So far, so good this week. Nothing too stressful going on. I�m getting to the point where I�m feeling mostly settled in the house, and it�s starting to show. Now it looks like people actually live there, and not like some people are just passing through.

I�ve never lived in a place that looked like people actually lived there.

I was just chatting with a friend of mine about a friend of his, whom I�d met a few times, a few years ago. He does quite well as a jazz and orchestra musician, and one of the youngest people to make a living with his particular instrument. I loved the fact that the guy was drop-dead gorgeous, and had the cool, smooth charm of a real jazz guy, and all the enthusiasm of an energetic young man.

The older I get, the harder it is to capture that jello-knee�d, giddy feeling that makes young girls do stupid, stupid things, and I miss it sometimes.

I�ve always tended toward dreaminess and it was never in my nature to keep my feet on the ground, but reality has a way of flogging a person�s head out of the clouds. I do miss it, though, and he was one of those people who could quickly and easily launch me into a fantasy.

So, when my friend mentioned him in passing, I had to ask, �What�s he up to? Still as handsome as ever?�

He�s dating a Canadian, likes to vacation in Portugal. Yes, still handsome as ever.

He should have asked me first, I�d have told him that Canadians are nothing but trouble. Trust me, I know these things.

Following that, my most honest response would have been, �Wouldn�t it be nice if he could leave his girlfriend and I could leave my boyfriend, and we could run away to Portugal together? What would he think of that?�

Reality says, �He would say, �Wait, wait. Who are you, again? Have we met before?�� So, I let the subject drop.

No, I don�t think there�s anything weird and unhealthy about having such thoughts. As a matter of fact, I think that my psychological health could benefit from nurturing my inner Anne (of Green Gables), rather than stifling it, as our society would have us believe.

I don�t really think it�s necessary to apologize or explain things away, either. We should be tolerant enough, as a community, to tolerate each other�s eccentricities and quirks. If we don�t accept each other�s differences, we don�t have a community.

But, in the virtual world, there�s always someone who will point out the error of your ways (although, not me, personally. I don�t get hateful responses because I hardly get any responses). As a result, well-trafficked blog writers are defending and apologizing for their posts in the posts themselves. Even when they�re saying things as benign as, �I like the color green.�

So, there you go, I�m in a long-term monogamous relationship, and I wished that I could run away with a man that I�ve met twice, even though, he�s also in a long-term monogamous relationship, and I�m not going to apologize for it!

Anyone who has a problem with that can tell me in person, and by the way, I have a black belt in karate.

Of course, I would not be saying such things if this was a well-trafficked place, I�m not crazy, ya know.

Speaking of long-term monogamous relationships, things are going fine. I don�t want to get too detailed and boring, but I would like to point out that we�ve both been to hell and back during the course of this thing.

Adam has been suffering from a tick disorder. It�s something that he had off and on before meeting me, but had been mild at the time (in my mind, unnoticeable). When we moved in together, it started getting progressively worse. About two years ago, we started seeking treatment, but they were less aggressive things, like acupuncture, which did help to some extent, but not enough. About a year ago, we started getting more aggressive with treatment.

So, it�s been a rollercoaster for us both, with him going to neurologists and movement specialists, getting tested for this and that, and trying various drugs. He�s still undiagnosed, and is being treated symptomatically. On top of that, he seems to be very sensitive to side-effects. Every drug he�s tried has worked, but every drug has come with an intolerable side-effect.

I only mention it because this week there�s a new drug, and he�s been feeling unwell and lethargic, which is concerning for a couple of reasons. First, he feels bad. Second, as his neurologist pointed out last week, we�re running out of drugs to try. As it is, the drug that he�s on now costs about a gazillion dollars for a prescription, along with a couple of limbs, and a first born, and of course insurance is refusing to cover it.

So, I guess it isn�t that surprising that when I sit down to meditate, I have a lot of anger and frustration coming up.

Adam has started seeing a psychologist on the side (outside of our couples counseling), which I think will be good for him. He has a lot of faith in talk therapy, he loves to talk, and his favorite topic is himself. He�s also very good at taking what is useful to him, and disregarding the rest.

Even after all the therapy I�ve had, I�m still not sure that I�ve ever benefitted from any of it. Well, I should say that I do believe that I�ve benefited indirectly from couple�s counseling. The relationship is the patient, and the therapy has improved its health. As far as the rest of it, I don�t know. I�ve gone off and on, just in case it might work, but have not seen any real evidence that it has actually worked.

This past week, I�ve been focusing more on my spiritual health. I spoke to my reiki teacher on Friday night, and she was practically scolding me for pushing myself too hard, and not taking better care of myself. �If the reiki tells you to rest, why do you not rest?!?! How do you expect anything to change, if you never slow down?�

At the same time, she was being very hands off, she emphasized that I needed to learn how to take care of myself. I know that was her intention because she told me so, and my intuition is agreeing with her. I need to find my own way. I can�t get anywhere until I learn self-care.

I never expected to hear that. I thought I was making strides when it came to caring for myself. I�ve been buying myself massages, dance classes, nutritious food. Heck, I went to the chiropractor three times in the past month.

That�s not me taking care of myself. That�s paying other people to take care of me. Paying someone to take care of me alleviates my guilt. I�m giving them business in a poor economy.

That has been my tricky way of getting around my belief that I don�t deserve care. I neglected that whole aspect of my personality because I was so busy congratulating myself on how good I was at caring for myself. This should have been obvious to me. I�ve scheduled massages because I felt guilty, knowing that my massage therapist depends on my business.

This is not to say that I don�t benefit from these services. I get a lot of benefit from it, but I have to get out of the mindset that I can�t have care unless I have something to trade for it.

The thought has even crossed my mind that I would like to seek treatment from my reiki teacher and pay her regular hourly fee, which would be ridiculous. I�m her student, I treated her on Friday, I regularly help her work on building a reiki community, I�ve helped her make instructional reiki videos, I�ve helped her teach classes. If anyone deserves a free treatment, it�s me, yet, I can�t bring myself to truly believe it.

If I were to write a book on healing, this would be chapter 1, section 1; The Value of Self Care. If you can�t heal yourself, you�ll never reach your full potential as a healer.

Ok, since this entry is getting too long, I�m not going to add anything else. I did have a good weekend, otherwise, though.

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