My Weekend So Far

Posted on by learning to live like water

choices

Oh the weekend…

I live for the weekends. I love them. Not having to work. But lately they’ve depressed me somewhat, because I’m so sick of being alone. At any rate, I got a ton of stuff done today. Got the house back in show ready condition. It has rained here since I put it on the market. Like EVERY F’N DAY. Not a lot of people go house hunting in the rain. It looks better next week. I hope. Geezus.

I made a dump run this morning to get rid of an old microwave, an old vacuum cleaner, a lamp, an old suitcase, just a bunch of junk. It’s the 2nd time I’ve been there since I’ve lived in this town, which is 38 years, lol. I think I’ll have to go back too.

Went to the store and stocked up on chicken and rice soup, a bunch of gluten-free stuff, like pretzels, crackers, bread. It’s all bad food for diabetics, but I have to get rid of this stomach bug. I know that gluten is an inflammatory, so trying to cut it way back. No sugar. Some bananas, some apples. I made some rice for lunch. Gonna get sick of this diet pretty quick. Got some Kombucha tea, supposed to be good for the digestive system.

My bff wanted me to go to the movies this afternoon. But I just had toooo much to do. And didn’t really feel like sitting in a movie theater. I’d rather be here writing, listening to Pandora today.

I swept out the garage again, after I got all the stuff out of there that belonged at the dump. I don’t know how it gets so dirty. My driveway is paved. But man, I just did the garage a little while ago and it was a mess again. Well it looks nice now.

I sat down to take a break, and when I wish I wasn’t alone, it drifts back to HIM. Which is not a good thing. I went on the dating site and flipped through about 100 profiles on their quick match thing, lol. It gave me a lift, even though I’m moving so none of them are really a possibility. But still, my imagination allowed me to think about it. And I got a lift from it.

Because really, HE is not someone I want to have a relationship with, now. Well, I don’t think so, unless he’s made a huge change, which I doubt.  And I don’t even really know, maybe he’s with her. Maybe he’s happy as a clam. But really, are clams happy? They’re bottom feeders, they spend their lives in the mud.

When I was all done with work for today, housework, cleaning, changing sheets, laundry, running the dishwasher, I went to get my kindle and thought I’d just sit here and read. Kind of a luxury, lol. Checked the mail on my phone before I plugged it into the charger. I had 3 messages from men! And…one of them, though he is too far away from me, said in his profile, he is “learning to HEAR you”. Say wha….. Did he read my blog “Can You Hear Me?” Geezus, that’s how fast the universe gets on it when you ask. And he’s an old hippie artist, not unlike me. Said he’s working on a sculpture of an 18′ pregnant woman. I said, it sounds like it belongs at Burning Man. He’s nice looking too, in his tie dyed t-shirt.

OMG, then another man, he is 54, wants to know if I like younger men, lol. I said, I don’t know? Never had one, lol. Maybe it’s just what I need, lol. Instead of a mean old coot, lol. He says he wants to spoil me. LOL. I wouldn’t mind being spoiled for a change.

So, feeling like I won’t be alone forever, and that there are some choices out there who won’t ignore my messages, who won’t throw barbed darts at me, who maybe are looking for a woman like me.

I think I’ll get the graph paper and see if I can draw my bedroom in Florida to scale, and see if my furniture will fit in there somehow. And read. And relax.

And maybe make my son some Snickerdoodles.

Love and light.

Digging In The Dark, Part

Posted on by learning to live like water

found it

I dug all night.
I was still digging when first dawn broke.
Rain falling,
And cold.
Tears falling,
They were cold too.
Shivering, in the early dawn hours
I was beginning to see
And not feel
And I knew the time was running out.

The dirt in clumps,
Under my fingernails,
Bugs crawling,
Worms squirming.
I was undeterred.
I wanted it back.

And then
The clouds parted and
Daylight broke.
A ray of light through the trees
Illuminated the hole and
I found it.

I found it.

I FOUND IT.

I’ll take better care of it,
And not give it away
To the darkness again.

Can You Hear Me?

Posted on by learning to live like water

hear-me-now

The first time we rode together, I chattered. We were in my town, he was exploring. Didn’t want me to show him. Told me he had a photographic memory and had looked at a map. I chattered anyway, about the buildings, the history, the day, the weather, food….whatever came into my mind. We stopped for gas. As he got out of the car, to fill the tank, he looked at me and said, “Could you just sit there, and be beautiful?”

