Feeling lonely?

Loneliness is not a good friend, unless you had wanted it as your friend.

If you´ve ever shared your intimacies, your vulnerabilities, your secrets thoughts, etc. with someone who left, it was because you FELT lonely and needed comprehension, empathy (or sympathy?).

Sometimes you don´t need to step back into things that would mislead or hurt any of us.

These things I know:

·         If a person wants to be approached and known as she is (or as he is) the best thing to do is showing who we are. It would spare you confusions, particularly when “observers” can dream their dreams and, their hallucination was a thin handsome man (or a fat nice looking woman) you are not now. However, be advised there are scams and people seeking their prey to hurt you.

·         It´s highly advised hiding those private things we have already said or thought in previous online experiences (those sexual intimacies shared once) because those would mislead the relationship into sexual affairs, physical abuse and possible emotional exploitations and deceptions.

·          Save yourself for marriage (or a real date?)

Today, I´m not afraid to die without understanding the nature of human relationships.

Few days back one of my blood brother (drunk and confused) phone called my mom to tell her his wife told him she was about to commit suicide somewhere in the countryside, after they attended a party. They´ve been having problems for several years and, the reason for having traveled into the countryside it was they needed to make some legal arrangements (to set new social bonds) with the family of the “future” wife of one of my nieces. The irony in here, it´s that meanwhile one single person wants to get married, another couple is surely struggling to get their life back, legally divorced (they utterly have been postponing that emotional divorce, several times).

Consider the costs of any relationship.

I wish Jesus had told more about that important lesson (Lk 14:28) but that was enough… I can´t build anything if I lacked the materials, those tangible means (a) neither when I lacked the intention to endure it, to succeed in whatever thing I´d liked to achieved (that´s why there are some physical reasons people need to show who they are, emotionally and “materially”).

No one would build something big without enough money (neither being unmotivated or bitterly discouraged).

On those sites I have been I felt discouraged for several reasons. Each time I saw a rich woman I fled. Each time a saw a lady I didn´t like I ran… Just because I know me and, on the other side, I know my limits (cause I´ve acknowledged them).

(a) Some real loners did this wrongly (it´s just my wrong opinion) and MANY has set, for themselves, higher expectations at a late age (b) Particularly when young people are offering the same good things old ones had longed for decades, at less economical cost (but at a higher emotional risk of being left or cheated on often, the sooner or later)

The sad thing when anyone has looked like being honest or simple minded, they have been taken wrongly (misread) that they´ve been criticized “for selling themselves too cheap”: The moment I read someone wanted “a wedding party with 200 persons invited”, I killed myself those dreams I had about her… I´m supposed to build good things, but I´m not a dream maker.

Disclaimer: She could have lied -jokingly- that moment (I know who she was) but, in my private life, I have met several girls who were poor and wanted to marry a rich man and, as they are absolutely entitled to dream their dreams, I´m also entitled to live mine, as a Franciscan “Hermit”.

I won´t be sold out cheaply or expensively. This is not a matter of selling people out, but a matter of feeling and being honest while seeking what it is really needed, a thing largely wanted (or emotionally sought) for fraternal long lasting fellowship. As I see these things, a house is NOT built alone…

I hope you don´t care at people hurting and criticizing you (Lk 14:29), but I hope these words has served you for anything useful because, once you´ve built your tower, anything like an earthquake, can destroy what you cherished a lot and, I have seen several towers falling down apart.

A.T.

How do you lower on what you expect of other people?

Several years back I had an online friend I got a crush on...

When I knew she was fat, I shrank back (I know why) and she wanted me to be cracked (she has a doctorate in Psychology and still works with it to help ppl to overcome their problems with obesity, loneliness and problems with sex)

She TAUGHT me a lot of things.

She is the most beautiful person I have loved (at distance). I never accepted to show up, because I know me well.

She told me, on time, she loved an engineer, a professional and very qualified man and, when they met, she knew he was on a wheel chair (that broke her heart) but she loved him, until the last day...

One day, as she told me, the Police phone called her (she got so nervous, and it downed on her what had happened suddenly).

Before that man died, the last phone call he did, was to listen to her voice (and believe me her  voice is so special and sexy).

They both had a real love affair. She said she loved him until his last breath.

-We´re calling you to know who you are -said the policeman-. The owner of this phone died and, the last person he called, was this number we called and we wanted to check why he called you...

She said what she needed to say.

