How to Keep From Falling into the Abyss

Posted on by learning to live like water

It was a roller coaster ride today.  But, as it turned out…I feel much better tonight about everything.

I had sent that text this morning to him, and another one…yeah, I know, what am I doing?  Then I sent him one saying, just please ignore those.  They are waves of pain and anger washing over me, and you can just ignore them.  A bit later, at 11:30 AM, I got a voicemail from an “unknown” number.  I usually listen to those, in case they are about a credit card, or something….so I listened to it, it was him….

Saying he wanted to talk, but there were no avenues open to him, since he was totally blocked.  He went on to say it wasn’t true that he didn’t care about my feelings….I was crying when I listened because he was that calm sweet man that I fell in love with.  I only listened once, because it was too upsetting to listen twice.  So I didn’t get it all. I answered via text…that I can’t talk yet.  Maybe some day, but not yet.

A couple hours later I went up to my room to change out the closets, and take a nap when I was done. (This was after I spent two hours power washing the deck.)  I was exhausted. I looked at my voice mail, there were two blocked ones, from him.  This time, not unknown, it was his number.  He asked me to get in the car and drive down to the beach (I don’t think he said his house but he might have) and we could talk.  He said at the very least, I could have  “nice day at the beach.”  ??!!  It was far too late to even think about that.  Besides, I don’t want to meet with him.  I can’t…without losing it.  I don’t want to go there with my emotions.

I texted him, and told him what a nice afternoon at the beach would be to me.  And what he suggested was not it.  I told him I would unblock him so he could text, but  to please don’t call, please, I am not ready to talk without breaking down.  Apparently he had read my blog in between, where I said he was like a juvenile 14 year old in texting me to tell me he was back with Betty Boop.  So what I got was an angry text, “Would that be the same texting as the fucking 14 year old juvenile…?”

Yes, I answered.  It would be.  That was a man I adored, breaking up with me like an adolescent, that he had a new girl, and was too busy to talk to me about it.  NOT like a 66 year old man.  It wasn’t texting I objected to, it was the use of it, to devastate me and run and hide.  It was childish, and juvenile, and cruel, and I will stand by that til the day I die.  I also told him, if he can’t own up to the repercussions of the way he told me, we have nothing to talk about.

I have not heard from him since.  I assume he is not going to own it.  I assume he can’t be responsible for his actions.  For the decisions he makes that hurt others, because he has not responded.  He is angry, I could tell from his text, that I  publicly called him a juvenile 14 year old.  I am gonna say, every single person I have told this story to, has responded, wow, how immature. No one needs to hear from me that it was a childish, adolescent thing to do.  What I stated here was the obvious.

I am not supposed to speak the truth here.  I am not supposed to say what is on my mind, what hurts me, what I need to work through.  I am supposed to sweep it under the rug, to pretend it didn’t happen.  Apparently.

So, the end result is, I am not angry.  But I see him more clearly, and see that there is nothing we have to talk about, that he is not the man I thought he was, and is not the man I want.  So, I feel stronger in my resolution to just get through this, and to get over it. Right now, it still makes me uspeakably sad, but I at least see that the path I’m on is the right one for me.

I am leaving Betty Boop out of the equation.  She has nothing to do with the relationship between he and I, or the repair of the damage that was done that day.  She may have been the catalyst, but he is the one who chose the path of devastation with me.  I remember wondering where she was this morning, that he was free to talk to me.  But only fleetingly.  I was glad she was not there.  I was happy I was on his mind, because I missed him so much this morning.  Because I loved him so much this morning.

I feel stronger tonight. I still love him, but right now it is not the debilitating kind of thing it was earlier today.  I would guess I will always love him, but the baseline between us, whatever our relationship evolves into, or doesn’t, is that he has to be able to own his actions.  I don’t have and don’t want a friend who can’t say, I’m sorry.  I was wrong.  I didn’t mean to hurt you.  All of my friends and I have apologized to each other at times, for misunderstandings.  We ALL own what we do.

