Musical Monday, My New Profile, and Addictions
My Musical Monday selection this week is from Enya. I have loved her ethereal-sounding music for years now, and when I listen to one of her albums I usually end up playing it over and over and over again. I love Enya's voice, I love the poetry of her songs, I love the sound of the music and all that she puts into it, and I love how it makes me feel and the zone that it gets me into.
Today's songs are from the album A Day Without Rain, which has been my favorite album of hers for the last few years. My secondary song from this album is Only Time, which you may have heard either on the radio or in the commercials for Friends I think around the time when Rachel was pregnant. It's such a beautiful song, and I love the "only time can tell" theme. That song is second below.
But my primary Musical Monday song is Flora's Secret. I absolutely adore this song! I wrote about it a couple of months ago, so it's not an entire secret that I love this song. It makes me so happy - it sounds like a musical dream and is about love and lovers and nature and flowers and blue skies, and the melody is so completely enchanting and uplifting. And I also discovered my future daughter's name from this song - Flora, of course! When I'm pregnant I'll play this song all the time and sing along, and hopefully a little girl will pop out and not a boy! :) And then I'll sing this song to her as she grows up, and it will be her own special song!
This song is just so lovely, so joyful, so exuberant, so enchanting, and it makes me want to dance around with my arms stretched out and up to the sky and my fingers twirling! I've included the lyrics because they are equally enchanting!
Enya - Flora's Secret
Lovers in the long grass
Look above them
Only they can see
Where the clouds are going
Only to discover
Dust and sunlight
Ever make the sky so blue
Afternoon is hazy
River flowing
All around the sounds
Moving closer to them
Telling them the story
Told by Flora
Dreams they never knew
Silver willows
Tears from Persia
Those who come
From a far-off island
Winter Chanterelle lies
under cover
Glory-of-the-sun in blue
Some they know as passion
Some as freedom
Some they know as love
And the way it leaves them
Summer snowflake
For a season
When the sky above is blue
When the sky above is blue
Lying in the long grass
Close beside her
Giving her the name
Of the one the moon loves
This will be the day she
Will remember
When she knew his heart
Was
Loving in the long grass
Close beside her
Whispering of love
And the way it leaves them
Lying in the long grass
In the sunlight
They believe it's true love
And from all around them
Flora's secret
Telling them of love
And the way it breathes
And
Looking up from eyes of
Amaranthine
They can see the sky
Is blue
Knowing that their love
Is true
dreams they never knew
And the sky above is blue
Enya - Only Time
On Saturday, during one of my good periods when I was doing okay, I finally changed my little profile description - I had to change it since turning 30, but it needed a bit of an update as well. Here is the old profile:
I'm a 29-year-old girl/woman living in Chicago, trying to learn new things, figure myself out, and have fun along the way - and eventually become that butterfly! I just have a few things to deal with before that can happen.
Well so first of all, I'm not 29 anymore. But second - when I first started this blog and wrote the profile, I included the sentence "I just have a few things to deal with before that can happen." What was included in that sentence, mainly, was my alcoholism that I hadn't yet discussed with anyone and wasn't quite yet ready to address - but I knew that it was the one big thing holding me back from a future, and this blog was a way for me to first start hinting at it by listing all that I drank, and eventually it was a way for me to admit my alcoholism to "everyone" so that there was no going back. And it worked! 9+ months have passed since the last time I drank or got drunk (which always went hand-in-hand anyway). So anyway, the profile needed to be updated there, too, and a bit more just to reflect me at this moment. So the new one (it's also on the sidebar but I'll put it here, too):
I'm a 30-year-old sometimes girl and sometimes woman living in Chicago. Over the past year I have faced my biggest demon and won, and as a result I have hope again for wonderful and fabulous things to happen! I'm still learning, growing and always trying to improve myself, but I absolutely love life and think I'm very close to becoming a real butterfly!!!
