Category Archives: Breaking up

On Breaking Like a Little Girl

Posted on by learning to live like water

breakingi like a little girl

So, look….I don’t break like a little girl. Usually. And not now, not today. In fact I’m a long ways away from breaking.

I am tired, I am slightly stressed. I know I need to be doing things like putting my furniture up for sale that I’m not taking with me. I’ve heard to just sell it on ebay, with a pick-up only, not to use Craig’s list. Don’t want to be letting the craigslist killer in my front door. Maybe I could advertise it in the local little paper. IDK. I need to find someone to give my old washer and dryer to, although, I have been told that Big Brother/Big Sisters will take that stuff off your hands and put it for sale in their stores, Savers. Which seems like a good cause, and I could take a tax deduction.

I need to finish getting the utilities in the Florida house in my name. I need to have the mail forwarded up here from there, til I move there.

I worry that my boss will find all this stuff out, about both houses, and it will ruin my relationship with him, which is good at the moment. Work life could get very unpleasant if that happens. But if I tell him, without an exit date, he might give me one, and I might not be ready to move, and I don’t want to have to pay this mortgage if I don’t have a job. So every day I feel like I’m taking a chance.

I want to find out what a POD will cost to get my son’s stuff to CO. I need to get costs on moving my stuff to FL.

Yesterday I was sat on my deck and fell asleep in the sun. It was lovely. But while I was there, I thought about how I ran into a good friend at the store yesterday, in the organic produce section, and we talked for 15 or 20 minutes. She wants to try her hand at jewelry making, for a hobby, because her youngest child is about to go off to college. So we made tentative plans for me to go with her to get some basic tools etc, and I told her to come over some Sunday (her husband works weekends) and we’ll sit on the deck and make jewelry…drink wine…

Anyway, sitting out there yesterday, thinking about that, I thought, God, I wonder how long it will take me to have friends like that in Florida? Friends I can make spur of the moment plans with, like going to Costco Saturday with my bff, like going to my cousins to do reiki, like having this friend over to make jewelry on the deck. I will miss my peeps so much. They are my family here. I’ll have to create a whole new family and that’s a little scary.

Altho, my bff said Saturday, “we want to come see you as soon as you get settled.” And I know she means it. I said, “October, you will love it there in October. You will be getting pissed because it’s getting cold here…Florida is lovely then.”

But still I had this dark vision of me sitting alone every weekend there, nothing to do and no one to do it with. It was momentary, because I know I will make friends, and I know that before I’d sit all alone, I’d probably head to the beach or my sisters, or something….But, you know, the fear kind of showed up momentarily.

But, I guess the point is, it doesn’t break me. I think a broken heart can break me, but even that only momentarily. And who knows, maybe I know enough now to work through it, without feeling broken at all, if it happens again. Plus, I think I learned enough lessons from the last two men, to choose better, and not fall in love with someone who will treat my heart so callously. I’m sure there are men who actually appreciate a loving heart, and will treat it lovingly in return. I’m hoping I find one in Florida.

Maybe at the yacht club, lol. Or maybe I’ll get a fishing pole and go down to the fishing pier and find a fisherman, one that doesn’t get a thrill out of being helicopter lifted off a sinking ship. One that just likes to catch fish, and be near the ocean. Calmer…..more content. More appreciative of the joys life offers every minute. One who doesn’t need to be walking on the edge to feel alive. One who feels alive every moment he takes a breath, and finds wonder in that gift.

So, the opinion once given me by the man who broke my heart, that I break like a little girl, well, I am gonna guess that he has probably discarded that opinion of me anyway. I broke like a grown up, and I did my work, and I once again found a new path that will work for me. I’ll get through the hard parts of it, probably by writing, by being near the sea every day, by finding joy somewhere every moment.

I won’t walk the edge, I won’t risk falling off. And if I slip, I won’t break. If I crack, well…I’ll let the light in, let it weld the pieces back together, and glow a little brighter when it’s over.

Love and light.

Random Memories Wreaking Havoc

Posted on by learning to live like water

Warning:  This is pretty raw……

Today was difficult.  I had that random rogue wave memory hit me today, while I was working.  (See last blog)  I had to go to the ladies room to keep from crying at my desk.  I just don’t understand the mentality.

When he did the prison whore, he called me two days later and couldn’t wait to tell me.  He didn’t want the weight of it on him.  He said “I did something and it’s gonna hurt.”  But he still had to tell me.  He had to do the right thing.  That was February.

