Have The Relationship You WANT

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The Holidays are slipping away from me. I’m buzzing, speeding, moving faster than sound waves. Brain on overdrive, pedal to the metal. It’s Hanukkah. It’s Christmas. It’s Kwanzaa. It’s New Year’s. All at once.

I see my entire life in rewind. My whole life crammed into two weeks. I remember my childhood and the Hanukkah candles, my single years with the Hanukkah candles and the Christmas tree because I thought it was pretty and festive and fun, Christmas in New York with a potted plant. Then married years of collecting ornaments and my daughter throwing icicles around the room.

Years ago, we gave up the tree lot Christmas tree because of allergies, then we gave up the living Christmas tree because of the same allergies, then we gave up the fake tree (which I really loved – the whole thing was one big decoration), and this year I forgot to buy Hanukkah candles.

The parties are like networking meetings. Everyone has business cards. Even family get-togethers feel like replays, like obligations, like the children are all leaving home and this is the only way we can see them.

Some of us are giddy. Some of us are blue. Some of us are lifted up by whose birthday and whose steadfastness we’re celebrating. Some of us are tired. I’m just, well, feeling.

It’s hard to be or feel any one thing in the middle of all this celebrating, cooking, cleaning, putting off work, missing appointments, going out of town, caring for and being visitors and houseguests. It’s hard to be any one thing or feel any one thing ever.

To me, this whirlwind of tradition, ritual, repetition, counting of years, remembering where we were at that Christmas, that Hanukkah, that Kwanzaa is a swirl of emotion that ties me to my past, propels me into my future, and makes me stand right here, right now, awestruck, watching the air fly past my eyes.

And it makes me love myself and all people just a little more – because I can’t cling to the past or dream about the future or pretend to not be here. It’s like a vortex. It’s past, present and future – the same for everyone.

We’re all connected here – not by religion or tradition or even the start of yet another year, but by the fact that we’re all tied to this season of both celebrating and lamenting everything all these things bring to the surface for us to feel. All at once.

In any given moment, there are infinite possibilities of feeling. Turn to your desk. All those things sitting on it. Look at them. Touch one at a time. Doesn’t each have a different feel, a different memory?

I look at the picture of my dog, Popcorn, who passed away four years ago, and still feel a wave of sadness and regret for what I didn’t do for her, and then my new dog, Hazel, three years old, touches my shoe with her face, and a wave of delight goes through me.

The rubber band on the desk reminds me of something old, and it feels like something fun, and the air smells like flowers, and it’s cold in here. All at once.

Feelings morph. They’re liquid. They can go from unbearably bereft grief to stunningly tingly pleasure in less than the blink of an eye. We don’t have to stay in our dungeons of loneliness or our prisons of pain, or our clouds of infatuation.

We can move through it all, cycle through it, round in a circle or up and down or side to side, and swim in the Soup of our own emotions, our own soul’s treasure chest.

If you’re feeling blue, it’s not who you are. It’s just the way you feel right now. It’s okay to look at the cat with love in the middle of feeling grief. It’s okay to cry and then laugh, to look at a page from the news in disbelief and dread, and then laugh over the movie section.

This is what we do best, us humans. We feel.

What it is about the Holidays, for me, is that it’s a season of contradiction, confusion, old and new, real and fake, love and emptiness. It’s happy. We’re up. We’re celebrating. It’s sad, we’re down, we’re blue. It lights up the choice we get to make at every moment.

If we have “Happy Holidays” and “The Holiday Blues,” if we give to those less fortunate and feel unfortunate, if we give and try to remember how to receive, if I am exhilarated and at the same time terrified, which do I choose to believe? What do I focus on?

People who are heroic seem to absolutely get, and try to teach us, that there is joy in life, and that, even in the most desperate of moments, it’s good to focus on the joy even while you’re experiencing the pain.

So, while you focus on joy, remember what you remember and see what you see and feel what you feel about pain. While you focus on peace, remember and see and feel what you experience as chaos. While you focus on love, don’t avoid anything you feel, even if it’s fear.

Travel across the landscape of your life focusing on what feels good - peace and love and joy - and know that, even though pain and chaos and fear are always along for the ride, you can ride with them without getting stuck in them.

It’s the Holidays. Touch things, touch people, be human, receive love, and give love to yourself.

Every moment is a new memory. Whatever yours are, they’re yours to focus on, to remember or forget, to live for or with or through, to keep or toss, to stay mired in or use to jump into something wonderful.

Whatever you choose at any given moment, I wish you love, happiness and a whole lot of fun.

Love, Rori

I wrote this last year, and it still feels true to me - all my love and warm wishes to you all - and let me know how Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa went for you this year…Love, Rori

Here’s a heartbreaking letter from Leslie, who’s suffering the surprise and sudden end of her 6 year relationship:

“Rori, I thought I was in a wonderful relationship with a man I have been with off and on for 6 years. He had given my an engagement ring and we planned to get married next June. We just had a HUGE blow-up and he called it all off.

He says he has “tried” and just doesn’t feel “chemistry” with me and never has. I have been “fooled” by his frequent calls, e-cards, trips to see him, and him telling me he loves me. I love him and felt “chemistry.”

Why couldn’t I see through it all? I am hurting and I want to be strong, but it’s hard. I am a “nice” person, probably too nice. I can see that I have done lots wrong. I was living my dream, not his. Why did he deceive me? Also, what can I do about not drowning in my sorrow? I can’t meet men and I do not want to get on a dating service and meet men who just aren’t interested in a real relationship. I am going to study your e-book now. Thanks, Leslie”

Here’s my answer:

This is a situation so many women have found themselves in - with a man for so long, finally getting the engagement ring and the wedding date, and then having it called off with the reason - “I never felt it for you.”

And Leslie is asking herself every minute of every day why she didn’t see it coming, and what she could possibly have done to cause him “not to feel it for her.”

I can’t know what’s going on in her man’s mind - so I’m going to guess - He didn’t marry her after a year in the relationship because he “wasn’t sure” - and then he just thought she was the greatest - “nice,” good to him, sexy, and so he didn’t want to let her go.  So he held on.  For 6 years.  Until, finally, he couldn’t say no to her anymore, so he signed up for marriage.

Then - a fight gave him the excuse he needed, and although he didn’t want to let her go, he made the choice to do so rather than marry her.

And - though it’s hard to know what kind of Red Flags he might have been waving during the 6 years  (the number one Red Flag being taking him so long to ask her to marry him) - it might have been IMPOSSIBLE for Linda to see them, because the level of emotional connection cannot have been deep enough for her to FEEL it.

The first question to ask is about the “big blowup.” If continual “blowups” are the main way anger gets resolved in your relationship - then your communication is not helping you.

No matter how bad a “fight” is, though - it would never break a relationship unless it was already nearly over.

And attempting to “avoid” fights by always deferring to him, or stuffing your feelings, or never, ever speaking up on your own behalf - will push a man away even FASTER than a fight will.

The way to go here, and what you can learn, Leslie, by - yes - DATING men (even men who aren’t serious about a relationship so that you can PRACTICE working with my Tools with them), is how to EXPRESS your anger, fear, distress, upset and pain in an emotional way that will actually BRING a man CLOSER - instead of making him want to run away.

Learning how to communicate in this way ALL the time will absolutely INSURE that your relationship will get deeper and stronger instead of just fizzle out the way yours did.

My heart goes out to you - and I hope you will start dating, just for the experience, and let me know how you’re doing.

Love, Rori