Gaining perspective from NOW...

Life has certainly shared her ability to colorfully paint change to me and most especially over the last few years.  The marriage into which I threw myself with not even a whiff of second thought and view of "down the road" ended in December of 2010.  I had served my purpose and was quite rudely discarded in May of that year for the replacement already established.  Following the death of the husband to my mother-in-law, the entire clan used white out over my parts and wrote a new and rather shining work for history as they recalculated that timeline.

Although my vantage in writing Life in the Aftermath of a Narcissist has changed, the details, as I categorized them as fact, remain.  But, what has altered is my self-education and re-entry into awareness that life has a flow...there is a plan...and we do create our sphere.  That last one is always such a bugger to accept....no, there exists no "fault" to speak of, but the moment we can see that we made choices along the sine wave of time, the more ready we are to acknowledge our birthright of Divine spark in forging life with all its ups and downs.

Having said that, we still have the right, urge, and drive to morph less than ethical performances by evaluating actions with stored data and determining the play in the physical scheme.  I believe this is why so many of us find our roles within "causes" as we work to assess our part in the mishmash.  For myself, I have verged toward a more spiritual path.  Not New Age so much as simply acknowledging "a plan" of which I remain partially in the dark.  I don't care for the too often peppered quotes from gurus and seers who suggest quiet and calm responses to all.  I have the feeling that the roles into which we have been molded require different emotional balances for each of us.

There is a place for each of us and being willing to be a Don Quixote can be valid and effective.  I watched the movie, "Snow White and the Huntsman" and found myself enthralled by the graphic duality of what creativity of beauty and color in that realm had become - a barren, scorched landscape of many-hued grays and desolation of spirit.  The huntsman and prince showed compassion and valor along with a fledgling hopefulness of expectation.  Battles had to be waged and Snow White needed to find her own strength in fighting with passion and drive.  One life alone was not solely "the" part at stake.  Just as for us, characters blend with others and create together as our energies and worlds intertwine.

Moving forward in centimeters at times, I find myself now light years from the vacillating angry presence and sad sack "acceptor."  I have come to recognize the bonding potential of life's experiences which bring other strengths to us.  "Back when," I felt the man within his role as narcissistic spouse to be oh-so much greater than life.  As I pull the pictures from my mind today, he simply was not.  It was I who imbued him with traits of grandeur.

Ego was a tough hurdle for me as I had placed so much of my idea of self in my presentation of me - empathetic and wounded persona.  I forgot that "I" am just a perception of the true me.  Amazing opportunities for comprehension landed in my path as I struggled with emotional anguish and financial devastation.  With humor, I'll add that mercy dropped a nugget of kindness with the passage of rampaging hormones and the incessant need to couple. Life handed me economic hardship and a crisis of faith on the one hand, while blessing me as some Cheshire cat blinking in the night with a keener connection to family and a new-found fortitude to scale obstacles.

That old aphorism of "letting go, to let God" has proven on-the-mark.  I, too, am a part of the immense energies and bring my own bearing of history, observation, and ever-kaleidoscopic sculpting of my part in this grand play.  None of us are insignificant.

All those of us who have met in thought or contact are like some dancing disco ball, throwing perspectives onto this romance novel dance floor.  We find that "romance" isn't just the pleasurable sensation of attraction to a loved one, it actually deals with an ethical code of conduct.  In a way, we are knights in service to an idea of noble bearing, the concept of character, courage, generosity, and honor.

I think of the character Henry the V as shown in his speech on St. Crispen's Day before the Battle in Shakespeare's play.

"That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day.

...But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."