Category Archives: Compromise

Last Night’s Dream Analysis

Posted on by learning to live like water

Well, not only sleeping last night, but dreaming as well. I dreamed that I was at a long table, with many people at it, eating a hot dog with all kinds of fixings on it, and found my ex-husband sitting next to me eating one as well. I remember looking at him and saying “Oh! I forgot you were here.” As usual when I dream of him (which is rarely) he said nothing. But watched me eat with the critical eye he always did. Which was actually funny, since he’s the one who got himself up to about 300 lbs.  But that was always about control, making me feel self-conscious, and unsure with hm.  It was never about how I looked.

Then I dreamed I was in a flower garden, with one of my best friends from up north, the friend who drove down here with me. Gosh I miss her. She is a wonderful gardener, and has planted flower gardens all over her 3 acres. Her deck and her house are full of plants and flowers. I gave her my house plants when I left.

So, it was off to dreammoods.com

The hot dog dream was the weirdest, because my ex was in it. Here’s what they had to say.

Hot dog: To see or eat a hot dog in your dream is phallic symbol representing masculinity, sexual energy, and vigor.

Ex: In particular, to see your ex-husband/wife in your dream indicates that you are currently finding yourself in a situation that you do not want to be in. It suggests that you are experiencing a similar relationship or situation which makes you feel unhappy and uncomfortable.

Eating: To dream that you are eating with others signifies harmony, intimacy, merriness, prosperous undertakings, personal gain, and/or joyous spirits.

So…sitting with my ex, eating a big hot dog. Well, we did have a good sex life, until we didn’t, and I am ready for another, that’s for sure. As for seeing him indicating that I find myself in a similar situation, well….Yeah, I did. I don’t now. I’m guessing that because I have had such a hard time completely letting go of S, and how much unhappiness, and uncomfortability that relationship has brought me, that’s the relationship that was in my subconscious. However, that is, for me, undone by the fact that I’m eating with others, signifying that I am now in harmony, and in a good place. I think that door is finally closed, and I am really open to something new in my life.

The garden with my friend…well, it’s a nice dream. It was a good dream, and it followed up the hot dog dream. Here’s what dreammoods has to say.

Garden: To see a flower garden in your dream represents tranquility, comfort, love and domestic bliss. You need to be more nurturing.

Friend: To see friends in your dream signify aspects of your personality that you have rejected, but are ready to incorporate and acknowledge. The relationships you have with those around you are important in learning about yourself. In particular, to dream about your best friend means that you need to foster or acknowledge some special quality that your best friend has. Ask yourself what makes your best friend your best friend and how you need to work on these attributes within yourself. Alternatively, dreaming of a friend indicates positive news.

I think that dream is all about me nurturing. My friend is very nurturing. Witness the fact that she drove most of the way here, knowing I was pretty well spent after moving my son to CO, and packing my house, and leaving everything I’d known for 45 years in a matter of 3 weeks. I couldn’t be more grateful and loving toward her. She’s a true friend indeed.

Yesterday, I tried to pay that forward. I called my childhood friend who lives down here, and she was kind of depressed (she is prone to that). I asked her if she wanted to go shopping, and she said no….and then told me she just wanted to crawl in a hole and pull the cover over it. I said, OK, I’m coming to get you in an hour, and we’re gonna go get a bite to eat and a drink. So she’s the one I went to St. Pete beach with. I’m going to try to be more that way toward my friends.

Dreams are wonderful things, if we can just understand what they are trying to tell us. It’s all good.

Love and light.

The Days Before The North Wind

Posted on by learning to live like water

It’s a late summer’s eve.
The only sounds
A child’s laughter,
crickets singing,
Leaves rustling on the tiniest breeze.

Summer meal on the table,
BBQ, corn on the cob
Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers.
Must be August.

Farm stands full
of things just picked today.
Melons and peppers,
Apples and peaches.
Pumpkins soon dot the ground.
The harvest underway.

The days grow shorter.
The laughter retreats inside the cozy warm house.
The leaves crunch underfoot,
And fires ignite in back yards pits to ward off the chill.

The leaves soon will turn
To red and gold and orange.
In a breeze it will rain leaves.
In a still sky, they will crunch underfoot,
come into the house attached to feet.

Think of me as the leaves fall.
I will miss the autumn,
The days of clear cool air
Before the north wind blows.

But when it blows, hard and steady,
Come see me then, my friend
In a land of endless summer.

 

Compromise, or Self Accountability?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Damn, I needed a glass of wine tonight.

First a little update. A bought the house. I got 2 or 3 group texts, with pictures…waxing poetic about Santa Fe. He got to Santa Fe on the weekend. Previously he spent less than a week there last winter. And in 3 days, he decided to change his mind completely about his lifestyle, and put a contract on a house, which he couldn’t even have had inspected yet. WTF? I kept thinking something is really wrong with him. Then later today, probably because he had no response from me about the house, I got a private text. I have NO idea how it got through, but he asked if I had the surgery. I deleted it without reading, or even opening, so it would show on is phone as “undelivered”. That really threw me, I mean, how does he get a text through when I have both his numbers blocked, and it’s coming from a blocked number? And made me more concerned about his motivation to do what he’s doing. I mean, that would be severely delusional, if I had anything to do with his decision. But then, I was married to a man who still thinks his 23 year old son could be a professional soccer goalie. People are quite capable of spinning great yarns and believing them. So yeah, that gave me a little headache.

