Promote peace by learning to love my "enemies"

more than anything else. But I wouldn’t feel sorry for him if I didn’t love him.

If he was actually available when my daughter tried to call him.

Child support checks for the full amount owed would be impressive as well. Or at least something on a regular basis.

An effort to find a reliable supervised visitation program would mean something.

Blank postcards from my 43 places? Whatever.

Sirius satellite radio for a nine year old girl? Buy a brain for yourself instead.

You aren’t worth the energy I’ve spent hating you, so I won’t do it any more. My life is going the way I want it to. I’m not in hiding. I hope that for Christmas you get a conscience and a heart. I’m bringing our girl up to know who you are and how to protect herself from others like you, and you make it so easy for me. Thanks for that.

And I decided that I don’t care. There’s nothing I’ve said here that makes me a bad person, although at times all these goals about myself seem really selfish. He has my fucking journal. It had my morning pages in it, where I just wrote whatever thought I had in my head until I filled three pages.

I think of part of not hating him is not letting him affect any more of my life than is necessary.

But I am totally capable of treating people like enemies, or talking about them as if they are evil incarnate—which they are not.

I guess what I meant by this goal is that I want to always radiate love and compassion and not judge other people or put myself above them or create conflict when other people are really just doing their own thing and it’s not really about me.

I am checking this one off and will make further entries on this subject under my “Be Impeccable” goal.

Just one. I’ll call him Bob, because that’s what he called himself when I met him, even though that’s not really his name. He uses several names, and it always used to be a surprise to see what name he would use and with whom.

I used to love him. I don’t any more. It’s confusing, because he’s my daughter’s father and I love her more than I love anything, including myself.

I feel that my responsibility to protect my daughter from him outweighs my responsibility to love him. I will think about this some more and decide if I want to keep this goal.

So far, I have done this, but I may join this goal once I start high school and gain new … I hate that word … “enemies.”

When I arrived for a really long meeting yesterday, I sat next to the one person in the room I dislike most. I didn’t find I liked him more at the end. Today I tried not to get mad at the person honking his horn at me when I didn’t tear out of the intersection the millisecond before the light turned green. Maybe my mindfulness and meditation goal will help me be more loving and compassionate, and not take other people’s weirdness personally.

... so I can’t treat our president, CEOs of big corporations, people who have a different political or spiritual affiliation than me, people who are uncomfortable with my sexuality, or anyone who is different from me as my enemy. Isn’t this the same us/them mentality that creates wars? Imagine how much easier will it be for people to listen to one another and have real dialog if there’s less hostility. Of course this won’t be easy.