Category Archives: Relattionships

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.

Just Some Memories

Posted on by learning to live like water

107

The post below is not what this weekend is about memorializing, so first things first. My father was a Lt. Col in the air force reserves.  He was active during WWII. This weekend is about remembering those who sacrificed their lives so that we could all continue to enjoy the freedom we are so blessed to have. I know this, and don’t in any way mean to ignore them. Laurel’s post “Tony” (https://myjourneyintodarkness.wordpress.com/) reminded me what it’s about. In fact, she reminded me that I had a long ago friend whose name is engraved on the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington DC. I once found his name there. I didn’t etch it. It was hard enough just to see it. His name was Tony too.

I need readers to know that first, I remember all the fallen heroes. Always.

Memorial Day weekend, though, kind of a bracket for me. It’s when I first understood that my relationship with S had changed, though I didn’t understand why. A 3-day weekend, of which he offered me a “nice afternoon.” And I said, no. I wanted a nice weekend, not an afternoon. He was beginning the process of ripping my heart out and cutting it into pieces. Hard to believe how much I loved him. And how callous and uncaring he was of that gift. It’s been a year of pain, and heartache, and growth.

I also said goodbye to Addie the same weekend. He left on his great adventure with his son, traveling all the way to the other coast, through the northern states, up into Canada, and finally settling in New Mexico. I went to see him before he left, I saw him actually a few times. S had no interest in me then, he was busy with B, though I didn’t know it. Oh S was stringing me along, texting me, talking to me. I was, after all, a good source of supply since I loved him so much.  But his interest was focused elsewhere.

Addie was tender and loving and sweet. I wished so much that I could love him. But I can’t do what S did. I’m a one-man woman. Always have been, always will be. And back then….S was the one I loved. We were sitting on Addie’s deck, he turned me to look at him. He said, “I have to tell you this now, because I won’t have another chance. I love you SO much. You have changed my life forever.”

I heard the words from Addie that I wanted to hear from S. Addie asked if we could just lie down together. He just wanted to hold me, once more, he said. I said yes. I needed that closeness. That safety of lying in someone’s arms that wouldn’t hurt me. I was wounded, Addie was a soothing salve on that wound. He reminded me that I had value, that I was lovable, when I most needed to hear it. I let him love me, and I reciprocated as best I could, and be true to myself.

He was there for me every dark day after too. When I finally found out about Betty, Addie spent the day on the phone with me, talking me down. Actually he did this more than once, because the full story of what S had done came to me in pieces. He was my rock. The rock S could never be for anyone, because he’s incapable of loving anyone. Not me, not Betty. Mostly, not himself.

I have not talked to Addie for a long while. He has moved on, found a new love. But last time I talked to him, a couple months ago, he told me he still loves me, will always love me. It’s not in the same way he loves his new woman, but he loves me. I know if I needed to lean on him, I could. But I won’t impose…I have broken his heart enough over S. I will just love Addie.

It made me laugh after, that S complained that I had been cuddling with Addie. While he was bedding down Betty, unknown to me. Seeing her, and lying to me about why he wouldn’t spend the weekend with me. God, he was such a convincing liar.

Yet, still at times, I miss that mischievous grin, and his tall tales, the way he could make me laugh. I just know the price for these things is too high, that it requires a piece of my soul. There is nothing lasting about what comes from him. So…I just learn how to turn it off. To walk away from it.  Even though I am much better at it than I used to be, it’s still a work in progress.

Moving to Florida, which has been my plan since before I met him, has turned out to be exactly what I need to do. To get far far away from the memories, the proximity. I know that some of it will remain, but it will be easier to heal from when I have focus of a new life. I’m so grateful that the Universe put this plan in my head and has moved me along with it. I’m so glad that S was unable to change it. Not that he tried. Fact is, he always knew it was my plan. He always knew that I was independent, and relied on myself. There was nothing extraneous in how I loved him. I just loved him. I didn’t need him to live my life, I just wanted him in it. I think a lot of the problem was that he couldn’t believe that, or accept it. That someone could just purely love him with no other need or intent.

I don’t know if he’ll ever understand that. Which is sad.

