How does your garden grow?

I promised a post on friendship, using Aristotle's philosophy as my guide.  Friendship for me has been a process of learning my own boundaries.  I am a house, with many rooms, and a large yard.  The house is reserved for those that i allow into the deepest parts of my heart.  To them I am transparent, they can come and go because I trust them to honor me.  My yard started out unfenced, allowing anyone in.  Unfortunately my garden got trampled by visitors that didn't know how to respect me, and the flowers in my heart were broken and withered so that I didn't have anything beautiful to give to those that DID respect me.  I had nothing to bring inside.  (This blog totally explains the internal struggle I face, In learning about my personality preferences I began to learn why I did the things I did.) So I began to wonder, what IS friendship?  How can I be kind to others if I don't let them in?  How can I give something beautiful to someone that needs it, and yet keep them out of my garden?  In my quest I found many things but the most helpful was this, Aristotle's view on friendship.  He basically states that there are 3 types of friendships, friendships of: Pleasure, Utility, and Virtue.

Friendships of Pleasure: Friends with whom you partake in vices, and/or fun activities.  These friendships are shallow, though may seem deeper than they are because you have "fun times" together.

Friendships of Utility: Friends you use to benefit, and also they benefit from you.  These friendships are based on need, and are obviously shallow.  Once one of you ceases benefiting from the other the friendship is over.

Friendships of Virtue: These are deep lasting friendships.  These are friends whom share your moral compass, your vision of the world, and your values.  These are friends that support you and what you stand for.

Just looking at friendship in these categories opened my eyes.  I realized that I wanted to keep friends, other than friends of virtue to a minimum while I constructed my personal definition of "Virtue".  Friends of Virtue would respect my garden.  So I decided to put a fence around my garden... not a privacy fence, a picket fence.  I would share my flowers with friends of Utility and friends of Pleasure, I would reach over the fence to them... but only those that respected the garden would be invited in.  I had to look back at how these categories shifted from college onward to understand how and where to build this fence, how to use the fence etc.

symbols don't represent a literal number of friends, but rather the idea of the percentage of time I spent with each category of friends.

18-22 (At ISU)
Pleasure friends (for going to parties mostly)**********************************************
Friends of Utility (study/running partners)     ***********************************
Friends of Virtue                                         *********

22-28 (Had 2 kids started working)
Friends of Pleasure (partys/BBQs/running Partners) ##########################
Friends of Utility (babysitting/running partners)        ##################
Friends of Virtue (other parents)                              ######

28-32 (transition from Civilian to Army)
Friends of Pleasure (Army peeps/BBQs/Running Partners)#########################
Friends of Utility (babysitting/Running Partners)                 ######################
Friends of Virtue (like minded parents)                               #######

33-34 (after my search)
Friends of Pleasure (Running partners/BBQs)                           ***********
Friends of Utility (babysitting/house/car help)                            ***
Friends of Virtue (as defined, even if it's only family)                 ******************************

You see, it now seems like a waste of energy and resources to socialize with those that aren't friends of virtue.  I could put those resources to better use helping others, and working to LIVE my values.  I believe that as I find more friends of Virtue, I will find that my friends of Utility and Pleasure will also be my friends of Virtue, and my "lines" will be close to even.  At that time I will have a garden full of flowers to pass out to those that are in great need of something beautiful.  Until then I've put up a wall that has, "UNDER-CONSTRUCTION OPENING SOON" spray painted on it while I replenish and reconstruct my garden.

Untitled

Come to me
Stand on the porch of my heart the
light burning to draw
you in leaving me no
choice in welcoming you.  Squeeze you
between my arms.  Trying not
to let you touch me. Your clang-kity clangk
monologue makes
it hard to
like the you I see in you.    I lose
myself to the buzzing
filament to survive it.  The judge holding
court inside of
me throws down the gavel "contempt!" snapping me back to you.  I spread
a generous smile, like a white flag between myselves, the one
that wants to hate you because
you deserve it with all
that ugliness inside of you, and
the one that wants
to love you because you need it, and I know
I'm ugly too.  And so I let you whir chaotically on my porch
but I won't invite you in.  And you feel comforted and accepted because you
are.  I compulsively love you, and can't wait
for you to leave so I can stop.  So I can go back inside out of your darkness,
Inside where the people capable of loving me, the few
I've invited in,
wait.

**as usual I hate this poem, as I hate all my poems when I first write them.  And I hope that those I've let in know who they are: Lisa, Casey, Christine, Laura, my family... among others.

Corney ramblings

Well no major meltdowns today. I felt as normal as one who is amputated from "normality" can. I didn't get to run which made me feel like shit. My calf still hurts but I know it will get better soon and I'll be back to ass kicking as normal.

The boys were cute today, for a while. They cancelled school at noon so I had them both all day. We watched movies together, did an art project involving planes and rockets, baked cookies, built a space station and a large Thomas rail line. They ate pigs-in-a-blanket and tomato soup for dinner. WE finished it off with two bedtime stories. Sounds like June Cleaver doesn't it? Don't be fooled. Mrs cleaver wished on the first star to be Ani Difranco, or Anais Nin, or Evita, or any Childless independent woman she could think of.

The boys couldn't have known that inside I was screaming to get the hell out of the house by myself. My ability to maintain a calm and patient outter shell while my interior wriggled restlessly to be independent was unnerving. Will kissed me spontaneously on the arm as I reached to open the oven to pull the cookies out. The string attached to that kiss pulled me back to earth.

The string attached to that kiss didn't remedy the fact that I've lost my independence. It meant something. I'm not sure what, but if I don't screw up to badly it'll be something good. I know that because when they were both asking me questions simultaneously, and instead of getting an answer, I asked for 5 minutes alone they both obliged without a complaint. Yes, I had Cooper when I was young. Yes, I wasn't ready. Yes, sometimes I still feel like I'm not ready. The boys show me how to truly love someone else if I'm willing to learn. As I follow their example I become ready.

No parent is perfect (except me! hahahahah), but parents who listen and learn are at least trying. I'm convinced there's a kiddie point system and that they give bonus points for trying even if you screw up. Attention, concern, interest, compassion, space when I need it, are all things that my kids give me. These are things they need me to return in favor. On days when I need these from myself they let me be selfish without holding it against me. I hope I can remember that when they are teenagers! For now Don't be fooled by the apron... it doesn't signify quite obedient servitude, I'm not wearing a thing underneath and I'm terrible at taking orders!