I want a man who can man up.  I want to be able to talk these things through, not to sweep them under the rug and pretend they didn’t happen.  Not that he wants me anyway.  But even in a friendship, even without the deep-seated love I have felt for him, you have to be able to own what you did.  I have so many times apologized to him for misunderstanding something he said.  I don’t want to hang with a 14 yr old.  I want a full grown, adult male.  If Betty Boop wants the 14 year old, and likes sweeping this stuff under the rug til there’s a lump in the rug and someone trips and falls on their face….she can have it.  It has nothing to do with me.  I would guess it’s one reason he chose her.  I don’t run from this shit.  I don’t bury it so that it makes me or him sick, or the relationship. I will always do what makes me stronger, I will fight the good fight, I will have the hard discussions.  And if I hurt someone, I will do everything I can to make amends. The Sunday before, two weeks ago, we carried on an intimate text conversation, about feelings and emotions, and for the first time I felt like he got me, and could be with me without being defensive. It went on for a couple hours.  It’s a wonderful thing to be able to talk about these things with the man you love.  It’s sexy, it’s a turn on.  And he liked it, too.  He told me at one point in that conversation, “I think you need to tell me that about a dozen more times.  XOXO”  He doesn’t use that, XOXO much.  It meant something to me.  I would have loved to tell him what I said, again and again.

I will tell him, now, since he is still apparently reading my blogs.  It was because I loved you, that it worked.  It was an expression of my love for you.  Love changes everything.

I hope some day he can see that owning your actions, and the fall out from them…is a mature grown up way to deal with things.  I hope some day he will see that pretending it was something other than it was, and didn’t ripple out the way it did, does nothing but ruin relationships, and will make you sick.  The anger he feels at me at this moment, for making him look at it, will make him sick. If he could own it, and make amends for it, he would only free himself, and perhaps (not saying definitely) allow us to at least be friends.  What he did to me….doesn’t make him unworthy.  Which is why I told him even today, I still love you. He is worthy of that because he exists.  But it does keep the bridge burned without any ability to rebuild even a friendship.

I couldn’t go to the beach and pretend that I was happy to see him.  He hurt me, more than I have ever been.  I still cannot have a conversation with him without breaking down, which is why I said I would text, and I know even that may be a mistake.  I don’t know if he even wants to build a bridge between us, for any purpose. It would seem to me that yes, he does., based on his 3 voice mails today.  I could be wrong.  But the foundation of a bridge for any purpose, if one is to be built, will be the ability to own one’s actions and the consequences.  Or it will just fall into the abyss with the first footstep that goes over it.

Stuck

Posted on by learning to live like water

The last 12 hours have been the hardest yet.  I guess it’s just waves that wash over you.  I am always blindsided by the sorrow, the pain, when it comes back.  I think I am ok, better, healing, and suddenly all I want is to hear his voice, to have his arms wrapped around me.  Like an idiot, it is stupid, my head knows this.  I wish my heart would tag along.  It is all I can do not to call him, not to have direct contact.

I know that sending that text was wrong.  I know in the end, it does not facilitate healing but keeps the energetic cords between us. I know all this.  I believe it, I am a Reiki Master, for God’s sake, but I cannot shake this.  I can perform self-Reiki, I have done this, almost every day, it is only effective enough to get me to sleep.  Or make me stop crying.  But the physical ache for him won’t go away.  To send that text, when he is determined to be with her, is just self defeating.  Stupid, to be trying to get answers.  If I get them, will I feel safer?  Will I feel less pain and anger?  No.  There is nothing to be said for the cruel way he left me for her, for the heartache he didn’t care about, for behaving like a teen-age boy, sending me a text. A cowardly, juvenile text.  It is still unfathomable to me, that he could do that.

So, I know I have to get through this, without contact.  I will never heal if I have contact.

My girlfriend and I power-washed my deck this morning.  It’s a beautiful fall day, and we talked and drank coffee.  She asked how I was, I said, you know, it comes and goes.  She said, You’re mourning.  I said, yes it’s almost like someone died.  Today is hard.  Weekends are hard…and told her why. It’s only been a week.  She hugged me. I guess I’m doing ok for only a week.  I’d so rather be angry at him.  It’s so much easier than just loving someone who doesn’t want you.  Geezus. so much easier to walk through.