In May, he had me over to his house on a Sunday.  Not of course, Saturday night.  I had been there in April, a couple weeks before, the night his friend died. (I had been sitting at home, and was overcome with a feeling from him…I called and asked if he was ok.  He said “funny you should ask.   Gus died last night.”  I was there in a few hours.  He was sad….really sad. But Ok.)  I didn’t think anything of the fact that I hadn’t been with him the night before, now two weeks or so later.  He’d had the memorial service for his friend the day/night before. I got there late morning, I think.  We made love, we were sitting naked, he on his couch and me in one of his recliners, and he told me he was thinking maybe we didn’t need to see each other every weekend.  I remember saying, “I think I want to get dressed.”

He was most likely in her bed the night before, or maybe she had been there and left.  More likely he was at her house…which is why I was not at his house the night before.  I think Saturday that weekend he might have gone to the memorial get together for his friend who died.  I bet she went with him.  She knew the friend too.  I think they first connected when she commented on his picture on FB.  Maybe he even called her to tell her. Since she wasn’t really married……  Maybe he spent the night with her.  Maybe their first night together again.  Maybe not.  Maybe he came home and texted me about it. I can’t remember, it was 7 months ago.  But I’m sure he started seeing her then.  And then he had me over Sunday.

He just said he wanted to focus on himself, on his house, his yardwork, he’d been in a relationship for all his life, he wanted to see what it was like alone…..He still wanted to see me, just not as often for awhile.

Because he had her now.

(This is only a rough timeline.  I didn’t always write about it when I was with him, apparently.  I know I was the weekend of March 30.  I know that was not the last time I was at his house, so I think this is approximately right.)

But he didn’t respect me or his relationship with her enough to tell me the truth.  He could tell me the truth about Samantha the prison whore, but not Betty.  He couldn’t tell me the truth about her until I was ready to come down there and find her there. He disregarded everything either of us ever said to him about not wanting any part of a relationship like that.

All summer he tried to get me to be part of an intense physical relationship, but nothing else.  Because we had a great physical relationship.  When I began to realize that’s what he wanted, I told him to let me go.  Not to come see me if he didn’t want to stay.  A couple of times he spent the night, I don’t know how that worked with her, that I got him on a Saturday night.  Maybe they were fighting.  Maybe she went away.  Maybe he lied to her.  Who the hell knows?  But he gave me just enough to hold on.

Now I get why in early May he was excited to go to Florida with me in early June and suddenly did a 180° turn.  I knew something was up then, but I couldn’t figure it out.  I was angry about it though.  He’d found cheap tickets for us, we’d talked about what we’d do…etc. He was going to rent a car so we could fly into Tampa and then he’d have a car while I visited my mom.  And suddenly he wouldn’t go.  Broke my heart then.  And I got over it, because I fucking loved him.

Sometimes I’d agree, “if that’s the only way I can see you then ok….”  More and more often the answer became “…..Let me go if that’s what you want.  It’s not what I want.”  He wouldn’t do that either.   I’d say, “You wanting to find yourself and be alone is fine, but it doesn’t mean I’m sitting in the wings waiting for you whenever you get the urge.  If you want to be alone, then be alone.”

Of course, he wasn’t, alone. He had her.  But he wouldn’t say so.  He wanted us both, hanging around.  I could see him anytime from Sunday afternoon til Saturday morning.  He could easily, apparently, go from her bed to mine, or mine to hers.

I remember the day of the eclipse, end of September, Sunday night of the weekend before he dropped his bomb.  We were texting…I was telling him that the reason our sex life was so good was because I loved him so much.  That I couldn’t even participate if I didn’t love him.  He suddenly seemed to hear me….he was going to come here and watch the eclipse.  He was getting ready to leave and fell down his stairs and couldn’t move.  He was laying on the floor on his back.  He had been half-thinking of spending the night because I can go into work late on Monday.

And then he couldn’t come.  I think that was true…He had been planning to leave when he called me me from the floor.  She wouldn’t have been around on a Sunday night, and never would have known if he came over and spent the night.

So we sat on our own decks and watched it, texting occasionally.  We both saw the same shooting star.  We texted all week from early in the morning til we went to bed.  During work. During lunch.   Close, intimate, sweet, sexy.

Right up til we went to bed Friday night.  I felt he heard and understood me for the first time in ages.  I felt close…he said he did too.  He texted me at 4 AM when he woke up “for no reason”.   Turns out for plenty of reason. At 10:30 he texted me that he was going to be with her.

Set up.  So set up.  So set up all summer for him to devastate me.  At the moment I loved him the most, he brought me down, he crushed me.

I’ve been pretty good lately.  It doesn’t hurt much anymore.  Angers me more than hurts.   But today, all these random memories from last spring have been just barging into my mind, not knocking at the door, not ringing the doorbell, not asking if they could come in. Slapping my face, ripping open scars, spitting in my face.

