A Full Life
writings
about
Category: Relationships
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I started going to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous on a regular basis when I was eighteen. I was not all that ready or eager to admit that I was an alcoholic and needed help, but I knew that I belonged in those rooms. I heard the message, I identified with others, and I saw people…
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I’ve had a new moment of clarity, folks. That real recovery might be about growing up into a mature, balanced, healthy adult. I don’t mean looking like an adult, with a suit and briefcase and big fancy job, or a brood of kids and busy appointment book. But one who is able to live moderately,…
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Sometimes you fall flat on your face and discover that something is not at all what you thought it would be. Something you planned turned out to be greatly disappointing. And that’s OK. I am nine days into my travels here in Thailand, and I haven’t been this miserable in quite some time. Let me…
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I come to see, in the gasp between our love making, when there’s nothing there, when the emptiness is so full I forget to like my pain – that mean fathers produce truth tellers, lovers who gaze lost, seeking, us deep in the earth, with eyes hopeful like a child’s eyes, wet and glistening, arriving…
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the anger is thick, deep, it is like a crust, molded and beginning to stink, for so long it has festered, I’ve tended to it like a garden, conjuring thorns, weeds, a swarm of insects, I have seemed to like it– but it’s the emergence of grief that breaks through, the tenderness that cuts it,…
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People would probably describe being “open-minded” as having the ability to accept many walks of life, judging less and loving more, being willing to have new experiences, listening. All of that is true. But there is an even deeper meaning to a truly open mind that in turn lends itself to being able to accept and…
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One of my absolute favorite poems by one of my absolute favorite poets, Sharon Olds, has a section that goes a little something like this: “I could see her in a temple, tying someone up, or being tied up, or being made nothing, or making someone nothing, I saw she was full of cruelty and…
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I sat in a meeting tonight and felt completely slimed by another woman’s share. It was so pregnant with noxious trauma and so saturated in delusion and resentment and suffering that every word that spewed out of her mouth felt like a noose around my neck. I had to clutch my throat and shut my…
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I believe in miracles. Where you from? You sexy thang. That’s right, I’m talking to you. Who? Me? Yes, you. You. (Me.) I’m that sexy thang I’ve been searching for all along. And I believe in miracles. I also love men. Handsome, strong, funny, sultry, scrumptious, manly men. And yet: they can’t fix me and…
A Full Life 