Not knowing is hard
But maybe not as hard as the knowing?
If I don’t have the answer yet,
then the possibilities still live,
Right?
To stay in gratitude for what is,
at the moment.
The cool clean air
the early morning sun streaking golden across the sky.
The blanket wrapped around me
And the happy memories filling my head this morning.
What is, is all there is
Until there’s something else.
Moment to moment
forgive yourself and others
and be free.
I’ve been leaning in and fighting. It’s exhausting. It gets me nowhere, but unhappy. And the same for the people I love. Change has to happen, within.
Learning hard lessons. How to let go of a burning desire when someone says no, not now. Learning that it only means what it means. Not more, not less. Just, not at the moment.
Why is that so hard for me? God, I want what I want. Geezus. Does that mean I’m unlovable, because the answer was no? Duh. Does that mean I’m undesirable, because the answer was no? Duh.
Does that mean, that since I can’t have what I wanted that I have to waste the day away? No. Duh. I had some other pretty important stuff to do. And got it done. And feel good about it.
God, I can be so pushy…instead of going with the flow. I dislike this about me immensely. Why do I choose the path of most resistance, so often?
Change is in the wind.
Again. Still. Forever.
Outside again before the sun was up today. Everything still wet from last night’s much needed rain, the sky was streaked with gray clouds in the darkness. One tiny crack in the gray gave way to dawn’s first light. It is still, except for the faintest breeze. The air is chill, I sit, wrapped in a blanket.
I closed my eyes in the dark, choosing a meditation on Acceptance. Because things are not as I want them, but they are ok, I need to shut down the incessant chatter of my monkey mind, and allow myself to see and accept and find joy in what is.
Oddly, though it was not my intention, choosing to focus on acceptance, to think about my ex-husband. He is rarely in my thoughts anymore. But, as it does in it’s own inimitable way, the universe reminded me that today is his last day in our old house. The house was foreclosed on and he fought a crazy misdirected fight to remain in it once it was sold, which lasted about 6 months. He has lived there since 1978. It was a small cape cod style home, exterior of stucco, roof of slate. It sat on a rise, overlooking 125′ of lake front, on 3/4 of an acre of land. The tallest tree on the lake is on that property, a tulip tree maybe 100′ or even 150′ tall. The trunk so big that you couldn’t even put your arms 1/2, maybe not even 1/4 of the way around it. I loved the orange tulips that grew on it every year. You could see it from anywhere on the lake. A yard full of mountain laurel, and huge old rhododendrons. It was once a beautiful place, but has fallen into complete disrepair.
But I digress.
In his belief that there was only lack in the world, he never had enough. In his belief that he was not worthy of love and belonging, he was unable to accept or give love to anyone, in the end. I spoke to him earlier this week. He called me and left a voice mail, the night S was here. Oddly, I had driven by his business, of which I was an integral part for 30 years, earlier in the day, (after I found my car in the parking garage….) and seen a for sale sign on it, and it was closed. I assumed that had something to do with his call. He had sounded urgent, when he called, as if it was very important to both of us. I know better.
But I called him. He was calling because in the basement he said there was a box of stuff that was really mine, that was really water damaged. Things like my high school diploma, books, pictures…. Did I want it? It was so badly damaged that he didn’t know how I would salvage anything. I told him, no, throw it out. I haven’t looked at it in 30 years, at least, I won’t miss it.
This was not urgent. I am surprised he would even ask. I think the urgency in his voice mail came from somewhere else. Perhaps, he just wanted my attention. Perhaps, he wanted me to know that he’d finally given up the fight.
I asked him how he was doing, knowing that he is not equipped to deal with this move on any emotional level. His things are how he identifies himself. To say he had a house on the lake, was who he was. To say he owned his own business, was who he was. Now he has neither. I am sure he has no idea who he is anymore. He told me he’s taking it one day at a time. I offered my assistance this weekend, to help him pack it up, to move it, to store things for him. He politely declined my help, as I knew he would.
