I took today and pretty much wasted the day. It felt luxurious.

I went on the deck when I got up, with my coffee, my meditation, my lap top.  I had a friend over for awhile, I stayed outside all day.

Meditation was on “Honoring Your True Self”. I chose that one from my Deepak Chopra app on my phone, because, I have not felt that I was honoring myself. Others also were not. But….I don’t really care whether others do or not, as long as I do.

I have been beating myself up for making stupid choices. For ignoring signs. For doing that thing that we are so warned about: Not believing someone when they tell us who they are.

S would occasionally tell me I should dump him, and run, because he was going to hurt me. He told me that last January….and then went and fucked the prison whore. I took him back, I couldn’t let go.

Why? I don’t know. I think that more than being driven by love, I was driven by the uncanny connection we have had, reading each other’s emotions from a great distance, knowing what each other felt when we had not been talking and had no knowledge. I have never had that kind of connection with another person, and it seemed something worth holding onto.

Now…he has been pulling away since spring. I have been pulling him back. For the same reason. It is clear he did not ever, nor would ever love me. At least, not in the way I needed. I think he did, in his own way and in his own time.

Did I love him, really?

I don’t know. I enjoyed his company, and I could read him, if I was with him, or if I was not. I think I mistook that for love.

I have unconditional love for almost everyone, at least, I try. So, for him too. When he told me his secrets, I forgave him. I still do, even tho some of the things he told me many people would judge as unforgivable. Things he never told another soul.

Why me? I don’t know. The connection, I guess. He felt it too. He felt I understood him, I would guess, though he never said that. He did this early on in our relationship. He told me things he had not told either of his ex-wives or his ex gf.

He had developed a personna for them, trying to be who he wanted to be, who he hoped to be, I guess. For me, he didn’t feel the need.

I’m not angry with him now. I think he had a need, now, in his life, to have someone in the background, who knew his secrets. With whom he could fully be himself without pretense. Our connection enabled that. So…I’m not mad about his playing me, his keeping me a secret now, because I think I understand what my place was in his life as far as he was concerned. It was not done maliciously. It was a need he had, that I fulfilled.

It just wasn’t what I wanted out of the relationship. I wanted a man in my life, who could and would grow to love me. Who would let me share his life, as he shared mine.

S couldn’t do that, because if he let me into his life, his kids, his friends…..then I was no longer that safe place for him. I might see the difference in who they thought he was, vs who I thought he was. I might slip….and let them somehow know he wasn’t the man they thought he was.

I get it. I really do.

He had a need to be real to someone, because he holds his cards so close to his chest, because he has created a personna for others that was not really the authentic hm, that was greater than his need for honesty with me.

I’m still not mad about it. I don’t want him in my life, now, because I see that what I want will never ever be possible. If I stayed with him, I would have to remain his secret place to go, so he could feel some relief from the act he needed to put on for people every day.

I love him kind of unconditionally. I feel sorry for him, that he’s felt he had to do this with his life. He’s been doing it all his life, and doesn’t know how not to. It’s not romantic love when you feel the unconditional love for someone, it’s acceptance of who they are.

So, after all is said and done, after I’ve sat with my sadness and my anger, I feel for the guy. I needed more…I want more….he can’t give it. He has to keep showing up at the ex’s BBQ’s and maintain the personna that everyone believes is him.

Everyone but me.

I don’t look at him as a bad man, or a good man, just a man. Just a man I knew and once loved. I wish him peace. I don’t know what will become of the connection that we have had. I don’t suppose it will disappear, but I think I need to try to ignore it. It leads me in the wrong direction, away from the things I want out of the rest of my life. I’m not sure I CAN ignore it, but for the time being, while my heart heals, with this kind of new epiphany of understanding I have, I need to ignore it, and honor my own true self.