Love and Commitment

Taken from: http://www.dailyom.com 
Emphasis is mine.

February 16, 2015
The Journey of Commitment
Entering into Commitment

by Madisyn Taylor

Loving and committing to another person is a spiritual process whether it involves a wedding or any other type of commitment ceremony. Often when we enter into a relationship, we allow our emotions to lead us forward without thinking more deeply about what true commitment involves. 

If we can understand that sharing our lives with another person is not just based on love but also on the hard work of being able to compromise and enter into a dialogue with them, then we are much more likely to find the key to having a successful relationship with our partners. 

So many people have not experienced a loving relationship between their own parents and therefore have no role model of what love should feel like or look like.

Many of us have been exposed to the idea that love should be romantic and sweep us off our feet. While this is a natural part of any relationship, the true test of our love comes from our willingness to explore this world with another person; to not only share in the delights that we encounter but also to negotiate the bumps in the road together. 

Generally this often takes the form of a mutual exchange of ideas, but because any relationship is based on the needs and experiences of two people, we might also face a certain amount of misunderstanding. Learning to be open and receptive to our partners and to treat their wants and ideas with respect can help us navigate even the most difficult situations. 

One way to do this is to take a deep breath, holding our partner in a space of love, and allow ourselves to listen fully with our hearts to what they have to say. Should this become difficult to do, we can also turn toward people whose relationships we admire for advice or guidance. Knowing that there are resources out there to help us and being up for exploring them with our partner will only serve to deepen and strengthen our relationship.

Entering into a committed relationship is in fact a spiritual journey that we undertake with another person. By being able to love and care for someone else with an open heart, we will find that we can reach a greater level of personal transformation, evolving along our path and learning powerful lessons about ourselves that we might not otherwise be able to do on our own.

Visiting

Visited Gregory yesterday. Arrived before dinner and visited. Sat during dinner and visited. Went back to his room after dinner and visited.

Visited. What does that mean?

In our narrow world it means repetition and simplicity. Playing, eating, sipping water or juice, watching South Pacific (over and over again,) putting on a "Peaceful the Bear" puppet show.

Sometimes just quietly hold hands while we sit together, him in his wheel chair and me on a stool at his side. He doses off. I look at him closely, wondering.

The other day, my outer voice said, "I miss Gregory."

My inner voice said, "You shouldn't miss Gregory. He is still with you."

I realized that what I miss is my old life with Gregory. In many ways even when he was a lot more available that "old life" had passed with only the memories left.

It was an abrupt, unexpected ending last January 2014 when I had to call 911 to help me deal with his violence and then to find Lieberman Memory Care Center for him.

But that was ten months ago and both Gregory and I have settled into our new lives.

What I miss is living with a person in a relationship that has 40 years of experience and practice. I miss the little sound bites, little sayings, little doings that no longer exist. I miss our conversations. I miss waking up in the morning next to him. I miss sharing a dinner out. There is so much I miss.

But amazingly enough, Gregory and I continue to build new experiences based on his current level of ability. I pop a mini-cookie into his mouth and he replies "mmmm." I stick a pretzel rod into his mouth and let go. He knows to reach up and hold it and finish eating it.

If the half a cup of water is left close enough, sometimes he reaches over picks it up to take a drink. When he gets nervous that his wheel chair is being pushed down the hall too quickly, I reply, "No, it's OK. I am a safe drive. A very safe driver."

We do "forehead kisses" by leaning our foreheads against each other in a 30 or 60 second "embrace." We kiss on the lips. I make a loud smacking, high school newly learned how to kiss sound to make sure he gets the idea. Recently he has begun making the sound too. Sometimes when we kiss he says, "More."

He does his "jabber routines" in various languages. They make no sense but he is able to carry on and then we both giggle at his joking in Russian, Yiddish, Italian, Insane Person.

He will give me a "look" and I will ask, "What?" He will say "What?" in return. We go back and forth maybe some 6 or a dozen times: What? What? What? What? Then we giggle.

When he tries to say something or tell me something and gets frustrated at being unable to do so, all I have to do is say, "I know." And he calms down, trusting that I do understand. Sometimes I do, most of the time I only understand that he is upset and that my sound bite can settle him.

I tell him stories about his, our past and he seems to enjoy them. Sometimes he gets melancholic but usually with a sadness of joy at remembering.

In his world, our life is full. In my world, I am content. Or as I say "STRANGELY CONTENT."

Parenthesis

parenthesis |pəˈrenTHəsis|noun ( pl. parentheses |-ˌsēz| ) a word, clause, or sentence inserted as an explanation or afterthought into a passage that is grammatically complete without it, in writing usually marked off by curved brackets, dashes, or commas. 

Gregory has become a parenthesis.

Several years ago, when Aaron (a doctoral candidate to whom we were introduced by our massage therapist Sarah, and whose research we became part of) got to know us, he commented that he was impressed that we still functioned as a "couple." That we were in a relationship that still functioned even though Gregory's Alzheimer's was slowly changing the face of that relationship. 

