The World According to Aunt Courtney ( Part 3)
Welcome to Part 3, the final part, of The World According to Aunt Courtney, a love letter of sorts I wrote for my niece's 16th birthday.
Catch up here on Parts 1 and 2.
Catch up here on Parts 1 and 2.
You WILL get burned. Don’t stop playing with fire… be built from it. You will quote un-quote fail. Your heart will break. You will break hearts. You will lose friends. You will hurt…deeply. So. The. Fuck. What? This is part of the beauty of life!! Things that are perfect and beautiful and easy all the time are boooorrrrring. Without the scars, you cannot possibly appreciate all the juiciness of living a life with your heart wide open.
Long ago, I co-wrote the book on being guarded and closed off. I was also sarcastic and cynical. In the beginning of every relationship I assumed I’d get let down and tried my damnedest to test these men and push them away. I was that way for a very long time. I had a great childhood, but in some aspects I grew up very fast as a kid and without realizing it, it made me distrustful. My closest friends in California used to call me Bar Flaps. Imagine the old Western wooden bar flaps in a saloon. You could look over the top or under the bottom, but it was in no way an open door. One side would swing open, maybe both sides would open but they’d smack ya on the ass just as fast. It takes some finesse to get through them gracefully. It was kind of funny, we’d laugh about it. Yet we all knew it was honestly holding me back in a lot of ways.
Soooo then this one time… I fell in love. I knew he was trouble from the moment I saw him. I knew it was a deep, dark, dark rabbit hole that would probably end up a disaster. And yet, I knew on a visceral level that I had to go through with it. I knew this was a lesson that I could either have now or later. And believe me, if the Universe presents you with an opportunity to learn a valuable lesson and you deny it – it does not go away. It is simply easier to just jump in and get it over with the first time. Everyone in my life said, “Courtney. Noooooo. Like, NOOOOOO. What in gawd’s name are you thinking with this dude?” And I told them all the same thing… “I just know I’m supposed to go through this.” It was without a doubt the hardest and most painful relationship of my life. I paid a very high price for taking it on. It was also one of the most valuable. For the last year of our two together I chose to live in a garage with this man. Let that sink in for a moment… a garage. We did have a refrigerator and a stove… but it was still literally a garage. We would turn the oven on and open its door to heat the place in the winter. We had tapestries tied across the yard giving us privacy from the house in front. I was peeing in the yard because we did not have a bathroom. He had hooked up a hose from the main house to a propane tank for hot water for the outdoor shower we’d constructed on the patio. Even in the rain or the winter, if I wanted to shower it was happening out in the open. I was shitting in a sawdust filled 6 gallon paint bucket that we had to empty in the local park porta-potties every week. When I say I paid a high price for this relationship, I was physically and emotionally and mentally weakened. I was showing signs of the very early stages of cervical cancer. My back was constantly erupting into paralyzing spasms. I had lost myself, completely. I felt ashamed of that. I also felt unable to leave him because I thought I loved him so much and felt even more ashamed. I was in a seriously dark place.
I got burned because I had set myself on fire for this person... in an effort to receive validation that I wasn't able to give myself. Though it took me waaaaay longer than it should have, eventually I got myself together and joined WestSide Rentals. The universe provided me with the greatest apartment of my life within a week, and my friends showed up at the garage with a U-Haul and moved me out with a bottle of champagne.
Soooo then this one time… I fell in love. I knew he was trouble from the moment I saw him. I knew it was a deep, dark, dark rabbit hole that would probably end up a disaster. And yet, I knew on a visceral level that I had to go through with it. I knew this was a lesson that I could either have now or later. And believe me, if the Universe presents you with an opportunity to learn a valuable lesson and you deny it – it does not go away. It is simply easier to just jump in and get it over with the first time. Everyone in my life said, “Courtney. Noooooo. Like, NOOOOOO. What in gawd’s name are you thinking with this dude?” And I told them all the same thing… “I just know I’m supposed to go through this.” It was without a doubt the hardest and most painful relationship of my life. I paid a very high price for taking it on. It was also one of the most valuable. For the last year of our two together I chose to live in a garage with this man. Let that sink in for a moment… a garage. We did have a refrigerator and a stove… but it was still literally a garage. We would turn the oven on and open its door to heat the place in the winter. We had tapestries tied across the yard giving us privacy from the house in front. I was peeing in the yard because we did not have a bathroom. He had hooked up a hose from the main house to a propane tank for hot water for the outdoor shower we’d constructed on the patio. Even in the rain or the winter, if I wanted to shower it was happening out in the open. I was shitting in a sawdust filled 6 gallon paint bucket that we had to empty in the local park porta-potties every week. When I say I paid a high price for this relationship, I was physically and emotionally and mentally weakened. I was showing signs of the very early stages of cervical cancer. My back was constantly erupting into paralyzing spasms. I had lost myself, completely. I felt ashamed of that. I also felt unable to leave him because I thought I loved him so much and felt even more ashamed. I was in a seriously dark place.
I got burned because I had set myself on fire for this person... in an effort to receive validation that I wasn't able to give myself. Though it took me waaaaay longer than it should have, eventually I got myself together and joined WestSide Rentals. The universe provided me with the greatest apartment of my life within a week, and my friends showed up at the garage with a U-Haul and moved me out with a bottle of champagne.
