Category Archives: Disconnection

Ruminations on Reclusiveness

Posted on by learning to live like water

Am I becoming reclusive? I spend a lot of time alone. And I don’t mind. I consider calling a friend to come over or go do something, and so often I stop myself. Not wanting someone intruding on me. At least lately. I don’t understand this sudden change in me.

I’ve always been extroverted. Love having people around. Love deep conversation. Love my friends. It’s why I was not afraid to move somewhere far away where I knew only 2 people, an old friend and my sister. I knew that I had always made friends easily, and I have. But lately, I find myself keeping to myself.

Perhaps I have given too much of myself, maybe I feel spread thin. I don’t know. I miss my son. At times I really miss my old life. But I love my new life. It’s just that lately, I don’t want to take a walk with someone else. I want to walk by myself, along the waterfront, sorting out my thoughts and emotions. Trying to figure out what it is that I really want, that brings me joy, and passion.

Writing is the first answer. Not the only one, but the first one. It brings me so much peace, to put my thoughts in a form where I can see them. I cannot seem to work them out without putting them on the page. I was up again, last night in the middle of the night, writing away. Because thoughts were there that were screaming at me for release. Compelling thoughts. And things I don’t want to publish, I don’t want them to be public knowledge. I need to keep and honor some things only in my heart. We all do.

This morning I have to get some groceries. Coffee, cream, toilet paper, some salad makings. I had to force myself to be kind enough to ask my friend who has no car of her own if she wants to go with me. I’m glad I did. I have wished someone was here to just talk with, someone I knew well. I want to rest in the arms of a close friend. This friend I called, well, she is a good friend. She can become argumentative though, and I hope that doesn’t happen today because I am way too tired to deal with it.

What I really want is someone who could take a nap with me, just lay down and make me feel safe….a man, no doubt, but just to rest my weary head against someone who I knew would not hurt me. It has been decades since I had that peace. And even when I had it, it was temporary.

When I lived with my son, I was content enough, to have him around. He was there. He would listen to me if he realized I really needed to be heard. He could see and understand me without a whole lot of communication. He read my body language. It wasn’t like having a significant other, but it eased the fact that I didn’t have one, or that the man I’d chosen had let me down, again.

I don’t want to be a recluse. I want to be involved in life, with passion, with love. I don’t want to become isolated, yet that’s what I’ve been doing lately to some degree. I’ll show up where I’m expected, but I just want to be alone most of the time.

I guess, when I look at it from the more objective perspective of reading it on the page, that I am sitting with some things. I don’t really know what they are, or why they are affecting me this way. But like a teacher who used to facilitate my meditation group each week said, “You don’t have to excavate. You don’t have to dig up your past. You just have to honor that you feel the way you feel.”

I guess I’m honoring myself, by allowing myself to feel things that are uncomfortable right now, but are evasive in origin. I guess that I want to do this in private, until I don’t need to anymore. So, if my blogging is more sparse, that’s why. I’m not saying it will be, but it was yesterday. And then the things that came out were direct from my soul. Today, this comes from the same place. I am confused, but willing. Reticent, but full of words. I suppose at some point it will spill back out and the clouds will dissipate.

Love and light.

Foolishness

Posted on by learning to live like water

To love beyond reason
Is kind of foolish,
She thought.
Though she had loved him like that
Forever.

There was no gain
Ever, in loving him,
Except
The joy that comes from having
A heart that’s full.

There was some game
To be played
But she could never
Understand the rules.
She never played it right.

She wasn’t a player
She was a lover.
Waiting
For a sign
That the game had ended.

But he disappeared.
His disappearance filled the void
Where once he lay
Beside her.
Now she wondered if he was real.

Were they, he and she, real
In the time-outs between rounds,
When playing stopped momentarily?
What was there?
Nothing? Or something?

There were times she grew weary
Of the game.
Times she said,
Go. I can’t play this game
Anymore.