I’m grateful my son is home today.  We planned a good dinner tonight.  I’m going to make brownies too.  I am beat from doing the deck.  I need to vacuum my bedroom, to change out my closets for the winter.  I need to stay busy, so I can get through this day.  I need to be so tired I pass out tonight.  Maybe some wine would help, usually a drink and an Ambien at least gives me enough rest to get through the next day.

I keep writing about it, hoping I will release the pain through my words.  Maybe it makes it worse, I don’t know.  At times I feel like I am OCD with writing.  But usually, it seems to give me the only relief I can find, so I’ll keep doing it. I’ve always had to put my emotions out on the table, so that even I can see them.  And whatever happens happens.  I made myself vulnerable the first time I told him I loved him.  Sometimes it works, sometimes you get knocked down.  But at least I know I gave all I could to the possibility of him.  I know I held nothing back.  I have no regrets about my actions.  I have learned a few lessons.  Lessons I think I could have done without, but who knows what my soul’s journey is.  I must have wanted to learn what this feels like or it wouldn’t have happened.

Next lifetime I think I’d like to know what a healthy loving relationship is.  Please…..

12 Hours of Being Wretchedly Pathetic

Posted on by learning to live like water

God, I am so pathetic.  Why in the world do I even care what he does or thinks.  My head doesn’t, my head knows I am better off out of that crazy, immature, unbalanced relationship.  I wish the message would get to my heart, I wish the wounds would close and stay that way.

Weekends are hard, really hard.  I know he’s spending the weekend with her, and I know with me he could barely find an afternoon or evening for me.  I am jealous.  Mostly because he’s with this woman who according to him just devastated him, yet he chooses her. And chose to just be cruel to me, like I was a task he needed to get over with so he just got rid of me as quickly and carelessly as possible.

Just another piece of housework for him, like taking the trash out.  The nausea is back.

For all I know, none of what he told me about her was true, or it was only part of the story.  I tended to believe him and all his tall sad tales, but too many of my friends have asked, “Why do you believe him?  You shouldn’t believe anything he says, or said.  It was all manipulation.”  Maybe. Maybe all the “secrets” he told me, that no one else knew, not his wives or Betty Boop, were just stories fabricated by him, to see if I’d believe him, or still want him.  A test to see how I reacted, so he could see how far he could go with me and still have me loving him. That’s what it was with my ex, he is not unlike my ex.

I tend to think now, that what she did to him was revenge for what he did to her, that he declined to own up to his part in it when he told me the story.  But it kind of leaked out, over time.  I remember one morning when we were out to breakfast, maybe a year ago, when he was wondering how she could tell him that if he cheated on her they were done.  He believed “those things just happen, they aren’t planned.”  I remember looking at him, over my breakfast that morning, kind of incerdulously, saying, “It doesn’t just happen!  You don’t just happen to take your clothes off and have sex with someone.  You choose it, you can stop at any time, and say no.”  He said, “Well, shouldn’t unconditional love allow you to forgive it, I mean isn’t that what it’s for?”  I said, “unconditional love is never wishing ill, always wishing the best for everyone.  It doesn’t mean you want or keep people in your life that behave in ways that are hurtful to you.”

As I learned with the prison whore, he is an opportunist, and if he has the chance to fuck someone, he’ll do it if he’s in the mood.  And deal with the consequences after.  (With the prison whore, he found out he couldn’t perform, which added a whole new dimension to his confusion over it and me.)

Then not that long ago, a few months maybe, he said that he was pretty sure she “regretted” doing what she did.  I asked why.  He said, “well why did you go with A?  Because you wanted to get back at me for the prison whore.”  I said, “No, I went with A because I was devastated by what you did, and he was loving, and kind, and sweet and made me feel like I had some value to him.” To which he had no answer. (He always shook off the devastation, as if it was not real, that it was just drama. He couldn’t accept that his actions could do that to someone.)  She may have cheated on him, and run off and got married as revenge for him cheating on her, but I did not….  I cannot relate even to doing that.  I mean, yeah looking for someone who cares for you when you’ve been treated as if you don’t matter, but marrying them?  Drawing someone else into a triangle that is only going to hurt most everyone involved?  That’s deviant.  That’s sick.  That’s unconscionable.