All that time.  He could tell me about the prison whore, who meant nothing to him.  But he couldn’t tell me about Betty, who he claims now, he loved.  He couldn’t even honor her by telling me the truth.  He couldn’t respect her wishes.   He couldn’t honor me or respect me and my wishes.  What did I do to deserve that?  I loved him so much, I was always there for him.  I asked very little of him.  Whatever he wanted.  We had fun together, we played, we flirted, but for me…it was always within the confines of just us.  It was just two people who cared for each other being intimate.

I want to get back to forgiveness.  I’m happier there, but tonight I’m hurting.  It won’t take so long, it won’t hurt as deep this time but it hurts.  He’ll read this, and he’ll hide away from me.  What does he care, he didn’t care for those 6 months.  He’s probably hiding from Betty too.  Why should he wonder if the women whose lives he ripped up for his own pleasure are ok?  He can’t do anything about it, but if it was me, I’d still want to know that they were not still laying on the ground bleeding.

I know he’s a sick man.  I mean, mentally ill, to do this to anyone.  I also know he’s not going to do anything about it.  He’s not going to face his demons, he’s going to let them have free rein.  He’s going to go to his grave believing that he was hurt by all this.  All this that he created, and he set up, and he caused with his lies and deception to feed his own ego.  Eventually, I’ll feel sorry for him. Eventually.

Not tonight.  Tonight, I’d like to know that he feels the depth of my pain.  Tonight I’d like to know he has even a modicum of remorse for the way he shattered me, and left me lying there in pieces.  Tonight I’d like to know that it all meant something to him, something more than great sex.  I wonder if he knows how much audacity he had to ask me to help him with Betty, after he ripped my heart out and chewed it up and spit it out in a bloody mess.  He wanted me to help him deal with the lies and deception of another woman, without any consideration as to what those lies and deception did to me.  As if I should just understand, because he didn’t love me, he loved her.  As if that somehow made my pain less intense.  You’d be hard pressed to make me believe he loved anyone but himself.  Playing two women all summer, lying to them both, deceiving them both.  That’s not love S.  That’s self gratification, like jerking off.  One was an old fuck, one was a new one.  But we were both just a fuck for you.  We both know it.

I know I’ll never get what I wish I’d gotten even a little of.  I’m left to dry my own tears, and put my own self back together, and start walking again, away from him, toward a new life.

 

 

 

Tying Up The Loose Ends

Posted on by learning to live like water

I slept 7 hours last night, the first time all week I’ve gotten a decent night’s sleep.  I was at peace finally.  The truth is on the table and now can be dealt with by the universe and the people involved.  I can go on with my life and know I did the right thing.

I always told S when he was breaking up with me, which happened in 18 months a few times, that it would hurt, but I was strong and would get over it.  I always knew I would.  He said, “You aren’t strong.  You crumble like a little girl.”  He was the one who crumbled, when I said ok, go….he never could.  He could never walk away.  He still can’t.

Although I did crumble. But I could also put myself back together.  I knew what to do, how to do it.  I guess my ex gave me practiced.  When I found out about Betty, I didn’t think I’d be able to put myself back together.  I have never hurt so much in my life.  It was his cruelty in the way he told me, not that he wanted to be with her.  It was his callous disregard for the way I loved him. But  just over 6 weeks later, I have myself almost back together.

I bet that S has changed his mind about whether or not I am strong now.

My biggest problem going forward will be sensing his feelings, sensing what is going on with him.  I still have no explanation as to why I do this, but there have always been people with whom I can do this.

The first time was when my ex and I were about 30.  We lived on a lake, and our neighbor kid who was about 20,used to go water skiing with us a lot, often we’d have him over to eat after.  One day we came home from a trip, and he came over.  He was in the living room talking to my ex, I was in the kitchen.  I began shaking, literally.  I sensed some really dark horrible energy, and I wasn’t into energy work at all.  I called him into the kitchen, and told him, “I don’t know what’s happening, but you need to get him out of the house, NOW. ”  My ex didn’t argue, he just did it.

Six months later, the kid went down the street, and killed an old woman and stole her car.

It still creeps me out.

I tend to listen to these messages, and will continue.  If I determine they are warnings to me, I will act.  Otherwise, I’ll let them go.  A psychic told me that S was sucking my energy dry, that I didn’t have to do anything about the vibe I got from him, I got them because I am an empath. And that I needed to turn the energy in on myself.

This will be my aim going forward.  To do what is right for me, and to let go the vibes I get from S.  And anyone else they come from.  I told her I thought I knew him in a past life, she said that could well be true.

I was so relieved to hear that I was not expected to deal with the crazy info that I would get at random times.

I have a gong bath tonight, perfect timing.  I am so grateful to wake up to no drama today, the drama is all over in his corner, and it’s what he loves.  He feels most loved when someone is crying over him.  Lord knows he did it enough with me, and while I was crying he would make me laugh, hard, endearing himself to me.

