both sides now

Ive looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
Its loves illusions I recall
I really dont know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say I love you right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
Ive looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say Ive changed
Well somethings lost, but somethings gained
In living every day

Ive looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
Its lifes illusions I recall
I really dont know life at all
Ive looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
Its lifes illusions I recall
I really dont know life at all

it is so hard to believe, but i have managed to hit the 1000th post mark with this entry. what a fantastic and sometimes emotional journey this has been for me. i don't know if i have sharpened any writing skills at all, but i do know that i have learned (with all my commenters' assistance) better tools to live life on life's terms through blogging. i have made some fantastic friends-even gone to a couple of 12step conventions with one, and i have been able to read as a few other bloggers have transitioned from feeling crazy to grounded within the safety of this online community.

i had been thinking that once in awhile i could revisit some places this blog has taken me, and this 1000th mark seemed a good place to start. this particular post was titled "both sides now" and appeared on september 10, 2007. the only change is the youtube clip. the movie segment is not available any longer, so i chose a live version of joni mitchell from december 2007. today's post (vintage) has an eerie similarity to yesterday's post which was completely unknown to me until now. i am thankful for the peace my life has found and i thank all my readers who have helped get me there.

sometimes i am so confused about this life. i know enough to know i don't know everything. that i might know very little is much more likely. some days i falter so much it's hard to believe i am stable. i say thoughtless things sometimes. i don't slow down enough. i try to pack too many things into a day. i find it hard to say no to a cause or a service commitment. i race through way too much and give too little my full attention. i don't always know how to ask for what i need, but then i'll expect others in my life to know and start to form resentments because they don't. my feelings were very hurt this weekend because of expectations i had and part of me so wants to be the drama queen. but i know that this leads me nowhere. so i am going to try the new approach i've learned. the "other" side.

the good news is that i'm maturing. that change happens. that i don't have to stay "stuck" in a mindset or a drama or a situation. i can try to change my perspective around a situation if i can't change the situation. this is a huge shift in my survival. a very huge shift.

the objects of my attention don't seem to suffer too much outwardly. but in my head they are all either cheating me or being cheated by me(it's all still very much about me). i still have the emotional maturity of a twenty-something because that's when i started using drugs and alcohol on a first-defense basis.

the course in miracles has taught me to always ask this question: "would you rather be happy or would you rather be right". of course, my first instinct always is to answer "i'd rather be both", but upon reflection, most times i'd rather be right. truthfully however, where does that get me in the end? being right usually gets me being left behind, alone and filled with tension. i can't really reflect on the happy part. that i am hoping to learn and become acquainted with in time.

so, i chose this clip and this song because it absolutely touched my heart the first time i saw it. it was while i was ill and stuck at home watching "love actually" over and over on cable- like i can do when i'm sick. the emma thompson character found an xmas gift in her husband's things (jewelry actually) and it is xmas morning and she is expecting to open a gift with that very jewelry inside. but when she opens it, it's a cd- the joni mitchell cd that contains this song. she excuses herself and goes to the closet to cry intensely but quietly so as not to alarm the children and spoil the day. she is introduced to this lesson in life that the course talks about. "would you rather be happy, or would you rather be right". the choices we make rarely come without pain. in the course of our lives we will be hurt. we will feel ignored. we will feel unnoticed. we will grieve. we will lose sometimes.

we can however still be happy even when our hearts break. feeling hurt is not the worst of our dilemmas in life. if we can look at our relationships as a whole and not as individual happen-stances, we can survive pain and be stronger and be happy. and we can understand our fellows and our loved ones more deeply because of it.