careful what you wish for...

this is my lifestyle visioning board:

it hangs in my bathroom.

i love it.

this is my love visioning board:

it's rolled up in a basket on a shelf in a closet.

i'm not into it.

i put it together quickly, half-heartedly (ironically, enough), after an obsessive four-day, five-visioning board hole up. i'd barely scratched the surface of my love visions when it was time to re-engage the world, so i nabbed a chunk of the intentions off of a mind movie that had been making the internet rounds, many of which didn't quite sit right with me:

i am in love with my soul mate.

kinda makes it sound like we're relegated to one soul mate, which i don't believe we are. it feels weird - stuck, corny, old.

he brings out the best in me.

i bring out the best in me. sure, our dynamic amplifies it, and still, to say he does it feels disempowering.

my heart is wide open.

so much space between me and that wide open heart. in saying "my heart," i'm suddenly separate from this heart to which i refer; and then this other that is my heart is itself wide open. it seems like such a long way to travel when, the truth is, i am my every intention now.

i am heart wide open now.

i dig the images, and still, truth be told, the whole thing felt very old paradigm. it hung on the backside of my bathroom door and i was semi-embarrassed whenever i looked at it.

within days of posting my visioning boards, the manifestations started rolling in - a large cocktail ring from a friend, a weekend retreat poolside in the hills, lavish meals, creative opportunities, superfoods, and men - a bunch of 'em.

within a week or so of seeing one, in particular, i was floored by the intensity of what came up for me. issues around commitment and expectation and social conventions. while i was calling in a real-deal, true-blue love thing, my actions belied an attachment to my freedom and a deep fear of being vulnerable and of getting hurt.

i took the vision board down. it never felt authentic, rather filtered through the dogma-encrusted lens of social convention. and having been confronted with the ferocity of my own stickiness around intimacy, i'm choosing to examine the murky places where i'm full of shit before calling in the real-deal, whatever that means. when i do, i'll choose my words much more carefully.

...........................

on a related note, i had lunch with my mother yesterday, who was telling me about a wedding shower she'd attended. i launched into an inspired diatribe on the ass-backwardness of these unchallenged social conventions that require us to shell out for presents because joe and sue are erecting a fence around their love. happily-ever-after is not a paradigm i play in, nor a paradigm i acknowledge or wish to feed.

that's selfish, my mom said. you're selfish.

i think it's selfish to expect me to fly to mexico to watch you sign your freedom away, and then to attend not one, but two pre-nupital showers, which i'm expected to attend bearing gifts. and, not the sort of gifts that are a heartfelt expressions of what i'd like to share, but crass and calculated pre-chosen registry items that i'm required to purchase at a corporate chain. it's disturbing on far too many levels to elucidate here over steamed vegetables in hen cum (we'd compromised on chinese).

what about celebrating your friends?, she challenged.

what about it? celebrating is one thing. expectation is another, and it's a relationship killer - romantic, platonic or otherwise.

fill your own cup and buy your own kitchen accessories, i say.