This describes weekends for me. I got through Saturday ok. Sunday has been a real struggle. It will be nice when I can make it through the whole weekend. I guess one day is progress. Never thought I’d be glad to see Monday come. I guess the good news is that I made it through. Next weekend I’ll try to sleep through Sunday morning, that seems to be meltdown time.
Peace out.
Watching Marianne Williamson on OWN discuss her run for congress. She said something that so resonated with me.
“We don’t want the 3rd act of our lives to be an imitation of the 2nd.”
I am 64. She is 61. My generation. She is brilliant. Listening to her lifts me. I divorced at the end of my 2nd act, and spent 5 years trying to discover a path that would work for me for the rest of my days on this planet. I found it, am still in discovery about it. I’m Learning to Live Like water.
I need to lean into this. Not into what had or hasn’t worked in the past. I was a novice when I met S. I did not really know what it would mean to Live like Water. I am still, and forever, trying to discover what it means, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt it is the path I want to follow. The 78th verse of the Tao Te Ching.
S used to say it meant going with the flow. I disagreed. I think it’s all about journey back to source. Water finds a way, whether it is to meander like a river, to pour rain down in a hurricane, to become a cloud, to carve the Grand Canyon. It always finds a way back to the ocean.
And to quote Rumi:
“You are not a drop of the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
Fighting my way back to joy. 😊
Have blog will write this morning, I guess.
But I just found this, and realized…it is a new month. October was torturous. Hugely life-changing. In a way I’d never wanted to have to change.
November already looks better. It’s going to be slightly warmer this week, unseasonably but that is a gift from the Universe. I will feel better just because of it. Feeling better can lead to all sorts of better things. I am strong, and I know what I need to do to fully heal October’s wounds.
I’ve never liked November, but this one I am looking forward to. To being farther down the path to a new life, less attached to the old one. The old one is caught up in a nostalgic funk, and the truth about it is that it wasn’t all the great on any level.
New month, new page, new life.
“ Overcome any bitterness that may have come
because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain
that was entrusted to you.
Like the Mother of the World,
Who carries the pain of the world in her heart,
Each one of us is part of her heart,
And therefore endowed
With a certain measure of cosmic pain”
Found this on FB. The original author was not noted, only that it was a Sufi teaching. Beautiful, just beautiful.
Writing has saved me $1000’s in conventional therapy.
Yesterday, I recognized that it was the first weekend where I was not in absolute pain because I know he is with her. I’ve been ok, and I guess it’s because I know the man that’s with her is not the man I knew and love.
My friend Megan wrote a blog about it not being the pain she fears but the void beyond the pain. If it’s over, what is there but emptiness where all that emotion was? Yes…thus my poem a few blogs back called The Void. (https://learningtolivelikewaterblog.com/2015/10/29/the-void/ Some days it’s larger, some smaller. Some days I can ignore it, walk by it, some days I fall in and disappear.
I also have realized that what I miss is the every day connection. I miss him being part of my life every day and being part of his. I don’t like a man who changes his face for everyone he meets, but I have always seen S’s soul, not his face, and it’s always been his soul that I love, and that I know. I see the inner child, just wanting to be loved because he exists, like every other child. I can still do that.
He tried occasionally, to convince me he was a bad evil person. I always said, “I see your soul S. I see your soul and I like what I see. I don’t know what to tell you.” Imagine being so convinced you don’t deserve love that you try to convince others not to love you.
I wish he and I could just talk, and be friends, without the sexual tension that’s between us. But it always goes there, and for me that comes with attachment, and besides, I know he can turn on me on a dime, evidenced by his texting me at 4 am, and devastating me 6 hours later. That’s not a friend. I don’t even know what to call that. It’s been 4 weeks, this weekend. The wound at times is fresh, as if it just happened. Then I remember how every time I’ve spoken to him since it has not ended well. He has told me he cares for me. Whatever he feels only causes me pain. I can’t go there again.
The man I saw last week, Jim, sent me two texts yesterday. The first was “Happy Halloween 300 times.” which I didn’t understand at all. Like I said, I don’t get his sense of humor. Then later he sent one saying he enjoyed my company the night before very much. And I thought “How? You didn’t make even the smallest effort to find out who and what I am.” I didn’t answer either one. I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid if I said I was sorry, but I didn’t feel any connection, maybe we should just let it go, that he would call me, and I didn’t want to deal with it. I chose to just ignore the texts, and hope it just fades away. We’ve only been out 3 times. There is no attachment.