He shut me up. With a smile. He could do things like that. Just stop me dead in my tracks. No one had called me beautiful for maybe 30 years. I look back and wonder if that’s the moment I fell in love, really in love.

We went to a park. We walked a bit. We found a secluded spot, and did some heavy petting, lol. I felt like a young version of myself. It felt wonderful. His blue eyes twinkled. We stopped for steamed hamburgers. He flirted with the girl behind the register. Maybe 50 years younger than himself. He made me laugh.

He spent the night…I don’t remember anything distinctive about it. I wasn’t used to having a man sleep with me.  It had been more than 10 years.  It wasn’t his first time, but I was just starting to be able to sleep a few hours with his warm body next to mine, hearing him snore occasionally.   But the fact that he said I was beautiful…he owned me, then.

For some months that was what we did.  Go on excursions, usually from his house.  He would take me to beautiful beaches mostly.  Hidden spots.  I knew the waters off shore as well as he.  Maybe better.  I felt at home there.  Once or twice we got on old dirt roads wide enough for one car in the woods.  Roads where the GPS made it look like you were driving through a field.  When we did that, I never talked much.  It was all new to me, what I was seeing, what I was doing.  He would ask, “are you ok, you are so quiet?”

I loved those days.

It didn’t last. It went from “could you just sit there” and “are you ok” to “can you ever be quiet” to “let it be” to “I heard you the first time” (but I didn’t know it because he couldn’t respond) to “shut up” to “shut the fuck up” and not giving a damn if I was ever ok, and now we don’t talk, at all. Once in awhile I message him, when I get the vibe…but he never answers. Once in awhile he leaves me an angry voice mail. Or sends me a one-line barbed message. Those are hard to pull out of your skin, without tearing a big hole in it. He refused back then to hear me. He refuses now.

It’s not that I need to talk….It’s that I need to be heard.

Just heard. Not agreed with. Not patronized. Just heard. Just hear me. Just someone to say, “I hear you. What you have to say is important to me.”

Just heard.  My ex husband refused to hear me too.  He’d yell over me, to make sure.  He had a voice like a marine drill sargent, one of those voices you didn’t compete with.  I swore I’d never let myself get in that position again.  But I did.  Eventually, I did.

Hear me. Someone, please. Just hear me. I’m real. I love you. I need you to hear me. I’ll hear you….I promise….

He’s out there, the one who can hear me. I already love him……

Digging In The Dark

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

Digging in the dark
Looking for something I lost
In the dusk
Of a hazy evening,
Or maybe it was the dawn.

I can’t remember when.
I’m not sure where.
It’s buried though.
Deep, I fear.

I haven’t missed it
Much.
Then the day will go down.
It will roll up backwards
Hang me upside down
And I’ll be looking in the dark.

The size, the shape, the color
Escape me now.
I only remember the feel
In the dark.

The gentleness, the wholeness.
The way I knew who I was….
When I had my heart.

So, I dig, in the dark.
The hours between dusk and dawn.
When feeling is easiest
because blindness is natural then.

Laughter

Posted on by learning to live like water

I love to laugh.  Someone who can make me laugh, a really good belly laugh, has a permanent place in my heart.  I have a lot of those people in my life.  Yeah I’m blessed.

My son first and foremost.  He saw me getting upset on the way home from his birthday dinner last night because I was thinking about him moving away, and he had me hysterical in a few minutes.

He used to have a volvo, which was automatic but you could push a button and it had a whole bunch of gears you could shift through manually.  Now he has a normal standard shift car.  He reminded me of the day he cut his finger really badly, needed to go to emergency.  I as at work a half hour away.  I said, “can’t you put your car in automatic and just go?”  Forgetting that his present car is a standard.  He calmly said, “Mom, I have a 6 speed standard car. What are you talking about?”  He reminded me of that last night.

As a kid, when he went to bed, I used to also go up to bed and read, mostly so I didn’t have to sit with his father watching “Deadliest Catch” again.  He would come in my room, sit on the edge of my bed and start just cracking jokes.  I’d have to beg him to stop, so that I could relax and go to sleep.  But it’s one of my favorite memories, having him come and make me laugh every night.

He’s such a blessing.

My bff makes me and everyone laugh.  I love to go to her house, because I know we will laugh our asses off.

There are other good friends, I can count a half dozen friends who can always put a smile on my face.