I guess this is why I wrote the “Benediction for S”. It’s a year later. I’ve grown, I’ve moved along the path I intended. My life is falling into place. I still “know” that in Florida there will be someone for me, who can believe and accept and want….a woman like me, who is capable of loving fully, who is genuinely happy, who wants only the pure, raw, emotion of love.

Someone who will make me forget about loving him, completely.

Today, I’ll move along a little farther on that path. I have to get more paint for my deck. Not a lot. Maybe a quart or two. The deck will be finished today if it stops raining. I’m hopeful that a painted deck will help get an offer on the house.

I’m going to Virginia next weekend, for 5 days. The whole family will be there, both sisters and their families. We’re going to bury my mother’s remains with my father. We will put a little of her ashes in the lake my niece and sis have homes on, because Mom loved it there so much. We will memorialize her, and we will mostly take the love she lavished on all of us, and lavish it on each other.

Feeling blessed this Memorial Day weekend. Blessed by the sacrifices people have made so that I can live a safe, secure life. Blessed that there is love in my life….which never leaves me. It wraps around me like a blanket on a cold winter’s night. I know there are people who have never known that.

Love and light, all….

Note:  Picture above is one I took.  I think it’s Barn Island, somewhere S took me. Memories…..

Closure is Vastly Overrated

Posted on by learning to live like water

No closure

I’ve been doing the Deepak Chopra / Oprah 21 day meditation on losing the weight.  I’d like to lose another 10 or 15 lbs before I move. Just to be a new me, really the old me, long ago, when I was young..  I’ve lost a couple lbs (first I had to lose the 4 lbs I gained on vacation, lol.)

As it turns out though, being overweight has so much to do with our emotional state, at least I know that’s true for me.  Being hungry for lots of things, often manifests in food. For the longest time, I’ve wanted real closure with S.  All the endings, lol, and there have been many, have always been ugly, have always left me confused, and in pain, or angry. This morning during the mediation I realized that what has happened is my head gets stuck on replaying over and over the words, the scenarios, looking for hints, looking for something to hold onto.  It’s a loop, that I get stuck on, and I’d say many of us do.

Today I woke with no angst, or desire for that old life.  Then listening to Deepak’s quiet voice, I realized that I have to question that loop I get stuck in occasionally.  Is it real?  Is it true?  (And I say that in my best Byron Katie voice.) And, does it matter?  Does it have anything to do with what goes on now?

No, is the answer to all of it.  It has always been chaotic with him, it has always been extreme, it never made any sense and never will.  I have to stop the loop in my head that wants it that way. Just shut it down, and realize that my life and his no longer intersect because they are not supposed to.  The love and the passion that we shared is really the only thing that I choose to remember. Whether or not he perceives it, or chooses to remember it that way, I have to let go of.  And just move on.

There is no closure.  There wasn’t with my ex either.  My ex, is a mess…..I love him, I don’t want him in my life in any way.  There is only chaos, and still…he seeks power and control by trying to make me feel bad that I left, that he’s broke, that I salvaged what I could.  S…I love him too, but also can’t have him in my life.  Again, there is only chaos, of a different kind, but chaos nonetheless.  I saw, in January, how he was quite willing to bounce back and forth between me and B, when it suited him.  I hope he finds happiness, but I don’t expect he will.  There is no closure with people who live in their ego.

So…we have to break the loop that keeps asking for it.  The one that keeps asking “But why?” to all the myriad questions.  Suffice to say it’s over, there are better things ahead, and just move on.  Trust in the universe to right the wrongs, to bring your dreams to you.

In the meditation….he talks about breaking the loop that always brings us to eat as the answer.  That identifies all hunger as actual need for food.  I think those of us who have loved narcissists, or abusers stuck on power and control, just have to give ourselves closure, by breaking that endless loop that races through our minds.

And really move on.

Every day, I am able to do that more.  Yesterday I was stronger than the day before.  Today, I am stronger than yesterday.  The memories I choose to keep, are tempered by truth, and I detach myself from them.

Moving on….it starts slowly, one small weak step, then another.  At first away from the pain and heartache, but at some point, we begin to walk toward something, our dreams, ourselves.  I have begun to walk briskly toward my dreams.  Those memories are shrinking into the distant past.

Was it real?  Wast it true?  It doesn’t matter.  It’s over.

Life is good.  Make yourself a beautiful dream, and start taking one small step toward it.  You don’t need closure to do it. You just have to start walking.

