To love someone is madness, to be loved by someone is a gift, loving someone who loves you is a duty, but being loved by someone whom you love is life.--author unknown

 

It is no small comfort to find what you are looking for when you most need it. I think that is why I love books and music so much...because complete strangers and talented writers can so startlingly sum up exactly how and what you are feeling so that what you are thinking and feeling does not stay lodged and uncomfortable in that part of your soul that just cannot be reached sometimes. 

 

Loving someone who doesn't love you back is hell. Don't ever let anyone convince you that you can be happy with someone who doesn't love you. And don't ever love anyone more than he (or she) loves you..author uncertain

I don't know about that last part...not loving anyone more than he or she loves you...I mean, really, how can you help just how much you love someone. Even knowing someone does not love you the same back (or even love you at all) you cannot always control that you still love them anyway...

The Bee Gees wrote (Barry and Robin Gibb) and recorded it originally, but Al sings it best! :)

Sometimes, listening to sad music when you are sad helps and sometimes it only emphasizes everything you are feeling to the point of emotionally strangling you. Today is a day when I not only can handle listening to Karen Carpenter, I find much comfort in her amazing voice. I love how Apple Music can "spotlight" your favorite artists when you open up the "For You" part of the app :) 

Today when I hit "Music" on my iPhone this is what came up and I realized it had been a while since I had listened to the Carpenters. I am trying out iTunes' three month free subscription and so far I am really liking how it works (except for the shuffle issues when you are in your own music library...yikes!)

ODDS and ends...

This is the thing about having been teased a lot in middle school and never having been asked out a lot as a teenager or an adult...you develop this built-in immunity to daydreams and fantastical thinking, you really do. And you just know what your future love life holds (or, rather, does not hold) for you. You become so practical about it all (or, at least, you think you do) that it almost, almost, does not hurt.

There are days I am so very glad I am invisible (so very glad). The more intensely I feel about the person I like, the more I hate myself and the more I realize that my invisibility fits into this somehow...like I am SUPPOSED to be non-existent (in terms of being noticeable or paired off with someone else) because it reminds me (constantly) that I deserve no less (or is it no more?) than no one's love and because it really does make me invisible and irrelevant to anyone else, even to me.

I am not hot and never will be...I think that may be part of why I detest that word so much: "hot." I just so dislike it..to be so dismissive and de-valuing of another person just because they are not physically attractive...and to have "hot or not" lists and countless articles on Yahoo's home page about fashion "crimes" and actresses (never actors!) who dared to go out in public dressed a certain way. So often, the very first thing people ask when someone wants to set them up on a date is: "Is she pretty? Is he good-looking?" It is no wonder there are so many divorces and broken relationships in a society that values looks over personality. How sad it is that people often care more about whether someone else is attractive than whether he or she is a good person and has a big heart :(

I thought that being disqualified for romantic love would be an automatic and strategic defense against pain in that area of my life. But love is not always something we seek nor is it something we always actively do or even want: sometimes, no matter how hard we try not to, we fall in love anyway and with the one person we have no business feeling that way about.


In a side note: I found this online and it is just amazing (and so painfully easy to relate to some of the posts):

http://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-an-unattractive-woman

This part especially hit me hard:

 Childhood and Youth

This was honestly the hardest. Children can be cruel and overt in their treatment of social misfits. I was teased mercilessly, especially by the attractive "popular kids", on an ongoing basis from as early as first grade.  Here are just a few things that happened to me in grade school and middle school:

• One boy sent me a fake love letter, which I unfortunately believed was true until the punchline was delivered to me in front of a group of other kids.
• My assigned seatmate on the bus made me sit in the aisle because I was "too fat" to sit on the seat, and regularly poured soda into my hair on the 45-minute long drive to school.
• I was only allowed to be friends with other unattractive people, which actually worked out because they were often the nicest and funniest kids. One pretty but awkward girl I was friends with took a chance to promote her social status by ditching me publicly at recess. It made perfect sense; she was too pretty for the ugly kids' group.
• I only got valentine's day cards from the teachers.
• I had crushes on people but knew that I could never be the object of someone else's affection. I went to school dances alone, if at all. I didn't exchange cute "if you like me, check this box" notes. I didn't go to boy/girl parties and giggle about "making out" the next day.
• I learned to be okay with spending a lot of time alone. Being an unattractive girl doesn't just make it hard to get a date. It makes it hard to make friends at all, especially in the tweens when a lot of the other girls are very focused on appearance.