And then there’s A. Always there for me, always steady. Never anything but loving and caring and honest. Yesterday he sent me a pic, and there was a red truck in it. His truck, I thought, was black. I asked him if he got a new truck when I disappeared. (Which I did in August and September, just cut him off without warning to focus my attention and energy on my relationship with S, which was unraveling then. I think even then, S was in touch with her, which was why we were unraveling.) Anyway A, answered about the truck saying it wasn’t his, but then said, “I’m so glad to have you back. Don’t fucking disappear again!” He went on to say “Fall madly in love, get married, but don’t disappear!” I told him I wouldn’t, ever. And that I didn’t want to get married either. Just to have a loving, monogamous, extraordinary relationship with someone.
And so…I continue onward. Feeling like S and I have unfinished business, business that will remain that way for the foreseeable future, at time nagging at me, at times I can just ignore it. Hopeful that perhaps there is someone else out there that I can love as intensely as I loved him. Someone who is also capable of that depth of emotion. Clearly S, in his present state is not, nor wants to be.
Therapy, writing is therapy.
Been texting with A all morning. The bond we had has been strengthened by our experiences since he’s been gone. He’s such a good guy. So open, so willing, so true to himself.
He has a new gf, but I think if I were there, he wouldn’t have her. I missed him a lot this week. He’s the only man I trust right now. He had always been there for me. He just told me again that he loves me. He has not mentioned her all morning.
Sometimes I think I could spend time with him in the desert, and then he could spend time with me in Florida, and in between we could have our own space.
I don’t think he’s thought of that, or at least didn’t think I’d be open to it. I might be. I told him this morning I could do it for awhile, but I’d need to get back to the water too. We didn’t talk about it more. He’s fairly committed to his new gf, tho he told me they’ve not slept together yet. This morning he wished he was here.
I’m not sure really, if it’s a real possibility for me. But I’ve never had an unpleasant moment with him. Regardless of how shitty I’ve been to him because of S. Maybe because when I have been shitty to him, I’ve owned it. And apologized, and learned from it.
S wanted to know why he and I can’t have a relationship like that. Because, quite simply, S cannot love anyone. S is out for himself. If he sees the shortest way to what he wants is to trample you, then he will. And he had no ability to truthfully critique himself.
A has always been a friend first. S had always been a user of people.
That’s why A and I are close. And S and I don’t speak much, and when we do, it never ends well. I can’t be used any longer for his self gratification. I love him, from a safe distance. But I don’t want him anymore.
I didn’t want A, because I wanted S. Now I see the wonderful man A really is. I see how big and loving his heart is, and I know he loves me. No matter what happens, he will always be a blessing in my life.
Just making notes to myself I guess.
Feeling a little disjointed this morning, I have so much I want to do today, but it’s early. It’s Halloween, and my neighborhood is Grand Central in this small town. A friend is coming over to help me hand out candy. I’ll make dinner, we’ll have a glass or two or three of wine and enjoy the kids. I was just reminded we set our clocks back tonight, whoo hoo. I guess that means I’ll be waking up even earlier tomorrow, lol.
I am glad I didn’t spend more than a week figuring out Jim was not the guy for me. I need to let my intuition guide me a little quicker. I have been saying I didn’t really feel a connection, and trying to allow one to form. I should know when there’s not one, there’s not one. When there is, there is. I’d like one that is good, intimate, loving connection but not so intense that I feel the person all the time. That’s way too distracting.
I realize I tend to be too direct for a lot of people. I just don’t believe in pretending to be someone I’m not. Especially in the beginning, when just meeting someone. I am not brazen, not pushy, I can usually get across what I need to say with a smile, a flirt, some humor, some self deprecation, a little funny sarcasm. But I get it across.
Games are not part of my personna. You know, where you pretend to be what you think the other person wants. Or just be untruthful, because you’re unsure of yourself, because you think another person won’t like you as you really are. Personally, I think games bite you in the ass. I think they lead to depression, to insecurity. Control, manipulation. Because you have to keep up the fake personna to keep the person. Sooner or later, you wish you could just be yourself. You would wonder why you couldn’t be, why you thought the person wouldn’t care for you if you were yourself, but by then…you’ve lied to them so much, you’ve worked so hard at this fake personna, you risk ending the relationship if you make yourself known, and admit that the person they thought they knew wasn’t you. Vicious cycle.
Vulnerability is hard. It’s scary to put yourself out there, not knowing what the outcome will be. But lying, faking, game playing…is harder. It will never end well. At some point the truth will be known, and it will leave you cold, alone, and empty.
