"I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my worst
then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." ~~ Marilyn Munroe
There are days when outside your window,
I see my reflection as I slowly pass
And I long for this mirrored perspective,
when we'll be lovers, lovers at last
You gotta spend some time--love,
you gotta spend some time with me
And I know that you'll find--love,
I will possess your heart
...Turn the tape recorder on
He just left Jackie O for Marilyn Monroe
We're all bought and sold
For tobacco, firearms and alcohol
What's a pocket full of gold
Without a woman that you could hold
Can't afford to be on the back burner no more
Now I got a lot of places to go
Well I don't know about your right and wrong
I got a muse from the east to the west
All I know is if I never said it before
I'm going to say it with my last breath....
I will never forget your healing hands my love
I thought my heart had stopped
I swore I had given up
I will never forget your healing hands my love
You gave me daylight you gave me sunlight
I will never forget your healing hands my love
I thought my heart had stopped
I swore I had given up
I will never forget your healing hands my love
You gave me daylight you gave me twilight
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” ~~Bertrand Russell (English Logician and Philosopher 1872-1970)
Bertrand Russell was not only a man of great intellect, but also a man of great passions and Utopian vision. At seventeen he married his sweetheart Alys Pearsall Smith, despite the objections of his family, but their love did not last. He had passionate and often simultaneous affairs with a number of women, including Lady OttolineMorrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson. His most serious lover was Dora Black who traveled with him to Russia and China. When Dora became pregnant Russell divorced Alys and married her. Black was an advocate for women's rights and may have influenced Russell's positions on equity and social justice. She--as did so many of her generation--had realised the extent to which the laws regulating marriage contributed to women's subjugation.
In her view, only parents should be bound by a social contract, and only insofar as their cooperation was required for raising their children. Implicit was her conviction that both men and women were polygamous by nature and should therefore be free, whether married or not, to engage in sexual relationships that were based on mutual love. In this she was as much an early sexual pioneer as in her fight for women's right to information about, and free access to, birth control methods. She regarded these as essential for women to gain control over their own lives, and eventually become fully emancipated.
Black and Russell founded a school in 1927 called Beacon Hill School in which they tried to teach children to leave behind superstitions and irrational views of previous generations. Russell eventually left Black for one of his students after she had two children by one of her lover, Griffin Barry. She went on to write extensively on the right of the individual to be happy.
Russell throughout his life campaigned for human rights, social justice, peace, and nuclear disarmament. His lasting legacy as an advocate for peace is carried on by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. (information on Russell and Black excerpted from Wikipedia)
When I was a kid I hated amusement park rides. That awful sinking, kicked-in-the-gut feeling that you get as the rollercoaster heads down from the peaks, the slammed against the wall feeling the as the tilt-a-whirl throws you from side to side unexpectedly, and let's not forget the carousel. I actually liked carousels until I realized that you are always trapped going in circles and, even if the ups and downs aren't painful, you still can't get off the damn thing and it goes absolutely nowhere.
Now that I am all grown up not only do I still dislike amusement parks, but I find love is an amusement park, too.
Only now the kicked in the gut feeling is more like kicked in the heart. A hard burning knife-like pain. The heart is a pretty strong muscle, but it seems to have a very short memory sometimes. And any euphoria you felt a few minutes before can come all crashing down with a few nasty words. So not only do you feel pain, you also feel the urge to inflict pain back. And not only do you spiral down and get slammed against the walls that you each have put up, but you both lash out. You make it worse.
Here's the thing, if you want to make it work, make it last, and make it able to weather the ups and downs of the human emotional rollercoaster, you need to remember three rules:
Don't assume the worst. Talk. Get answers, and correct info. Then talk some more. And listen, listen carefully. Then talk again, and be honest. Communication will go a long way toward solving the problems that cause pain--especially if you meet your partner half way and can compromise where you conflict. Conflict will always happen--that's human--it is how we deal with it that conflict that keeps love alive.
Never get so caught up in your pain that you forget your partner is probably hurting as well. Sometimes when we get hurt we lash out at each other and the resulting damage escalates badly back and forth. If one of the two of you has the courage to say "I will not seek revenge," there is hope. If you each can say that, well then, there is real love there. And you will survive the down turns.
Say you are sorry. To paraphrase a famous quote: Love means always having to say you are sorry. And accepting that apology as well. Someone once told me that "sorry is a coin that wears thin over time." That is true. But it is also the best coin--maybe the only--coin you can spend when you are in the throes of pain and anger. None of us are perfect. We tend to make the same mistakes over and over. If you love, really love someone, you will give them the chance to say they are sorry and mean it. You will say you are sorry and mean it, too.
If you are luck enough to have found real love, true love, then you need to work on keeping it. Don't settle for anything less.