It's not perfect, and there are only so many things I can put into a little snapshot profile, but I like it! And I love all the changes in me over the past year! And I also love how Anu calls me a butterfly already! :)
On Friday, I followed a link on NWC's blog to Jen at Stay-at-Home Motherdom - and I lurked around her site for quite a long time. She had a wonderful five-part post on alcoholism and her struggle with it and I related in so many many many ways. And then she also had a post on relationship addictions, inspired by the book/movie Shopgirl. I'm going to quote a part of her discussion on this book, from Part II of her post, because she analyzes and states it so perfectly that I couldn't possibly express it better:
...I guess it made me think about how the power play in relationships makes them addicting, and when the power is continuously unbalanced, or switches back and forth like a pendulum, then there can be an active addiction. The character, Mirabelle (Claire Danes), is so obsessed about love and the idea of romance, that she gives up part of her identity in hopes that Ray (Steve Martin) will change. Ray has control in the relationship most of the time and wants to love her, but for some reason, the commitment scares him. The commitment means he has to make himself totally vulnerable to one person, and to do that, and open one's heart to complete "pain" if something happens, is something he cannot do. As a result, the relationship progresses in time, but not in growth. They both move along, yet it is stagnant. I think this is what addiction is all about: waiting it out, saying it will change or get better, hoping your life will change without taking action and using something or someone else to define your OWN identity...
At the end, when they end the relationship, you see Mirabelle quit her job, take a new job developing her true passion, and find a flourishing relationship. It was by getting out of an active addiction that her life changed. It is by caring about oneself and the growth of one's identity that life changes and addiction can be controlled.
I read this book maybe a year and a half or two years ago for a little bookclub that included Violet and Tivo. Most of the girls I remember didn't like the book, and I could understand their points. However, after I had finished the book I cried for a good hour at least and found it and it's ultimate message to be very personally powerful because of this relationship - which reminded me in many ways of my relationship with The German. I think that he and I now have a more equal relationship than we did back when I read the book, but it has still been this exact kind of addictive relationship that the book and Jen talk about - one that is stagnant.
Anyway, I just had to talk a little about this because it's been on my mind so much since reading about it on Jen's blog. And her second paragraph above gives me such hope and strength as I read it again. I have already addressed and so far won against alcoholism this past year, and it has changed my life incredibly. So now I have started working on getting out of and changing the aspects of my relationship with The German which make it unhealthy for me.
So - I feel good and positive right now. I know my rollercoaster ride of pain and sadness and other emotions is not over, so I'll be sad again and then happy and then sad and then happy and on and on, but eventually I'll start being more happy than sad, and eventually I'll be all better and my life will be changed for the better. Of course, it makes me sad right now to think about that, so instead I'm just going to think about that second paragraph of Jen's above and remind myself that I'm taking action and caring about myself here, and my life will end up much better because of it.
I'm going to listen to Flora's Secret once more now before going to bed, because it really does put me in a much better mood for awhile!
Today's songs are from the album A Day Without Rain, which has been my favorite album of hers for the last few years. My secondary song from this album is Only Time, which you may have heard either on the radio or in the commercials for Friends I think around the time when Rachel was pregnant. It's such a beautiful song, and I love the "only time can tell" theme. That song is second below.
But my primary Musical Monday song is Flora's Secret. I absolutely adore this song! I wrote about it a couple of months ago, so it's not an entire secret that I love this song. It makes me so happy - it sounds like a musical dream and is about love and lovers and nature and flowers and blue skies, and the melody is so completely enchanting and uplifting. And I also discovered my future daughter's name from this song - Flora, of course! When I'm pregnant I'll play this song all the time and sing along, and hopefully a little girl will pop out and not a boy! :) And then I'll sing this song to her as she grows up, and it will be her own special song!
This song is just so lovely, so joyful, so exuberant, so enchanting, and it makes me want to dance around with my arms stretched out and up to the sky and my fingers twirling! I've included the lyrics because they are equally enchanting!
Enya - Flora's Secret
Lovers in the long grass
Look above them
Only they can see
Where the clouds are going
Only to discover
Dust and sunlight
Ever make the sky so blue
Afternoon is hazy
River flowing
All around the sounds
Moving closer to them
Telling them the story
Told by Flora
Dreams they never knew
Silver willows
Tears from Persia
Those who come
From a far-off island
Winter Chanterelle lies
under cover
Glory-of-the-sun in blue
Some they know as passion
Some as freedom
Some they know as love
And the way it leaves them
Summer snowflake
For a season
When the sky above is blue
When the sky above is blue
Lying in the long grass
Close beside her
Giving her the name
Of the one the moon loves
This will be the day she
Will remember
When she knew his heart
Was
Loving in the long grass
Close beside her
Whispering of love
And the way it leaves them
Lying in the long grass
In the sunlight
They believe it's true love
And from all around them
Flora's secret
Telling them of love
And the way it breathes
And
Looking up from eyes of
Amaranthine
They can see the sky
Is blue
Knowing that their love
Is true
dreams they never knew
And the sky above is blue
Enya - Only Time
On Saturday, during one of my good periods when I was doing okay, I finally changed my little profile description - I had to change it since turning 30, but it needed a bit of an update as well. Here is the old profile:
I'm a 29-year-old girl/woman living in Chicago, trying to learn new things, figure myself out, and have fun along the way - and eventually become that butterfly! I just have a few things to deal with before that can happen.