Love and light.

 

Caught in the Riptide

Posted on by learning to live like water

riptide

A….just always there for me.  I don’t know why, I just don’t have any idea why but he is.  It choked me up all day.

He got my message, and his response was….

“Good morning, my love.”

No chastising me.  No questions.  No anger.  Nothing, but unconditional love.

I wished he were here with me.  I wished we were snuggling, sharing a cup of coffee, talking, anything.  I do love him, really….but I can’t sustain that. And I don’t know why.  Before, it was because of Scott.  It’s not him, now.  But I think it might be repercussions of him.

Because I got so triggered this past weekend, and by A, the gentlest, most loving of souls….I have to say, I’m not relationship material yet.  I’m ok on the surface, but there’s still a lot of grief, loss, sadness, anger running like a riptide underneath, and at any moment, it might sweep me out to sea and risk drowning anyone who is with me.   And it’s A who has been by my side.

He hated Scott for me when I could not, lol.  He brought me around to feel sorry for him, when the depth of his depravity was uncovered, he was the first to say, “I just went from hate to pity.  He needs our prayers…”  Because S’s actions absolutely indicated a deep and terrible illness.  And even A, who has played 2nd fiddle to S for months, when I couldn’t let go….can see it, and offer up his compassion.

I love A, and I want him in my life.

But I’m not consistent.  This morning I was gonna try to Facetime him when I got home but tonight, I don’t feel it so much.  I really scared myself, realizing that I almost kicked him out of my life.  God, stupid.  This morning, I felt jealous of the woman in Santa Fe….and tonight, I am back to where I was.  I can’t be what he needs and deserves.  But I want him in my life, for sure.

I was still triggered today.  I imagined talking to S….what would we possibly have to say?  “Why did you do that?”  He won’t know, or won’t say.  He’d ask “Why did you tell her….”  Because she had to know.  It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.  You were never gonna tell her the truth, I was going to remain a lie somewhere there.  I’m sick of being a lie, and a secret.  And you would have made me stay that way, and she would have never known the truth.  I fucking loved you, and I wanted to make sure she knew that.  That I didn’t just fuck you, that I LOVED you with every fiber of my being.  That you were trying to be with me just days before.  That I wasn’t what you wanted her to think I was. I was not going to be minimized by you and your narcissism.

You didn’t want to save her pain, you wanted to continue to manipulate her feelings, her love, her emotions.  Just like you did me, but I found out the truth.

So….what would he and I have to say?  Nothing.  Nothing, except I loved you, you tried to kill me.  I don’t know when my heart will ever open up again.  When I will trust someone again.  It was not that you were with her that hurt so much, it was the lies, the cruelty of every thing you did after 10:30 on October 3.  All the voice mails, all the texts, all the sexting, the phone calls, you tried to keep me hanging on while you were with her.  Cruel.  Why couldn’t you just let me go?  Why couldn’t you let me go when you came to the park back in May, and told me you wanted to be by yourself.  Why didn’t you just stick with it?  Instead of asking me to come over? Instead of calling me and telling me you should have come to Florida with me?  Instead of coming here and making sweet love with me?

It’s the loss, of finding out that who I thought you were and adored was some shell you put on for me.  I had to give you up, and then I had to GIVE YOU UP…because you didn’t even exist.  I fucking miss that man who doesn’t exist.  And I grieve for him.

What would I have to say?  Nothing, that could lead to anything but to bring back the pain.

So I almost pushed Addie away today, because the ghost man that I loved hurt me so much that what he did still, 3 1/2 months later,  can stab me in the back when I’m just out for a stroll.

I was drowning this weekend.  Today I managed to get to shore, but I’m tired, out of breath, and traumatized.  I need to do what A wants me to, to “rest in his love.”  And I will.   And S….I’m pretty sure he’ll be alone.  Which is the safest place for everyone else.

 

 

 

Just Some Observations

Posted on by learning to live like water

 I wrote a blog about S and I, about how we would get together after work. But I’ve deleted it, just now. Decided it was too personal. 

I went to bed last night, and just thought about how it was, and how he could be that way with me, and then leave and go to her bed the next day…and never tell either of us.  What kind of mentality allows someone to do that?

