what's most important

The point is that for years the most important thing to me was to be married and prove that anyone could love anyone. I believed with all my heart that my ex-husband would one day appreciate, cherish and love me. He said he loved me, but the proof for me had to be acceptance and non-violence. It's not that I am the easiest person in the world always, but I believed that love could find a way to accept me basically as I am without having to define me, label me, or make me behave differently. My ex-husband used to call me, "My ever-changing Amanda." That was the moment I felt he loved me the most, that was the closest he came to accepting that I am what I am. I wonder if I am somehow insufficient myself because I could not love him when he would not stop pushing me around and calling me names and always having to have everything his way. I mean we see movies all the time where there is this acceptance of abuse as part of the relationship. I couldn't love it.

Yet, I still suffer so much because I love many other parts of him. I love him wrongly though. I love him more as a mother loves a son than as a woman loves a man. That has always been true I suppose. I never could see him as a true partner because he just never was. I know this is true because I'm now experiencing what it is like to have someone who loves me as a man loves a woman, and how it is to love as a woman loves a man, and I can say that this was not the experience of my marriage. Acceptance is the biggest part of this. There is no need for apology because mistakes are part of the bargain.

It was suggested by my daily astrology somewhere today that I should list out what is most important to me so that I wouldn't be distracted by task-givers. I thought I might record those things here because it gets down to the real point. I get really distracted by enjoyables and things to do, I find, and it takes me a while to get to the real point.

What is most important:

• My kids' well-being (food and shelter, emotional and psychological and physical health)
• My own well-being (ditto)
• Expressing my true gifts (as a writer and teacher, dancer of life)
• Doing my duty, working (in service of humanity)
• Kindness and love (true relationships)
• Being competent (fulfilling my promises, establishing stability)
• Continued faith in goodness (in spite of outward appearances)
• Beauty (natural and hand-made)
• Studying the Masters (gaining wisdom)
• Peace (within and without)

I'm not sure how to bring all of this to bear in my life sometimes because I spend so much mental energy grappling with how much off base I was in my former existence. It is truly crossing the abyss on a thread of hope.