Why is the hard so clear, and the right so difficult?

Hi.

Just got back from a long weekend drive-down-and-back to Georgia. I worked my now-normal 20 hours by Wednesday and drove down Thursday/Friday. I competed in the sparring section of the first Georgia Hap Ki Do tournament and Inst. Murphy placed me with the 2nd degree black belts, even though I haven't been to a class since my 1st degree test in March, lol.

My opponent scored the first point, I scored the second with a block/snap-shot backhand to the head, and my fist bounced off the back of his turned head (legal point) a solid half-second before his mis-ranged (due to my darting in) spinning-backfist initial-pointing-elbow slammed into the flat of my nose.

My God, did that hurt!

I went down to my knees in a blinding flash of disorientation and my ears registered "-ose is broken.-broken?-Is it broken?"

That was a terrifying several seconds until I regained full sentience (which, apparently, I can spell correctly on the first try), and realized that they had no better idea of my condition than I.

I asked, after some basic 'who are you' questions answered, "Did I at least get the point?"

Inst. Kissel said, "I honestly can't remember."

A woman gave me tissues, a blue squishy thing, and ice to put under and over my nose and told me I'd have to go the ER with a most-likely broken nose.

I was outside, resigning myself to this concept, with the knowledge that I had to both play and sing music on stage in about 3 hours, and was asking my beloved K to call my Mom and find out whether my catastrophic medical insurance (ER stuff) was still valid; when a 10 year veteran ER nurse/hap ki do yellow belt came up and manhandled my nose in specific ways, causing 0 pain, and proclaimed that, "Nah, it's just the cartilage."

My pain-o-meter registering about a 2 on a 1-10 scale by this point agreed, and I just iced the bleeding appendage for an hour or so.

I won that match, due to my opponent's disqualification upon my bleeding (though I feel like I would have won, anyway, and had landed a previous high-heel hook kick to his head that two of the non-judging black belts later acknowledged) but advanced no further, since my bleeding absence caused my own disqualification.

It's funny because - knowing that I would shortly be playing the bass and piano - I had abstained from the breaking competition, didn't hold boards for the breaking, and used only closed fists in sparring. And so there I was, due to sing shortly, with a unexpectedly blood-filled shnoz.

Instructor Williams, my opponent, told Inst. Murphy (I found out later) soon after the match that he had good news and bad news:

Inst. M: "What's the good news?
Inst. W: "I got disqualified from my first sparring match." (lol)
Inst. M: "What's the bad news?
Inst. W: "I may have broken Grandmaster's singer."
Inst. M: "!"

There ensued some panic, but it all worked out alright and my voice-bits were unsullied. The fact that we'd never actually practiced a full set reared it's inevitable head and we train-wrecked a song - due in vastly large part to my forgetting that I had to transpose my piano down a whole-step , but also owing to a complete inability to hear a god-forsaken thing on stage -, but picked it back up successfully; and I just-about nailed a splendid rendition of "Spirit Carries On" - a beautiful song by Dream Theater (better than the original, vocals wise, if I don't just say so myself) - among about 40 minute's worth of...

Well, it wasn't tightest concert I've ever played.

After THAT, K and I bounced back to our hotel, checked out, and met everyone for a Korean BBQ dinner that non-beef-eater-she didn't get much nom from, and followed Inst. Murphy back to his home.

We spent the ensuing 3.5 hours talking Buddhist philosophy, then K and I decided to head back home.

...
...
...

14 hours later, since we decided to head back via Tennessee, we had just finished traveling 2 miles in an hour and a half thanks to some old people read-ending an SUV on a two-lane bridge and the police deciding - for some !@$@#$%^@#% reason - not to MOVE the DAMN CARS 100-feet backward for OMG far too @#%$%^ long - when we returned home, and K fell asleep.

I, having consumed ~9-12 red bulls in the past 14 hours in order to not asplode, cannot yet sleep.

I continue to love my life, despite my swollen smellgetter.

Love!
Jim

K and I are joining my family at the beach in Florida for a week.

We'll be back next Sunday. Adieu!

<3 the beach.

Lots of stuff afoot!

1) Wedding date moved to ~ November 11th. Why, you ask? Well -
2) Going to Florida on the 22nd through the 28th of this month.
3) Planning a trip to Georgia in mid-July to play some tunes with Grandmaster and scout for a house.
4) Birthdays everywhere!
5) Creating a business based on healing, growth, and self-awareness!
6) Moving to GA (90% likely) at end of September.

