Category Archives: personal musings

Lucky 7’S

Posted on by learning to live like water

S and I are over, as best I can tell, as I talked about in the last blog, The End of the Line.  But something is kind of bothering me, and that is this.  Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows why it ended.  I made it very clear how different we are, in relationship expectations, life style, etc.

I don’t think I ever explained, at least not well enough, why I loved, still love, this man so much. In all fairness to him, he deserves some good press.  He’s not a monster, he’s a very cool guy but what he wants is just way different from what I want. So here goes a list of why S is lovable.  At least, that’s my perception, even though he keeps telling me I shouldn’t assume I know what he wants.

1.  He made me laugh. All the time when we were together.  His sense of humor is quirky, off beat, and spontaneous.  For example, we were out for breakfast one morning.  He noticed the woman in the booth in front of us had her ear peeled  to every word we said, and kind of seemed like she was trying to figure out our relationship. One of the waitresses said something to me about my husband. He said immediately, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I’m not her husband!!  I’m just her lover!!!  Her husband is at home asleep!!”  The woman in front of us must have spit her coffee across the table she laughed so hard. As did I…

One morning he woke me up blasting the Black Eyed Peas, playing air guitar and dancing in his birthday suit.

Most of his humor is just running commentary which comes from his unique and unusual way of looking at the world. It’s never mean. Sometimes it takes me a minute, so it also makes me think. Which is good (or dangerous, according to S.)

2.  He is a wonderful story teller. This is something I really love, and cannot do, unless writing it. And  my God, does he have the stories. I have never known anyone who has lived in so many diverse places, and communities, nor had so many varied, unusual, amazing and often funny experiences. I loved to sit on my deck or in his recliner and listen to his stories. Yet, he is one of the most low-keyed quiet men I’ve ever known.

3. He’s smart. Really smart. He takes his time figuring out how to solve a problem. Pragmatic. Doesn’t get all aggravated (at least not for awhile, lol). He uses his intuition a lot in problem solving. It’s a wonderful thing to see.  He’s very creative. My experience with other men and problems they had to solve was, I’ll just say, different.

4. He reads, a lot. He loaned me a book which I absolutely love. My ex did not read. It was wonderful to be able to discuss books with a man.

5. He took me on the best day trips. He understood my love of the ocean and anything water (and shared it) and took me to some really beautiful hidden away places. And others not so hidden away where he had stories to tell.

6. I love his blue eyes (as anyone who reads my blog knows) and his thick curly salt and pepper hair.

7.  I loved making love to him. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Lucky 7.  Makes me wish things had turned out different. But it wasn’t meant to be. I have some great memories, I hope he feels the same.

And no, I will not give anyone his phone number….

Beach Day

Posted on by learning to live like water

Rocky Neck Beach, Niantic CT

The day was hot, my car said 87.  We got to the beach about 10:30.  There was a light breeze off the water, and it was slightly humid and hazy.  We could make out Plum Island in the haze.  (If you ever saw “Silence of the Lambs”, at the end they made an offer to Hannibal the Cannibal to live out his life on Plum Island.  They used to do testing on very very dangerous animal diseases, like Anthrax, etc. there, but I believe it’s closed.  They still don’t allow anyone on the island.  It’s widely believed that’s where Lyme Disease came from.  It is directly across Long Island Sound from Old Lyme, CT, where the disease in humans was first diagnosed.  Just a bit of local information.)

I watched the boats plying the water and wistfully remembered my old life, all the years I was out there on a day like this. But the next best thing is to be sitting on the beach, smelling the salt air, letting the negative ions do their thing.  We talked, ate, walked, rested, read.  It was just a lovely relaxing day.

I had a short texting conversation with A before I went to the beach.  I wanted to make sure we were on the same page and he understood that there were 1000’s of miles between us, which would always remain. So we were good friends, close friends, but that chances are we would both meet someone else. He agreed completely and said he hoped I would find someone who would “adore me”.  Sweet man.