That engineer, for having lost one or two legs, had to work in a booth, renting phones or selling candies  and magazines to get his daily  bread (some ppl are really handicapped by society and by those corporations whose markets are in selling wrong life styles, images, instead of giving real social services).

That friend I had, almost shed her tears when she told me that, his last breath, his last words, were just for her, a beautiful woman who helps too many ppl to overcome their emotional limitations and -also- their problem with being over-weighted.

How do I respond to love? With love!

Being loved is a miracle.

Being liked is a miracle.

I don´t believe ugliness is really outside, but INSIDE, the way how we perceive love and ppl willing to give, themselves.

Those who are "young" and attractive -today- also have their chances to be picky but, time will tell all (as I also learned it when being old)

Narcissims sucks!

Some time before, someone asked “what ppl have wanted to be”. I´m unwilling to share that, in details but, when I read that interesting question I laughed, not only for the possibility of ppl been too openhearted but, for that online soul harvesting.

When I was a child, I wanted to be all: A man of science, a teacher... and a musician. Few days back I relearned why I wanted to be “a musician”: I thought they have it “all” (and that is one of those lies we ppl believed).

On the bottom of those preconceived ideas, what it is really wanted, it was fame, money and sex (basically).

When you get old, it doesn´t matter how many things you had achieved professionally or academically, fame, money and sex keep their going on.

When you turned to Jesus Christ and His lordship, you could be changed, in those areas affecting your ego, your inner world that goes too proud.

Narcissism is involved in all of this.

Personal pride might have misled more than a million of ppl´s souls.

I cannot speak for another person but, you surely know what has affected your own life, in an odd or hurtful way.

Has fame and its luring ways grabbed you, once?

“Normal” narcissism would lure you away some how. If you are not “a star”, you would -probably- seek after one bringing life over you (and not inside?).

Unnoticedly, I supposed that -if I had “fame” enough- money will come along easily (as those enjoyable things would come, too).

That is not simple! I was wronged, but the world would say it wasn´t too wrong, according to its ways (I´ve lived in).

I grew near that “artistic” world, I wanted to be part of.

I envied apparent “success” it often promised (just to get those worldly pleasures I haven´t got, the way I liked). Sin, by the way, offered the same… Like the Old Serpent promised Eve and Adam!

Money was not what I sought, but what it could be bought with it.

It wasn´t the temporal glory men like to receive, neither the “honor” of that recognition, but what I could enjoy physically and everything I could pay for (or receive for free).

If you are a committed Christan believer, you surely know what Jesus taught about self-righteousness and about being Narcissist.

Whenever He said something like this: “Mat 23:9 Don't call anyone on earth your father. All of you have the same Father in heaven. ” He wasn´t talking to Catholic people around, He was talking to Jewish ppl (and to you and me).

When He said: “Mat 23:10 None of you should be called the leader. The Messiah is your only leader. ” He was avoid men´s traditions and the way His people was giving personal cultism or cultic personalism of men´s fame.

He said whom we ought to worship and fear (Luk_12:5).

Who it is man, we should worship in awesome fear? (Job_28:28; 2Co_5:11)

Recently I wrote down this thought I had (in Spanish):

Narcisismo: "Pararse bajo el árbol que te dé mejor luz... Sin ser uno parte de la sombra." ¡Perro! Hay tantos narcisistas, que ya me asombram. Ja! Ja!

Narcissism (another definition): “Standing up near the biggest tree which might bring -on you- LIGHT, instead of making you part of its shadows”

What type of a man Christ was?

Whenever I read this (Joh 7:3-5 So his brothers said to him, Go away from here into Judaea so that your disciples may see the works which you do. Because no man does things secretly if he has a desire that men may have knowledge of him. If you do these things, let yourself be seen by all men. For even his brothers had no belief in him. ) I know what type of man He was (Mat 12:18-21)

Jesus was TOO far from seeking human´s worldly fame.

Joh 5:30 I cannot do anything on my own. (...) because I obey him, and I don't just try to please myself.

Joh 8:50 But I seek not mine own glory (…)

Joh 5:41 I don't care about human praise (…)

Joh 5:34 I don't depend on what people say about me (...)

If I compared Him to this verse (Mat 6:2 ... because they are always looking for praise. I can assure you that they already have their reward. ) I know He was talking to us, to seek not men´s glory.

And, pouring more light on what He actually taught (by deeds, not dead words) He added:

Joh 5:34 I don't depend on what people say about me. Instead, I say these things, so that you may be saved.

Narcissims sucks!

A.T.

What age to give up love?

Someone asked that, in a forum… That sounded hopeless!