He told that every woman in his life has hurt him.  I thought, I won’t join that club. I loved him so much, beyond reason, without limit.  As it turns out, I’m sure in his mind I hurt him.  Badly.  I don’t expect he will ever take ownership of this story.

If he was smart, he would take this whole episode as a gift, as the gift of ruin, as rock bottom emotionally, and begin to transform into someone he could be proud of, that could love himself, and others with his whole heart.  He would direct this energy inward, and do some real soul-searching to figure out why he finds it so necessary to manipulate people.  It was, really, an act of love, to make him accountable for his actions, even though he will never see it that way.

I don’t think he will ever get that.

If he’s smart, he will use this time to do what he told me he wanted to do all summer when he made up this story so he could be with Betty every weekend.  Be alone, learn to be alone.  Learn who he is, and change what he doesn’t like.  Discover his passions, figure out what he wants for the rest of his life.  I hope he does this.

But it’s not my problem anymore.  I’m running to the light.  I’m tying up the loose ends of my emotions around this, and connecting all the dots, and every minute I feel better and more distant from all the chaos of the last few months.

I can look at S, as someone I loved, I can feel the same detached sorrow for him as I do for my ex.  A detached sorrow, that he feels so unlovable, that he has to lie and manipulate people into his life. He has done it so much that he just lies as a way of life, just like my ex.  As far as me….he had me at hello.  He just couldn’t believe it.  I bet it was that way that way for Betty too.

Onward….onward.

 

 

 

It Wasn’t Revenge

Posted on by learning to live like water

He thinks it was revenge.  Revenge for breaking my heart.  Does he not know that a broken heart stems from love?  Does he not know me at all after all this time?

He said he will never forgive me. I said “why would I care if you forgave me?”

It us only important whether or not I could have forgiven myself for standing by, watching, an not doing anything to prevent any more heartache. 

It was for her.  It was because I saw someone getting the crap beat out of them every day, by a lie they were unaware of that was growing daily.  How do you stand by, when you see someone getting set up for the kill, against their own wishes, and do nothing?

It was for her Scott.  It wasn’t about you.

You devastate me, and then wouldn’t let me go.

As the weeks went on, I saw what you were doing to her.  You were still telling me you didn’t want a loving relationship. She obviously thought she was in one.  She had no idea, none, that daily you were laughing inside, as you tried to get me to see you Sundays, Wednesdays.  And if it wasn’t me, because it wasn’t, soon enough it would have been Samantha, or someone. Because you don’t know why you can’t have whoever you want whenever you want.

Your dream, to have a different woman every night of the week.  Your fantasy.

Her fantasy and mine, to have a man who loved them, and was faithful to them, and building something that bordered on miraculous.

It was for her.  I couldn’t stand by and watch you play with someone else the way you did with me.  I couldn’t watch as you set someone else up for a fatal blow at a time of your choosing.  You know I cannot remain silent, and watch someone get hurt. If you don’t know that about me, it’s because you didn’t pay any attention, you just took what you could from me.

I told you, if you want to be loved, then be lovable. Your actions are not separate from the person that you are, they are a physical manifestation of who you are.

Who you are, right now, is not lovable, because you used two women for your own purposes, oblivious to the pain you would cause.  I told you to stop acting wounded.  You have no idea what a wound is.  You didn’t love either one of us.  You are incapable of loving someone.  You are only capable of stealing from them, to bolster the empty hole that is your heart.  Stealing their pure love, their energy, their lives, so that you can believe you are valuable because these two women love you.

I have told you 100 times, I saw your soul.  Maybe 1000.  You know it was true, you know I knew things about you I shouldn’t have known because you didn’t tell me.  I told you your value is within.  Find it.  Take this time and find it.  Stop leaching off of me and her.

It doesn’t matter what happened to you when you were a child.  It doesn’t matter what you did yesterday.

It matters what you choose to do today.

Try loving yourself, enough to acknowledge who you have been, and to try to be the person you want to be.  The person you think you are when one of us took you to our bed and adored you.

We deserved to be adored back.

It was for her.  It was never about you.  You and only you are responsible for your life.

Dealing With It

Posted on by learning to live like water

So…this morning, after I had cried an inordinate amount of time, I got on FB and chatted with my best friend. The one who told me not to talk about him to her, because she knew he was only going to continue to hurt me. I told her….she felt bad for me. When it comes to our friendship, nothing can really hurt us. When she loves you, she loves you, she’s like me with that, and it’s why we are so close. I thank God that I have people in my life like her. She has always made me feel like family, literally, invites me to every holiday and family gathering of her large boisterous fun clan. They are all used to me, lol. Because I have no family here, it has been a godsend for me.