Which is why they are perfect for each other.  They can pretend to love one another, but they have treated each other miserably on and off for all the many years of their relationship.  Hurting each other, breaking up for months, getting back together to feel the rush of emotion all over again.  Addicted to the adrenalin.  He has a very addictive personality, and has, at times in his life, been addicted to many different substances.  I would guess maybe she is the same, and their common tendency to be addictive is the strongest bond they share.

Who the fuck knows?

I’m so pathetic, I sent him a text when I went to bed last night, I don’t know if I was hoping to put a tick in his weekend by sending it, but I was just hurting so much.  I said,

“You prick.  I still can’t believe you did this to me. Why did I ever deserve to be treated so badly?  What did I do to you that deserved this?  Is real love such a painful experience for you that you have to kill the giver?”

He has no way to respond, except to leave a voice mail that I have told him I will delete without listening to.  I would try to keep my word on that, because I know he is incapable of saying anything of comfort to me.  He is incapable of seeing or caring how much he hurt me, he will only defend himself, he will only be feeding his ego, and I know that’s all I did when I sent the text.  He delights in knowing how much I loved him, and the power over my emotions it gives him.  So if he were to respond, I know he would only fuck with my head anyway.

A friend is coming over this morning to help me powerwash my deck.  I need to get it done, so I can paint it before winter.  Hopefully I can paint/stain it when I get back from my nieces wedding next weekend.

I need to just be grateful for all the loving, caring, normal people in my life.  Men who love their wives, families that love each other, and are strong, that include me without question, or judgment.  Who are there to help me, to cry with me, to lift me off the floor when I’ve been knocked down.  People who are only addicted to the pleasure they bring to the people they love, and the pleasure they get in return.

Ok, enough self pity.  Done with him again for awhile.  Writing is cathartic.

Just Not Tonight

Posted on by learning to live like water

I had a wonderful time with my friends tonight.  We sat around the bonfire with drinks, and talked and laughed, it was a beautiful night, stars out, clear, cool but not cold.  Perfect.

But as I got tired, I began to struggle, knowing that he was with the bimbo, that all the love I lavished on him was for nothing.  Yes, he’s an ass, he’s a prick, he’s cruel, and I still love him.  I thought about when he went to see his sister and was struggling and the 2 blogs I wrote while he was there, just to let him know I was with him, that I loved him, that he wasn’t alone.  I thought about the night before he went for surgery when I drove to him, to spend the night, to love him, and be there for him.  And I think, this bitch left him when she thought he was dying.  And what did I get…

I got him leaving me by blindsiding me with a text, like a child.  Like an adolescent.  And the bitch, who hurt him more than I could ever dream about, is the one he wants.

There’s something really sick about that.

I don’t want to be with him, or see him, or hear from him, it will only add to the pain that I deal with tonight.  But I do love him.  I miss him.  Though why I have no idea.  He went out of his way for me once, when he came up to see me after Betty Boop showed up, and he got in the car with a back that rendered him barely able to move and drove the hour to my house because I was losing it.  That was it. That was the only time he ever went out of his way for me.

Mostly, he just took.  Took my love, took my heart, took all the emotion I could drum up, all the passion I could ever offer.

And last week, he sends me a text to tell me he’s gonna be with her.  After setting me up for the kill.  After taking and taking, and making me believe that he’d give back something that weekend. Oh yeah, he gave me plenty.  More heartache than I ever dreamed possible.  Evil.  Sick.

He thinks it’s ok, because he told me he was bad, evil, that he would hurt me.  So, if you tell someone you are going to break their leg, and then you break it, it’s ok because you told them you would?  What kind of rationale is that?  I was dumb,and foolish, and in love.  He was just….evil. Just mean.  Just cruel.

