The Woo Woo

My blog entries usually kind of write themselves, but this one, even though I've felt it fighting to get out for a few days now, is just not coming so easily, so you'll have to pardon me if the flow is off.

The subject feels new to me, though it’s actually recently rediscovered, from a time I have tried to block out of my memory.  Part of why I've been having such a hard time writing about it is because I can't really explain it in terminology outside of some obscure reference, barely amounting to more than personal shorthand from a long-lost relationship.  Almost a private joke.  But in my head, it is simply The Woo Woo.

It isn't entirely made up.  It's in The Skeptic's Dictionary, though I didn't know that until just now.

adj. concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. Also n., a person who has mystical or new age beliefs.

So yeah, I guess it’s not so hard to explain if you're the writer of a dictionary.

Of course!  You know...The Woo Woo

I first began to believe in The Woo Woo back in the fall of 2005.  I thought I had found the man I was SUPPOSED to be with.  He felt it too. A pull.  A sense of rightness.  The Woo Woo.  We both said we didn't believe in it, but sho'nuf there it was.  We were new believers in The Woo Woo.

But The Woo Woo failed me.  He decided that the obstacles to us being together were too great and we parted ways.  And I decided if it had really been "right"...if The Woo Woo existed, he would have moved mountains to be with me.  Once you find The Woo Woo you don't give it up!!!  So clearly it didn't exist. 

Death of The Woo Woo.

Over the following years I tried to focus on the practical things in life.  Yes I fell in love again.  And for a long time it was good.  But it was different.  Less magical.  Less like it was "meant to be".  I decided that there was no one right person for anyone.  "Love is a verb" became my mantra.  If I loved enough, it would work.

It didn't

But The Woo Woo wasn't to blame because, after all, it had gone the way of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.  Blaming The Woo Woo for my failed relationship would have been like blaming the Easter Bunny for the five pounds I gain every spring.

So he left.  And I was crushed and terrified and you already know most of that sad story.

And I was sobbing into my bowl of ice cream and telling my woes to a friend via text message and she told me to pray.

Pray?  Fucking seriously?

I didin't. 

And then my mom died.  And I just didn't know how I was going to deal with anything else going wrong.

And again, my friend told me to pray.

This may have been the phenomenon of 'hitting bottom' that people talk about, because honestly I would have done a rain dance in my bloomers in my office parking lot if someone promised me it would make me feel better.  I was terrified.  Irrational as it was, I was just sure that my life was going to continue to be just a series of personal catastrophes that would eventually end in me losing my son, my job and my mind.

So right there, in my little home office, I got down on my knees.  I folded my hands on top of a little two drawer filing cabinet and I asked God to please, please help me.  I just cried and begged for help.

Asking for help does not come easily to me.  I have caused myself physical harm during times of illness rather than ask for help.  I can be a stubborn pain in the ass.  And here I was begging my Higher Power to do something, anything, because I just couldn't deal on my own any more.

I don't know how long I was on my knees, sobbing.  But I haven't had that feeling of hopeless fear since.  I still had to bury my mom.  I'm still broke.  But I'm more at peace than I have ever been.

To some it may not sound like I have "found God" because I can lump this experience in with The Woo Woo, but it is all part of spirituality and a belief in miracles that eluded me until recently.

Faith in the face of failure is the truest faith of all, or some such rot.

Since that afternoon I have been brought into to a group of people who are encouraging me to become better than I ever thought I could be.  Their faith in me makes me believe I can achieve great things just by being true to myself, by working hard and by believing in myself as much as they do.

Since that afternoon I have found an energy and a drive and an enthusiasm beyond anything I've ever experienced before.  I've gone from believing that I would just coast through the second half of my forties, into my fifties, welcoming old age and all of the mediocrity that I believed came with the second half of life.  Now I know that I have only begun to live how I am supposed to live. 

Woo Woo…don’t fail me now.

Today's lunch:  I suppose I should abandon the "today's lunch" portion of Blog Over Lunch.  Until further notice... Chocolate Shakology.