I think the thing that shocked me the most about S was that he was playing a game….with me, with her. with everyone, I think. He was obsessed with the game “Go”, an ancient Chinese game where the point was to have no losers so that everyone saves “face”. I always said, look if I screw up, I don’t need to save face. I need to own it, and change that about myself, and make amends for any damage I did. Save face? A mistake is just a mistake if there is no lesson learned.That’s the bullshit about shame. We all have it, the point is to learn from it, and use it as a tool to become a better person, and raise our vibration.
I know that the fact that I kept allowing S into my life after all the crap he pulled on me was starting to damage my relationship with my son. What a mistake that would have been, to trade off my relationship with my son for S. Another bullet, that would have literally killed me, dodged.
It just occurred to me, that my ex, who obviously didn’t think he was lovable because he grew up in a family where love was a reward, not a fact of life, felt he had to manipulate and control people to keep them in his life. He truly thought that if I professed to love him, which I did, it meant that I was either a.) stupid or b.) wanted something from him. I think perhaps the same was true of S. Because it is an innate human condition to want to be loved, but when we are taught at a young age that we are not lovable, we learn not to trust it. To see it as another manipulation, since in an abusive household everything is a manipulation. My ex’s father was physically and emotionally abusive, his mother was passively abusive, she didn’t stop his father, and used the threat of him to keep my ex in line and in fear. S had the same situation.
S says I can’t let go of my marriage, that I talk about it all the time. Well, yeah, I do talk about the things I learned from it. It was the experience from which I learned the most in my life. I spent the first 5 years of freedom trying to understand what happened to me and my son, and undoing the damage. I realize that the wisdom I gained from that search, might be valuable to someone else. It has nothing to do with the marriage, or letting go of it. It has to do with life lessons, and learning, and sharing. I know for a fact that sharing the wisdom has helped others, when I was active in an online community for abuse survivors.
I couldn’t convince either my ex or S that they were lovable just because they existed. It’s water under the bridge now. I need to find someone who already knows it.
I was watching Amy Schumer on HBO last night, after my boring date. She just cracks me up. I love her honesty, and she’s hilarious. She reminded me of how my relationship with S used to be, open, funny, physical, flirty, honest…. Watching her just made me laugh, and remember part of my life. I didn’t get sad, or upset. I know S is not that guy all the time, I know he morphs into another person when he’s with a woman that probably wouldn’t find Amy Schumer funny. Or if she did, she would think she was outrageous, and that no one is like that. Not knowing that S was for 18 months with a woman pretty much like that, though not as funny, lol. I know he and I both thought she was hysterical. Real. She’s very real.
Well, whatever. I’m sure there’s a man out there who would appreciate and enjoy an open, honest, monogamous, sexy woman, and is open to falling in love, and monogamy too.
God, I sound a little needy. I think I just miss having sex, lol. Nah…I need a connection to have it. I’m just longing for that connection with someone. I’ll find it.
OK…..Jim is out. He’s a nice enough guy but really, so boring. OMG, so boring. He thinks he feels a connection, but I don’t feel connection on any level. We don’t like the same music, I am a late 60’s, early 70’s rocker, he likes doo-wap. We don’t have the same political views, I am very liberal. He said he takes each issue as it comes. I said, me too…but I always end up on the left side of it. But he’s pretty conservative, I could tell. He talks incessantly about people he knew 50 years ago, and what property they owned. Who cares? What about your life, what do you want from it, what lessons have you learned from your experience? Who the hell are you?
Boring.
I tried, I really did. Truthfully, like my cousin said, “Look almost everyone will seem boring after S.” Well, this is true, he was not boring, that’s one of his good points. His views on sex, love, monogamy, relationships…um, balance that out, shall we say? But I was never bored with him. And laughed a lot.
But it seems I could laugh with anyone who took an interest, it’s something I do easily. Whenever S says he misses me, he always says he misses my laugh. (I used to say, that’s not what you’re missing, I’m not stupid…) But he was consistent with it, so maybe it was true.
Anyway, I cannot do another date with Jim. Kind of dense too. When we left the restaurant tonight, we had parked in different places because we met there. He said, “I’m going to go put my leftovers in my car…” and left me to walk to my car by myself, at the far end of the parking lot. Then ran over to kiss me goodnight. He said he’d call, but didn’t offer up any plans. I think I scared him off when I told him, with a smile on my face and a sweet laugh, that I was a card-carrying, in-your-face liberal. LOL.
There must be another aging hippie out there that can relate to me. Somewhere. Geezus.
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