If you have mutually-reciprocated love in your life, never ever forget how lucky the two of you are. :)

This book is really so much more than its cover suggests>>>I cannot recommend it enough!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The reflection I see is vastly different from what others see- something many doctors have corroborated.  And the hardest part is that people think this is a case of false modesty or   fishing for compliments, when really it comes from a far darker, sadder place." 

"But as it’s said over and over in many ways you can’t love anyone else fully until you love yourself. Despite all my relationship highs and lows, the relationship with myself has been the most tumultuous and continues to be the one I need to work on the most.  I find it easier to tell someone else I love them than tell myself the same, and that needs to change."

Another book with self-image themes, this one focusing exclusively on eating disorders and exercise addition and often very disturbing, is Diary Of An Exercise Addict by Peach Friedman. I find myself not sure what to make of it. On the surface, it feels like the author is rather vain, but the more you get into the book, the more you understand how both her eating disorder and exercise addiction have such power over her and that vanity is not really what Peach is all about. And there are some very painfully familiar passages like this one:

Induratize is a word that is new to me. I don't want to do the below, I don't even know if I could even if I did want to (hearts aren't very good at listening to reason or even to experience) but sometimes I sure wish I could. It would make for a lot less pain and confusion. The pain of trying to harden one's heart aside, it is always useful and kind of nice to learn a new word. :)

Besides taking on some new vocabulary, I also would not mind learning a little bit more about becoming maybe just a tad more emotionally in control:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Yourself-Emotionally-Numb

I really do think there is a definite cut-off time for taking another sleeping pill when the first one does not work. It is definitely before three a.m. Yikes...the grogginess and inability to function in the morning is just horrible when you take something too late into the night or morning. Another thing I have noticed is that melatonin can and cannot work sometimes. 

This is pretty helpful in relating the good and bad and the myths about melatonin:


http://www.talkaboutsleep.com/how-to-use-melatonin-correctly/

I find dreams both wonderful and horrifying, and sometime both at the same time. I have been having intense dreams since I was a little girl and even during my most intense bouts of insomnia there are still periods where I do sleep long enough to have a dream. 

The funny thing about dreams is that you can be devastated by the good ones as much as the bad ones and the more real and vivid they feel, the worse the damage. This morning I woke up from a dream I have had a few times before, but this time it felt so convincing the hug I experienced was still surrounding me when I woke up. 

Though I always wanted children, it never came to be for me, which I have accepted, but apparently my dreams have not. This most recent dream really messed with my emotions. And the little girl in it (who I do not recall ever meeting in real life, but was just so present it was uncanny) hugged me and called me her mother. It was, in its entirety, actually a lovely dream and not the first time I have had it, but it was the first time we got to hug and the first time I 'found' her after searching everywhere.

It really, really blows my mind the power dreams can have over us...the beautiful ones, the terrifying ones and the ones that are actually based on memory and perhaps the worst of all. It also blows my mind that more people do not talk about their dreams or at least not marvel at them more internally. I started keeping a dream journal years ago and then stopped earlier this year to see if I could "unrecall" my dreams and therefore not wake up scared sometimes. That did not work at all so I decided to go back to recording my dreams and focusing more on trying to change the outcome of them with lucid dreaming. 

Lucid dreaming does not always work (actually, it is rare that it does, for me at least) but when it does work it is truly awesome.