S….was perhaps the best at it.  He could make me laugh hysterically, sometimes in the same breath that made me cry, because it hadn’t been his intention to make me cry.  He could dead pan it. Like, say something dead serious, and wait to see me erupt into hysterics.  I miss that. When we used to have our mini-breakups, which usually never lasted more than a few days, sometimes he’d text me and say he missed me.  I’d say, “Yeah, I know what you miss….” He’d always say, “you think you know everything.  What I really miss is making you laugh.”   And we’d get back together, momentarily.

I always feel like I’ve accomplished something great if I can make someone laugh like that.

Anyway, I thought I’d find some funny things to put up this morning, because I feel like laughing. So here goes.

that's hot

Toast porn

like a boss

sumo baby

not my cat

But this poor thing looks hungry (and she looks like my Maggie)

thinking

Google is demented

Have a lovely day.  Love and light.

Maybe It’s Time…..

Posted on by learning to live like water

Love can change

I took my son out for Vietnamese Pho for dinner tonight. It’s one of his favorite foods, usually the place he chooses if he has a choice. I am still so tired from this bug, and not sleeping this week, I couldn’t put together a dinner for him, and I didn’t get home til 6:30 anyway. I got him an ice cream cake, which is tradition. He’s never been a big fan of regular cake, even though all of mine are made from scratch.

It was really nice to go out with him. He’s going to a music festival in Las Vegas next month, and he’s so excited. Almost all his friends from here are going, and his friends from Colorado. I’m so happy to see him living his life.

On the way home though, I thought about how I won’t be with him on his next birthday most likely. I thought about how I’m going to miss him. It’s been just he and I for 8 years now. We are so close. I got all choked up in the car. He asked, “Are you ok Mom?” Yeah…I’m just going to miss you. We don’t hang out a lot, but we enjoy each other’s company. That’s gonna be a hard transition. Really hard.

I’ve been reading Marianne Williamson’s book The Gift of Change. It’s like she gently takes my heart, my soul, and my mind, and aligns them all with her words.

Today I put up a snarky post, with the song Silver Spring, telling how and why I got the song on my playlist, because of the first betrayal of me by S. The one he admitted to, the one I’ve always called the prison whore. Because I heard it playing, it reminded me of the first and all of the subsequent betrayals and I just wanted to put it down, on paper. Well, on the page. I did. In my inimitable way, hard, cold, edgy truth.

Then I read this sentence, in The Gift of Change, when I was at lunch.

“Our mission is to affirm the essential goodness in people even when they’ve made mistakes.”

And I thought about that post. Even though it was true, every word, it was designed to make one person uncomfortable with his behavior. To make him squirm. To make him look at himself. I could self-righteously say I hoped he’d change if he saw it in print, but I know better. I knew it would just piss him off, and maybe even shame him, to have me telling the world what he’d done. And I guess that’s what I wanted to do.

I deleted it. I rewrote it so it was more closely aligned with my pain, not his behavior. It was a mistake he made. He made a lot of them. But he’s living with the consequences, I’m not, not now. If I’m going to be who I want to be, I need to encourage what is good about him. Not broadcast any longer what is bad about him.

I’ve waivered. I go from encouraging open and honest communication to being triggered into furiousness. I have not been consistent, as I’ve tried to heal. And really, who is? It’s a roller coaster, one day it’s way in the past, the next day, something brings it front and center and it’s all you can do to not put your head down on your desk at work and cry.

It’s not my job to try to fix the behavior that caused the pain. But it’s also not my job to rub it in, through this blog, and remind him over and over of what he did. It’s my job to take care of me, and practice and find ways to encourage what makes me grow, and heal, and spread my light.

“Practice kindness,” Marianne says, “and you will become kind. Practice discipline, and you will become disciplined. Practice forgiveness, and you will start to become forgiving. Practice charity, and you start to become charitable. Practice gentleness, and you start to become gentle.” She goes on to say, “We become gracious when we decide to be gracious.”

I don’t know if this is just a phase for me. Or if I’m really sick of hitting him over the head with my words. Maybe I have enough distance that it seems old to me, at least right now. Maybe I’ve just gotten past it. Maybe, though, maybe I am afraid that my endless barbs at him are keeping him stuck where he doesn’t want to be.

Even though, he doesn’t have to read this blog. I don’t know why he does. He wrote one, on his own blog, after a year. It was one sentence, a barb, aimed at me, his only follower. I unfollowed him. Lol.  I didn’t want to get baited.  I already have an arsenal stored away if I feel like getting angry with him.  I don’t need anything else added to it.

