Well, it was about time for me to apply some backend updates that were needed, so I did.  I apologize if you tried to get on the site in the last couple of days and found the site either unavailable or that some features were not working, but the updates are done now and everything should be working again.  If you find anything broken, or think something is missing, be sure to let me know.

The updates included an update to WordPress itself, which is the package I use to create and update the site, and also updates to the subscription, email and visitor statistics plugins I use.  I also finally enabled a plugin that should deal with all the spam comments I recieve, which means two things: one, that I should be able to approve legitimate comments faster, since they won’t be lost in the deluge of spam comments my site gets, and two, that *occasionally* legitimate comments might be automatically deleted.  If you leave a comment, and it doesn’t show, let me know, and I’ll look into it.

Thanx again everyone, and enjoy the site!

Cliche, I know, but that is how I see my life right now.  I feel more in control of my life than any other time I can remember.  The problems I have in relationships I take up with the people I am in a relationship with.  Earlier in my life I would talk to others, and feel the pain from the discord in my relationships relieved, but it wouldn’t help fix the problems themselves.  In fact, it often made the problems worse.  If a relationship isn’t making me happy, I’ll tell the other person what I need.  If I don’t get it, I’ll re-order my place in the relationship until it is one that I am comfortable with.  I don’t try to bludgen people into thinking or feeling a particular way now, but rather just make better choices about how I’ll invest my time and energies.  If someone won’t give me what I want, and be filled with joy doing so, I’ll just spend my time with someone who will.  Lucifer is not a gentle Patron, but he is wise.  I am glad, again and always, that I follow his words.

A much happier Pippin

So I’m taking my shower this morning and has happened often enough before, Lucifer starts talking to me.  No, not in some sort of hallucingetic sence, but rather in a spiritual sence.  In any case, he tells me that has discussed my case with the other aspects of my higher self, and they gave me a finding of Probation Before Judgement.  I’m on Lucifer supervised probation for the rest of this incarnation, but honestly, I basically already was (otherwise he wouldn’t be much of a patron, would he?).  Glad to know that I hadn’t completely screwed things up, I asked what the terms of my probation would be.  There were a number of them -

1) my relationship with Erica, or anyone else, can’t be allowed to harm the relationship I have with my wife any longer.  Doing this is disrepectful to my wife, and to who ever else I’m involved with as well.  It hurts the relationship I have with my wife, the relationship my wife has with Erica, and the relationship I have with Erica as well.

2) the problems I have in a relationship are up to me and the other person to fix, not anyone else.  Further, I have a responsability to myself and those that I love not to continue relationships that tear me down.  If I have a problem in my relationship with someone, I need to take it to them.  If we can’t make the relationship equitable, fair and supportive for both of us, we need to just walk away from it.

3) I need to remember that if I screw up my relationship with Sharon in this life, I won’t get a second chance in the next.  My wife and I can still make our relationship work, particularly since some of the changes that we need to make (remembering to play when we need to play, remembering to fuck when we need to fuck) really are not as hard as we’ve made them out to be.  The other relationships in my life are important to me, but I have to keep in mind that many of the people that I feel so drawn to in this life have been with me before, and we’ll be together again.  It isn’t that I don’t prize those relationships, it is just that I shouldn’t feel paralyzed with fear over the thought of losing touch with the other entities in my multiverse.  This knowledge gives me the strength to take actions both to leave failed relationships and to take the risks neccesary to save relationships that are on the brink.

4) my relationship with Erica, and any problems in it, will become something her and I determine the course and nature of.  I still have all of my dreams that involve her, and will continue to hold them, but I also recognize that the important thing to do is concentrate on what works for both her and I.  I don’t know what the relationship with turn into, but that decision is for her and I to be concerned with, and no one else.  I want a great deal, but I can be adjustable.  It will mean pulling back on my part if I start to feel that the relationship isn’t equitable, but her and I will work through that over time.  If her and I can’t come up with a solution that works for both of us, I’ll pull back enough that I can focus my energies on relationships that do give me what I need.  I can’t imagine her and I not being friends of some sort or another always, we just need to figure out what form that friendship will take.

5) I’ve cleared my life of unneccesary weight before, and it is time to do so again.  I’m working on improving my health, and part of it will probably involved the removal of unneccesary tissues (I have what appears to be permenantly blocked sinuses, and obstructive sleep apnea).  There are some unneccesary “tissues” in my life that need to be removed as well, and it isn’t going to become any less painful to remove them the longer I wait.