I knew a single childless woman of 41 who gave up. She says she wants to be loved, but she's too picky and still want things she is not willing to give (friendship is unimportant for her to GIVE, just want things received, like a funnel).

I knew another who longs to be loved at 42. She is nice looking, with a daughter, but felt in love with a man of 25 and, stupidly, she hopes she can get a man who knows she still has those fantasies to be with 2 men at the same time (in the same bed).Besides, she longs to be dearly loved by one man who would provide her with shelter, enough money and the material things she thinks she needs(unaware of her lack of maturity and lack of sexual loyalty). 

I'm not giving up, except on those who like to play their hide & seek games, hiding their pictures same way they hide their hearts. 

I know I'm too short for a bunch of women or their materialistic or average aspirations but, if I won the lottery, there would not be other way TO KNOW I AM BEING LOVED for the man I AM, for the person I was before that happened, and I don´t want to be loved for the things I would own or those things I could give: Will you like to buy such form of love?.

As long as I lack the material stuff demanded or needed, I stay away from those I could be kicked off for not achieving their average materialistic aspirations. By the way, they come in combos with their children and their unresolved past (like me) that a person would come to meet them to load or unload the weight they cannot bear...

Money is needed to make life easier or enjoyable! I know it, I agree with it, but I know it is not solid ground to walk or trust well enough such wealth. I have learned from my life and other people´s who gave me good lessons I don't want to live out again.

Questions you could ask the woman you´ve planned to marry.

1. Ask her how she sleeps!

That could give you an idea of how you would rest those nights you needed… Ask if she sleeps backwards or with her cheeks on her pillow. If you dig enough on it, she surely let you know you´d need a queen size bed or a pair of beds to sleep alone (particularly if she snores a lot).

2. Ask her how many times a year she might have felt butterflies in her stomach. If she tells you “there have been several times that same year...” she probably have helminths... So, you´d better take her to the doctor! ;)  If ou could find some other way to know she surely loves you (for being the man you actually are) please! Tell me you´re not having those feelings of doubts I would feel unsecured. :(

3. Asap you started to date, please! Ask her how she´s used to share her life with her loved ones. If she had previous children, if she cares for them because those are still under her custody, economically dependant and young under her roof, it´s adviceful to know how your life will be together when that relationship goes on any further.  Take them with you two (once in a while when both agreed on) and learn how you would deal will that coarse change: The moment you are with them you´re their “guest” (not the host, even in a meeting outdoors) so what´s your place then? Inside their house you´re not a family member but an acquaintance, so give them space enough to see how she shares, at the same time with you. A lot of her attentions will be selfishly asked (or re-directed) to her former loved ones: It doesn´t matter you´re the host! And all her previous bonds (blood and emotional) are with them… It will be good to know, practically, how your life will be with them! If you bought a new house (or rent an apartment) it won´t be easy to lead them without a high cost (or price). They have “a dad” and it won´t be good to buy them with bribing or paying their bills (that it won´t be the best way to see how she shares with them). If their actual dad is alive (and influencing his kids) the two of you would need to adjust too many things and I´d dare to say it´s hard when her sons (or yours) are males. That´s unstable sand! Would you like a foster father? Have you learned to deal with that?

4. Ask her if she likes to have guests her new home! (Are you the kind of husband who enjoys the inlaws?) You´re not the only one with rights a new house. If you too have children like she could have, none of them is less (neither more) unless you´re the one paying the rent and the costs. Does she likes your family? Do you like regular visits? How long will you take your family her home? I hope your kids enjoy her as much as her kids could love you but, what about inlaws? The ghost of jealousy could visit any of you… That´s good to be dealt with a piece of paper to write down those rules and negotiations…  

5. Ask her how is she used to spend (or to get) money? Most of the women I have seen and known do love to spend money… When you go out, will you pay the bills with her money or it be yours? Last week, when a mutual old friend came to visit my ex-wife and I in town, I saw she still likes to make decisions on the money I do have in my wallet (I told her twice, that it was wrong). Is she the one who likes to pay her bills, or the one who likes you to pay for them? If she instantly calls you “stingy” or “meager”, be sure who is that cheap person … The mutual friend who came to visit my hometown brought his son and his ex-wife... That woman paid for what they consumed at my ex-wife´s business and, the moment they wanted to buy eggs to bring their home, I knew he had no cash with him, so I offered my money borrowed (he was ashamed I offered my help)... and, before they left, I knew it was their son´s birthday!… I don´t know if that woman also paid the sushi she had planned to give her son, as a present… But, since you don´t know things well (neither do I) I´m not prone to think my friend is stingy but I´m sure his ex-wife is not, either.