Here are a few links to more information about dream:
  

https://www.google.com/#q=how+to+improve+your+dream+recall

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-processes-in-the-brain-allow-you-to-remember-dreams/

I find this really intriguing since I still feel we can dream about people we have never met (or even seen) in real life. The facts seem to state otherwise (apparently the brain cannot make up faces) but I find reading about dreams to be almost as interesting as having the dreams themselves:

 http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/ask-the-experts-1-invention.html

a very beautiful and sweet cover that I am hoping the story will live up to

An incredibly sincere and often sweet read, _Once_ is definitely good and definitely worth reading, but L.T. Smith's _See Right Through Me_ remains my absolute favorite of hers. Lovable and very endearing and adorable Dudley (a dog who will just melt your soul) is my favorite character in this touching book whose cover truly matches its spirit and heart.

Normally, I love that almost all of L.T. Smith's novels share a common theme in how insecure two people can be about each other's feelings when they are first getting to know each other. I really, really get self doubt so it would seem perfectly natural to me that two people could actually like each other and yet have no clue about it or any confidence in their own appeal. This motif in Ms. Smith's fiction is a big reason why I love her books so much.

But with Once I became physically exhausted by it all, at times. It's not the writer's fault at all...if anything, this time around she's captured the pain of self doubt better than ever before, along with an underlying darkness and deep sadness to both women's relationship histories. I also found myself very, very troubled by an early scene in the novel where the main character punches her ex very, very hard in the face. It made painfully lovely passages lose some of their power because Beth really is not all that likable at times: "It wasn’t that I didn’t believe that Amy was the person I wanted to be with; it was more a case of not being able to trust that anyone would want to be with me. Like Groucho Marx said, he didn’t want to be a member of any club that would accept him as a member."

Perhaps I am being a bit overly sensitive to this part and the main character does believe her ex has been abusing her dog when she punches her. The thing is she does not for sure her ex hurt her dog and when she realizes later she did not there is no real remorse on her and that just disturbs me so very much.

...because music makes everything better

I always do this...install the newest Apple iOS update before all the bugs are fixed. The most recent one, the iOS 8.4, really caught my eye because it allows the brand new Apple Music to be installed and I have been curious about Apple's music streaming music service since I heard about it earlier this week. Lord knows there are problems with it (thank you very much, iTunes, for messing with my music library and for taking away the simply joy of shuffle) but I do like some parts and how can you complain about a service that instantly sets you up with John Hughes soundtracks?

For a rather helpful FAQ online guide to all that is related to Apple Music go here:

http://www.imore.com/apple-music-faq

finding the 7 minute and 26 seconds version of "Nights in White Satin"...priceless! :)

On my player right now is "Every Note" by Mystery Skulls. This review by Matt Collar captures the album very well:

The debut full-length album from Los Angeles' Mystery Skulls, 2014's Forever, showcases the group's infectious, '80s-influenced disco, R&B, and dance-oriented soul. Primarily centered around the talents of lead singer, songwriter, and musical mastermind Luis Dubuc, Mystery Skulls make pulsing, laser-toned R&B that touches upon vintage '70s and '80s club music as much as it does contemporary R&B, techno, and EDM. In that sense, cuts like "The Future," "Fantasy," and "Forever" fit just as nicely alongside cuts by Daft Punk and Grum as they do tracks from such similarly inclined artists as Sam Sparro and Justin Timberlake. What helps set Mystery Skulls apart from the rest of the electro-R&B pack is Dubuc's lithe vocal abilities. Blessed with soulful phrasing, a burnished middle vocal range, and a knack for ascending into a lusty falsetto croon, Dubuc comes across as less the pulsating center of a robotic hive mind, à la Daft Punk, and more like an improbable cross between Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump and '90s R&B prodigal son D'Angelo. It also doesn't hurt the album, or Dubuc's cred for that matter, that he's joined here on "Magic" and "Number 1" by both Chic guitar legend Nile Rodgers and '90s soul diva Brandy. Musically, while most of the songs on Forever are set to deep programmed grooves and heavy synth basslines, Dubuc nonetheless strikes an even balance between his use of synthesizer (his main instrument), real piano, drums, and orchestral strings. Ultimately, it's this sophisticated balance that helps Forever sound both organic and computerized, warmly familiar, and utterly fresh.