These are some pretty heavy duty conditions, but I find that with the support I’ve recieved from my wife, Erica and my friends, I am equipped to dedicate myself to complying with the terms of my probation.  I feel like I am waking up from a long sleep, and I am excited about the new direction in my life.  Of course, the problems that I’m had before are not magically fixed……..the self doubt and self loathing are still there, but I feel that they are much more held in check than they have been in a long time.  My relationship with my wife seems to be improving, and she has been showing some serious changes that I never thought I’d see.

Well, thank you all again.  It would appear that each of you, in addition to being my friend, are also now my probation officer.  Help me see when I’m straying from the path.

Be Good!

So, let’s see, where to start?  Many of you know that I consider Lucifer to be my Patron.  Not a god, exactly, but rather the personification of the pursuit of truth, even to the degree that it can interfere with a calm and easy life.  Many of you also know that I believe that in reincarnation, in which after you die, you spend a time with folks just like you, which will make that a heaven or a hell, depending on who you are.  I also believe that you spend the time between lives reflecting on the one you just left and considering the one you are about to live.  I’ve never been afraid of that place between lives.  When I’ve been in intense emotional pain, the thought that would stay my hand when I would think about ending it all was not what laid at the other end of the bottle of pills or the noose, but rather a combination of the reasons I had to stay in this life, and the expierences in the next life I would choose to put off (junior high, for example).

But not now.  Now, that in between time, it does scare me.  I know that my other selves will sit in judgement on me, with Lucifer as the head judge.  And I don’t live up to my own expectations.  I feel like I have completely fucked up my life, and that all of it is on my head.  I’ve spent most of my life blaming my problems on others, but now I see that it really is just me.  I’ve got a great wife and kids, and yet I’m not happy.  I’ve got a woman in my life that loves me but doesn’t want to be physically intimate with me, and has always made it clear that she doesn’t feel the lust for me that I feel for her, and yet her rejection of me just kills me.  I feel like a failure as a man and as a human being.  Partially for not being able to have the relationship with this other woman that I so deperately want, and partially because I know I should be happy with the wife and kids I have.  I’m so disgusted with myself, and yet when I think about ending the pain, I’m afraid.  So to add to it all, I’m a coward, just like I always suspected.  I fear the judgement that awaits me, and this is a completely new feeling for me.  The stress of all of this is making feel like I’m losing my grip on my sanity.

I suppose part of the problem is that I was able to fake myself into thinking that I could finally have my dream.  This other woman was living with me, and she has a positive relationship with my wife.  She loves my kids, and just fits well in my life in so many ways.  The sex has never been there the way I know that I need it be though, and I am so angry with myself for lying to her and to myself that it could be ok.  I’ve had problems in the various relationships I’ve been in before, but a lack of desire for me by my partner hasn’t been one of them, not in any relationship that has been serious at all.  I just thought, hoped, wished, that it could all work.  I’m so tired of starting relationships only to have them fail, with broken hearts on both sides.  Being with me has hurt too many people, and I want that to end.  I thought that I would be able to finally have two primaries, two women that would be friends and yet deliciously different.  I could stop feeling so…..lop-sided, I suppose.  Balance and happiness.  Not smooth sailing, for certain, but to be honest, I wouldn’t want that.  But true joy, by whatever definition I can give to the word.  But it isn’t what she wanted, and she was clear of that from the start.  I just wouldn’t listen.  To some degree, I still can’t.  I still hope beyond hope that I am wrong, that I’m still not understanding what is going on, and that she wants to be in my dream with me.

So I find myself in a very strange land indeed.  I’m not sure how to proceed.  I don’t know if happiness is an appropriate goal at this point.  The ironic thing is that I felt much the same way at one point earlier in my life when I was on Zoloft.  So on or off of antidepressents, I am confronted with these feelings of apathy.  I try to keep myself busy, and work definately helps.  As do my wife and my friends.  Thank you to all of you that have been helped take care of me.  Many of you have come to me looking for advice, and I shared my connection with Lucifer with you to help guide you.  Now I see each of you returning the favor, and I hope to once again be in his grace.

I know this sounds like I’m minutes from being hauled off in the rubber truck, and perhaps I am.  I just wanted to let you know where I’m at, and to thank all of you that have been helping me.  I’ll talk to all of you again soon.

Your friend,

Pippin