I returned to The Ranch on Tuesday, still in an empty minded state.  Problem is that I had a realization while in California that I found a little troubling.  As women we seem to expect that since we have been oppressed for so long, that it is only the men who need to do their "work".  And I've come to understand that in that expectation we don't grow and learn ourselves.  We just expect the men in our lives and around us to "know" what needs to change and then do it (damn it!).  But what of that change?  In those steps towards equality, we have somehow lost the notion that we are hanging on to antiquated ideas of what a relationship should look like.  We don't quite get it if we are stuck in the maladaptive behavior that helped us to survive generationally in disfunctional relationships.  With the advancement of the men in our lives, there MUST come a realization from our part that we MUST drop the survival habits that served us so well and evolve ourselves.

So here I am.  Stuck somewhere in the middle of where I was.....my expectation that somehow I was okay with who and where I was and that others should change around me.....and that all would be right with the world if that happened.  And if my actions and reactions remained where they were for so many years, how then do I move forward in my own process?  How does the way I react in the world really change?

I've listened to my girlfriends - old ones and new ones, in the  subtle comments about their relationships with husbands and family members.  I wonder where did any semblance of happiness go?  Is there no shred of joy left?  Why is it okay to just go through the motions of a relationship?  Kind of like a dance with no music.  How very sad.

Was my marriage perfect?  Absolutely not!  But there was a joy of being together in the moment.  The wanting to be together, even to reach out only to hear the sound of each other's voice.  An adoration.......ahhhhhhhhhhhh  adoration.......   (I miss that part - mutual and reciprocal).   But so often I hear distain in the voices of women.  I can't stand in that place any more.  The place that allows me to agree that we just put up with men because that is the way they are, or that "that" is the  way we are for that matter.  But as I said, I am now somewhere in the middle of that process.  I can't go back to what I used to know, the place of comfort in male-bashing expectations that excluded me from the pattern of growth.  I can only move forward and hope like hell that I don't fall back in to those old patterns that die hard.