Her heart aches still.
She waits for answers
As yet unspoken.
So she moves on,
And tries to love again.

Reconnecting

Posted on by learning to live like water

I had a very hard time getting to sleep last night. I was up at midnight, writing. I have heard wakefulness is a curse of many writers. It seems to be mine lately, for sure. I wrote, some things that I won’t ever publish, just trying to express whatever it was that was stuck inside and trying to get out.  Leaning in, as Brene Brown advises, to the discomfort. Often that helps, just to write out whatever comes to mind, without a whole lot of worry about the mechanics. But still, as I sat on the couch, I was wide awake.

Saved on my computer is a short meditation, “The Great Bell Chant (The End to Suffering)”. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1ZwaEzMtJw ) . It has always given me some peace to watch this video, or simply to listen to it. I put it on, and after the first minute, closed my eyes. It isn’t too long, about 7 or 8 minutes. It is the first thing that helped me to begin to relax, and center myself.

When it ended I clicked on another suggestion on Youtube, for an Om Chant. It said it was 3 hours, but I thought, just let me listen for a few minutes, maybe it will clear my mind, remembering years ago a meditation group in which we listened to chanting for at least an hour, in the dark, and how I was always able to somehow shut down the monkey mind in my head. This video was simply a recording of Buddhist monks chanting OM, over and over again. Deep resonant voices. Listening to them, focusing in on them, my eyes finally began to close, and restfulness finally came to me. I found the same video on my phone, went to bed, and put it on. It was supposed to play for 3 hours. I don’t know if it did, lol, because finally I fell asleep, and slept until about 6:30. Only about 5 hours of sleep, but enough, especially for someone who’s retired, lol.

A few times in the last couple of days I’ve seen the term “metta” associated with Buddhism. Not because I was in particular reading or looking for information on Buddhism. The word just showed up, on FB, in my email newsletters. So this morning I googled it, and found a fascinating (to me) article on what it is, and how it’s practiced. ( http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/facets_of_metta.php ) It’s one of the 4 sublime states of Buddhism that leads to enlightenment. It kind of goes along with my post about unconditional love, but extends that love to oneself equally with extending it to others. You have to make yourself happy first, basically. And in serving others, you will find you make yourself happy. But, you can’t defer to others wishes if doing so makes you unhappy.

I slept well at my sisters, because I was helping her, and her friends, and it made me very happy to be there. I came home, to my little house that I love, but it was empty, devoid of that human connection, or so I thought. But connections remain, there is no space or time in regards to a connection. In focusing in on the OM meditation, I reconnected to myself, which reconnected me to all in a loving way. And I went to sleep.

And so the journey continues. Love and light.

Upside Down

Posted on by learning to live like water

hanging-upside-down

Sometimes it just sets in.
No reason, no rhyme.
Just sometimes.

The world turns upside down,
And hangs me from its teeth
And I can’t breathe.

Sometimes, the longing
For what was and what wasn’t
Takes over my entire being.
I try not to remember
So I remember more.
I try hard not to feel it,
So I feel it more.

No reason,
No comprehension
Of why this happens to me.
But it does.

Misty eyed,
I crawl into a corner,
and I let it bleed.
I lick my wounds,
I close my eyes
I dream a dream
That didn’t come true.
I try to find a new dream.
I don’t.

Waiting for it to leave
As it came.
Unannounced,
Unwelcome.
Without a goodbye
or a Fare Thee Well.
Just to stop.
Just, stop the pain.

Love always, all ways.
Never ending.
I remain.

By Deborah E. Dayen

Picture from Google Images

Gaining Perspective Through Transition

Posted on by learning to live like water

This feels so strange. Sitting in the house where my son will live, not with me. But it’s a nice house. It’s a nice room. It’s a neighborhood much like ours at home. The landlady is, like me, quite spiritual. Loves gemstones and rocks like me. Has a wealth of metaphysical books. She doesn’t seem invasive. I’m not leaving him in her care, of course. He’s 24. He doesn’t need a caregiver. But I do think it’s a good step-down from living with me. It’s only for 3 months, then he and his friends will get an apartment.