How could it not be special?  He said, after I found out, “My relationship with you is nothing like my relationship with her.”  How could he separate his emotions like that? How could he be two different people? How could he not feel extreme guilt when he was with either of us?

Well, we always pay.  What we bury, or ignore, or deny, our bodies deal with.  No wonder his diabetes is back.  No wonder he had those terrible headaches last summer.  Maybe the headaches were a lie too, just an excuse he made up so I wouldn’t press him to see him on Saturday night.  Nothing is for sure anymore.

I told him, back when I would talk to him, to see his pulmonologist.  I didn’t think the health issue I was feeling was his diabetes.  I thought it had to do with his breathing.  Probably because when I’ve done reiki on him, his heart and throat chakras were so blocked.

It’s all just an observation now.  I look at what happened without emotion now.  It’s not really even a pleasant memory anymore, just a memory, like a dream that suddenly goes bad.

You wake up, and say, it was just a dream.  An hour later, you’ve forgotten it.

I’ll find someone else to sit on the deck with me and stargaze.  I’m letting go, with every word I write.  7 weeks out, I think I’m doing pretty well.

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.

 

The Eclipse and Relationships

Posted on by learning to live like water

Tonight is the lunar eclipse.  I’m not sure it will be visible here, there are some low clouds coming in tonight, but they may hold off til later.  I found an article about the eclipse, which included some information about the eclipses possible effect on relationships, and it’s astrological significance.  It actually, in the context of my life, seemed fairly accurate.

S was more knowledgeable about astrology than I.  I am an Aries….He used to accuse me of being pushy, “ramming” my points home, when I wanted something or believed it.  I think he was right.  I have been trying recently, to push not so much with my head but with my heart.  I can still be assertive…but I’m trying, mindfully, to be kinder about it, more loving.

The article states “Saturday’s full moon falls in the first degree of fire sign Aries, which is why this eclipse carries strong energies related to assertiveness, action and individualism.”  In the days leading up to this, I have been assertive, though not demanding, about what I want from a relationship.  And S, too, has been assertive about what he wants.  And the two are not the same.

This paragraph really struck me:

“This eclipse marks the ending of the lunar tetrad cycle along the Libra-Aries axis that began in April of last year. Each of these eclipses has challenged us in different ways to assert our own personal needs, while also recognizing the importance of caring for others. Since this cycle began, many of us have experienced intense personal and relational challenges and growth. Many of my relationships are barely recognizable compared to where they were when this cycle began last year. It is time to reflect upon these changes, transformations, births and deaths, and integrate how they shape your path for the future. With endings, come new beginnings.”

And yes, my relationship with S is barely recognizable  compared to last fall, when we saw each other once or twice a week.  When he asked me, on a drive, if I could “Just sit there and be beautiful.”  Lol.  Sweet memories, is all.  Everything changes, evolves….and who knows where any story will end up.

I had talked with S about watching the eclipse with me tonight, but this morning, it seems that that concept is pretty much off the table., since I have not heard from him since Friday, when he rather curtly dismissed me, because I stood my ground.  I know he was probably frustrated, and not understanding me, I have always relented in the past, and I have steadfastly told him that I love him.  I think the two ideas are incongruous to him.  I had been ignoring reality, imagining that it would be different than it was, before.  I realize the truth now, and have to make changes that I can live with, decisions that don’t cause me to blow up in anger, frustration, at myself, for believing what was not true, and burying my own emotions.  In the words of Iyanla Van Zant (paraphrased, I cannot find the original quote),”The things you bury, do not die.  They rot and fester and make you sick.”

I wish him well.  I send him love.  I wish him peace.  He will always have a very special place in my heart.

Another relationship that has transformed in the last 6 months is my relationship with my older sister, who is a Libra…the other side of this axis.  Contentious at best last spring as she dealt with really hard issues for the first time in her life, to a closeness now that I absolutely treasure.  I will see her in 3 weeks, when her daughter gets married, up in the incredibly beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.  I cannot wait to spend 4 days with my family.  My younger sister is coming with her 4 adult children and I think possibly her grandchildren.  I can only hope.  It will be lovely.  Just lovely.

This is the link to the article, if you want to read the whole article.  There’s other good information in it on the eclipse as well.

http://themindunleashed.org/2015/09/5-facts-about-sundays-total-lunar-eclipse-including-how-it-could-affect-your-relationships.html