My son asked me to see if I could get his hockey stuff. Hockey was a HUGE part of son’s life, the main focus, as he grew up. He played from age 5 or 6 to 16. He was pretty good. He quit, to be free of his father’s control. He gave up a lot, something he really loved, for that freedom. It was not until years after that he understood what his motivating force was. But 3 weeks after he quit, he was living with me, having gone to school one day from his father’s and come home to my house. He has been back one time for dinner in the 6 years since.
But he wanted his trophies, his jerseys, his autographs and any other memorabilia he has. His father told me he could have them. I offered to come over and pick them up. His response was that it was all packed to go to his new place, and to get at it, he would have to unpack everything else.
Meaning, no…son can’t have it unless he asks his father himself, and comes to get it himself. His last little string of control on my son. My son has no relationship with his father at the moment, for a few years now. Because his father, is his father. He has made a small effort, at times, to make my son believe he has changed, and the minute my son felt comfortable with him, he would go back to being the controlling manipulative man he is. He brings chaos to everyone’s life that he encounters. It is mainly the chaos we both left, the never knowing what any day would bring us, never knowing if the earth might shift on its axis while we slept.
I asked him where he was going. Since things were packed up to go to his “new” place. He said, “Oh I’m not sure, I’m hoping for confirmation today.” I wanted to say, “Really? You have to be out of the house in 4 days and you don’t know where you are going?” But I know better. He doesn’t want me to know, and to question him will only bring me a whole huge circular conversation at the end of which the answer will still be that he doesn’t know.
So…today. He will pack up the final load. He will drive out of the driveway, to parts unknown. My son and I will have no way to contact him (he hasn’t had a cell phone in years) or know where he is. It is the way he likes it to be, so no one can find him, or know what he’s doing, or hold him accountable.
It just seems so strange, so odd, so unsettling I guess, to not know where he is. I have known every day for the last 50 years almost, since we were 18, where he was, what he was up to, basically. It’s not that I need to know, really, my emotion for him is only sadness. But now, he is really on his own, really by himself. I have serious doubts that he has even told his sister, the only family he has outside of us, where he will be.
I can’t imagine living so solitary a life. Isolating yourself so much from the world at large. But I accept it, it is his journey to make, perhaps he needs to do this to find his true center. I prefer to believe that. I prefer to believe that he will, at some point, have the epiphany of all epiphanies, and find a glimmer of light. I prefer not to think of him as living his life out separated from the world.
Acceptance. This was not where I thought I was going to go with this. I was looking to accept that I wasn’t seeing S this weekend, because he’s busy with his house, and perhaps still uneasy with me, and I was looking to make good use of the time, even though I’d rather have spent some time with him, trying to bridge the gap that I so stupidly put between us last week. To be honest, even before that, although we talked regularly and intimately, we hadn’t seen much of each other. Maybe because I was always jumping the gun with him, always demanding more than he was able, or wanting, or free to give. Kind of acting like a petulant child, I guess, not getting what they want.
Today, I may see some friends, maybe take a walk, maybe go to a farmer’s market. Maybe not. Maybe just stay home, work on my house, make some jewelry since I have use of my right hand again. The day usually brings it’s own destiny, and I will practice accepting whatever it brings my way.
I guess the only way to make sense of chaos, is acceptance. To let be what is. Even if the path is strewn with obstacles, and difficult to see at times. It is what it is. To live like water is to find a way, to go with the flow. There is only acceptance.
Wishing for more,
Happy with what is.
The way is unmarked,
Therefore awareness is vital.
But “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
With it for the long haul
To the conclusion that is perhaps already written,
But invisible.
The connection showed itself
Again
Today.
Took my breath away for an instant,
Then gave it back to me.
Lessons in grace.
Wednesday I went to my endocrinologist, for a routine checkup for diabetes. She is in a huge medical building, with an attached garage that has about a dozen parking levels. I parked on level H, and walked down the ramp to the elevator. When I came back, I went back to level H and my car was not there. I walked around and around, and couldn’t find it. I was sure it was stolen, the parking place I was in was empty. I was freaking out, silently. I went to the attendant, and she called security, who drove me through the garage til I found my car on level F.
God, I was SURE it was level H. Positive. Which just goes to show how my mind works. Not only was I sure it was level H, I was sure it was stolen.