Then I talked to A, who I totally blew off yesterday, in my pain. A also loves me, like my friend. Unconditionally. I told him in pieces what happened. I have been chatting with him on and off, and today he is such a blessing to me. He lets me know that there are men who can love and be loved unconditionally. He told me again today, that he loves me, but we are purely friends now, because he has chosen to live in the Southwest, and me here and Florida, and nothing else would work. He is so angry that this happened to me, he is as angry as my son. They know it was me who was stupid enough to buy into what S was selling, but still….A has called him a prick. I told him don’t waste your energy hating S, he’s his own worst enemy.

It was A who really has talked me down. He could be mean and bitter, and not talk to me, I have so screwed him over for S. But he isn’t. He loves me so much, he makes me feel good about myself. He thinks I’m beautiful. He thinks I’m funny. He knows I’m flawed, and he just told me he loves my flaws. And we are just friends. We were intimate, once, now we are just friends. He is seeing someone in his new home, and I am happy for him. He said, she knows about you….I said, because you are an honest and loving man.

How different from a man who would blindside me, inflicting as much pain as possible.

Dark vs light. Night vs. Day. Ego vs. spirit. We all choose. Make no mistake, S, you chose to be who you are.

I have been talking to a friend from here on WhatsApp. She and I have similar issues, she has been so helpful. My ex’s cousin, who is a close friend, and is the closest thing to family I have, has helped me a lot too.

So I have people, people who love me, people who support me. I need to surround myself with people like myself, who can love without limit, and accept the same. Whose only dysfunction might be they care too much, lol.

I also reactivated a dating profile on one site. I am just putting the energy out there. I’m free, I’m available, I am willing. And that’s a huge thing, to be willing.

I am beginning to get past it. I can see how toxic S is, for me, for himself. I see so clearly how he is only comfortable with extreme dysfunction. And how I wasn’t, and why our relationship would end every 2 weeks. There was a HUGE physical attraction. There is some kind of energetic connection. But I can have that with someone who can love and appreciate being loved, can’t I?

Pretty soon I’ll block his phone number, so when Betty Boop goes home tonight he can’t reach me. I’ll delete his texts soon, so I don’t see them when I open my app. I’ll get rid of all his pictures. I already did that with some that were my favorites. I don’t want to hear from him, he can’t do anything but give me more pain. I know this is a roller coaster. I know that I will go from anger to pain to healing over and over again. This is the first wave of feeling like I will survive. And it feels fucking good.

I bought a dark chocolate caramel chocolate bar to take him. Or give to him if he came here. Yesterday, I thought I’d throw it away. I though I would gag if I tried to eat it. Today, I think I will open it, and eat some. I’ve wasted enough on him. Why waste $3 more?

So…to paraphase one of my favorite authors, and spiritual guides, Brene Brown, from her TED talk on vulnerability, instead of catastrophizing my life because I got involved with a shit, I will thank God that I can hurt this much, that I could be so passionate, that I can love that deeply, because it means I am alive, and not dead, not walking around numb to this life. And for those that are numb, and settling for a life that will bring them pain after pain, I can’t feel anything but pity.

Only You

Posted on by learning to live like water

Weary,

I long to rest my heart

On yours.

To hear a heartbeat

Reverberate through the silence.

Only silence envelopes me now

Quiet dulled by emptiness.

Where will I find some peace,

And when?

Tears leak out of my eyes,

begging solace from the night sky.

Walls implode

And crash in on me.

I tiptoe through the rubble,

looking for the pieces of myself that are scattered across the landscape.

You.  Only you.

Is all I can find.

The End Is In Sight This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m up early this morning.  I have been out on the deck since the very first rays of sunlight edged the eastern horizon.  It’s still, the birds are not even singing yet.  And it’s cool, I’m wrapped in a blanket.  It promises to be a beautiful day.

I’d thought I was going to the beach today, but that didn’t work out.  It’s ok, though.  I am going for a walk with a friend this morning, just back from Martha’s Vineyard where she has a summer home.  It will be good to catch up.  My son will be home from his music festival in the early afternoon, and it will be good to see him, have his somewhat chaotic energy back in the house.  And his help in finding and getting rid of the snake!

I am better this morning.  I have a selenite healing wand with a fluorite tip on it.  The two stones are very healing.  I held it to my heart last night.  One of selenite’s metaphysical properties is that it helps to break up patterns, and I felt it was exactly what I needed to get over S.  I need to break up the pattern that my mind and heart go through when I think of him.  I held it there, and repeated “detach” like a mantra.  Focusing on the word, on visually seeing the energetic cords break off and fall away.  I fell asleep with it that way.  I think it helped.  Because this morning when I think of him, I remember all the ways we did not get along, all the reasons I tried to break it off with him all summer, and he kept drawing me back in.

Looking back, I suppose he just didn’t want to be alone.  I don’t think that he thought that, purposefully.  Just, he really has so few people in his life.  His daughter and son, and one good friend that I know of.  He wasn’t in love with me, but he liked the fact that I was.

