Great Loves
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”
- Elinor Smith
“Action is the antidote to despair.”
- Joan Baez
“<A person’s> most open actions have a secret side to them.”
- Joseph Conrad
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Tell me the stories of your great loves lost.
Sing them.
Write the words that could not help but become poetry in your heart.
“It gets hard.
The vigilantes can’t agree on whose in charge.
They give their souls for the cause,
But the love that they were after is still at large.
See this faith in which they found allegiance,
Ripping at the seams as hope is running its course.
The rebels just can’t muster the force
To walk the thin line between belief and delusion”
– from The Blow’s song “Fists Up”
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Tell me the stories of your great loves lost, but as much or more, tell me the stories of how you made the loves who remained with you great.
Sometimes, not often enough, we reflect upon the good things. And those thoughts always center around those we love. And I think about those people, who mean so much to me and for so many years have made me so very happy. And I count the times I have forgotten to say “Thank you” and just how much I love them.
If the words in the above paragraph sound familiar, it is because they are the lyrics to a Henri and Felice Mancini song, titled “Sometimes”, made famous by Richard and Karen Carpenter.
When my older sister was in high school, she was elected to one of the princess courts for homecoming or prom (I don’t recall which one). At the school assembly, she sang “Sometimes” to her entire high school student body. I grew up hearing thousands of songs, stories, and sermons. I have regularly been a careful listener. But I do not remember much of what was communicated to me. But I remember all the words to “Sometimes”. I have chosen the ideas in those words to define a good part of me.
The Carpenters third album, titled “Carpenters”, aka “The Tan Album”:
Many people spend a lifetime focusing on the great loves they lost. And despite what most counselors might tell you, I don’t discourage people from continuing to validate the depths of those feelings of love and loss.
At the same time, it is important to not allow your feelings of loss for great loves to keep you from pursuing new great loves. Don’t allow your memories and attachments to your past to keep you from improving your current loves. For all my many faults, I have not allowed my unending feelings of loss of great loves to keep me from pursuing new loves. I have not allowed my past to keep me from bettering the loves I have today.
“You know the things I’m afraid of
I’m not afraid to tell
And if we ever leave a legacy
It’s that we loved each other well”
– excerpt from “Power of Two” by Indigo Girls
“True love in frozen in time
I’ll be your champion and you will be mine”
– from Amy Grant’s song “I Will Remember You”
Never allow the great loves you have lost to deter you from making your loves of today the greatest they can become. Honor all of them. Treat them all as well as their conduct has deserved.
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On a side note: I am a night owl. I have trouble getting to sleep at night.
I come from a line of “night owls,” ancestors who enjoyed the night more than the mornings. I also come from genetic lines that have high desires for stimulation and have addictive propensities – drug addictions, alcoholics, etc.
Almost every night, I have difficulty getting to sleep before midnight. Knowing that my family history leans toward a weakness – an inability to resist addictive pharmaceuticals, I try to avoid them to assist me in falling asleep. So I don’t take sleeping pills or other narcotics at night.
I was on my morning walk this week, and it was the garbage collection morning in my neighborhood. In front of each home, there were garbage cans and open “Recycled Goods” boxes. In these boxes, most people put combinations of things like: folded cereal boxes, empty soup cans, newspapers, etc. Passing one of the homes, I noticed one of the 2 foot by 3 foot “Recycled Goods” boxes was overflowing with only empty Keystone Light 24 oz. cans. Seeing the cans, I thought to myself: “If they have a drinking problem, they are not shy about revealing it.” I could be wrong, but it seemed like a lot of beer for one week for one household. My next thought was not: “That person must be an alcoholic.” My next thought was: “Interesting. They have a large, regular desire for large quantities of beer. This is something they want in large quantities every day - for whatever chemical or appetite reasons. Fascinating.”
I have the ability to eat myself to sleep, but I don’t wish to become heavy, so I don’t eat myself to sleep like many people do.
So how do I exhaust myself, so that my body does not stay up until unhealthy, unproductive, or unsocial hours?
The best, and most healthy way I’ve found to both please and exhaust myself in order to get tired enough to sleep is to reach orgasm almost every night. Other people drink, take sleeping pills, eat, read, watch T.V., exercise, or do something else to tire themselves out. All of those things are probably good things in moderation. I’m just sharing my story and my method so that if there are other people out there who feel they are “abnormal” for using orgasm as a regular means to tire themselves out mentally, physically, and chemically so they can get to bed at a healthy hour – they are not alone.
To avoid confusion – I don’t have sexual intercourse most nights. I have orgasm most nights. I don’t ask others, who don’t have a need or desire to have orgasm as often as I do, to match the frequency with which I desire to reach orgasm.
I hope this disclosure is helpful to a few others out there, who might benefit from knowing they are not alone in their desire to have orgasm often – on average at least once a day. And if you desire orgasm more often than that – more power to ya!
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