But there in lies a microcosm of how I have been living my life. Very wrong about so many things, and making up stories in my head, which I fully believe to be true, until, oh there’s the car in front of my face, right where I left it.
By the time that was done, and I was safely in my car, on the way back to work, I texted S to tell him, it wasn’t stolen, it was on level F. And then I said, “I need you to come see me, before I lose my mind. Will you come see e tonight?”
After he realized I wasn’t kidding, he indicated he would come.
And there was S, willing to drive an hour see me, with back pain so much he could barely walk, when I had done the same to him, making up a story I fully believed to be true.
I can’t get over how allowed my egoic mind to just take over for the last 10 days. This man I care so much for….maybe he didn’t communicate to me exactly the way things were, maybe he is imperfect. But he expected the best from me, not the worst, and that is worth so much.
All I needed to do when he said she is back in my life is ask what that meant. And I would have found out it meant, they could talk, they were friends of a sort. And if I could have calmly said, why should I be happy, I would have found out it was because he had so many unanswered questions about the ending of their long term relationship, questions that kept popping up and preventing him from healing from it. That maybe now he can move past it, and free his heart up? (That’s just a guess on my part….) To be honest, we didn’t talk that much about his break-up with her, almost 2 yers ago. I thought his questions had been answered, when he met with her over a year ago and found out she was married. I also felt it was not my business why they broke up, it was his. But still, now…it kind of overflowed into my business, and if I’d have asked why I should be happy, calmly, not accusingly, I would have saved a whole lot of pain. If I had been listening, with my heart and not my stupid fearful mind, I would have heard him when he said “I want you to be happy, you know it’s all I’ve ever wanted” meaning, all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. Me.
When I understood that Wednesday night, I stopped dead in my tracks. As the realization came to me, how absolutely asinine I’d behaved, I just cried. I could name all the reasons I was fearful, but the point is, you can’t just be loving and soulful when it’s easy. To remain loving, when it’s hard, is the true measure of how deep your convictions run.
I hate, absolutely hate, that I sent all that negative emotion, all those untruths about him into the universe. I hope the universe can work it’s wonders and perform some alchemy and turn lead into gold, and let that stuff come back in it’s new form to him.
I still have a ball in the pit of my stomach. I feel like I don’t know who I am. Everything I believe in my heart is the opposite of who I became over the last 10 days. Jumping to conclusions, wrong conclusions, not asking questions, cutting off communication, just so my ego could feel big and inflated and powerful.
It is so difficult to look at yourself, and not like what you see. Sure there were a lot of things that added up to making me believe what wasn’t true, but the fact is, I was expecting the worst from him, while he expected the best from me. And he gave me the best of him, and I gave him the worst of me.
I can’t undo what was done, but I can rethink the way I behave. I am so grateful that the universe helped me to lose my car in the parking garage, so I would find it and see how I make up a story, and don’t question it at all, and believe it to be true.
S was right where I left him too….not with her. With me as much as he ever has been, and willing to put the effort in to get through the mess that was created.
I had a gong bath last night. An hour long vibrational healing meditation. Boy did I need it. S used to say to me, the day after a gong bath, “You should do that every night.” Because it helps me so much, in regaining center. Wednesday night he was my gong bath. He helped me regain center, and see who I was and who he thought I was. I liked who he thought I was better than who I was. I will try to deserve his belief in me.
The sun comes up so much later in just the last 2 weeks. I’m outside before it, again. There is a wee, crescent moon, a single star hidden behind the leaves of the tress and the eastern horizon is lighting up pink, fading to gray blue in a cloudless sky. It is cool, but not cold, about 68 degrees. No blanket needed this morning, the cool air fees lovely on my bare arms.
I still have a ball in the pit of my stomach, and food is still difficult though I am able to eat without feeling like I’m going to get sick. I think now, it is not so much pain, but is so much regret, and confusion, and inability to comprehend what this whole past weekend was about.
First, the snake. I knew that the metaphysical meaning of a snake showing up in your life meant change. I just looked it up for a closer look, at the meaning, it’s been a long time. Here is what I found.
