Brutal Truth:
This is when someone tells it exactly like it is and damn the consequences. This takes in no consideration for the person may feel after the conversation, it is a raw recounting of your feelings with no holds barred. Personally, I find the “Brutal Truth” very mean spirited, but there are times that you just have to do it and let the fur fly.

Frankly My Dear:
When a frank conversation is called for and the “Brutal Truth” is just too harsh, the “Frankly My Dear” level of honesty is just right. This is a conversation where everything is laid bare in a polite manner and with some tact, but still fairly raw. Hard emotions accompany it, but it is rarely put in a way that will evoke hostile reactions.

Nicely Put:
The gentle truth would also be a way of describing this. There are times that we need to express to someone things that may not be easy to face, but we put the kindest face on it as possible. In these cases the truth speaker is genuinely concerned for the emotions and the reaction of the one receiving the truth. No one wants to hurt anyone, but things have to be said and this discourse leaves all happy it was said.

Candy Coat:
So, you have something to say and you want the other person to smile after it is all said and done, so you candy coat the truth in little lies. The problem, the candy coating has some rough edges when bitten into, and after a while the truth is left as a raw taste in the mouth and may come back to haunt you. Personally, go to the “Nicely Put” level if you are thinking of candy coating a truth, it will eventually go down better.

Half A Truth:
Caught between a rock and a hard place? Tell half the truth now and hope that the other half can be figured out later. Why do we do this? There is a of this going on, we tell only part of the story and the rest is just as important and left to hang. This could be called a half lie, is that what we want? What are we scared of? Emotions?

Silence:
So, let’s not bother to tell anyone what we are really feeling and hope that the other person can just figure it out. You bite your lip, bottle it up and never reveal what you are feeling, you just let it all fester. True, you are not lying, but is this not as bad? There is no light of honesty being shed, might as well be lying.

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I don’t know if I have written about this, but what do you put down as your “status” after you are divorced? Are you “divorced” or are you “single”? Are you “widowed” or are you “single”?

I mean there is a real reason that I ask. If you categorize yourself as divorced or widowed are you not just carrying on a torch that no longer exists? Ok, so you have the life experience of being married, does that automatically put us into these categories? What if the marriage was only a year, or a month and you got a divorce early on, would you want to be a divorcee? Is there an advantage to “being divorced” or “being widowed”. I can not see where that makes us divorcees or widow/ers and better off.

But that part of life is now over and maybe we learned a thing or two, but should we morn the marriage by carrying the title? After all we are single now and supposedly moving on with our lives. So why not call yourself single and be done with it. Is it necessary to advertise that part of your life.

So, when people ask me now what my status is, I tell them I was married and now I am single. I think it is a healthier way to look at things. As a new single man I have put behind me all the crap that was in the marriage and admitted that it is time to move on and be a free, single person again.

Viva la singles!

It has been one of those days of struggle for me; not in any physical sense, but in terms of creativity. I have hit a very difficult section in the short story I am writing and I am not sure how to go about it. Yes I got 800 words written, but they were 800 words of betrayal, a very hard subject for me to face, I do know many forms of it so well after all.

Making it more difficult was the particular betrayal. In the story a mentally immature man is forced to face the fact that who he thought was his mother was nothing more than a lie. You see, I was adopted, but I knew I was adopted all my life. So now I have to face a situation where “what would I have done if I never knew I was adopted and then found out later in life that the person I called mother was not really my mother.” How would I have reacted?

This is not as easy as you may think. Certainly my life would change at that moment. All the lifelong beliefs I had concerning this person would change. Certainly I may have a violent reaction because of the betrayal that would seemingly be there. A lifetime of lies would be suddenly revealed, how would you react?

Would I lash out? Would I crawl into a hole? Would I accept it calmly? Would I deny it all and insist that I was being lied to now and blindly believe what was before was the truth? What if I found out about it by chance? What if I found out about it after my adoptive mother died? How would I react?

So I am at this impasse, I can’t continue with the writing until I have worked out this issue for myself. And I do have to work it out for myself. After all, writing is nothing more than a reflection of the authors life and perceptions. This is why reading an author is such a good look into who he is. His writing reflects his reactions to situations that you may never see in real life. Isn’t it true that when we all interact that we wear our masks, and it is a rare thing to know someone face to face without a mask or two getting in the way?

But when an author writes, the masks slip. It is a hard task for a writer to write with a mask on, it is so limiting. I guess that is one reason that blogging can be so personal, the masks are stripped away and you see us bloggers as we are, raw and sometimes devoid of our facades.

So I sit here, the blank page as large as life in front of me waiting to be besmirched by my words of searching and understanding. It may be a while.

1.09.06
“Our house is a very, very, very fine house.
With 6 cats in the yard, life used to be so hard.
Now everything is easy ‘cause of you. “

Wow.  What a great few weeks it has been.  Life is good.  Actually my attitude about life is good hence my life is great. 

I have the best roommate I could ask for; unconditional love and acceptance, easy going and my best friend these days.  (according to Gayle this should read “and in all the days of the future and in many past life times.” Geeze I hope so.) OK we are both fucking nuts but in a very good way. 