But he still reads my blog, for whatever reason. Maybe, like he said once, it’s like the train wreck you can’t drive by. Maybe he hopes one day I’ll just stop…and go back to writing things like The Story in His Eyes, or The 7 Reasons I Love You. Or stop writing about him altogether. Maybe he just thinks he deserves my ire. Maybe he just wants to know what’s on my mind, hoping I’ve finally moved on.

Maybe he’s trying to find the unconditional love I always promised, in my words.

Maybe one day I will stop. I don’t think I’m quite done with it, I don’t think I’ve healed completely. I still think I’m picking up pieces of myself daily, and trying to meld them back into the whole. And as long as I’m doing that, I’ll probably continue to write about it. It’s just part of my process.

But, I think I will try to be kinder, lighter. I think I’ll try to shed some light, instead of pointing out the darkness. Even if my light doesn’t dispel his darkness, it might dispel someone’s.

He did cause me an inordinate amount of pain, and I did love him without limit. But he also caused me an inordinate amount of laughter, and that’s one of the reasons I loved  him so much.

Food for thought, that’s all.  Maybe it’s time for a change.

Love and light.

Silver Spring

Posted on by learning to live like water

I put a post up this morning with the song Silver Spring by Fleetwood Mac. I included in the blog the story of how I came to like the song.  It’s a great song, but I felt that my post was too snarky. Not consistent with who I want to be, even though it was s true story which caused me a tremendous amount of pain. The incident was a year ago, not involving the girlfriend, but another woman. 

Anyway, I trashed the original post. 

I’m guessing that the song though, resonates with the girlfriend as it does me now. 

So here it is. Without the snarkiness of letting the world know what a creepy thing was done to me. Anyone who listens can fm figure it out. 

I heard it this morning. “You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.”  Apparently it’s also true in reverse. You never get away from the sound of the man you loved either.  Or, at least it’s sure hard to break that connection. 

It triggered me just a little.  So, out to the universe now, to deal with as it sees fit. 

Love and light. 

Catching Up

Posted on by learning to live like water

Another cold rainy morning. I can’t say I’m getting used to it, lol. But it’s supposed to stop this weekend, we may see the sun on Mother’s Day.

I did go to the dr yesterday. It is apparently an intestinal virus, something that’s going around. I’ve been eating wrong. She told me to go on a clear diet, broth, jello, tea….for a few days, then go to the BRAT diet (bananas, rice apples and toast). I’m skipping the clear…because I’m diabetic, I can’t not eat all day, with my meds I’ll pass out. I can’t eat jello with sugar. So instead I had chicken and rice soup. A half a bagel in the morning. I told her I wasn’t taking one of the diabetic meds that aggravates it, skipping the morning dose. But am monitoring my sugar closely. So far it’s been fine. So maybe I didn’t need the morning dose any more. Whatever. It seems to be a little better this morning. I slept a solid 6 hours last night, which wasn’t enough but at least it was 6 hours of good sleep.

Next weekend my friend from the Adirondacks is coming to visit for a few days. We have been friends since we were 12 or 13. We lost each other for years, and when we found each other, were so surprised to be only 4 hours apart. We grew up in Iowa, 1000 miles from here. Now I need to find something to do. She was a music teacher for 35 years in upstate New York. I’m checking out tickets to a musical at the Goodspeed Opera House on the Connecticut river. I think she’d like that a lot.

Goodspeed.jpg

Also gonna play a day trip somewhere…Newport maybe. I love Newport and I don’t know that she’s ever been. It’s such a fun day there.

I lowered the price on the house yesterday. Not enough interest, the feedback was it was priced too high. And based on the comps that was probably true, despite the fact that it had more square footage than most of the homes here. Whatever..we do what we have to do. I want to be moving this summer.

I’ve been dealing with some emotional issues around S lately. I think I’ve worked through them, put them in the place where they won’t hurt me any longer. Still looking forward to leaving all that behind when I go to Florida. I don’t know why I still care and worry about him, but I do. Contact never ever does me any good. But now, idk, I am able to kind of shrug my shoulders and not get too upset over it. I know he is who he is. I don’t expect that he’s ever going to be accountable for the things he’s done to me. Not accountable in the way that he’d ever try to right the wrongs. He has said he was sorry about last summer. But it’s rather empty, it means very little when he was able to still deny me this past winter, deny all that we had, share my personal stuff with her. It’s who he is. And I gotta feel sorry for that, that he can’t see that his being disingenuous hurts him more than me. I have to just let it go. He has to live with who he is. I don’t.