I didn’t hear from S today at all, but did hear from him Friday night.  We first texted, then we talked on the phone.  It was a nice conversation.  He updated me on his health. He made me laugh, I will always appreciate that about him.  He has an offbeat sense of humor that just tickles my funnybone.  We texted a little yesterday before I went on the boat.  I didn’t get in touch with him when I came home last night.  I was just tired from the day, being on the water always makes me sleepy.  He texted me at about 11, wondering if I was angry.  Which made no sense to me, but no, I said, I wasn’t angry, I was just sleeping.  That conversation ended rather badly, because I brought up the 4 day silence I got last week.  I have not heard from him since, even though I apologized this morning for being bitchy, but saying I was also still working through that anger. I think it’s understandable.  Maybe he’s just giving me space to work it out, I don’t know.  Maybe he’s angry.  Whatever it is, I am not worrying about it.

There are many things about him I love (like the way he makes me laugh) but I have no interest in continuing our relationship as it was.  So it’s all good.

It has been a lovely weekend, by the water, all weekend. The thought runs through my mind occasionally that I so hoped I’d be doing these things with S, but I’m doing them, and that’s a good thing. There are no expectations now, no hopes, no dreams, only the present moment, and I am good with it, as it is, whatever it is.  There’s no pain that way either.

Friendship

Posted on by learning to live like water

Friends are flowers in the garden of life.

Thank God for good friends. It is such a joy and relief to be with people, male or female, whose company is just pleasant.  Laughing, talking, planning, discussing.  No games, no pushing, no pulling.  I am so blessed to have lived in this small town all my adult life, and have friends who have been friends for decades.  We know each other’s stories.  We share our histories.  It’s a blessing that I will miss when I move to Florida. But I know they will visit me often in the winter.  And I will visit them in the summer.  We will never lose each other.

I’m going to the beach today with the friend who took me to her boat yesterday, and 2 more.  I should be cleaning my house, LOL.  But I feel like I deserve to spend this beautiful day at the beach with my friends.  We’ll talk, go in the water, get a tan, read our books, eat our snacks….and make another memory together.

I love men, but I couldn’t live without my girlfriends companionship.  Blessed, just blessed.

Gifts

Posted on by learning to live like water

This was inspired by Megan’s Post “keychains” on her “love will lead you home” blog.  https://lovewillleadyouhome.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/keychains/

Gifts….I have two gifts from S.  He bought a few others, and I threw them away when he did the prison whore.  Just didn’t want any reminders of him around then.  But the two I kept were a book, on wire-wrapping sea glass. And a deck prism light, just like the one in the picture.

The book he gave me for no reason except that he saw it and knew I enjoy wire wrapping, and love sea glass.  I have a few pieces I’ve done.  One or two might be on my website, http://www.sundogsdesigns.etsy.com, but most of them I can’t seem to part with, lol.  The book was a genuinely thoughtful gift, and I’ll always think of it with some affection.

The deck prism is one of my favorite things.  When he did the prison whore I hid it away for a couple of months, I couldn’t stand the reminder of him. But I love it, it’s a solid glass prism, a replica of the kind used in old sailing ships to bring light into the lower decks.  It sits in a fitted lighted tray.  It’s next to my bed, and when I turn it on in the night, it doesn’t hurt my eyes, it just casts a soft warm glow in the room.  It’s been there long enough now, that it’s just mine, it does not pull at my heartstrings to light it, or look at it.

Reading Megan’s blog, though, I remembered how thrilled I was to get anything from him, any sign that he cared even a little bit for me as much as I did for him.  Maybe he did for awhile.  In his own way.  He just couldn’t stay with it maybe.  I don’t know.

I gave him some things too…a lot more things because I always brought him something when I went to Florida.  Two sailboat sculptures, because he loved wooden sailboats, one for his birthday, one for Christmas.  A couple of hats, a mermaid mobile.  And a handpainted small curio box, nautical motif, decorated with shells and a sharks tooth (because he was a fisherman once). An inner child crystal.  A small compass that hung on a chain and really worked, and a pendant on a chain with his astrological sign on it. One of the myriad times we broke up he took them all and put them in a box.  Where they remained, the last time I was at his house. The crystal he threw into a river near his home.

