bfx, the important thing is to have fun now, to deepen your relationship now, and continue being honest and open about fears and feelings. “Now” is all that’s real.

I went through three long relationships and two (too) long marriages before I stumbled across my current partner and and for the first time didn’t want to be with anyone else.

I was sixty-fucking-three when I got it, that monogamy is just wanting to have the best time with someone you like — not externally imposed.

Prior to now in my life, monogamy was just another word for controlling. If monogamy is not based on the desire and joy in being together, then it’s control. Good for her that she’s exploring her feelings about sex and sexuality. She may want to do more exploring than you feel comfortable with - if that’s the case, figure out the roots of your discomfort- which is probably insecurity, which leads to control.

Still, time with others is time not with you.

Having a “relationship” or an imagined “future” with someone does not replace the necessity of also having to have a life.

I don’t believe in “work-life balance.” I don’t think our experience of living is binary. Life is life and can include work, nature, climbing, biking, picking up aluminum, parent care, child care, studying, and so on.

If we need, say, music in our lives and don’t have it, be attuned to the hunger. If you don’t feed yourself what you need (rest, contact with others, touch, hockey, whatever) you might become passive-aggressive, aggressive, or even develop panic attacks.

Sounds like you're in Stage 2 of the Five Stages of Work. I heard this talk given by a CBC (Canada's National Radio Station) radio engineer as she reflected on her job there:

Stage 1. The Good Day: Your job gives you happiness, fulfilment, and meaning.

Stage 2. The Bad Day: Your job starts to irritate you. Everything you overlooked during the good day begins to stress you. You begin to learn some really unpleasant stuff about your workplace. You become frustrated, confused, and apathetic. You feel powerless.

Stage 3. Revenge: The bad days outnumber the good days. You become self-compensating for your stress. Self-compensation might range from taking home post-its to absenteeism to searching for or even doing a second job during your original job, and worse.

Stage 4. Personal Re-Engineering: You realize that you do value your job. It is the job you’ve always wanted. You explore how you can change so that you can once again have the good day. Personal re-engineering might involve asserting your concerns, negotiating with others, changing your expectations, and much more.

Stage 5. Redemption: Some of your days at work are so excellent, they redeem all the other stress involved.

Anyway, bfx, good luck sorting it all out. We want to see you happy.

OK, to answer your question

Position 10: The Ace of Pentacles. This card suggests that we will keep going

We may get cut down, but like the tree stump in this card, it is still alive with new branches growing from it. We don't know what has become of the old tree? All that remains are its many rings - it was old, but not wise enough to sustain itself.

The glow in the centre of the stump keeps it alive leading to the new growth.

Stay grounded, leave the light on in your heart.

The pain was beautiful, because it meant I cared a lot once

This poem is handy to know. Recently a friend of mine dropped his iPhone into water. People said to put it in a bag with rice, a common response.

(Note - just checked the rice-cell phone solution here.)

The rice soution gave me a chance to quote Fire and [R]ice.)

  Some say the cell phone will end in fire, some in rice.
  From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who 
   favour fire
  But if it had to perish twice
  I think I know enough of hate
  to say that for destruction rice
  is also great
  and will suffice.

My friend said, "Wow, did you make that up just now?"

Clearly he wasn't a Frost fan.

Pronoia: the belief that the universe is conspiring in your favour.

I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those posts of mine that will ruffle some feathers.

He came into the program as a multi-dimensional, highly skilled and multi-talented human being. I can't take any credit. and this thing from IRC on the 20th November 2016:

22:32 < lilski> I said earlier that I teach computer science students - but I basically teach them how to be human beings

First of all, what does it mean to be a human being, let alone teach someone to be one? I will make more of an effort to describe what I do because my flippant shorthand sounds stupid and arrogant.

When the usual response from people is a sad nod, and "Good idea," I am only reinforcing negative stereotypes -- and like all stereotypes, they can potentially lead to prejudice.

Sorry for being peevish about it, but as someone who is focused on hard sciences and getting patronising treatment from most humanities-oriented people around me ever since I can remember, I can't help but resent some of this attitude (don't blame me, blame multiple people who told me verbatim that I must lack a soul to not appreciate some poem or picture :/).

but I'm at loss about what you actually do in class.

What is the thing that your students lack

and how does acquiring it make them into 'human beings'?

What's about your students that your aim is to make them into those 'multidimensional human beings'?

Sorry, but I simply loathe when in my own life the, supposedly, attuned to humanity people just throw me into some easy 'cog-head' category and go forth with their pre-existing assumption.

I'm not angry or resentful specifically toward you, lil, but I'm asking because so far you have proven that you will not just dismiss my questions outright with something along the lines of "you will not understand, untermensh".

I've been broken. I've been healed by the transformative power of love, the possibility of hope even in a dark time.

Another thing that strikes me about your story is the sudden transition from darkness to possibility. That's how it happens. One minute you're on a bridge: the next you're finding a sense of Oneness with another sentient being.

Finally all through your journey, the highs and the lows, you've understood this: Stories happen to those who can tell them. I always felt that even during your saddest times, you had a sense of the narrative possibilities, so you crafted a story out of the darkness and shared it with us out here in the Hubskiverse. Sharing it helps you carry it a little more lightly.

I basically write and record a song about 4 nights a week.

I found that line majorly inspiring tng. It made me realize that if I'm going to get the 1-woman-show done by my bday 2017, I'd better start working on it... i.e. do something four nights a week. One or more hours at least. To be a good hockey player, I'm going to have to play a lot of hockey.

btw, after April I'm open to editing yr start-up docs, in exchange for stox, but I imagine all the principals have wives for that sort of thing.

Were you wearing a large outfit when you read it?

But I can't help but feel all weepy about everything I left behind. :(

How lucky you are to feel weepy. How beautiful it is that you do. Imagine how awful your undergraduate years would have been if all you feel is joy at getting away from it all.

Good memories of happy satisfying times will always be tinged with a little sadness because they are past. The sadness is a way of honoring the memory, deepening its meaning. Those same memories that are making you weepy are exactly the experiences, connections, and relationships that made you strong enough to take this next step of going TO something new and important, not just running away from a dark place.

Does that make sense?