I am putting that in the past tense.  I think I can just begin to feel the transformation of what I felt for him, becoming something else.  Something less painful, something more like the words of that song “You’re just someone that I used to love.”   No mean intent, just that I can feel the first tendrils of moving my heart away from him, and the pain and chaos loving him has cost me.

I’ve known for months we were not meant to be.  We never saw each other for one, which was his decision. Not mine.  But I stopped fighting it long ago.  I saw him maybe 4 times all summer.  So why is it such a big deal that he is not with me now?  Because he’s with someone else, and it feels like rejection.  Because I am jealous, I would have liked to be someone he wanted to spend more time with, but I never was, so I need to stop making it out to be like he ever wanted to be with me anyway.  He just liked keeping me on the periphery of his life, liked knowing there was someone out there who adored him.

Well, I don’t, adore him at the moment.  I’m not mad, but this morning I am real.  His relationships are all pretty dysfunctional.  He has been healing the one with his daughter, but Betty Boop will probably reverse that in a big hurry.  Too bad.

I have lived such a dysfunctional life with my ex, that I was comfortable with S’s ability to create a dysfunctional relationship with me.  I realized that this summer, there are probably 3 or 4 blogs about how I tried to end it with him, and he talked me out of it.  Most notably, the time in maybe July, where he had just pulled me back in with the possibility of him being very sick, and then disappeared on me for 4 days.  I mean, literally, on the weekend, he called and asked me not to “dump” him, and told me how he is sick and the constant pain of his headaches was making him behave poorly, and so I didn’t, and I think he came up to my house that weekend, maybe.  Then the next weekend his mother died and he disappeared to New Jersey, without a word, and I was calling the hospitals here to see if he’d been admitted, because I was afraid he had an aneurysm.  I was so terrified.  He came home and texted me like it was nothing.

Dysfunction.

I don’t need that.  He once told me that he and his ex gf used to fight passionately, and make up passionately, and that there had been many times when they had separated for months at a time.  This was when we first met, and I thought, I don’t want any fighting passionately.  When a fight begins, I run.  I was the runner.  I have had more than my share of hard fought, blood and guts fights in my life, and I don’t like them.  Back then, he didn’t yet know she had married within months of leaving him.  I think he thought it was just another temporary break up.  One day she messaged him, after I’d been seeing him for a couple of months, said she wanted to see him.  Of course, I was terrified, and he was kinder then, than now.  He told me to not worry, that I was taking him out of the equation, that he was just going to talk to her, and it didn’t mean he was going back to her.  Turns out she wanted to meet with him to tell him face to face she was married.  He disappeared then for 2 days.  Wouldn’t talk to me, or answer my texts, left me hanging out to dry, just kind of like this weekend.  The difference was he gave our relationship no consideration this time, He just said, “she’s back in my life.”  After 18 months.  He let go of me so fast, that it’s taken me days just to get up on my own two feet again.  I was blindsided, not only by Betty Boop’s appearance in his life, and mine by extension, but by how easily and quickly he threw our relationship to the wind.

Well, it’s all moot now.  She’s back, and I am letting go.  I think about all the hurt, all the times he disregarded my feelings because he couldn’t cope with his own.  When I am in a relationship with someone, him included, generally I consider their feelings first.  He and I both were dysfunctional, we could not figure out how to make it work.

It was a bad relationship.  It is good that something happened to make it actually end, to create an ending that there is no bridge from to get back to where we were.  Where we were was not a good place anyway.  I know there are much better places ahead of me, than behind me.

I’m going to have a good day today.  The knot in my stomach has unraveled some.  I made a pot of chili yesterday, but couldn’t eat any of it.  We’ll have it today, with some good bread.  I’ll work at opening the door for something “magnificent” to walk through.  I know the rest of my life will be wonderful, I know what I want, and where I’m going and what I’m going to do when I get there. S is beginning to fade, and I can imagine, for the first time, that a day is coming where I don’t think of him wistfully.  Maybe kind of, he was kind of a cool guy but so messed up.  I’d like to remember him fondly, but not painfully.  Someday.

Not there yet, but like I say, I know where I’m going and what I want, and that’s what I want.  Just to let go of it all, say I loved him once, we had some fun, but we had more pain, and we let it go.

The end.

Maybe The Universe Is Working in My Behalf.

Posted on by learning to live like water

This is me this morning.

Thank God for Ambien.  After working almost 40 hours in 4 days, I was exhausted.  But….didn’t consider going to bed until about 1 AM.  I was on the phone with a friend out in Montana for hours, crying on her shoulder, venting my anger, my hurt, my pain. I didn’t want to go lay down in the bed that he would  never join me in again.  I was afraid a torrent of raging tears would start that I couldn’t stop.  Somehow I calmed myself and slept for 4 1/2 hours. I guess due to 2 glasses of wine and an Ambien.  Bad to do together, but it worked for me last night.