“Transmutation is the key word here. The shedding of old skin and emotions and transforming them into something bigger and better. If Snake winds itself into your life know that change is in the wind and that you are at the center of it all as the catalyst. Make sure that your intentions are clear and that you have clear a clear sense of the direction that you need to strike out in. Snake is letting you know that these changes are safe and that there is no need to fear them.”
And another site.
“The snake animal meaning is powerfully connected to life force and primal energy. In many cultures, it is revered as a powerful totem representing the source of life. When the snake spirit animal appears in your life, it likely means that healing opportunities, change, important transitions, and increased energy are manifesting.”
So, believing that there are no coincidences, I should probably look at the snakes appearance in my life in the very middle of all the weekend chaos, as a sign, that there is huge change coming, and not to be afraid of it. That, combined with the message from the Secret Scrolls that I published a couple days ago, which both said the same thing. I need to lose the fear of change.
I sat last night, after I published my last blog on wanting to know the truth, and rolled around the events of the day and the weekend. I am not meaning to be obsessed. This is a habit I got into when I was married to a man who delighted in being devious, and loved to gaslight me, and just see if he could create a situation that would make me believe all the wrong things. He did it for the pure joy of knowing he could control my mind and emotions. So, I learned to read the signs, to be hypervigilant, to do my best to stay one step ahead of him.
In replaying everything last night, I still know that the conversation I had with S was not the truth. That it was far from the truth. And that it’s design was to lead me into some chaotic path, back to him, without him having to own up to whatever it was he had planned, designed, and carried out.
Maybe it was like I said, they were together, it didn’t work out, and he was backtracking, to undo the damage he had done. Maybe the entire scenario was a fabrication, right from the start, maybe he never talked to her at all, but made this up because he knows how jealous I am, to reassure himself that I still wanted him, and to get me to stop with ending the relationship. I had been publishing all week prior to the appearance of Betty Boop, that I was done with the screwy relationship, that caused way more pain than pleasure for me. Nothing adds up to him receiving a call from her, telling me she’s back in his life, I should be happy for him, and it’s all he ever wanted, and then telling me they have just talked for a week. I believe either they got together, hence me not hearing from him all weekend, and suffering all weekend, because he just didn’t give a damn, he was so caught up in the possibility that she was “back in his life”, or he made the whole thing up to keep me from breaking up with him.
I have the voicemails still, that he left telling me he wished I’d be happy for him. But I don’t want to listen to them again. In my memory, they seem genuine, his voice seems as if he’s not acting. But then again, he’s good at taking on roles,
The point this morning is, it doesn’t matter to me right now exactly what happened. I know I don’t have the truth, and what the truth is doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I was lied to. And that is only equal with the fact that he knew how much pain I was in all weekend, and did nothing at all to ease it.
He is incapable of loving, but even more important he cannot empathize, he has no ability to understand another person’s pain, and he cannot stand to be accountable for the consequences of his actions. Childish, immature, and so far from the man I thought he was, and so far from the man I want.
Back to the snake, I know the ball in the pit of my stomach is the transformation which has begun. My transformation, out of this relationship, to open the door in a real way to a better, happier life. It is letting go of something I held dear for a long time, and had dreams around, but every minute the fog is burning off my psyche and I see the truth a little bit better. As it comes into focus, I will heal.
This morning, even though I can look at what happened and still feel enormous anger at S, I have to feel sorry for him too, that he felt compelled to make up a story to me, rather than tell the truth. That he has so little confidence in who he is, that he can’t be real, even with me, who never asked him for anything except love which was the one thing I could not have. I hope he does what he’s been telling me he needs to do for 6 months, and that is to go and find himself. Find what he wants, find what he needs to be, and do with the years remaining on this earth. He has so much potential, but he sets himself up for failure in his belief that he is not worthy of love and belonging. I thought I could help him learn to believe that he has value because he exists, for no other reason. But I can’t, couldn’t. He needs to find that out for himself, to love himself. He needs to learn to silence his ego, and allow his spirit to lead the way. Then there is a possibility he will be able to love another person and not cause them both endless pain.