I know this might sound silly, but whenever I have ignored my intuition I have often really, really regretted it. Lately, my intuition has been acting up so much that it is almost like a loud voice in my head. I want to be careful, though, because if my intuition is wrong I could end up making a big mistake and making an idiot of myself. For now, I am trying my best to ignore it because I still need more facts before I make my decision. It did make me curious, though, as to the science behind intuition and so I read up on it some...this is one really neat article I discovered:

 http://www.medicaldaily.com/your-gut-feeling-way-more-just-feeling-science-intuition-325338



“We often talk about intuition coming from the body — following our gut instincts and trusting our hearts,” the study’s coauthor Barnaby D. Dunn, of the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK, said in a press release. “What happens in our bodies really does appear to influence what goes in our minds. We should be careful about following these gut instincts, however, as sometimes they help and sometimes they hinder our decision making.”

I hope this post is not too much or too inappropriate. It is something that has been on my mind lately and even more so within the past week since the Supreme Court ruled on gay marriage and there has been a lot of reaction (both good and bad) to their decision. 

I have noticed that both anti-gay and gay friendly people can sometimes say the same thing, if not for the same reason. "I don't care what two people do in their bedroom" is often cited by both sides, though often said in completely different tones. Those who support gay rights think they are saying something positive and being an ally, the far right believe they are emphasizing the sexual components. But BOTH (in my mind, at least) sides are trivializing the bigger issue.

The only thing I do in my bedroom is sleep. Of course I am single and not in a relationship and have never been in one involving intimacy of either a romantic or sexual nature. That is too much information to share, I am pretty sure, but I only mention that because the fact that sex and sexuality is so often THE main thing both pro and anti-gay people bring up in discussion saddens me a lot.

When I tried to come out to my family it went horribly, horribly (horribly) wrong. It did not, in fact, go at all and so I tried my best to just be "cured." The few friends I told were pretty accepting, though one person told me they just did not believe me because I gave off no sexuality at all. I did not have to ask him what he meant because I had heard it before during one of the times I was brave enough to go on dates, hoping I would meet Miss Right For Me.

"You're a nice girl and all that, but you just aren't my type" was more or less the message I got whenever I did try to meet someone and it did not take me long to know that was universal speak (for me, specifically) for "I'm just not attracted to you." One woman was even bold enough (which I actually appreciated) to say she just did not think I was someone anyone would want to go to bed with.

After a while I stopped trying. It was all for the best, anyway, considering my parents would never accept who I am and I was feeling very guilty for trying to meet someone special who not only most likely did not exist (for me) but who (if she WAS out there and COULD love me back) would be unfairly dragged into a really bad family situation. So, I stopped dating and have not even thought about it seriously since. I just go about my business, sometimes reading romance novels, sometimes day dreaming, ALWAYS knowing my 'place' (or lack of one) in the world of love.

This is the thing though: I do not care if I give off sexuality or not. Frankly, I do not care that much about sex (I guess it is pretty easy to not miss something you have never known) and I KNOW I am not sexy. I am more childlike than adult, when it comes right down to it. But that does not mean I do not have a heart and that I do not care deeply about someone and that that caring deeply is most likely love, maybe romantic in nature, definitely deep. I am making my peace with a life ahead of being on my own and I (more or less) am okay with that. What I am not so okay with and what just breaks my heart so, so much is how so many people see being gay as being about sex...when that is simply not so. 

It does not matter to my own personal life that this false impression continues to perpetuate itself through both sides of the gay rights and gay marriage debate. But it DOES sadden me very much for the loving gay and lesbian couples out there who have been together for decades (decades!) and have never once cheated or betrayed each other and that there are hateful straight people on their third and fourth marriages pointing their fingers and having mini hissy fits on who should and should not be allowed to marry.

It may be a cliche, but I think it is a true one: the heart wants what the heart wants. The saying does not go the body wants what the body wants, after all. And another thing I wish people knew about celibate gay people: our hearts want they want, too. It is just that we either love someone who does not feel the same way we do or we remain silent because we know, for us, that is just the way it has to be.