Today is my son’s 24th birthday!  He took today and tomorrow off.  Not expecting to see much of him, lol.  I am so proud of the young man he’s become.  I’m so glad we escaped the abuse we lived in, and he’s beginning to realize his own potential.  He’s the blessing of my life.  When he was born, I had an emergency C-section in the early morning hours following 18 hours of hard labor.  He was stuck….When they made the incision and tried to get him out, they had to put him back and make the incision bigger.  When they weighed him they were all guessing his weight, “9”  “no 9 1/2” .  The nurse who was weighing him said, “You all better guess again.”  “What is he?”

“10  15″  I heard that, and thought, no it’s later than that.  I came up here after 1 am….

He was 10 lbs, 15 oz.  22 1/2″ long.  A three month old, lol.  a good sized 3 month old. lol.  He’s still a big kid.  6’3”.  With a good heart. Love that kid so much.

Well, off for another day at work. Love and light all.

Everything Must Change

Posted on by learning to live like water

This is a song from my way way past.  I have so many changes going on at the moment, and some, most are good.   Some are exciting.  Some are painful.  Some will be painful until they heal, and the change is complete. Getting through the sale of this house, the move to Florida, resettling my son in Colorado, and hopefully letting go of all the trauma of the past year, somehow releasing the hold that it has on me.  Somehow resolving the conflict between what’s in my heart, and what I know will only bring me pain as it is now.

She says “There are not many things in life you can be sure of….”

Well, one of the things that you an be sure of is that if I loved you, I will always love you.  That’s just how I roll. Forgiveness is easier for me than resentment.  Love is easier than hate.  For me.  Not saying that has to be true for everyone, it just is for me.  Just one of those things, those few precious things, that never changes for me.  And I’m glad to have a few things I can count on in my heart, to bring me home again.   Betrayal, inconsideration, disrespecting, it all makes me angry.  It hurts me to the core.  But it hurts, it angers, because I love.  And I always will, there’s not a thing anyone can do about it.

Time for me to let go, open the door again to allow new life in. Welcome the change.  But always always love the things  and people I loved.  There is a reason they are in my heart.

 

A Little Reflection

Posted on by learning to live like water

reflection

Another rainy day. It’s getting depressing. As is this stomach thing I have. I’m calling the dr this morning. It kept me up last night, or woke me up last night. I’ve probably waited too long. My insurance so sucks, and it’s out of pocket for me. But enough is enough. My ex sister-in-law once had a food-borne stomach bug called camphelobacter that took her months to get over, so maybe I have something like that.

My house had a showing yesterday, but they thought it was overpriced. I really don’t think it is, it seems very competitive for my neighborhood, and is actually a good bit larger than most of the competition. I guess if I get a lot of feedback that says that, I’ll consider dropping the price, but this is only one. Who knows what they were looking for, or if they know the market.

This weather is making me want to get to Florida. I have so much to look forward to, so much to leave behind. I’m just so ready to start this next chapter in my life. I know the people I’m connected to here I’ll always be connected to. So I’ll take the good things with me. I still haven’t decided if I will tell my ex that I’m moving. I suppose I will, I’ve never been one to withhold. I know he still feels the tie to me, just because we were together for so long, even though we rarely speak. I just feel like it will anger him, or just upset him, but that’s not my issue, it’s his. He has chosen his life, and I’ve chosen mine.

Scott, well…There is no communication on that front, there will always be so much unsaid there, so much unfinished business. Being 1500 miles away will hopefully ease the nagging questions in my head, about so much. The energy connection will always remain, but the distance, and the new life, will allow me to quit asking questions that will never get an answer. I’ll be able to change my focus I think, onto making a new happier life. I will always love the man I knew. Even if he wasn’t real…..Or even if he chooses not to be that man. I can’t know what his soul’s journey is. I hope he finds some real happiness some day. I’m afraid he won’t.

Guess I’m feeling a little wistful this morning. What a long strange trip it’s been here. I came to CT when I was 21, and I’m leaving 44 years later, a lifetime behind me. People I have loved and lost. People who will always remain in my life. But that’s another blog.

Love and light all.