6. One ramdom thought:

Are you a giver? Ask yourselves this 1st. Meagerness if also shown the way we behave emotionally, even the way we write or say things. No one likes to marry a problem but laziness produces those problems before marriage and, while I was reading “You can beat the money squeeze” (of George and Marjean Fooshe, 1980)  I read that one friend of him received a bottle of champagne for his wedding. With it came a card that read, “Don´t open this until your are out of debt”. His friend laughingly told him that after 15 years of marriage, the champagne was still unopened… Are you the sort of people who loves to give (or to receive).

7. It might be that you´ve heard what her crushes are… If she is open enough you will hear how much she talks of the things she likes, particularly when she plans to buy things but, in an honest talk, you can ask her what are the men she felt a recurrent crush. She will tell you she loves candies, particular things she wanted to receive but, that man ou don´t know, is somewhere there (even they said they loved the Lord Jesus). Will you live that life out with that rivality in a perpetual competence? I´m old now but I do remember my grandmamma and her sighs.  My foster granddad never showed he was jealous but I felt it disgusting she sighed at watching those actors she liked playing their roles in soup operas. Of course, she could have lied! But when an engaged person still has those crushes for one, two or more people, that´s telling me I should be competing to get her love (or exclusive attentions) and, of course, that´s a kind of insecurity I have seen around while other men crept into somebody´s else life (and their beds). Do you think my granddad was happier by knowing it? I know he cheated on her sometimes and, what about today, when a lady works outside her home, with too many “charming” men wooing without red flags… Each time I looked at girls I liked I was telling my wife secretly: “I don´t like you enough” or “I wished I had married one of those I missed”. If your present girlfriend hides her “natural” crushes, be sure she doesn´t have it beyond safety limits (like you). That´s not fair for both of you! And remember Jesus´ words: “Mat 5:28  But I tell you that if you look at another woman and want her, you are already unfaithful in your thoughts.”

I hope you´ll be blessed with a woman like this Prov. 31:10-30

The wall

It´s almost 40 years when I climbed a “wall” in Margarita island. I wasn´t properly dressed, I just went there with part of my family (who picked me up to that beach) and I wanted to see the ocean from a better place.

That place wasn´t alone. There wasn´t a crowd I would feel I needed to run from but, I wanted to see how far I could see those who took me there, while the wind would refresh my face, the moment its breeze would comb my hair.

I started to walk with those boots I long. It wasn´t too complicated, I could find my way and, the more I climbed, I felt someone was watching me (and I didn´t knw why).

I enjoyed that moment. It was something new I was trying and, after a couple of days going to beaches, you may feel you´re getting bored.

My boots, my shorts and that T-shirt were my friends. The sun was hot enough and the breeze was more than gentle when it blew at my face. I can´t remember if I was there for several weeks but I wanted to see the ocean from a better place.

I wished my dad was there, I wished my family could see what I was doing and, suddenly, I heard several voices shouting at me: Who was yelling at me when I was alone?

-Don´t do it! Don´t do it! Someone insisted on.

I turned my back to see who was there crying on. There was a crowd of people I couldn't´t see who they were. Those who wore sun glasses and hats I did not know. Those who motioned their arms, as a warning (nor as waving goodbye) were absolutely unknown, because my loved ones were the nearer beach, somewhere else.

-Don´t go any further! It´s dangerous! They said.

The moment I recoiled in doubts when hearing them, one cactus hit my right leg when I turned back to pay attention to those words. When I looked back and down, I saw I was climbing a wall, not a simple cliff and, trying to get rid of the pain in my leg, I made a quick movement to pull those thorns out, but another bunch of them hit in my back, as simply as I was naked.

I have seen thorns before, but I never knew how they would be felt on my skin and, that time, I had to learn a new form of endurance; because there was no way to turning back and, if I tried, those cactus would hit me more.

I got nervous for few minutes. I´m used to hear my thoughts but I´m not used to people shooting giving me warnings and, that time, they stopped when they saw me in troubles with those thorns I got. How come I was so blind?

The noon was near. I could breathe because I liked that breeze kissing my perspiration and its winds were pushing my hurting back, as backing me up and up.

Those warnings, at the beginning, sounded me like those “Don´t you dare...” I hated to hear in my childhood. The lesson, at least that day, was not turning back and enduring the pain.