It made me kind of sad, that he took the things down.  The two sailboat sculptures were really pretty.  I am half expecting him to send them back to me.  I hope he doesn’t, I don’t know what I’d do with any of it.  It was all for him.  The things I threw away were lingerie, a candle ( I didn’t really like the scent).  They were all too personal and to intimate to keep around when he wasn’t.  If I had them now, I’d probably throw them out.

Remnants of a bad relationship.  But on their own, they stand alone, all of them.  They were lovely and given with real true affection.  Too bad it couldn’t last, but it’s reality, it couldn’t.  I kind of wonder, if he keeps them in the box, hidden away, and years from now opens the box and finds them, will he remember me with a smile, with anger?  Will he look at it as a treasure chest of things he’d forgotten, or will he throw them out as a bad memory?  I guess I’ll never know.  Just idle thoughts on the warm night of the 2nd day.

Contentment

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m working on contentment.  I would like to be content with things as they are, not wishing they were different.  Today, after the chaotic week I had, I actually feel it’s possible.

There’s a cleansing rain falling, been falling since yesterday afternoon.  It’s actually a winter type Nor’easter, having rained about an inch or so in that time.  If it was winter, it would have been a foot of snow.  One of the reasons I want to move to where winter isn’t.  Or at least doesn’t include storms with snow measured in feet.

Content.  Actually, I am feeling pretty content today.  I have started the work on my house to get it ready to sell.  I lost two more pounds this week, which brings me to about 10 lbs since winter, a really good thing.  If I could lose 20 more, I’d be really content!  But two pounds in a week is good, enough to content me.

I am content to know that S is not in imminent danger with his health, and content that he has not communicated with me.  It’s kind of freeing, to get away from the chaotic emotion which has defined our relationship.

I had two 2 hour phone conversations with friends yesterday, close close friends.  It’s unusual for me, to spend that much time on the  phone, but it was what I needed, to feel that close connection with people I love and have known for many years.

I’m going down to the shore today to collect the money from the guy who is renting my boat slip for the season.  That will be nice.  The rain should be over by about noon, I’m going later.  It always does me good to be where I can smell the salt air.  Growing up in the middle of this country, I never dreamed that one day my life would involve being out on the ocean every weekend and vacation of the summer. God, how I loved it.  For the 30 years I was married, summer was about being on the ocean.  Going to sleep to the lapping of the water on the sides of the boat, waking up to gentle rocking, having coffee in the cockpit, listening to the gulls, watching the fishing boats ply the waters.  I miss it…but who knows, maybe it will someday be part of my life again.  We owned our slip at a dockominium complex, and in the divorce, my ex got the boat, and I got the slip.  He has since sold the boat, which made me sad.  It was a lovely boat, I picked it out. But it is what it is. When a marriage goes bad, there’s no where to get away on a boat, and I had to give it up too.

So, contentment, is where I am today.  Accepting what is, happily.  Hopefully with grace.  I would have to say that grace led me to this content place, and I am blessed.

Peace, Out

Posted on by learning to live like water

My heart feels a little heavy this morning.  Maybe too much red wine last night.  Maybe not.  I feel guilty that my friend is going through this health issue alone.   That I am not with him.  But then again, he’s made it clear that that’s how he wants it, and I need to quit projecting onto him how I would feel about it.  I think he knows, or should know, anyway, that energetically I am there.

And then again….while I am with him energetically, the actual not being there, physically, emotionally….I don’t feel bad about.  Because I was broken, once more, and the pieces are not put back together.  I don’t know if they can be.  I think too many times I’ve been broken.  Broken when he fucked the prison whore, broken when he would come have sex and leave, or tell me after that we needed not to see each other so much. Broken when he would ignore my needs.  And broken, now, by a week of not knowing what was wrong wit him, meanwhile trying to do as he asked while I waited until he could or would tell me, broken by him not showing up and not even telling me he wasn’t coming.  He was capable.  He has been going to work, if he can work, he is certainly capable of realizing he should have let me know, and at least, the very least, texting me to say he wasn’t coming.  The blatant disregard was just more than I could deal with on top of his refusal to tell me what is wrong with his health.  I was teetering on the edge of the abyss, that was all that I needed to push me in.