There are two parks a within a mile of his house.  Big parks with bike paths, and a lake.  Hiking trails all over.  He and his friends were making plans to go hiking this coming weekend.  There is so much to do here.  It’s seriously unbelievable.

It’s amazing how distance, physical distance, can give one perspective on things. I have been able to look at where my life has been for the last couple years objectively. I can see why I made the choices I did, and what I learned from them. It seems easier, when I’m not sitting in the scene of the crime, lol. There is no energy attachment here, to things. There is still to people, of course. Just, when I think about my relationship with Scott, I’m not sitting in the bedroom, family room, or deck where all the lies were perpetrated. It has helped me detach from him emotionally, completely. Spiritually, I think he and I will always have a connection, because I think we always have had one, and I’m sure we will meet again in another life. But that’s ok. It doesn’t make me long for him. I just have to acknowledge the connection that is obvious.

I am quite ready when I get back to move on with my life. To finish packing, to finish saying my goodbyes, to get the contents of my house on the moving van and drive away with my friend. I have been imagining what will happen there for so long, I know that it will manifest. I feel sure of it. Same way I knew that the perfect house would manifest when I bought the house I’ve just sold.

Son and I are going shopping today, for food, a clothes hamper, a few other things, to finish setting him up. I am kind of hoping we can go somewhere to watch the sunset before I leave. I met his friends yesterday, what a nice bunch of guys. They have all done what he has done, moved here from CT. They are really trying to make the transition easy for him. I know Thursday when he takes me to the airport will be difficult for both of us. But I know we both will be fine.

Transitions are hard, this will be one of my hardest ever. Maybe my hardest one ever. But I’ll get through it. I’m strong. I will break like a little girl, to use someone else’s words. But I put myself back together like a woman.

Love and light, all.

Dancing Through the Insanity

Posted on by learning to live like water

Rumi

I am starting to find out exactly what’s involved with putting a house on the market. It’s not like there’s a choice, if I want top dollar for the house I have to do it. Today I spent a little time getting stuff together for Easter…some of the traditional Polish treats. My son is half-Polish, his father was 3rd generation 100% Polish, so I like to keep up some of the holiday traditions for him.

Started clearing out the stuff that needs to be out of sight when the house goes on the market, especially for the pictures. Up and down the stairs. Biggest problem is all my jewelry making stuff. Trying to put it in some semblance of order, out of the way. It’s not a neat hobby, lol.

I sat down on the couch to rest around 2. I was so exhausted, and I slept a good 7 hours last night. Why so tired? It occurred to me as I sat, on the computer, with my music from my phone playing on the stereo, that I hadn’t eaten but a protein bar at 7 AM and some coffee. So I got a yogurt, and a tall glass of water, and ate it while I perused WP and FB. Felt much better after about 10 minutes, I think my sugar had crashed.

I decided to brave the basement storage area. It’s attached to my son’s space, and his mess is like water, seeking it’s own level, spreading across the floor. I worked down there for awhile, just cleaning up, straightening up, throwing stuff away, emptying junk out of cabinets…. Maybe a couple hours. Changed the furnace filter while I was at it.

About 4:30 or so I sat down again in the TV room on the couch, opened the computer and next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes and it was about an hour later. I had fallen so dead asleep, I was disoriented waking up. And I was hungry! I made a little dinner, and then got some estimates on moving stuff to Florida. That will require some thought. A mover would be nice, but would cost about $800 more than a POD. Which is expensive enough, but how to get the furniture from upstairs down into the POD? I have no idea….. My move into this house was about 2 miles, from a small condo, and cost me $300. Will have to work on that issue.