The wine tasted good. I’m only having one glass, even though I’d like more, lol. But it’s a week night, yada yada.

But then.

I was thinking about my relationships with S, and A. Before A’s text. And how I compromised myself, both times. With A…I accepted his love for me, misdirected and perhaps ill motivated as it might have been. I accepted it without loving him back, because he made me feel good. It was a lush feeling, for awhile, to have someone adore me. To hold me, before he left and tell me he loved me “so much”. To hug me and say, “Thank God you came back to me.” I had just gone to say goodbye…he was leaving forever….I didn’t say I was back, he told himself that story. I didn’t disabuse him of that notion. I felt he was leaving, I’d probably not see him again, let him leave happy. Which is probably why I worry about his motivation in buying a house so impulsively. I mean…it’s not my worry really, he’s a grown man, but how can it be a good decision based on so little information.

But I compromised myself with him. I didn’t tell him the truth, at least not all the time. When it got too much, I did. I never told him that I loved him, I never led him on, but I accepted love from someone who I didn’t love back, and that feels wrong. Like I should have been more honest, I shouldn’t have been so self absorbed in enjoying the huge ego boost I got from it. Just feels wrong. Like I used him, even though that wasn’t my intention. I tried to love him but I couldn’t. I knew I could love S, so I went back to S.

I knew I did love S. I adored him. And he broke my heart so many times. Finally I got smart and headed him off at the pass, but not before I cried a river, a fucking ocean, over that man. Wondering what was wrong with me, that he could so easily dismiss me. So the compromise there was, that I allowed myself to love a man, with everything I had, who didn’t love me back. He would tell me he missed me, but he only missed sex. He said once he missed making me laugh. But he also told me he didn’t want to be in love, or a relationship, that he wanted to see other women. So I guess the lauging and the sex wasn’t that big a deal. I gotta give him honesty. He only led me on once.

After he fucked the prison whore, which I have lots of blogs about last winter, as I tried to work through that. He knew I had begun to see A, and just didn’t want someone else to have me. I thought he wanted me. He told me everything, almost, that I ever wanted to hear, he did everything I’d dreamed about. It took me about 30 seconds to cast A aside and be with S.

And then once S knew I was with him, not A….all those things disappeared, never to be seen again. And we went back to our non-relationship status and it hurt more than ever.

Because I compromised myself. I gave myself willingly, because I wanted to love him. And I didn’t care that he didn’t love me. I let myself do that….treated myself like a tramp, like shit, because I wanted to love him. He treated me…ok, unless he was having a bad day, but he never was dishonest with me, except that one time, to keep me from being with A. I shouldn’t have allowed that either.

So here I am, compromised. By two men, on opposite ends of the spectrum. One, I let him love me, and I didn’t, couldn’t, love him back, but let him lavish it on me, just to make myself feel valuable. The other, I loved, with nothing in return. I let myself be used. Used honestly. It was only my fault.

So the question is…..should I be feeling bad about any of this? Am I responsible for the fact that A loved me, unrequited? No more than S is responsible that I loved him, unrequited. We can only control our own emotions. We can only set our own standards for ourselves.

A loved me, (I am not sure that’s even past tense at the moment), but I’m not responsible for his emotions. I never led him on, I just enjoyed his company. Until recently, when he was wanting a bigger camper “in case” I wanted to come see him, and then suddenly a house. And the way his conversation went far more intimate than I was comfortable with.

S…didn’t. I knew it. He’s not responsible for my emotions. I guess I kept thinking that he would love me someday, that some day he’d want me the way I wanted him. But it was my stupid dream, his was to be free. Over time, I began to detach. We saw each other rarely, we talked a lot, but there was nothing growing there, except separation. I accepted that over the summer, and little by little let the dream go. When he lost his temper with me over nothing this past weekend, it was not hard at all to close the book, and decide not to turn the page. I hadn’t seen him in a month. While I thought I missed him, I was actually in the process of detaching. This was the first time it has not hurt. Maybe there are no tears left to cry, but at any rate, I’m not and that’s a good thing.

(Let me just note here, that I have not been blogging about S and I for some time now.  The things in this blog are all things I have published before, so I don’t feel like I am breaking any trust by talking about them.  I cannot write this blog without mentioning them.  I am not going into any detail about why I closed the book on that relationship, now or ever.  If I did, I would be breaking the trust.)

Going forward….I don’t want to compromise. I will choose, yes choose, to love only someone who is capable of loving me back. I will not stay with someone just because he loves me. I will have balance, or be alone. It’s only myself that I have to not let down. No one else. Maybe I’ll be alone, but that would be preferable to not liking the person I have become. I’m alone right now, and you know what? It feels fine.