Romance & Finance

The Third Thing. That’s what a woman told me yesterday, after I met up with this new group of folks who, apparently, talk about intimacy, relationships, and habitual avoidance of (or indulgence in) such things.

I was telling her that for years, I’ve been trying to find a balance between Betty Crocker and the Vixen, to find the middle way between them. And she said something I’d never heard before – that likely, whatever it or I turn out to be, it’s probably neither of these – it’s a Third Thing.

I’ve said sometimes, that I don’t like the analogy of “living in the gray,” you know, the balance between black and white – between black and white thinking, all or nothing. Some people call this middle, attempting to live in the gray area. But to me, that sounds pretty awful, like living in a fog bank (looking at you, San Francsico!). And so, I’ve said that instead of the middle of black and white being gray, I call it color. That something other than black, or white, is color. And so, “the third thing” thing makes sense to me (she said it’s a Bill Clinton quote, and g-d love Bill – I’ll have to look it up).

Romance and Finance. I hear so often that these are the things which so often plague, worry, or motivate all of humanity. I’m reading this book on the art and history of Europe (“for the traveler”), trying to get some more info, things I slept through or didn’t care about or was too worried about the aforementioned “ance”s to listen. I have a few books on European travel on my desk, and this one is giving me the history, the why and wherefore of how come art and architecture look like they do. And here’s what I’ve learned: people, throughout history, have fought and been motivated by romance and finance. Kings marriages, new religions, revolutions. Many have been about who has what, who doesn’t have what, and how they can get more.

So, I’m not alone, apparently, in the grand scheme of these issues. Of working on them, and my own grating relationship with each.

This is good. And there is a solution, but as Jung said, (I think I’ve mis/quoted him here recently!), You can’t solve a problem on the level of the problem. And the problem here is that I have only my well-worn resources, patterns, and behavior to help me "solve" these problems of romance and finance. So it’s time to look for help.

My romantic life as having fallen in either Betty Crocker or Vixen territory is very much like my relationship with money. I’m either restricting, meagerly existing, and isolating – or I’m burning money to quench and balm the pain of all that restriction. Binge, remorse, restrict. Repeat. Many people can notice these traits in anorexics or bulimics, and so far in my life, knock on every piece of wood and mock-wood in the vicinity, that has not been an issue for me in that particular way. My binge and restrict is with emotions, money, and sexuality.

And if the middle way is not indeed the “middle,” then I have to keep coming back to those who know a different way, and can help me to get there.

This morning, I queried in my Morning Pages about this desert I go to in meditation. How was that desert, I asked. I hadn’t been there in a long time, and it was a place that I’ve gone to occasionally in my meditations for years, and one which I was encouraged to solidify in myself and my brain while I was doing some EMDR work with my therapist earlier this year.

She said it was interesting that I chose a desert as my “safe place,” that many people choose cozy small place, places where they feel protected. But, no, for me, I want a wide wide field of vision. There are no surprises, no sneak attacks, I have full view of every single thing for miles and miles. It’s a desert like those you see in the southwest, with ocher colored mesas in the distance. And the flat, flat, cracked earth expanse of dirt and dust and a hawk flying lazy circles in the bright, expertly clear sunlight.

This, is safe to me.

I suppose I’m reminded of it today, as I am going to be needing to touch into places like this – safe, calm, where I feel almost in charge. There is nothing hidden, nothing freaky, nothing to shake me or scare me or surprise me. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of surprises and shakes and scares as I begin to dive into this romance stuff. This emotional intimacy, undoing this very deep pattern of all or nothing. And so, it’s time for me to strengthen my base, root within my safe places, and get the hell out of the way.

This is like a geyser, this work. Or maybe it’s not, what do I know. What I do know is that I am grateful for the help I have available to me, internally and externally. I was asked in my meditation from my Feminine, as I reported the other day, if I was ready – I guess I was being asked if I was ready to work on this stuff – because she/I have reawakened, and is powerful as fuck. It is no wonder to me, then, that it’s taken me as long as it has to come to this place of beginning to integrate and work on my sex/relationship/intimacy stuff – I’m going to need all the resources I’ve acquired, and many I have yet to discover.

Here’s to an assault on old ideas, however that looks as it is coupled with a cosmic cease-fire.