Tomorrow, no time to rest. I have to get to the grocery store, hopefully before the rest of the town. Make a carrot cake, traditional for Easter. Why? Idk…Bunnies like carrots? No idea, but it wouldn’t seem like Easter without it. I usually give most of it away, take it to work, whatever. Then start on the garage. I have a ton of stuff that needs to go to the dump, so I looked up how that works on line. I have to get a permit from the town for $10 and can only take stuff there on Saturday. It looks like at least 2 or 3 trips. UGH.

I talked to my BFF’s husband today, who is like a brother to me, and asked him if he would look at my fireplace and just tell me what I need to replace, because for the life of me I can’t figure it out. He said he’d come over this week sometime. He is truly one of the good guys.

If I weren’t moving to a house a mile from the beach, I’d say I was gonna need a vacation when this is all done. But I will be on a permanent one, lol. I guess it’s just getting the house ready now that seems the big job. Once it’s done and on the market, I only need to keep it that way, not get it that way.

This must be the most boring blog ever, but I’m trying to document what has been done, what has to be done, and this helps me to organize my thoughts. I think I’m going to need at least 2 more weekends before pictures, but no longer. I need the house on the market by the middle of April.

The realtor texted me today that the seller has decided to get the gas hooked up in her name, so we can test the stove (and I’m so excited to have a gas stove, I’ve always had electric) and hot water heater. It was really a small thing, but I’m glad about that. The stove is brand new but not the hot water heater, so will be glad to have it checked out. We had the mold test done today, will get the results back Tuesday or Wednesday and then go in for the final negotiating. So, I have from now til then to kind of relax and let it be.

Tonight, all the emotional kind of angst I’ve had for days seems to have subsided, really disappeared for the time being. I know it’s a huge part of why I’m so tired. When the medium told me I needed to nurture myself, she said, that’s why you’re so tired all the time. I didn’t think I was tired all the time then, but it was like a prophesy! Because man, am I tired now that I’ve let it go. It’s not completely gone I’m sure, but I’m in a way better place. Probably because I wrote so much about it, and then because I spent the day working toward my new dream.

It’s quite a journey, from unconditional love and forgiveness, to betrayal yet again, to understanding, to anger over people trying to involve themselves in something that was none of their business, and then trying to let it all go again. Egos are so destructive. I think I’m pretty much back to the place of unconditional love from an unattached place. Back to the knowing I will always love the man, and also that I can never let him into my life again. I would say, we could be friends only, but really, even that….would be hard. We’ve never been in the same place and been able to keep our hands off one another. So how could we be friends only? Just let it go. I’ll soon be 1500 miles away, and creating a new life. He’ll have his old life, maybe. IDK. Maybe not, maybe she will realize she can never trust him, even if she loves him. Same as I did. It doesn’t matter to me any more. Moving forward. Rising strong.

Going to bed, lol. Love and light.

Don’t Look Back

Posted on by learning to live like water

don't look back

Maybe I tried too hard to dig down and let stuff go last night, because he’s been in my head all day. Not all good, not all bad, just is there. It could be just those bottom layers, coming up, needing to be sat with before they will depart for good. IDK. You’d think with all the work, and cord cutting he’d be gone from me. It scares me to think I may never be rid of this connection with him.

I’m cleaning the house, and once again, ridding it of things that remind me of him. I need to put away the prism light he gave me, taken out when he came to see the day after my mother died. I was so bereft, and he offered, and I was so glad to see him, and have him here. His presence was comforting, and sweet, and caring. We didn’t intend to do what we did, but I guess it’s’ just how we are. I remember putting my hands over my face, wondering what I was doing, but not stopping. It felt like I was undoing some of the torture from the way we ended last October. I remember not wanting him to leave.

I have to put away the coaster I put back on his side of my bed, taken out when he spent the night here a few days later. And used again, a few days after that.

Small things…..that’s all I have are small things. Except memories. None of them are small enough.