I don’t know why I ever loved him, or why I love him at this moment.  I wish things were different.   But I can’t contact him, I can’t unblock him, I need to get through this so that tomorrow when I wake up without him I’ll be ok.

I think I left the voice mail and email open to him, because I thought at some point, he will feel bad for what he did to me.  At some point maybe he’ll say, “I know I was a shit to you.  I know you didn’t deserve what I gave you.  I’m so sorry that I caused you so much pain.  I know you loved me better than anyone else ever has, or ever will.  And I know I’m stupid for not wanting it.”

Just some recognition that I existed in that relationship.  But there was none.  He has not one ounce of remorse, except that he might miss me.  Meanwhile, what I feel doesn’t matter to him, not one little iota.  There is no apology for devastating me.  No apology for blindsiding me.  Nothing.

In the meantime, I am living my life as best I can.  I imagine putting a note on her car windshield while she sleeps with him, telling her it was me he thought of that morning, and the night before.  I imagine giving her a link to my blog somehow. I imagine sending his daughter a FB message telling her that her father is with the bimbo again, because the daughter hates her, and it will ruin his relationship with her. I imagine hurting him, the way he hurts me.  But I won’t do any of it.  I have to let go of all of it, just put it behind me, let it play out as it will. Let it go so it’s like I never knew him, like I never loved him.  Like he’s dead. Like he never existed.

I will get over him.  I will find someone who can love me, and wants what I have to offer, that will make me forget about him.  Just not tonight.  Not now.  Not yet.  Tonight my wounds are bleeding again.

A Wave Just Washed Over Me

Posted on by learning to live like water

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What a beautiful New England autumn day.  Just gorgeous.  Tonight my Bff asked me over, to a bonfire, dinner and drinks.  I will be the only single person there, but I always am.  She’s gathering me in, wrapping me up in the love of good friends, protecting me from the thoughts that surely will come if I am alone.  She never met him….but she had him pegged from the beginning.

If you are bedding a man for 18 months who has never met your BFF, I would guess that’s a pretty blatant sign that this relationship is not all it’s cracked up to be in your head, isn’t it.  Only my son met him, and from the first day he told me S was weird.  LOl.

Weird is good in my book.  I’m a little weird.  But my son didn’t mean it that way, as in slightly eccentric like you Mom.  I should have listened to him.  Especially over the summer, when he disappeared for days.  My BFF has told me 100 times,  “A relationship that is that much work, from the beginning, is not a good one.”  And I didn’t listen. And it was work, right from the beginning.  Work with no reward, really.  Betty Boop is getting the reward.  I would have had to screw him over for him to treat me well.  Seriously, I mean that.

There was a story on FB this morning, of a little girl who was hit in the face with a rock by a boy. Her mother had to take her to the hospital for stitches.  A man at the hospital, checking them in, said, “I bet he likes you.”  What???  There it is, the warped idea that hurting someone shows that you like them.  Watered down, it falls under S’s old adage, “I only tease you if I like you.”  I think it’s the same mindset.  Perhaps he’s so used to being hurt by people that he actually believes that being hurt is part of loving someone.

If that’s the case…I gotta feel for him.

In that case, I also gotta stay way clear of him.

I always have to feel bad for anyone who didn’t go to bed every night in their life taking their parents love for granted. (Or at least one of them.)  If I believe him, (which I’m not sure of anymore) he never went to bed wondering if he wasn’t loved by them.  According to him (which, again, now I’m not sure how much of it was true, how much was manipulation of me) his parents had not left out any form of abuse of him as a child.  How could I possibly have expected him to get me, to have any idea what a normal relationship is, to even want one?  Not that there aren’t people who overcome that.  But he wasn’t one, and it was pretty clear to me, if I am honest.

It makes perfect sense of Betty Boop, and why she’s spending the weekends with him now.  And really….while there is still a small part of me that hurts from the way he did it, I am really blessed, not to have gotten in any deeper with someone who believes hurt is love.  That passionate fighting makes for passionate making up.  He told me that was what they did.  I remember saying, I only want to love passionately.  You can keep the fighting and making up.