I called him back, at midnight, or12:30 and asked him if she was there now.  No, he said.  I didn’t even know why I called him. I said, “You piece of shit.  You fucking piece of shit.”  and hung up.  I don’t know why I did it.  I just had, have so much rage.

II called him twice at 3 AM. He didn’t answer. I wanted to know when this happened, how long has he been seeing her.  I want to know if that’s why I never saw  him all summer, why he couldn’t make any plans ever, why he was always wanting to come here to my house, and never me to his.  I feel like I have a right to know how blind and stupid I’ve been and how big an asshole he is.

He said in his voice mail, “It’s all I ever wanted and you knew that.”  WHAT AN ASSHOLE.  No, I did not know that, when he was sleeping with me, talking to me all day long, having intimate conversations with me, begging me to come see him the Sunday before last.  No I did not know that he still was stuck on the fucking woman who tried to break him and abandoned him and took him for all she could.

Was I too strong for him?  I didn’t need him, but oh I wanted him and he knew that.  I loved being with him.  I put my heart on my sleeve and he fucking chewed it up and spit it out last night.  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

And you didn’t fucking mean not to.  You meant to use me,and what I so willingly offered,to make yourself feel good.  The way it affected me was none of your business I guess.

But then there’s this.  Last Sunday we had a blow up, I just got sick of him calling me stupid because I couldn’t translate the two word texts he was sending me, and ended up misunderstanding him.  Just sick of it.  The wall went up, and I spent the week, trying to get over him.  Sure I would, I didn’t even miss him til yesterday.  I didn’t even see him as the same man til yesterday.

So, maybe, just maybe, this whole thing, the whole week, has been the universe working in my behalf.  Last Sunday was just preparation for him to tell me this last night.  As angry and hurt as I am, had I not spent the week trying to get over him, and move on by myself, last night would have been even worse, so much worse.

And seeing that, looking at that, I feel better.  I feel maybe the Universe is about to bring me what I want, about to open a door that’s been closed, because I couldn’t close the door on S.  Even though he clearly wasn’t actively participating in our whatever it was relationship.

They psychic back in June told me to stand my ground, that when I close the wrong doors the right ones will open.  She didn’t mention that I would have the door slammed in my face, and feel broken again, but still…the door is now shut for good.  I think it was probably necessary for something like this to happen for me to shut it and seal it shut, never to be reopened.

I’ll get over it.  That much I know.  I am still in shock, but I’ll get past it.  He can be with her, and find some more misery to cry about. He can work til he’s 75 to keep her out of debt, probably will pay for her divorce.  That’s probably why she came back.  She married someone very impulsively, she’s unable to manage her money, and can’t afford a divorce, so she’ll probably mooch the money off of him, and he’ll gladly pay some more so the bitch can continue to hurt him.  Stupid idiot.  Who would want someone back that took them for so much?  Someone who is used to being punished by those he loved.

Well that’s not me.  The people I love are given wings to fly.  Even him, when he told me he needed to go find himself.  figure out what he wanted.  I told him to go do it, that I fully supported it.  And what a bunch of bullshit that turned out to be.  The first chance he had, he dove right into the past.  Setting himself up to spend his life in more pain.  He survived liver cancer.  The liver is where we hold all our anger.  So, do I think they had 12 years of bliss together?  Doubtful.

And his daughter, with whom he’s become close…I’m sure she’ll be very happy.  She hates this woman, who she feels broke up her family. He told me, his daughter wanted nothing to do with her.  The woman was the cause of a rift between he and his kids that lasted years.  Welcome to the past again Scott.  It’s what you always wanted.

Where is the joy?  I know in my head I’m lucky to be out.  As my friend said last night, I’m glad it happened, it needed to happen for you to get away from him.  He’s really a loser.  You deserve so much better.  You make loving you so easy.  And he just couldn’t see it.

I’m better this morning.  I am moving away from all of it.  It’s like a car wreck, and even though I was shaken and bruised, I am basically unscathed.  My soul is intact.  I still know who I am, and where I’m going and what I want, and I know I’ll find it. He loves the car wreck, it’s where he wants to live.  He likes to live close to the edge of the abyss and occasionally see what happens if he falls in.

Once he told me, when talking about being rescued off a sinking fishing boat on Georges Bank or somewhere out in the Atlantic, that he feels the most alive when he’s close to death.  That should have told me everything I need to know about him, shouldn’t it?

Ok, rant for this morning over.  If you made it through this, thank you.  much love.

Voice Mails

Posted on by learning to live like water

I finally looked to see if S had left me a voice mail.  I didn’t so much as mean to, but I got a couple of voice mails I needed to listen to and saw there were 13 blocked voice mails, which were from him.  It makes me sad, but resigned to how it is.