I wished my dad could have seen what I´ve done. I wished my scouting friends were there to do what I learned to do alone, because we also endured several things like this, when we walked ahead, not turning back, even at nights, when we made our “Koniek” exploring group.

I had forgotten how much a thorn hurts. 

I had forgotten its pains, and the lesson I have learned to tolerate things.

Christianity, conversely, is a narrow way with no turning back. (pending)

Partners

The last two partners I had in my life thought I needed a family, but they were wrong. I wanted to live with them, I liked them to be involved in my life, but not the way they thought they wanted me involved with their loved ones, because these weren´t a must in my personal relationship with the woman I loved. I liked their children, they were kind enough with me and perhaps much more than my owns children, but I disliked the last ones wanted me to be in a close relationship seeking their approval and, additionally, taking care of their parental need$: That´s their father´s role, it wasn´t mine and ain´t good at it.

The people I like to be with are those I had a regular fellowship of ideas, sharing of thoughts or situations we somewhat sought and liked. Today I don´t have a deep relationship with my mom. I will not say I love her to die, because it is not that way and I care too little you think it differently, saying I must be a Christian or any of your Bla, Bla, Bla, because the one I had as a trustworthy friend was my dad, yet this last 3 or 5 years my mom has shown me a lot of things she has lived or experienced as a human being with her lovers or my dad.

I think I liked my dad because we had some habits in common, for listening to the music or enjoying reading and these things are quite opposite to those my mom has. I can listen to her things, her life stories, but these aren´t deep or thought provoking neither things I really enjoy listening too. She´s been hurt a way I don´t understand. She keeps counting records of old wrongs, she points out other´s faults and I don´t remember hearing her saying “Thank you!” or When I talked with my dad, I poured myself with him but, with my mother I don´t find an understanding, a safe sharing of feelings that, at my age, I don´t know what´s really missing between us.

I can listen to her, not more than an hour. When she tells me her dreams, many are a nightmare and I see her mind mingled in passed sorcery, mystic divination, her fears or hatred things that I prefer to drift from what she´s actually saying. Somethings we laughed, but nothing is deep or profound that I´m puzzled what we really missed.

Sometimes I remembered episodes I retold her. We usually remember dead members of her family, we briefly laughed at those things we´re reminded but, I feel that coldness I don´t know where it comes from neither how it´s there in between.

My sister came to visit her and there were more than 3 people gathered inside her bedroom. My sister asked my to be laid her bed, since her children were on it and I was the only one practically isolated and, if I wasn´t that reluctant, I knew my mom will not celebrate I sat in her Queen-size mat: My sister knew it and there was a dog at her bedroom entrance also. (She was kidding when she invited me to “have a seat” there).

I remember how much I liked her. When I was a child I liked her above all women I knew, because she was so beautiful; but something happened I don´t know well. Each weekend I wanted she visited my grandmother´s house and, obviously, she missed us up several times when she went another place, when I and my brother wanted to meet her during those days our childhood: She had her life apart from us, yet we reunited when we grew up and old. Is something missing here?

I don´t have deep love bonds with my family. The one I often miss is Alex, the girl who adopted me as father and, those I really loved (Josh & Joy) grew some another way I missed that I can´t hug or meet as much as I had liked when they were kids or teenagers: Elisha was not one of my favorite.

I can enjoy talking to strangers. I do like to talk with people but I don´t know why I cannot talk to my children with pure amusement or with complete entertainment. They´re so busy in their own business that I chose to follow up mine, instead. Monica asked me to do some effort to try to get them, somehow, but they looked distant, self-centered in the music they like, that I need to take their attention and bodies outside the places they normally live and, perhaps, that thing has something to do with my mom´s, since she likes the music I hate and the things I don´t do.

Whenever I´ve gone out with my mom, another place, I have liked the time we spent at lunch or when I helped her going to the doctor, she evenly insisted I should have eaten the same things she ate, but these memories faded off when she turns on the music or TV programs she likes to listen to... It seems there´s something more secular than I am, that I really regret while I´m here her home.

What were those things I didn´t like living with Monica or with Legna?

With Nik it was the lack of personal privacy, my personal space was invaded so easily... and with Flor she thought I had to cope with her children, as if I needed their liking or approval and both situations were slightly alike, at some extent.

I´m a hermit! But I like Alex´s kindness, particularly when she demands nothing in turns.

PS

Last night, before I published this, Legna phone called me for 2 hours... She´s receiving a minor medical treatment and wants to move out there, while she´s writing the chapter 13 of her novel: Don´t look back, man!