I wasn’t looking for a commitment. I knew he was confused, hell, I was SO confused, and he professed to love her but be mad at her for “running”, after telling him she could deal with whatever was in my blogs. She couldn’t, not many women could. I told him that. I was just happy to be with him. We felt close, he confided so much in me, I talked him down, I made him see that all might not be lost. I probably also thought, how much could he love her, if he’s in my bed a week after she leaves him? But never said so, I didn’t want to know the answer. I was in the moment, I loved him, I wanted nothing but his happiness, and to be with him. I saw him in pain over her, and tried to help. It wasn’t even hard to do. We pledged our close friendship always.

And then he turned on me, when she found out that the following weekend I’d spent it at his house with him. He’d already said he wanted to cool it between us, he needed time to think. I was ok with that. But I wasn’t ok when he found out she was hurt by it, and said he hadn’t wanted me there. That I was pushing. That was so untrue, that was such an attempt to rewrite history. He wanted me there, just like he wanted to come up here the week before. 3 times in a week. Even that day, that he found out that she knew. Hours before that he’d asked me to call him and wake him from a nap. So, I did, and he kept saying how he wished I was there. To negate that there was something between us, because she was hurt, was so disingenuous, so hurtful, such a betrayal, again. It wasn’t all lust. We spent hours talking, literally hours. More than ever before. Every night, texting in the day, and suddenly he’s telling me I was pushing and he didn’t want me there. It angered me more than hurt me, because I had no expectations of a future with him. I’m moving, he’s a mess….I just didn’t expect him to disown whatever it was that we had. It wasn’t what he had with her, but it was something. It meant something to both of us.

So, today, I will put these things away. I’ll get out my sage smudge sticks and cleanse the energy in the house, and also around me. Someone told me to ask for my aura to be protected from his energy, so I’ll do that too.

I’m going out with a friend tonight. Food, drinks, a band. It will be good to be around people, it will bring me back to this moment, the present moment. To the good life that I have. I’ll remember how little joy there is with him, in the long run, it always ends up being painful, I always end up hurt. I will walk, not run, away. Just walk at my own pace, there’s nothing chasing me, even though I’ve been looking over my shoulder, wondering. I need to remember there’s no joy in the place I’m walking away from. So stop looking back.

15 Minutes

Posted on by learning to live like water

alone

I don’t drink much.  If I do, it’s usually wine, and I vacillate between white and red, and usually a glass is plenty.  Sometimes a 2nd one, but more often than not, I can’t finish a 2nd glass.  But tonight….I wanted something to take the edge of my nerves, which are frayed to a fine, gossamer filament which could break any moment.  But not wine.  Wine would sour my stomach tonight.

I’m picky tonight. Holding on…..just holding on.  As someone said to me once, just for the next 15 minutes.  I need some help.  I would like to be numbed, just a little.  Enough to round the sharp corners in my psyche, in my heart.  Not enough to open the floodgates.

It’s a fine line.  I have to be vigilant.

My liquor cabinet (which is a box on the floor of my pantry) has in it a half bottle, half a 5th, (what’s that?  A 10th?) of Gosling’s Dark Rum, and a bottle of Amaretto, which I buy every year to make a raspberry Amaretto sauce for my Christmas cake, and maybe a shot or two of Vodka, which I keep here for my BFF.

Not a lot of choices.

So….I took a small glass, like a juice glass, and put what looked like maybe a shot of amaretto in it, and a shot of rum.  Of course, I could be totally off, I don’t have a shot glass.  I had one.  Just one.  And my son somehow managed to get it into the garbage disposal and I didn’t know it, and turned the disposal on.

He’s lucky my friend’s son knew how to take the disposal apart.  I paid him $50.

So, I guess now, if I need to measure.  Not that it mattered, I was only serving myself, a made up drink.  Because rum is not that easy to drink by itself, even on ice, and even rich dark rum from the royal Navy, and Amaretto is too sweet by itself.  Combined, it’s not really too bad.  And I couldn’t do Vodka straight no matter how much I needed a drink.