So how could this possibly have also been one of the most valuable relationships of my life? Because it broke me wide open and blasted those bar flaps off the hinges. Right or wrong, good or bad, I loved him in a way that I had never loved anyone up to that point. It was not a great love or a true love. I was working out the aforementioned validation issues within my psychology that I did not understand at the time. At 28 I had never met anyone like him and it threw my world out of orbit. I was pretty damaged by the end of it and if anything should have shut me down completely – never to trust again, never to put myself out there – this would have been it. I desperately tried. I tried to screw the bar flaps back onto their hinges. I tried to be cynical and play the victim. I tried to return to my former self, but she was gone.
Instead, the phoenix that emerged from her ashes was someone far more powerful. She was strong BECAUSE she was so exposed and vulnerable. She was not a victim. She could admit her bout of insanity and move forward with more clarity than she knew was possible. She had gone through hell and made it out. Her heart had certainly been broken, but it had grown back twice the size. I am not trying to romanticize this kind of bad romance. Like I said, I knew for my own journey I needed to have this experience. And after it was over I knew the reason was for complete metamorphosis. It was only a few months after this break-up that I began planning my five month Rover adventure… which was another metamorphosis all its own. The point is… “some women are lost in the fire and some women are built from it.” – Michelle K.
Be built from it!
Sometimes people cross your path because of what you can teach them. I’m sure you’ve heard that everyone comes into your life for a reason…
“People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed or just felt. They have come to assist you through a hard time, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. Then, suddenly, the person disappears from your life. Your need has been met; their work is done.
Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share or grow or give back. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They give you great joy. Believe it; it is real. But only for a season.
Lifetime relationships teach you lifetime lessons—things you must build upon to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all your other relationships.
Think about the people in your life over the years. Whether they were there for a reason, a season or a lifetime, accept them and treasure them for however long they were meant to be part of your life.
And when they are gone, be thankful for the gifts you received from them when they were here—for a reason, a season or a lifetime.”
I have always found both comfort and pain in this. In any relationship or exchange you have, there is always something that you can take away from it. I think it is important, powerful and (sometimes) immensely comforting when you can realize in the moment that YOU are the reason, the season, and / or the lifetime as part of someone’s journey. This is a rare insight and it is not gifted each and every time. You will know though. You will simply know that for whatever reason, YOU are their lesson. If the exchange is with a lover, this epiphany will sting at first… possibly quite a bit. You might want to run for the hills to save yourself the heartache. But if you can be present… if you can accept your role as “teacher” … and just enjoy the season for however long it lasts … it will be beautiful. You will experience a level of compassion and patience you did not know you had. Even if at the end you are under the comforter spun out in sadness, in your heart of hearts you will know the gift you gave. Eventually you will know your part in their play and be grateful to have been cast.
Commit to these “4 Agreements” and you will make life much easier on yourself. (a book for future reading, by Don Miguel Ruiz)
- Be Impeccable With Your Word – say what you mean and mean what you say. Don’t use your words against yourself or others. And always “speak the truth, even when your voice shakes” … especially when it shakes.
- Don’t Take Anything Personally – even when someone says something hurtful, it actually has nothing to do with you… it’s about their own ‘stuff’ and baggage.
- Don’t Make Assumptions – to ass-u-me is to make an ass of ‘u’ and me. If you don’t know, ASK. If you want or need something – ASK. Seek clarity and ask for what you need. People (especially men) are not mind readers.
- Always Do Your Best – your best will change from day to day. Your best also does not mean perfection… it means the most you can give and do in the moment given all the present circumstances. Sometimes your best is a very small effort, but if it’s your best in that moment then it is a victory …and all that anyone can ask for.
On the most fundamental level, ev-er-y-thing boils down to either Love or Fear. Always choose from Love. Emotional states of anger, violence, passive-aggression, jealousy, apathy, prejudice, self-consciousness, self-deprecation, self-destruction, etc. all are Fear based. It is the basest of levels and only attracts more of the same. Remember when I told you that “like attracts like”. Once again, we are human. Of course, we all feel or experience these things from time to time. We can stop ourselves though from spiraling too far out and make a different choice, that of Love.
Trust (the Universe) I have never been religious, but I am extremely spiritual. I am a hippie and all that it implies … pagan holidays, rituals, divination cards, astrology, past lives, etc. etc. I look for meaning in just about everything, because that is my religion. It is how I feel grateful for connected to my own little life as well as to the world. I believe in ‘energy’ … and I believe in the ‘Universe’ not as a god of any sort, but as a greater cooperative collective energy. No matter what you choose to believe in, if anything, as your life goes on try and trust that things do always work out Maybe not the way you envisioned or expected them to…maybe not in the time-frame you wanted… (we are creatures desiring instant gratification and that’s not how Universal timing works), but they do. Often times, it ends up unfolding in a way that is far greater than you could have ever imagined and you will actually be grateful for the timing.
And lastly… “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.” –Dita Von Teese
Fuck ‘em. (I mean, send them love and light along their journey of course… but fuck ‘em!) 
'Always be yourself, unless you can be a unicorn, then ALWAYS be a unicorn!"
XOXO
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