado will re-centre on their very own if they are given the time. Mountains have nothing but time. The only problem is when a mountain doesn't have the time to wait for the tornado.

Not that tornadoes aren't the problem in the first place.

So two beautiful, natural and wonderful friends lose each other.

They both feel the loss.

The mountain sees the tornado spin and smiles at the beauty of it in full flight.

The tornado sees the mountain as consistent as ever and closes it's eyes and just spins, hoping that it won't always be so painful.

Everything is as it was before. The mountain keeps being the mountain that it always was and always will be. The tornado throws a house at a shopping mall and wonders when it will help. Then the tornado wonders if being a cyclone might be better and sets plans in motion to change.

The world keeps spinning, unaffected.