Tag Archives: answers

An Ending and a Beginning. They Are the Same Thing.

Posted on by learning to live like water

It’s been a good day.  The north wind blew in and it was blustery, probably the first day this season with a wind chill.

In Eat Pray Love, Liz Gilbert says “Ruin is a gift.  Ruin is the road to transformation.”  I would have to agree.  Complete chaos ensued from the devastation of my life.  But now, 6 weeks later, I can see the unfolding of a new life for me, with clarity.  I see what I was not getting from that relationship, and how I just accepted it as it was.  Seriously, I was unfulfilled in many ways, and always deferring to his wishes. If I asked for myself, it would only be once, most of the time.  “No” is just too much rejection for a simple request.  I learned to find happiness with what I was given.  For awhile.  Because I loved him so much.  I was always dreaming of the day when he’d want me the way I wanted him.

It was never gonna happen.

Eventually, I wanted out, because I was unhappy.  Most of the summer.  He talked me down, he kept me engaged.  I don’t know why he did.  We rarely saw each other.  What did it matter?   I settled for misery because I loved him.  Time and time again, he pushed me away, til I left and then reeled me back in til he had me.

He should have told me about Betty Boop wanting back into his life.  Or him wanting her.  He just should have been honest with me and let me know the truth.  He knew neither she nor I would share him.  So he lies to her about it, and tries to convince me there’s nothing wrong with it.  He should have told me, and let me walk away with some dignity.  Instead of dealing a crushing blow to me. A blow that left me face down in the dirt, gasping for air, while he danced.

He chose BB because she doesn’t want anymore than his warm body in bed once a week.  And that’s what he wants, someone who asks nothing more of him. Who doesn’t even ask much of him there.  I caused endless problems between us because I was not satisfied with less than.

We have had an uncanny connection, I think more from my end than his.  He used to have it, he would call when I was thinking of him.  I have always been able to feel when things aren’t right with him. The day his friend died.  Different days and nights I wondered if he was ok, and he wasn’t.  Sometimes I knew, and didn’t say anything.  I didn’t want to know.  Just the other day, with his health.  I am still concerned with that, I’m not sure that was what I had the intuitive feeling about. Waking up to middle of the night phone calls or texts.  The morning he dropped his bomb on me, I sat there shaking, knowing there was something terrible about to happen.  I even blogged about it, how I was trying to talk myself down.  But my intuition was right.  My world was forever changed that day.

It felt like I would die.  And I was dying.  The me that kept giving in, and giving up, and accepting being treated poorly, and accepted less than I deserved, and so little real fulfillment, did die.  That day, and on the ensuing days.  And now, I have been reborn, transformed as Liz Gilbert says.  I have lost some of my excess weight.  I have done my work, I have looked within to see why I accept less than I want.  I defined what values were important to me.  I have realized that unconditional love has to be extended to ourselves first.  We have to value ourselves first, and only then can we offer anything to anyone else.

I am proud of my ability to show up, to get into the arena and be seen, and dare to love with my whole heart.  I don’t regret for a moment that I loved S.  But now, I won’t accept a one way street again.  What he has with the Boop, I don’t want.  I want connection.  Love.  Happiness.  I loved being in love. I want to be loved back.  This life is too precious to waste it away on trivial sex without connection, on a love that only goes one way, in a relationship that makes you cry as much as laugh.

I want more.

My heart is open to all the endless possibilities.  I am transformed. I am stronger than I ever was.  I am more focused.  I am more sure of myself, and what I want.  I can find and make very happy someone whose happiness will also depend on my being happy.  An energetic circle, where the beginning and ending are blurred, because eventually, they are the same thing.

Answers, and More Questions

Posted on by learning to live like water

I don’t know what to do.

After all the stupid bs with S in the last 12 hours, I needed to put it to rest and focus on my own life.  I was afraid he was going to so freak out that he’d show up at my house, with his eyes glazed over or something.  (Not that I’ve ever seen him like that, but he’s got a temper and he used to just withdraw when he lost it, because, he said, “people get hurt when I get mad.”)  So in an effort to avoid another ugly scene, I called and left him a voice mail, trying to reassure him I had no interest in communicating with Betty Boop.  But if he needed to talk to me about it, to reassure himself, then to leave me a voice mail and I’d call him back. I have not heard so I guess he’s ok with it.  I hope.

That’s the end of it for me.  I got my answers, finally, as to what happened to our relationship, and now I can leave it in peace.  What goes on between the two of them, whatever happens, I want it to be a result of the way they treat and respect and care for each other, I want nothing to do with it. It’s so far from anything I’d even dream of, I can leave it behind me without another thought.

