Category Archives: Chaos and Order

Living Like Water, Today

Posted on by learning to live like water

Bird on branch

Living like water today, this minute, for me, means being part of the frozen landscape.  It means, watching the birds flit from leafless branch to leafless branch, looking for a haven from the cold arctic wind that blows, and shakes the bare branches clean of even the birds.

It mean, watching the snow blow across the yard, when it’s not snowing, but appears to be blizzarding, unless you look up and see the blue sky.  It means, quietude, and emptiness, and barren scenes of white and brown and gray.  It means solitude, time not stopped but non-existent.  No memories that can color the landscape, nor dreams.  Just now, with myself, in this moment.

Typing, calling an old friend, planning a dinner.  Keeping thoughts here and now, so as not to undo the uneasy peace which has been made within, to let the past go, and not to dream dreams.  To forgive, but not to forget.  To love, but not to lose myself. To find beauty and revel in it, but not try to hold onto it.  To acknowledge pain and feel it, but let it move through me.

To let it all come and go.  To let it flow, or stay frozen, let it blow, or seep into the ground, but not to add or take from what is.  To accept it, to surrender to the forces that have control, which are not within me.  To melt into the tapestry of what is, and be an integral part of something greater, and go within the flow of the one thing to wherever I am supposed to be.

 

Change Is In The Morning Breeze

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m running late today.  I had to shut down and reboot my new laptop this morning, the keyboard wouldn’t work.  I miss my old Sony Vaio, lol, never one problem in 5 years.

Thinking about change this morning, starting anew.  Change is the only constant in life.  I feel like maybe the past is in the past now, like maybe it’s settled down and won’t be blindsiding me with hurt or anger or regret anymore.  The picture seems pretty complete.  I can see what happened, I can see why, what caused S to do what he did. I’m able to feel sad for him but unattached.  Not sad for the state he’s in presently, because it is a situation he created and obviously was supposed to happen because it did.  I’m sad for his inability to deal with the emotional demons that caused him to do what he did.  I hope  now that he has some time for introspection, he will take it, and take care of that inner child who was acting out so destructively.  I hope he can find the light that I always saw in him.  It’s still there.  Just because he’s covered it in layers of darkness, doesn’t mean it’s not still burning.

I’ve had a few conversations with a couple of men who seem nice, normal, not self destructive.  I am hopeful.  I am not needy.  I have a life, a good life.  Tonight I have a gong meditation, and it will be the first time in a very long time I’m going without some ridiculous drama I am dealing with.  I wonder where it will go, when I’m not looking for a specific answer to something.  Saturday I am going to a cookie swap with my bff at her sister’s house.  Not that I need cookies, but it will be fun to do something Christmasy.

The weekend is supposed to be warm here, 60°, which is absolutely crazy and unheard of in December here.  We are much more likely to be below freezing and have snow on the ground.  We have had two very severe winters back to back, so this mild weather is a reprieve for sure.  We can only hope it lasts til March.

Change, sometimes chaotic, and sometimes just like an tide on a windless day, just coming and going out on a smooth sea.  Just accept and embrace it.  The universe knows what it’s doing.

 

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.

 

 

 

Just Some Retrospective Thoughts

Posted on by learning to live like water

I texted with A till 11:30 last night. He is good for my soul, he loves me so purely. It was soothing after this crazy week.  I told him about the new treachery of the week. How it didn’t cause new heartbreak, but that the sheer volume of the lies and betrayal just  overloaded my ability to cope with it.

He asked if my heart was closed. Yes, until I can figure out how I let this happen to me.

He asked me to open my heart to him. He said just practice on me, lol. No commitment.

I laughed a little. I don’t want a relationship. I want to discover why I have made such bad choices in men, why I so easily believed all the lies when they are now so obviously lies I should have seen 100 miles away. I need to do some soul searching, I need to clear my head.

I told him that the whole thing has made me feel nauseous, like, dirty. Like I was raped all summer repeatedly. I feel dirty. How could I have not known?  To be having intimate incredible sex with someone who was also having it with someone else.  It’s just so disgusting to me.

Lies. Just a bed of lies.

A is such a good kind man, and so stuck on a woman who can’t love him. But at least I have not led him on. He knows the truth.

I gotta admit S never told me he loved me. He told me he didn’t want to be in love. Although once when we were talking about it he said “I said I didn’t want to be. I didn’t say that I wasn’t”.  Another time when he was leaving I told him I loved him and he replied “in my own way I love you too Deb.”  So I guess he kind of did. Enough to keep me there. 

He often said he cared a lot for me, “you know there’s a lot more than sex going on here.”  It seemed so. We spent a lot of time laughing, talking, sharing. All day, every day. An ongoing convo. I was part of his every day life, moment to moment.

I cannot imagine leading A on. I cannot conceive of lying to him to make him think I cared more than I do.  He has always known where I stand. I don’t try to keep him in my life. He stays in it out of choice.

Well, I guess we are seeing the end result of lying as a way of life.

I keep thinking about how S kept telling me to read the Art of War. The first rule was to avoid war at all costs.  Yet.., he set up a scenario that was bound to end up blowing apart two women’s hearts, to start a war. He says he is not unscathed. I have to laugh at that.  It was not his heart that was betrayed so callously, so cruelly, so carelessly.

And kept trying to get me to play the ancient game of “Go”.  He loved it, because it was all about saving face. I hated the idea. Saving face?  Geezus.  Own your story, make amends, grow, change, become a better man.  Save face when you have betrayed people who love you?  What kind of false comfort is that?  I’d have to ask him which face he wanted to save, he has so many.