Emotionally, really, he is about 14.  My son at 23 is 100 times more mature.  I mean, look at how he broke up with me, by text!!!  I want to scream, how old are you anyway?  Who does that, at 66?  He didn’t want to listen to me scream at him.  What did he expect, me to say,” Oh that’s ok S…” If you are hell bent on devastating someone, I think you have to be prepared also to deal with their pain.

I wish it hadn’t happened to me.  But if I stand outside and peer in, I am so glad to be out of such an immature relationship.

Anyway, enough of my analysis of him,and myself. .  We are all sick of it, lol.  As an adult we own our lives.  We make our choices.

Writing about this makes me stronger, and see what the work is that I have to do.  I’m sorry if I’m sound like a broken record.  The healing, and the growing comes in waves.  And I just got swept up in one, and now I’m landed on the beach and looking at where I came from.

Erasing Him

Posted on by learning to live like water

  
I was just going through my pictures in my phone, and found about 10 of S that I hadn’t erased. Now deleted permanently. 

I did the same with his texting thread and all the pics associated with it. (After screen-shotting the threat he made to me last week when I told him he should tell Betty Boop how he texted me at 4 AM  and how the night before he’d asked for pics of me.). 

So, I continue to erase all traces of him from my life.  All I have are memories, and I have as many painful ones as good. And the painful ones are way more painful and cruel than the good ones are good. It will keep my head in the right place. Memories fade anyway. 

Like Stephen Stills says in Southern Cross, “Somebody fine gonna come along, make me forget about loving you.”  

Well On My Way

Posted on by learning to live like water

Saturday morning.  I slept almost 8 hours.  I have not done that in weeks, probably before Betty Boop first showed on the scene a month ago.  I feel good, I woke without a knot in my stomach this morning, in fact, with a smile on my face.

I think his voice mail yesterday, his sick sorry attempt to “comfort” me was the key.  I really really saw and disliked him with that voice mail. It infuriated me, but when the fury stopped, I took ownership of my life, and realized everything happens for a reason, and the reason all this happened was because he did not, does not, belong in my life. I don’t wish him ill, I really feel emotionless when it comes to him right now.  No love, no pain, no hurt, no desire.  He’s just someone that I used to love, like my ex husband.  Like the Pink Floyd song “There is no pain you are receding.”  Finally.

I am hoping that since he has no way to respond to me about my blog, he will quit reading them.  But at least if he does, I will not have to deal with whatever he thinks about them.  I won’t know, and that’s a good thing.

I sit here and realize I have no stress this morning. I don’t have to wonder if he’s going to want to see me, I don’t have to wonder if he does will he just want to spend a few hours or will he grace me with some of his time, I don’t have to worry about battling it out with him if he is looking for a “nice afternoon.” I don’t have to wonder where I stand with him. I don’t have to wonder about him at all.  I didn’t realize how much stress I have had the last 6 months with him, always wondering about our relationship.  It feels good, so good.  I feel free today, for the first time. I don’t even feel loss, this morning, which is pretty amazing to me.

I feel like I battled it out all week, and this morning I know I won the fight.  My heart is not pounding, the roar in my head is silenced, my blood sugar has gone back into the good range. I”m not feeling nauseous.  When the physical symptoms of stress, and grief have alleviated, I know I am ok.

The gongs helped I’m sure.  I tried to focus on letting him go, and now, 2 days later, I feel free of  him.  I’m so glad that I know how to deal with my emotions.  Not to bury them, but to  honor them, and let myself feel them, until they are calmed, and subsided.  I always said to him, “It will hurt, but I am strong, I’ll get through it.”  A week later, I am well on my way to the other side.

I’m going to go full tilt boogie into getting my house ready to sell at first light next spring.  I have so much to do.  A friend is loaning me a power washer to do my deck this weekend, I think.  I can paint/stain it when I get back from the wedding next weekend.  That’s one of the biggest jobs I have to do.  I have recruited my son to help me for a few hours at some point this weekend, since he’s off, to get the house good and clean.  I slept so poorly this week, and worked late almost every night, I had no energy to give the house in the few hours I was home.