I think it will do what I need it to.

And first I took two ibuprofen for the massive headache I have.  I’m not sure that two was enough.  I’m thinking another one might be in order.

It will be a ride, this one.  Hope it doesn’t last too long.

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.

 

 

 

Disconnection

Posted on by learning to live like water

I saw S last night.  It was a kind of swan song, I guess, though not so graceful as a swan.  We got a take out pizza and took it up to a park and ate it outside, it was nice out, about 70.  He had been asking me to talk to me, so I finally relented, having things of my own to ask, and to say.

I wrote a blog last night, and then took it down.  I wrote another shorter one, and put it up, but it’s not here this morning, so I don’t know what happened to that one.  No big deal. I had just begun to process what happened anyway, and I felt confused, disjointed.  I still do, I will for some time.

He says he is not “with” her.  That he still does not want some intense loving relationship with anyone.  Ok, I can buy that.  But he’s spent part of the last two weekends with her, so he obviously would rather be with her than me.  I suppose, because I do feel intensely about him.  There is nothing about me that is not passionate.  The way I loved him, the way I love the ocean, the way I write, the way I feel about anything.  She and he don’t talk all week, they never did, he told me that when I met him. He likes that.  They would get together on the weekend, for some of the time.  I can’t even fathom, a 12 year relationship in which i didn’t communicate with my significant other all week, but got together on the weekend for some semblance of intimacy.  I could not even consider it a relationship, to bed someone that I was not involved with 5 days a week, and then suddenly saw on the weekend.  It would be like being with a stranger.

He always complained I talked too much.  I think he and she occupy the same space at times, but don’t have much to say. He buries his feelings, they are not up for discussion.  My feelings…well, my heart is on my sleeve.  No one ever has to wonder how i feel.  It’s the only way to be connected to the rest of the human race.  I know it is the only way to allow love into my life, and creativity, and joy, and trust.  I know now that not everyone deserves to hear my story, to have my trust.  But still, I will only temper the ease with which I lean into vulnerability, I won’t change it.  I think all humans crave connection, I agree with Brene Brown that it is basic to the human psyche.

To fall in love with a man who wished no real connection….well, it was not something I ever considered, that there are people who freely admit they don’t want that deep, rich, full connection with others. In this way, I understand that part of why he is “with” her, or not “with” her, as he says.  She wants no connection, nor does he.  They are acquaintances, who share some physical intimacy at times, but not really connection, because then they go their separate ways and have no interest in maintaining the tie for the next week.  No deepening of it, no reveling in it.  Just do it, enjoy it, and go home.  It’s a lifestyle I can’t fathom, and can walk away from, and leave it to them.

Personally I think she wanted more, which is why she cheated on him and left him.  Perhaps, in practicing disconnect all those year, she was unable to put herself out for someone else, and after the infatuation wore off, she couldn’t connect with her new husband.  She also went back to what she was comfortable with.  I would expect that she is a lot like S, with walls up to keep people out, and herself walled in.  The fact that she could leave him when he was dying, and take all she could from him, is another thing altogether.

I still don’t understand, why he would invite back into his life, someone who did what she did to him.  He said he wipes the slate clean, he doesn’t hold a grudge.  I said, I don’t hold one with my ex either, I have forgiven him for what he did to me.  But would I welcome him, and that, back into my life?  No, never.  I know what chaos he can cause…I know he hasn’t changed.  I know what he would bring.  It’s one thing to forgive, it’s quite another to ask to be taken down again by inviting it back in.  But it’s not my cross to bear, and I won’t be there to pick up the pieces for him when she does it again.

In the meantime, he has the relationship with which he is comfortable.  Physical need fulfilled when he needs it, and not to have to give anything up.