When I got home, it was already late, and I’d promised A I would call so we could discuss him coming here for Christmas.  I had a headache from work which is insanely busy as I cover two desks, and from the ridiculous situation with S.  It all gave me a massive headache.

I don’t want to talk to A about the S situation.  It’s too stupid and sick to even tell someone.  I think he is sick to death of hearing about S, as am I, but the guy keeps popping into my life from the sidelines.  So I didn’t tell A about the dream, or about all the lies I uncovered today, because it’s all irrelevant to anything except giving me the answers I wanted.  Well, it was relevant I guess, because it distracted me.  I don’t feel I can talk to  him about it, bottom line.

I thought A was going camping until Dec. 29 and he could come here the next day and stay until I went back to work, the 5th.  He got so excited, that without discussing it, he canceled his camping plans and now wants to come for 2 weeks.  And that terrifies me, I would like 5 or 6 days, but 2 weeks?  I don’t want to live with him….I really care for him, and it will hurt him if I don’t want it.  I don’t want to hurt him, but man he’s always jumping ahead of me.

Before I called him, I sat in silence, and did about a 10 minute self-reiki session.  Trying to unblock myself, trying to be able to hear what my intuition is telling me.  My third eye chakra was friggin pulsing.  My heart felt blocked.  I think that even though I was over S before I even found them out, to discover the huge mass of lies just made my heart chakra close up a little.  Or a lot.  I don’t know.

So A and I talked.  He’s flying across the country, he wants to stay for a while.  While I get that, I’m not ready for it.  I don’t want company for that long, I am so independent, I am not ready for him to move in here, with no options to stay anywhere else.  He wants us to see how we are for the long haul, I want to spend 2 weeks together when I know already that I want it.

I told A I needed to run it by my son, because he lives here, and I think he deserves a say in it.  My son’s reaction was like mine, 2 weeks?  That’s a long time.

When I hung up, I felt pressured.  I told him he always jumps in and gets so far ahead of where I am.  This is all why I don’t think a long distance relationship will work for me.  It has to grow on me, I can’t force it.  I’m afraid A has grown on me as much as he’s going to.  And I know he’s so in love with me.  I’m trying really, I’ve always tried.

I asked him to let it roll around my head for another day or two. Maybe I’m just worn out. I don’t think that’s it.  I just don’t have the energy to have to pull in the reins on him,constantly.  Not when I’ve just gotten my hands burned letting them go with S. I just need to be alone I think.  Even though I’m sick of being alone.

I guess I already know what the answer is. It’s gonna break his heart.

Settling Out

Posted on by learning to live like water

Sunrise 11-07-15

Sunrise from my deck

Feeling peaceful this morning.  It was week full of turmoil, but has ended ahead of where it started, emotionally.  It started with me missing S last Sunday, and making the mistake of telling him.  It opened the door to him telling me to come see him then, the minute she walked out his door. Which led to raw emotions, again, and to ugliness between us.  It led to me having to cut him off completely in order to move forward.  Which led to the dream (I don’t know what else to call it, but it was way more than a dream)….which freaked me out, but then made me realize that I had let him go, energetically, that I could do it at my most vulnerable.  Not saying it wasn’t hard, and didn’t hurt, but I did it, for me.

I was so concerned with the lesson.  I think it was the balance of the Unconditional Love lesson, that we have to extend that love to ourselves, first.  We have to be strong enough to let go of those things that hurt us, that no longer serve us, even if we love them.

So, now I follow my own advice for the moment and will go where the love is.  Which leads me to some peace this morning, starting with the beautiful sunrise. Peaceful in the sense that I can think things through, without angst.

A and I will talk this weekend about Christmas break this weekend.  He wanted to last night but it was too late for me, I was too tired.  It deserves more attention than that.  I am conflicted, to say the least.  I would rather he came here, he might be open to it, because his house is getting gutted, and there’s a good chance it won’t be done by then anyway.  I’m still uncertain about the long term implications, but I think that I need to just let what happens happen.  I love him enough to spend 5 days with him.  I know he won’t make me sorry.  My only issue is guilt that I don’t feel the same about him as he does me, but I’m not that far off.  I think it’s the distance that keeps me from engaging my heart more.  But I’m not even sure about that.

Am I just being lazy, accepting what is here, in front of me, offering me unconditional love, but without the passion that I crave?  Am I just being impatient?  Is it just that my defenses are down?  I love the relationship I have with him at the moment, would I ruin that with expectation on his part if I do this? Because I don’t want to commit to a long distance relationship… And I don’t want the perception of friends with benefits, because we are way more than friends, we have been lovers in the past…

God I don’t know. Sometimes I think I should just be celibate until I find the passion I crave.