Well so first of all, I'm not 29 anymore. But second - when I first started this blog and wrote the profile, I included the sentence "I just have a few things to deal with before that can happen." What was included in that sentence, mainly, was my alcoholism that I hadn't yet discussed with anyone and wasn't quite yet ready to address - but I knew that it was the one big thing holding me back from a future, and this blog was a way for me to first start hinting at it by listing all that I drank, and eventually it was a way for me to admit my alcoholism to "everyone" so that there was no going back. And it worked! 9+ months have passed since the last time I drank or got drunk (which always went hand-in-hand anyway). So anyway, the profile needed to be updated there, too, and a bit more just to reflect me at this moment. So the new one (it's also on the sidebar but I'll put it here, too):
I'm a 30-year-old sometimes girl and sometimes woman living in Chicago. Over the past year I have faced my biggest demon and won, and as a result I have hope again for wonderful and fabulous things to happen! I'm still learning, growing and always trying to improve myself, but I absolutely love life and think I'm very close to becoming a real butterfly!!!
It's not perfect, and there are only so many things I can put into a little snapshot profile, but I like it! And I love all the changes in me over the past year! And I also love how Anu calls me a butterfly already! :)
On Friday, I followed a link on NWC's blog to Jen at Stay-at-Home Motherdom - and I lurked around her site for quite a long time. She had a wonderful five-part post on alcoholism and her struggle with it and I related in so many many many ways. And then she also had a post on relationship addictions, inspired by the book/movie Shopgirl. I'm going to quote a part of her discussion on this book, from Part II of her post, because she analyzes and states it so perfectly that I couldn't possibly express it better:
...I guess it made me think about how the power play in relationships makes them addicting, and when the power is continuously unbalanced, or switches back and forth like a pendulum, then there can be an active addiction. The character, Mirabelle (Claire Danes), is so obsessed about love and the idea of romance, that she gives up part of her identity in hopes that Ray (Steve Martin) will change. Ray has control in the relationship most of the time and wants to love her, but for some reason, the commitment scares him. The commitment means he has to make himself totally vulnerable to one person, and to do that, and open one's heart to complete "pain" if something happens, is something he cannot do. As a result, the relationship progresses in time, but not in growth. They both move along, yet it is stagnant. I think this is what addiction is all about: waiting it out, saying it will change or get better, hoping your life will change without taking action and using something or someone else to define your OWN identity...
At the end, when they end the relationship, you see Mirabelle quit her job, take a new job developing her true passion, and find a flourishing relationship. It was by getting out of an active addiction that her life changed. It is by caring about oneself and the growth of one's identity that life changes and addiction can be controlled.
I read this book maybe a year and a half or two years ago for a little bookclub that included Violet and Tivo. Most of the girls I remember didn't like the book, and I could understand their points. However, after I had finished the book I cried for a good hour at least and found it and it's ultimate message to be very personally powerful because of this relationship - which reminded me in many ways of my relationship with The German. I think that he and I now have a more equal relationship than we did back when I read the book, but it has still been this exact kind of addictive relationship that the book and Jen talk about - one that is stagnant.
Anyway, I just had to talk a little about this because it's been on my mind so much since reading about it on Jen's blog. And her second paragraph above gives me such hope and strength as I read it again. I have already addressed and so far won against alcoholism this past year, and it has changed my life incredibly. So now I have started working on getting out of and changing the aspects of my relationship with The German which make it unhealthy for me.
So - I feel good and positive right now. I know my rollercoaster ride of pain and sadness and other emotions is not over, so I'll be sad again and then happy and then sad and then happy and on and on, but eventually I'll start being more happy than sad, and eventually I'll be all better and my life will be changed for the better. Of course, it makes me sad right now to think about that, so instead I'm just going to think about that second paragraph of Jen's above and remind myself that I'm taking action and caring about myself here, and my life will end up much better because of it.
I'm going to listen to Flora's Secret once more now before going to bed, because it really does put me in a much better mood for awhile!