The whole thing makes it much easier to let go.  I can love the man, I will always love the time we spent together on my deck, in my bed, driving around on excursions, our funny flirty texts. But knowing that what drives him is an intense desire to be alone, even when he is with someone, just allows me to let go.  It is the opposite of what drives me.

I love connection. I love intimacy, emotional, spiritual and physical intimacy.  I know there are men out there who love it too.  I now look forward to finding one, and putting S into the “someone that I once loved” category.  It’s where he wants to be.

He said, “Can we still know each other, can’t I still call you and see how you’re doing in Florida?”  I suppose, maybe someday, his voice won’t hurt me, it won’t remind me how I loved a man who wanted no part of it.  Maybe someday we can be “friends”. The trouble is I will never be that disconnected.  The love I feel for him will always be there between us, even when it’s buried, and I have let a new love into my heart, and built a relationship with someone who wants to reciprocate, I’m not sure I can ever talk to him without remembering.

Right now, I am looking forward to moving on, but I’m not moved on yet.  I still feel wrecked, broken, confused, rejected.  I had hoped for some tenderness from him last night, I guess that’s why I went, hoping he’d at least own the fact that his actions devastated me.  But there was none.  There was more him telling me it was my own fault, that he was honest with me.  He was….but he knew how I felt, and did nothing to mitigate the pain that what he was doing caused me.  I can own the fact that I loved him without limit, knowing he didn’t want to, and didn’t feel the same. But so what, he knew.  He spent time with me knowing how I felt.  He pulled me back to him in every time I tried to leave. Why he did that I don’t know.  It was dishonest. There is something abusive about that, being pulled in, just to fulfill his ego, with no intention.  “I don’t want you to dump me” he said to me back then.  So, he wanted my adoration, he wanted what I did for him. And he used me, and threw me out.

Last night I realized that I am left by myself to find my way back.   He says he has feelings too.  And he’s all about what he’s feeling, making sure I understand what they are, but he’s not able to feel empathy for me.  Disconnect.  Walling oneself in, so no one can get in, and you can’t get out, and the only thing that matters is what you feel.  As I can’t comprehend the disconnect he has, he cannot fathom the love I felt.

He watched me cry and shake.  He made no move to comfort me.  He had no remorse, no empathy. Cold.

It was a little hard to take.

But he is who he is.  Like I said, I can much more easily let go.  I knew when I met with him, that if nothing else, I would get clarity.  And really, that’s all I got.  But it’s something. It is positive motion.  Pretty soon, I’ll stop writing about him.  This blog will anger him I’m sure, but that seems to be all he can feel with me anyway.  Anger because I wanted to be with him, anger that I loved him and wanted him to love me back.  Anger that I wasn’t satisfied with the non-loving relationship he’s been trying to push on me for 6 months now. Anger that I can write so openly about him and I.  Don’t worry S, no one will ever know who you are.  She walked back into his life, and he could suddenly have that disconnected, shallow relationship that he wants, where he doesn’t have to give anything of himself.  Oh, maybe money, maybe things, but not anything of himself.

It was me who finally said, “We really don’t have anything to talk about” and got up to walk to the car.  There was no hug and kiss goodbye, there was nothing said.  I gave him the pizza I’d bought, that i didn’t eat one piece of. We just each got in our car, and drove home, knowing that there really was no way back.

Disconnected. Over. Done.

Onward, as Liz Gilbert says.  Onward.

Add-on:  I just remembered, when I talked to him on that fateful Saturday, when he told me he was going to be with her, I asked  him if she knew that he texted me at 4 am, that he asked for pictures of me the night before.  He said, no.  I said “well tell her, she deserves to know the truth. ” When he objected, I said, you tell her, or I will do everything in my power to tell her myself.”  At that, he got furious, and threatened me, enough so that I screen-shot the text, for my own protection.  So, that he’s not “with” her seems to be her doing, not his.  He clearly thought he was “with” her when he spoke to me that morning, and didn’t want any interference of the truth to change it.  And now he rewrites history.