I have no anger, no animosity.  He wants to talk.

As he said, in that lovely poem he wrote (which he is or was angry with me for publishing, tho when he gave it to me he told me I could put it up here or I wouldn’t have) “fate has determined that nothing will grow between us.”  I believe this is true, in this moment, the present moment.  We have talked about our issues dozens of times, on my deck, in  his living room, at the park where we met.  There is no resolution, now.  I want something he doesn’t.  I want a relationship where I am part of my lovers life, in all ways.  I don’t want a superficial sexual relationship with a friend.  He wants to be free, to see the world through his own eyes, without anyone else’s input.

I get that, I do.  But we have to go our separate ways for now.  If he gets tired of that journey, maybe then we’ll have something to talk about..  Right now, there is nothing more to say, and seeing and talking to him will not change it.  Our paths came together for awhile, we found comfort with each other, but that fragile tie was stretched to the breaking point this summer.  By me wanting more, by him wanting less.  It snapped, it broke.  It’s over, as it was.  It’s over for now, unless one of us does some major changing regarding what we want in life, and that won’t be me.  I know what I want, have known for a long time, years. One of my constant prayers is that I will know the love of a good man before I die.   I’m not going to change, I’m going to be who I am, and continue on the journey to find and create the life I want.  I know there is someone out there who will join me in that.

I am not going to unblock him.  I don’t want to have even one more conversation about this, about being friends, about how he wants to be free, about how he misses me, etc.  I am not going to commit to any of that right now.  Being friends with him in the past has always left me open to sexual innuendo, flirting, and it sucks me right back in.  So no, for now, no.  Maybe time and distance will change that.  Maybe not.

We can only live in this moment, and for now..the way things are at this moment, the door has to remain closed.

I don’t know what the future holds for anyone.  I can say, yes, I’m going to sell my house and move to Florida.  That’s all I really know right now.  I hope S will take this time to be free, to find himself, to figure out how he wants to live his life out and try to be happy.  I hope he does not get angry with me, but I am standing my ground for my own protection.  Maybe a time will come when I don’t feel I need to, but for now I just want to get away from the memories, the dreams I had for us.  They were only my dreams, not shared by him, not even shared with him because I knew they would push him even farther away.  Now….I think we need to have that space and distance and time, before we can really be friends, not looking for anything but friendship.

From Anger to Hurt

Posted on by learning to live like water

This poster is about how it was.  He knew, he didn’t feel it, and he didn’t care.  It had no impact on him at all. He still wanted what he wanted, the effect on me of that was inconsequential in his mind.

Anger has subdued this morning, and turned to a visceral pain. I didn’t sleep well, I was too angry yesterday, and had a hard time calming my psyche for sleep, even though I was also exhausted, after leaving the house at 8, and getting home at 8.  Going to be a long day today.

I don’t understand how a seemingly fairly enlightened man can treat someone the way he treated me. How he could push his agenda, knowing it caused me pain, knowing I didn’t want what he wanted.  I tried and tried to end it in a way we could stay friends, telling him we just wanted different things.  And in the end, he still was trying to come here for the night, even though in the next breath he said he just wanted to be free.  How does he reconcile those two actions?  I have no idea.

He says he has loved women and been hurt by them all.  I wonder….did he treat them all as objects to use for his own gratification?  I have no idea.  He didn’t love me, i knew that.  But I thought he cared about me.  I can’t imagine asking someone to give themselves to you when you know they adore you, and then saying, well it’s nice but I want to be free. That’s caring??  Not in my book.

I feel stupid, then I say, at least I know I can love. At least I know I can feel.  At least I know I am capable of empathy.  I gave myself to him in love.

All winter we would spend the day together, go to breakfast, he would take me places, we would laugh, we’d come back, take a nap, we’d have fun. Then suddenly he stopped, he no longer wanted to do anything.  At first he said he was busy getting his yard in shape in the spring.  But he just stopped cold, anything except “a nice afternoon” or a “Nice night” together. My dreams of summer, that he knew I had, just slipped away.  He was oblivious.  I tried to end it, he pulled me back. Why?

Did it fill his ego to have an adoring woman in the background?  I suppose. He was unconscionable to ask of me what he asked. He knew I was incapable of enjoying that. But I allowed it, a few times, because I missed him.  Finally in the end, I knew the pain I would feel if I allowed it would offset any pleasure it gave me, times10.

It’s over.  I’m sitting with my sadness, and hurt.  By tonight I would expect I will be on a much more even keel, or at least by tomorrow. I am glad I stood my ground, I am happy that I left myself with a shred of dignity.

Onward, as Liz Gilbert says all the time.  Putting one foot in front of the other, making tentative, but real,forward movement.