I’m feeling very detached from it all this morning.  At least, way more than yesterday.  I’m starting to rise strong again.  I’m making pretty good progress, I think. But from time to time I need to reflect, and see at what points I could have made other choices that would have prevented all this pain.

And I don’t need to save face, lol.  I need to stand in my truth and own my story.  And that, I can do.  Every time.

 

Tuesday Night Rumble with the Chaos

Posted on by learning to live like water

This morning I was laying in bed at 4:45 AM.  Awake.  I realized, laying there, that while I was awake, I could not identify the exact moment I woke up.  Like when you gradually turn on the lights that have a dimmer, not knowing or recognizing when they are fully on.  It was kind of odd…..To find myself awake and not know when I had achieved the state of wakefulness.

When I finally looked at the time and saw it was so early, I tried to go back to sleep.  No go.  I finally got up at 5:10.

So, that’s kind of what happens when you fall in love, well sometimes.  I mean, I’m sure there are times people know the exact moment they fell in love.  But I think more often, it’s a gradual process.  Holding back less and less, through time, until you’re not holding back at all.  It’s not always a conscious thought or decision.

I wish it was, because I would not have chosen to love someone who couldn’t love me back.  I will be more conscious in the future.  I am being more conscious.

A wants me to come visit him when I am off between Christmas and New Years.  I would like to see him, at times I’d love to see him.  But I don’t want to rush into it, I am still healing.  Not grieving anymore, but healing.  And I don’t want to hurt A again, I did that once because S drew me in, away from A, I think just to prove he could.  Once, I just disappeared, again for S, but not at his request, so I could focus on that relationship with no distraction.

I promised A I would not disappear again.  I would love to snuggle up with him.  I would love to feel his love, his warmth,  He treats me like gold.  He loves me…..I love him but he’s always way ahead of me.  I love him, as a man, as a person. He has stood by me, and never let me down.  But I want passion….maybe it’s possible, but I don’t feel it now.

Still healing. Still walking that thin line.  But strong in my conviction not to talk, or contact, or allow contact.  That’s just a waste of time.  I need to focus on what makes me attracted to men like S and my ex. Totally afraid to put themselves out there.  Just full of fear, so they close the door, they hide themselves so they can’t be seen.  Why men like this, when I am so willing to get into the arena, and be seen?  Why not A, who is available, sweet, loving, kind, so willing to put himself out there, and let me see him.  He tells me every day he loves me, and shows me….  I need to lean into the discomfort, and “rumble” with what’s going on with me, as Brene Brown says.

I am reading a book by Rebecca Rosen for book club, “Awaken the Spirit Within.”  She is a medium, well known.  Two books.  She said that 1000’s of spirits, in her work as a medium, have told her the same thing.  That we contract with the universe for the lessons we are coming here to learn for our soul’s spiritual evolution.  She says that the people who give us the hardest emotional time, are our teachers.  She says if we contract to learn these lessons, but instead of doing the work to learn them, and understand them, choose the easy way out, and don’t learn them, we will have to, at some point come back and have another go at it.

This idea floored me, but I can see it’s validity.  I learned so much through the experience with my ex.  The one with S, I am still rumbling with…I still have a load of pain from the hurt he delivered to work through.  It’s not that I want him anymore, far from it.  I would have to be stupid to want to go back there.  But the hurt of the betrayal, the dismissal, being thrown out like the trash….will take some time to heal over. I think I’m looking or exterior validation that I didn’t deserve it.   I’m guessing therein is at least part of my lesson, once I can work through that.  Many questions surrounding that hurt…and all of them point to me, for allowing it to happen, for opening the door to it.  And also, the  healing has to come from within.  S was my teacher for this lesson, because he’s the one who was in the relationship with me that caused so much pain.  His soul is the one teaching me to love myself, because not everyone else can or will.  He’s learning his own lessons, whatever they are.  (This also tied in to my belief that we knew each other before we were born. I felt like I knew him before we even met, strongly.)  He told me every woman in his life has screwed him over.  I don’t think, when all is said and done, he can include me in that equation.  I gave him more than he wanted, but I didn’t screw him over.  Though he may see it differently, I don’t know, and don’t really care.  Just sayin’, I try not to do that to people.  But..the two men I have loved the most in my life, have screwed me over.

Rebecca Rosen says if we don’t learn the lesson, it will just keep repeating itself until we do.  So…I didn’t fully learn it from my ex, so enter S….  I am determined to discover, uncover, and deal with the lesson this time.  Truth be told, with my ex, I rumbled with it.  I didn’t take the easy way, I rumbled with him and won my freedom and my son’s, and my life.  I saw it through to the end.

Then again, maybe there are 2 different, but related lessons.  I have always thought that with my ex, the lesson was the power of unconditional love.  I still believe that.  I believed it so much, that I was fearless about loving S that way.  I just believed in the end, that it was irresistible.  Apparently it’s not, lol.

I haven’t been able to rumble with the discomfort from S for more than a few days at a time.  I feel different now, I’m sure I can, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  It means I’m determined to value myself, and my life, enough not to slip back into something that would only bring me more pain, and cause me to dislike myself, and disrespect myself.

Poor S, doesn’t understand how I can love him and miss him but not want to ever see him again. Because he compartmentalized his relationships, my relationship with him should be unaffected by his relationship with another woman. That’s his journey, his lesson to to figure out. Maybe.  Not my problem, I have enough of my own. I digress anyway.  The passion I had for him is dying, in relation to him.  Because I love the passion and the love, though, I’m going to find out the answers, and open the door to the real thing.  A loving passionate relationship for the 3rd act of my life.

Rambling.  Tuesday night rambling, looking for answers, and lessons.