We figured that among all of the stuff that needs doing, we didn't HAVE to plan our wedding in the middle of it. lol.

So, yes, life is wonderful. Every day my heart relaxes a little more - realizing that it doesn't have to keep waiting and trudging onward without rest and reprieve. Last night, as I lay my head on K's shoulder, and we wrapped our arms around each other, all was right with the world and everything in it.

I've been running all my life to get to the point where I could finally be myself. After such a long run, I'd begun to lose track of the face behind the effort. Now, as I shed my running-skin, and unfold what I've kept stiffled beneath, I find myself a beginner in the world again. <3

We speak about who we really are, who we want to be, what we want to give to the world, and how best to join together our complicated strengths and desires to make a difference in people's lives - especially our own, and our future children's.

One day at a time, and every day with love.

Cheers,
Jim

P.S. - I'm reminded of a poem I used to love:

One and one is always two;
each alone, here's me, there's you.
The mathematics of the heart
adds together what's apart.
The sum of being [in love] is done,
to say that one and one make One.

K and I have picked a date:

August 1st, this year, we're going to go out to Sedona, Arizona, and get married - just the two of us.

Then we're going to come back and throw a party/reception.

: )

Hooray, love!

Once upon a brilliant sunshine,
Lived a pair with hearts full entwined.
Into each the other's view,
Very lovely, very true.
Easy now to open shutters
Slammed so hard by misfit others.

There once was a man named Osiris,
Locked in a box by a jack-arse,
His lover, bereft,
Wouldn't leave him there, rent,
So now he again walks beside us.

So - yeah.

How does one give details of an engagement? It seems like a fairly straightforward thing to describe:

I'm madly in love with this woman, the feeling is mutual, and we are insanely good for each other. As we talked through the night, again and again and again, it kept rising in me to ask her to marry me.

Every time, however, I pushed the thought down - "It's too soon."

Too soon, however is a silly concept, because things are on time when they are right, regardless of how many hours have been logged.

So, as I cleared the last of my stuff from my old apartment, I collected my great-grandmother's engagement ring - that my mom had passed along to me.

And so, April 28th, at 11:23pm, as the thought rose in my mind one more time to spend my life with this woman, I went over to where I'd put the envelope the ring was in, I put it in my pocket, and I came back to Kristin.

I knelt in front of her as I deftly pulled the ring from envelope and pocket, and raised it between us. "Kristin Evans", I said, "Will you marry me?"

She beamed, and nodded a lot and said "YES", and we put the ring on her finger - and it fit.

It looks kinda like this, but with normal diamonds - not blue ones, and it's old - so not currently as shiney.


Inquiring minds wanted to know, right?

Edit: Very Important aspect I left out:

Kristin met me on my knees. She accepted on my level, not from above. She is such an amazing woman.

I'm engaged to Kristin. She's currently wearing my maternal great-grandmother's ring.

Is happy day!

May, huh?

To all I have harmed in my life, I regret and apologize.

For all that I bound myself to in error, I regret the loss of my own sheer possibility.

My life is not over yet. It's barely begun. The morning's light can wash even blood stains from the soul. All you have to do is face them without fear, and then be capable of handling what comes.

It's nearly broken me.

(...I took a picture of my hand that I can't find the cable to show you, but you'll see what I mean soon enough. The following is not me, but extremely accurate from a symbolic standpoint.)



I had a violent childhood. I hid from it. I, the first child, felt my father's usually restrained deep resentment of how he "had" to live his life. I loved my father (still do), and felt on some deeply repressed level that I had to change the situation for him.

How can a child possibly change the situation of its parents? Well, my brain supplied the answer of "go away", and I constructed a powerful fantasy that shaped my life...well, to this day for one reason after another. I owned that I would not be here for long - that I would be whisked away before it was "too late for my father".

And then I had a brother. I am deeply, deeply ashamed to say that I treated him poorly. I realized recently that I did this because - while I could change myself, I could not change another -, and on a painfully malicious level I tried to break him twice. I still don't know the result of my wildly vacillating childhood intention towards my brother. I'd mention positives, but they'd feel like excuses after that last statement.

Other than creating a deeply repressed pain that I've let out and addressed quite recently, this turn of events bound me to the ground:

You see, my mother, bless her, tried to make me shine. And my father was pissed that he "wouldn't be able to". The resulting pull back and forth has led me to falter each and every time I begin to Shine, and own my own power.