The sun is up now. It promises to be a hot late summer day. This time of year, I always think, is this the last hot day until next summer? Will I feel the waves of warm moist heat on my skin again for many months? Every warm day in September is a blessing. It is a good time for change, for transformation. The autumn here is known for it’s beauty, the hills and mountains heavily wooded, covered with red, and gold, and orange, and still some green. It can be breathtaking.
I would like to have my breath taken away by something beautiful for a change.
Note: the picture at the top is from my deck as I wrote this blog.
I’m up early this morning. I have been out on the deck since the very first rays of sunlight edged the eastern horizon. It’s still, the birds are not even singing yet. And it’s cool, I’m wrapped in a blanket. It promises to be a beautiful day.
I’d thought I was going to the beach today, but that didn’t work out. It’s ok, though. I am going for a walk with a friend this morning, just back from Martha’s Vineyard where she has a summer home. It will be good to catch up. My son will be home from his music festival in the early afternoon, and it will be good to see him, have his somewhat chaotic energy back in the house. And his help in finding and getting rid of the snake!
I am better this morning. I have a selenite healing wand with a fluorite tip on it. The two stones are very healing. I held it to my heart last night. One of selenite’s metaphysical properties is that it helps to break up patterns, and I felt it was exactly what I needed to get over S. I need to break up the pattern that my mind and heart go through when I think of him. I held it there, and repeated “detach” like a mantra. Focusing on the word, on visually seeing the energetic cords break off and fall away. I fell asleep with it that way. I think it helped. Because this morning when I think of him, I remember all the ways we did not get along, all the reasons I tried to break it off with him all summer, and he kept drawing me back in.
Looking back, I suppose he just didn’t want to be alone. I don’t think that he thought that, purposefully. Just, he really has so few people in his life. His daughter and son, and one good friend that I know of. He wasn’t in love with me, but he liked the fact that I was.
I am putting that in the past tense. I think I can just begin to feel the transformation of what I felt for him, becoming something else. Something less painful, something more like the words of that song “You’re just someone that I used to love.” No mean intent, just that I can feel the first tendrils of moving my heart away from him, and the pain and chaos loving him has cost me.
I’ve known for months we were not meant to be. We never saw each other for one, which was his decision. Not mine. But I stopped fighting it long ago. I saw him maybe 4 times all summer. So why is it such a big deal that he is not with me now? Because he’s with someone else, and it feels like rejection. Because I am jealous, I would have liked to be someone he wanted to spend more time with, but I never was, so I need to stop making it out to be like he ever wanted to be with me anyway. He just liked keeping me on the periphery of his life, liked knowing there was someone out there who adored him.
Well, I don’t, adore him at the moment. I’m not mad, but this morning I am real. His relationships are all pretty dysfunctional. He has been healing the one with his daughter, but Betty Boop will probably reverse that in a big hurry. Too bad.
I have lived such a dysfunctional life with my ex, that I was comfortable with S’s ability to create a dysfunctional relationship with me. I realized that this summer, there are probably 3 or 4 blogs about how I tried to end it with him, and he talked me out of it. Most notably, the time in maybe July, where he had just pulled me back in with the possibility of him being very sick, and then disappeared on me for 4 days. I mean, literally, on the weekend, he called and asked me not to “dump” him, and told me how he is sick and the constant pain of his headaches was making him behave poorly, and so I didn’t, and I think he came up to my house that weekend, maybe. Then the next weekend his mother died and he disappeared to New Jersey, without a word, and I was calling the hospitals here to see if he’d been admitted, because I was afraid he had an aneurysm. I was so terrified. He came home and texted me like it was nothing.
Dysfunction.