We watched American Beauty tonight.  What an awesome movie.  I want to show it to my kids and say “See!  Slow Down for cryin out loud!  Stop trying to make everything so plastic and see the beauty that is really there!  Now I have never felt stupid for picking up bits of rusted metal or hunks of…. well for lack of descriptive words… stuff …..on my walks.  The video in the movie kind of captured what I try to see.  I try to see beauty in the mundane, in the people, in my environment, in myself too.  Sometimes, in ourselves, that is the hardest place for most of us to see it.  To slow down.  To down right stop and observe and try…to see… to sense, with every part of my being the world I live in and how marvelous it is. 

This isn’t what I wanted to talk about tonight though.  What I had been thinking about earlier, thinking about the unconditional love I feel in the place where I live.  From Gayle and the six kitties.  Thinking that maybe I am finally getting it.  That I am reflecting and therefore attracting this good thing.  The other day I wondered what I must have been like living with Russ.  Just how sick I must have been to attract the abuse and to reflect it back.  If like was attracting like…and now how wonderful that I am attracting healthier people into my life.  Happier people.  That I am learning not to reflect back or generate the pain and anger or draw it to me.  To recognize it and walk away.  To recognize when something is good too. 

I have been both the young man and the mother in American Beauty.  Thank goodness somewhere along the way I have become Lester, I feel as if I am waking up from a coma…. Remembering what I once was…. 

This morning leaning languidly in the corner broom
you are too smug

How can you waltz every night with the janitor
Flirt with the dust pan and then
closet yourself with the mop
as if you had found love everlasting?

Where is honor!  What of trust?

Your sophistication will not answer
Already you slide towards the floor waxer.

Is there a difference between being in a thoughtful mood and a reflective mood? 

(On Physicalities
and Consciousness)

I, nursing speculations
chasing phantoms in the air,
but you are not a phantom.

I want to lock minds.
Stumble down the corridors of your
ideas
and the searching ache I feel in you
wells up to meet my own.
What is?
I need to know what you are
thinking.
Play my ideas against yours.  Search
and feint.

If by chance I should happen
to meet
your heart
well,
I would like to share mine.
But hearts are heavy burdens
often bodies lighter. Confusion mine
I want them both
take one and move too fast here.

Cringe with fear of loss
your being so precious,
I anticipate retreat
What have I done?

I, nursing speculations
chasing phantoms in the air,
but you are not a phantom
and I tremble.

I wrote this poem when I was in my 20’s, now I am in my 40’s and it still applies.  Will I ever learn? 

Hello all, I am new to this site, introduced to it by JB via AFF.  You seem a caring, intelligent and creative community.  Thank you, for existing, for exquisite minds, for honesty, for caring hearts.

by Billy Joel

If you search for tenderness
It isn’t hard to find
You can have the love you need to live
But if you look for truthfulness
You might just as well be blind
It always seems to be so hard to give

Chorus

Incredible… beyond belief. I give up. Why do I even try anymore.

Does anyone give me any credit at all? I am not a stupid person, I can figure stuff out without having been told things. Do people not realize that what is not said or done is just as important as what IS said? And even when given a chance to come clean, they don’t and just perpetuate the dishonesty.

It must be Biorhythm. Six months ago I was faced with the issue of two paths, and now I find that I have other issues to confront once again, and again, they involve my love life. So why is it more complicated this time? So, stream of consciousness kicks in again…

I have one woman that I care for but she seems to be drifting away. I have made attempts to reforge a relationship but she is so busy with her life that we can never seem to be together. I care for her greatly, and she will aways be special to me, but maybe I should face facts and let it go. Maybe we should be only friends and let that be it. At least at that point I will have put one thread behind me and be able to move on.

Then there is the one that I met totally offline and she is very sweet. Again, I ike her alot, have made a few flirts and have seen some response, but she is not willing to engage in a relationship because of past relationships. She is “Taking Time” to get her head back together, and I can relate to that. Maybe this is a path that should just be left alone. If that is the case, and I do leave it alone, I do have one less thing to worry about. Maybe that is best.

Then there is someone that has recently come into my life and she is very sweet. We are compatible in many ways and share a ton of interests. But she is moving faster than I wanted I think. I am not sure about where I would want to take thisrelationship, it is really interesting now, but I cannot see long term where it will take us if I decide to persue it alone.

Finally there is one woman that I know I can get into. She does not live nearby, she has her own issues as well, but over the last few months we have made a connection, one that I feel strongly about. I know that if it worked out and we were together there would be something very strong there. She is someone that I could be with and know that time would not fade therelationship.

So now it is four paths. Two I can put behind me and know that no-one will be hurt. One I can continue and see where it goes, hopefully slow it down a bit, but see where it goes. The last… well if she comes into my life in a significant way, I will drop all others unless others are all cool with it.

I hate it when my life gets like this, I never know where I stand. I want things to work out well for everyone, but you know that someone ends up getting hurt. Interestingly enough, there is not the concern as much for other people as the last time I had all the paths. This time around there is a more open atmosphere, a more adult way of looking at things. I am not in the agony that I was before.

Maybe this is because I have hardened myself more. Insulated my emotions to the point that I do not feel as strongly. Maybe that is a good thing, I am not seeing the worldthrough the rose-colored glasses as I once had. But what have I lost? Is it the extremes? Have I jaded myself to the heady highs that love can bring? Or have I just added filters to only be able to feel those extremes with the right person? I don’t know and maybe only experimentation will be able to tell me that answer. I do have a strong feelingthat the true highs are possible again, but yeah, with the right person.

Six months… here we are again. Me, different players, but here we are again.