Well, tonight I sit grateful to my dear, faithful Kristin, whom I adore as much as she glows at me, and has handed me her own demons to compare against my own as I change my life.


So, tonight I beg all of you who sit restrained, and repressed, and believe that you 'must', to reconsider. Life is meant to be right. It's meant to be done from the heart, and with all of the heart.

Please love.

Your Jim.

P.S. - I have no gratitude, or appreciation for anything that Amanda and Gene ever, ever have done in their lives. I apologize, for those of you who are their friends, and I will not make a habit out of speaking against them in this forum - they're worth none of my time, and never have been. Just be aware that if you choose to listen to me, you may see things that are uncomfortable, because I intend to open every door along my path.

...if you didn't know that already, where have you been? Choose your friends with intention. I won't blame anyone who chooses to walk away from me, now or ever.

<3

What are gifts? Gifts are things we are given.

We often take the things that we are given for granted. We see them as an "oh, of course I can sing or handle horses really well or remember and link complex statistics."

Rarely do we recognize that Gifts are profound things that people who are simply Talented lack. A Talent is a skill that one can develop. A Talent is a choice.

A Gift is not a choice.

To ignore a gift is to ignore the bright spot(s) in a personal constellation. Those who fail to recognize and push the development of their gifts cripple themselves and daily lose more of what possibilities they could become.

And often, we cripples look around and see that everyone is the same. Everyone is hindered, and handicapped in some way. Everyone walks a hard road. In that recognition lies a very seductive trap, because it could imply that crippled is what we are meant to be, just because everyone is.

Instead, we are meant to Shine, and we often whisper soft lies to ourselves and bind our spirits to the broken ground that we're convinced is The Way Life Is.

This is bullshit.

Ding! I is in happy place. Life, love, all things good!

1) stop bad
2) stop bad from beginning.
3) begin good
4) continue good.

And yet, we often ignore the obvious dragons.

Kristin and I haven't stopped talking since we met. I love this woman. LOVE.

Don't ever settle.

Love,
Jim

Hiya!

Developments in the life of Jim:

1) We have Kristin's cat now - Leo. He's a great presence in the apartment. He likes sleeping in a nook behind my bass.

2) LOVE.

3) The depth of this connection between Kristin and I is shaking loose a lot of the chaff from our collective pasts, as we learn how to let go of our previous assumptions about the limits of human relationships. At the same time, she has a lot of physical healing to go through, and I have a lot ways in which I'd shut myself down over the years that have caught me by surprise in a mad dash to surface. A lot of rejected beliefs being allowed to grow. It's a beautiful, powerful, astounding time of my life.

4) I took the Instructor's patch off my uniform after I failed to arrive for Saturday's classes, having spent the night deep in a discussion that wanted to be had in that moment. I realized that I can not, currently, commit to the same schedules I used to fail at. *grin* So, simplify.

Georgia is still looking like the summer's plan, and the next step in our lives, but for right now, I am not the image of a Hap Ki Do Instructor, and I refuse to dishonor the title. So, yeah, now the kids'll have to get used to calling me 'Mr. Haff' when I'm in class. That'll be weird for me, too.

5) Band recording over the weekend. AWESOME! One more session like that and we might be done with our first studio original. I'm liking the sound more and more. I definately wonder about the role of my voice, however. It's difficult for me to sit behind someone in the mix, and just be a harmony. At the same time, one of my strongest suits is my ability to harmonize on the fly, vocally. I'd hate to have created a pointless skill in myself. *chuckle* Odds are, I'll figure this out.

6) I took the day off yesterday, and agreed to make my 40 hours in the remaining 4 days. Wish me luck!

7) I have tutoring tonight, and no idea where I'm meeting the student. whee!

8) I love food, drink, life, laughter, and - of course -, Kristin.

Cheers,
Jim

Moved to a new apt last night. I'm still in Frederick, but now I have actual 'space'.

Woah.

Also - madly in love.

ooooo

And now Kristin and I have an apartment together with a three month lease. We move in to OUR place tomorrow.

SHA-DAISY!

This week:

Monday - Work, Hap, and long drive to Kristin's parent's place in VA (as has become my usual).
Tuesday - Work, pay and get apt keys, get Kristin from VA, and move in together.
Weds - Work, tutoring, home to the woman I love. omg.
Thurs - Work, love
Friday - work, Hap, love
Saturday - hap, recording a demo cd, love
Sunday - Love.

I like my schedule much more this week.