I don’t need that. He once told me that he and his ex gf used to fight passionately, and make up passionately, and that there had been many times when they had separated for months at a time. This was when we first met, and I thought, I don’t want any fighting passionately. When a fight begins, I run. I was the runner. I have had more than my share of hard fought, blood and guts fights in my life, and I don’t like them. Back then, he didn’t yet know she had married within months of leaving him. I think he thought it was just another temporary break up. One day she messaged him, after I’d been seeing him for a couple of months, said she wanted to see him. Of course, I was terrified, and he was kinder then, than now. He told me to not worry, that I was taking him out of the equation, that he was just going to talk to her, and it didn’t mean he was going back to her. Turns out she wanted to meet with him to tell him face to face she was married. He disappeared then for 2 days. Wouldn’t talk to me, or answer my texts, left me hanging out to dry, just kind of like this weekend. The difference was he gave our relationship no consideration this time, He just said, “she’s back in my life.” After 18 months. He let go of me so fast, that it’s taken me days just to get up on my own two feet again. I was blindsided, not only by Betty Boop’s appearance in his life, and mine by extension, but by how easily and quickly he threw our relationship to the wind.
Well, it’s all moot now. She’s back, and I am letting go. I think about all the hurt, all the times he disregarded my feelings because he couldn’t cope with his own. When I am in a relationship with someone, him included, generally I consider their feelings first. He and I both were dysfunctional, we could not figure out how to make it work.
It was a bad relationship. It is good that something happened to make it actually end, to create an ending that there is no bridge from to get back to where we were. Where we were was not a good place anyway. I know there are much better places ahead of me, than behind me.
I’m going to have a good day today. The knot in my stomach has unraveled some. I made a pot of chili yesterday, but couldn’t eat any of it. We’ll have it today, with some good bread. I’ll work at opening the door for something “magnificent” to walk through. I know the rest of my life will be wonderful, I know what I want, and where I’m going and what I’m going to do when I get there. S is beginning to fade, and I can imagine, for the first time, that a day is coming where I don’t think of him wistfully. Maybe kind of, he was kind of a cool guy but so messed up. I’d like to remember him fondly, but not painfully. Someday.
Not there yet, but like I say, I know where I’m going and what I want, and that’s what I want. Just to let go of it all, say I loved him once, we had some fun, but we had more pain, and we let it go.
The end.
Confusion and chaos
Beginning to unravel
Into some comprehensible circumstance.
I want my close friend,
Most of all.
What we shared,
He can’t share with her,
she was not a part of it.
He has said this…
that it was ours and our alone.
Nor is she part of the close friendship we share.
He knows my secrets,
I know his.
They are ours to keep.
I will lose something here,
But it was something I had already decided to lose.
Now, I have gained back my close friend,
Now I can still have the laughter,
The conversation,
The connection without pain.
I’m still scared,
At the change.
I’ve never traveled this road before
And I still love him.
But it seems safe, for now.
It is easier on my heart,
For now.
Going to go to the beach tomorrow
And re-find my center.
That where it usually is,
Hovering over the sea,
knowing that I will know where to look for it.
It is easier to contemplate a future that includes him
In some way
than one that doesn’t.
I get emails from The Secret, called The Secret Scrolls. I said earlier today, that maybe the universe actually conspired in my behalf, to create an issue so impossible that I had to forget about S, to make way for another better door to open. This is the scroll I got (as well as everyone else who subscribes) today. Sometimes the message is for you, sometimes it’s for others. Today, it was for me. I’m about to go out on the town with friends. Who knows what may happen? 🙂
A Secret Scrolls message from Rhonda Byrne
Creator of The Secret
From The Secret Daily Teachings
This is because when people see a big change appearing they are often fearful that it is something bad. But it is important to remember that when something big changes in our lives, it means something better is coming.
There cannot be a vacuum in the Universe, and so as something moves out, something must come in and replace it. When change comes, relax, have total faith, and know that the change is ALL GOOD.
If you are reading a book, and every two chapters the same miserable thing happens, is it likely you will keep reading? After maybe 9 chapters, and the 3rd, 6th and 9th ones are all the same, the characters running around the same block, going nowhere…do you keep reading? Is there any point?
If a story can’t evolve, if the characters can’t develop, and when you know that no matter what happens in chapters 10 and 11 that chapter 12 will boot them right back to where they were, why continue with the book?
Books, and life, needs to evolve. Being stuck in in that cycle is boring, and useless, and a waste of time.
Time for a new book, time to close the one I’ve been reading for so long, expecting and hoping for a different outcome. Thinking that the writer, and creator, was smart enough to evolve the characters, Well, I know there’s someone out there who can write a story I will love.
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