It just occurred to me, he thinks that it was about my temper, about me being angry. He doesn’t understand the concept of hurt, I guess.  It was pain, on my part. Not anger. It was me crying out in pain. It was a broken, yet again, heart. 

I guess he can’t imagine the depth of the feeling I had, and have for him.  I need to let it go.

But now I have no idea how he is.  Is he in the hospital?  Is he still in pain? Is he having surgery? Is he scared? Does he want me there now?  Now, that he’s pushed me away?  I can’t ask, I can’t know.  I need to move on.

It was never mine to deal with, I was never included, I was never in the loop.  He always preferred to be alone.  I need to move on.

I’ll continue to ask the universe to take care of him. I’ll continue to send him love and light and healing energy.  My soul and his, I know are connected in ways I can’t explain and sometimes wish weren’t, because it makes the letting go so hard, when I know the cord which connects us in that way is strong.

But I need to let go and move on, and not change who he is by asking to be brought into his life.

Peace, out.

Stuff on My Mind

Posted on by learning to live like water

Stuff on my mind lately. Important stuff, to me.  Don’t really know what to do about it.  Don’t really feel like writing about it.  I think it’s best just to sit with it.  I don’t feel pressed to make any kind of decision about it.  I need  a little distance from the “event” that pulled it all to the top.

While I would always describe myself as a  happy person, there is an aspect of my life that seems to be deliriously happy or very unhappy.  Lately more unhappy than happy, even though the happy moments have been grandiose.

Feeling like I wish I could just retire, sell my house and move to Florida, buy myself a cute little house and disappear into the landscape.  In the next 5 days.  Nothing like a dream…

Sometimes it might be way easier not to know what I want.  But all that time I spent figuring out who I was when I left my marriage enabled me to create a vision.  And generally, everything is coming into focus with what envisioned.  Except this one thing…..

Sigh.  Gonna go to bed, sleep on it.  Maybe do a little bit of Byron Katie’s inquiry on it.  It would help to just accept reality I think.  As long as I was sure I knew what that was.

Inaction is Also an Action

Posted on by learning to live like water

Its raining this morning which suits my mood.

I haven’t heard from S for a long while, not since he wanted me to talk to him about why I was upset as I tried to go to bed Thursday night, and I said I didn’t want to talk about it now, that I wanted to go to sleep (because I haven’t felt well, and haven’t been sleeping all that well, and am trying to beat the bug I have, if that’s what it is.) I knew talking about it would upset me, I could already feel the stirring in my solar plexus. I needed to hang up before it was tumbling and turning and keeping me up all night, yet again.

My few texts yesterday were met with silence, except one I sent to him in error, to answer a friend’s text. I don’t know what it means. Usually he comes back with “if you don’t hear from me for a day it doesn’t mean anything except you didn’t hear from me for a day.”

I find that unacceptable, it discounts my feelings. It feels like the silent treatment abusers use (my ex husband comes to mind) to let you know they are displeased. With my ex-h, I got to the point I was glad for it, because it meant I didn’t have to listen to him pontificate on what horrendous and unforgivable things I had done. With S…it is not so intent, I think it means he just doesn’t want to talk to me.

Well, that says something doesn’t it? I mean, no action is neutral, really. Not doing something is also an action. Right now, I am meeting inaction with inaction. It seems easier, at the moment, than hearing his voice with it’s lack of interest. The result will be separation, if it continues, what else can result?

I still trust the universe to work it all out for our higher good. I’m adjusting. I have a pretty busy weekend coming up. Even if not…I won’t have to question my sanity. It’s not what I wanted, but its what I’m given to deal with. I’m good at that, dealing with what is, I think. Or, getting better anyway. I’m getting a lot of practice.