More accurately, I guess that I would say we functioned with RESPECT for each other. Even though I was "in charge," handled all of our finances, made all of our decisions, took care of all the details, etc; I tried to make sure that Gregory was part of and informed of all the things I was doing. Gregory in turn deferred to me and accepted, with faith in me, my new role.

Slowly, however, he needs to be less part of the decision making process. For example in the beginning he would decide what to order from the menu when we ate out. When he couldn't decide what to order, I began to offer suggestions off the menu. Eventually I narrowed it down to: "Do you want beef or chicken?" Now I just order for him. He is always pleased with my selections and often will reply with, "Oh goodie. This looks really good."

At this point in our relationship, I make all of the decisions in our life. I let Gregory know about activities the day before and again on the day of, but usually do not go into much detail or give too much advance notice because he only forgets or gets agitated about not being able to remember what I told him. This leads to a usually failed guessing game on my part.

I often do not ask his advice because even if he has some, he is unable to communicate it. Now-a-days it sounds more like this. Instead of "What color do you think we should paint the hall?" it is "I was thinking of paining the hall the same shade of white." He will agree. Instead of "When do you want to go visit your family?" it comes out "I think we will go to Michigan to visit your family soon." He will agree. Instead of "Do you want to go to the movies?" it is "We are going to see Batman." 

I still work hard at treating Gregory with respect but the face of it has changed. Here is something I just recently noticed. In the past, I would sign a letter, or birthday card, or e-mail: Love, Gregory and Michael. Based on social convention, the person doing the writing always puts their name last.

Then I began to sign them: Michael and Gregory. Now I have begun to sign some of them: Michael (and Gregory.) I guess I have moved to this format to show that it is a communication from me, not necessary discussed with or part of a decision with Gregory. If I know that Gregory would also send love or a greeting if he could, I leave out the parenthesis: Michael and Gregory.

Interesting. It seems that Gregory has become a parenthesis, inserted as an explanation or afterthought into a passage that is grammatically complete without it. A somewhat fitting description of what our relationship has become.

Meditation: Round 2: Practice 3

For this practice (which is what we call the meditation session) there were only two of us with Corinne. The other person and I have been with Corinne previously so she decided, with our permission, to take a different approach. You know the "stress" I am under and the other person had just experienced a health emergency. She had to go through that ordeal herself and mentioned that the use of her Yoga Nidra techniques helped her through the ordeal.

In this practice, we decided to look more closely at emotions in addition to working our way through all 14 steps of the practice (you've seen the diagram previously.) During the Emotions part you observe emotions that are present (now that you are in a comfortable, relaxed state,) inquire about what these emotions are telling you, concentrate on the emotion and then on its opposite. The purpose of looking at an emotion from both sides is that emotions are in flux and one is on a continuum between the positive of the emotion and the negative of the emotion. Often during a practice, you notice the emotion and know that you do not have to deal with it right then. But you must acknowledge it and deal with it later if you do not want it to increase in intensity. This time we were going to concentrate on the emotions.

The emotion that came to me, again, was JOY. Its opposite, SORROW. If you have been following these Yoga BLOGs you will know that this seems to be a recurring theme for me.

When Corinne asked us to look at our Essential Self (that which we are in relation to the universe) vs our Essential Nature (that which we have become based on experiences, expectations, relations to others and society) in relation to this continuum of emotion I felt blocked. My life most of the time is so wrapped up with trying to be the best me I can be to support Gregory, and my guilt at falling short of my expectations for myself that for some reason when trying to look through the vail I am unable to see "the real me."

Then this visualization and verbiage came to me. Yes JOY is all around me (picture me in the center of embracing hands with the hands being JOY, my essential self is in the center of these hands but without Gregory as part of my life, I cannot see through to my essential self. It is as if our souls, our spirits are so closely joined that I cannot tell one apart from the other. It feels, as Gregory continues to disintegrate day by day, that my soul is being CLEAVED in two. Split. Torn. Cleaved as in cleaver.

Corinne proposed a series of images in which we could weigh the emotions we choose and each one was diminished in light of not being able to appreciate them with Gregory: a spring day, a child's toy, a beautiful flower, etc I was so sad and knew that I could return to my Inner Resource (Forest) for protection but I chose to stay with the difficulty of looking at the joy/sorrow emotion.

So most of the time, while I know JOY exists and I do see and celebrate it, I am mostly wrapped up in SORROW and the suffering it brings. Soon after we slowly came back to the witnessing of the experience/practice and slowly returned to the waking state at the end of the practice. As I took the eye cover off, tears streamed out of my eyes and down my face. I was not crying on the outside but my emotions inside had caused the flood. It was a strange feeling. It was as if my eyes were crying but I wasn't.

Am still analyzing the experience but it probably seems obvious that my love for Gregory, our 35+ years together in such a strong, respectful, supportive relationship has united our spirits so strongly into one unique spirit that with the Alzheimer's Journey which we are currently on, and the insidious nature of the disease, the untying of those spirits is no easy task and extremely painful. Yes, JOY but also SORROW.