I was just thinking of his smart ass email to me, when I blogged that I was ok with never seeing him again.  “Be careful you don’t get carpal tunnel patting yourself on your back.”  Well you know what?  I had the surgery, I snipped out the  thing that was causing me pain.  And it’s healing beautifully.  And if I want to pat myself on my back, along with all my friends, for recovering so quickly from utterly cruel devastation, then I will do it. I don’t have to live with what he did.  But he does.

Who Will Walk Through The Fire With Me?

Posted on by learning to live like water

I went to a friends house for dinner and a bottle of wine.  We were gonna go out but changed our minds.  It was really nice to just sit with two people who love each other, and love me, as a close close friend.  My friend and I went off to gab girl talk.  She’s a psychiatric nurse,and had some insight on my week’s struggles.  We are close, been friends for years.  Our kids met in the 5th grade, about 15 years ago, we have been friends since.  She’s one of the members of my book club.

We somehow got onto sexuality, probably in discussing my recently ended relationship.  I told her I dived into sex too early, with S, and it was nice to have someone I could consider a partner in it.  So, it was part of the attachment problem for me, because they go hand in hand for me, sex and attachment.  I guess S enjoyed it…he told me a few times it was the best he ever had.   And trust me, he had had many sexual partners. He did tell me I was overconfident, lol, but was laughing when he said it.  So…my friend wanted to know what I did to make it the best, lol.  I said, I loved him.  But that wasn’t what she meant, she loves her husband very much and they are best friends.  She would just like  him  to feel that way, like it was the best.  I was able to talk to her, about being with S, without pain.

So I am good tonight.  I know I won’t get blindsided by my past tonight.  I can’t imagine it would be important enough for S to make a trip up here, to convince me he didn’t do anything wrong, so I am pretty sure I’m in the clear. It’s nice to feel good, in control of my life, and not scattered, not 1000 threads of my life scattered in different directions, trying to grasp something to hold onto.

I’ve been reading Rising Strong, by Brene Brown.  It’s about being able to get up, strongly, when you are knocked out for the count by someone.  Because as she says, if you’re gonna be vulnerable, which is a strength, because it’s the birthplace of creativity, joy, love, and worthiness, and belonging, then you are gonna get knocked down.  And it’s all about our ability to rise from the floor, strong.

She teaches looking at a problem in 3 acts…the definition of the issue, the action in which the issue is addressed, and the final resolution, where all things come together, to make you stronger, smarter, and learn a lesson. She says we forget the second act.  We want to brush over our struggles, our battles to work ourselves out of pain, heartache, anger., whatever the emotion is that you are struggling with.  But really that struggle is where it’s at.  That’s where we learn, where we become strong.

So, I am slugging it out with heartache, the second act, but tonight I’m winning.  I am seeing clearly here.  I am not a pile of mush, I am actually happy tonight.  I had dinner with people I love and who love me.  I had texted with my dear friend A.  My girlfriend asked me if I am not leading him on, but no.  A is a good good friend.  I can tell him everything and anything.  He knows exactly how I felt about S.  We have talked about our own chemistry, our own relationship, nothing held back. There are no secrets.  We flirt on occasionally, in the morning, when I’m getting ready for work and we are texting.  He tells me he loves me, still.  I have said it to him.  Because he’s willing to walk through the fire with me, to make sure I’m not alone.  How could I not love him?  I am really blessed.

I see, now, that S would never walk through the fire with me, or for me.  He would have not even held out his hand to me.  It’s whatever, I don’t care tonight. The passion I have had for him is waning. I’m grateful there are people in my life that would walk through the fire with me, for me.  I would have done it for S, I would do it for A.  And my family of friends here.

There is no reason to be morose.  My life is rich and full, and I am blessed.

Breathing. 

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m feeling my blood pressure recede as I process the fact that he can’t reach me again. No more upsetting voice mails, pounding my heart into the pavement. He’ll have to turn to her if he needs an ego boost. I’ve removed myself from that capacity. As my friend Megan said, I’ve stepped out of the dance. 

Going out with a friend tonight. Exactly what I need. Tomorrow I’ll wake up without him, and I’ll breathe.