I hope the psychic calls me back today.

The weekends have been so hard for me since S dumped me so easily.  Last weekend I made it til Sunday morning. I hope I can get through Sunday this week, without being hit by a rogue wave.  Even if I get knocked down, I won’t reach out…I’m sure of that.  He is growing fainter in my psyche.  I ignore his messages, the ones I feel, (there aren’t any others) more easily now, they are always the same. And only lead to more pain.

I am beginning to feel that he stopped reading my blog, I’m hoping. But I’ve thought that before, and was surprised to find out he still read them.  It doesn’t really matter, I don’t have to deal with his emotions over them, unless he visits me in a dream again.

Just thoughts, emotions settling out.  Time to get the day underway.

Love and light.

Even In My Sleep

Posted on by learning to live like water

It was a rough night last night.  Maybe because I opened up to A about my struggle to reclaim myself..  Maybe because I got hit by one of those rogue waves on the way home from work.  But last night I wrote the next two paragraphs in the middle of the night.

He came to me in a dream. We were together the way we used to be. For awhile, sweet, loving.  And then he began to tell me about being with her, and taking care of something for her. I got so angry. He wanted to know why I was ruining our good time being jealous of her.  I told him to leave. It was exactly the way he would act, the words were exactly what he would say about it. Cut my heart open and ask why I would bleed. 

I woke up wracked in pain, sobbing shaking. I could still feel him, smell him, taste him. I’m afraid to go back to sleep. Afraid he will come again and torture me. Can’t he just leave me alone?

Even in my sleep.  It was such a vivid dream, almost like a visitation.  I suppose there was a reason.  Maybe the purpose is to make me more fully accept that he chose her.  I am apparently still struggling with that, I think it’s mostly because of the way he just turned on me that day.  Suddenly I went from the one he wanted to be with, to a pariah, that he just wanted to quickly get me out of his life to make room for her.

He has since said, no, he wanted to keep me in his life, but under conditions he knows I could never accept.  And there is no trust now, I will never trust him again.

I felt like it was an energetic connection, manifesting.  I rarely remember my dreams, let alone feel so much from them.  Maybe because I’ve cut off all forms of communication to him, this is how his soul will communicate with me.  It’s exactly what he continued to try to convince me to do. To be with him, while he’s still with her. 

I’m considering going to the psychic, to try to understand what holds me back. What it is that keeps me connected.  It doesn’t feel normal.  It’s not like any connection, anything at all, that I’ve ever experienced before. Maybe I’ll talk to my friend Linda, who plays the gongs, but also does many types of energy work, including hypnotherapy.
My dear friend A….is another issue.  And I think talking to him last night didn’t help this struggle any, but I needed him to try to understand, which he doesn’t.  He wants to change my mind. He wants me to rest in his love, and forget about it.  I’ve done that before, but it can’t last, because I need to deal with the reason I chose to be with S, against all reason.  Why did I stay when I knew he would hurt me.  When he TOLD me he  would hurt me. Why did I choose not to believe him.  I tell everyone else, when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. But I ignored that sage advice.

I need to know why.  I need to learn how to do it.  I need to understand.  And I need to find a way to stop loving the man.  And stop missing him.  And to stop seeing him as that little boy who just wanted to be loved, but as an adult couldn’t trust it when he got it, and instead fought it, fought not to have it, and found someone who can’t and wont give it to him, and he won’t give it to her.

Until I get this, I won’t be available for any relationship.

And A….is 2000 miles away.  I don’t think I even want to be in a committed loving relationship over a long distance.  I love him, he’s like a best friend, but intimacy requires more than that. If I’m going to be intimate, I want the intensity I felt with S.  I don’t want a relationship where I only see him for a short time with months in between.  I don’t want to live in the desert.  But I also don’t want to be with out the love and kindness of the man.  I’m afraid he will just get sick of my inability to deal with what happened with S and give up on me.

So,rough night.  not much sleep.  Still feel like crying this morning.  I want my life back.  I want to be free of all this emotional encumbrance.  I think it’s too big for me alone.  Today, I may start to seek some help with it.

Rogue Waves

Posted on by learning to live like water

i have been trying to explain to A for over an hour why I have backed away.  Not because I don’t love him, but because I am healing.  Because I need to sort out my emotions, because I need answers as to why I set myself up for such a fall.  He doesn’t get it.  He’s one of those, snap-out-of-it kind of guys.  Oh man, if only it was so easy.  If only I didn’t have deep dark questions about myself.

I don’t know if I want to engage in a long distance relationship with him.  At all.  Let alone when my heart is still in pieces, my trust in myself is shot.  My understanding of what is has been flipped over, and upside down, and is still righting itself.

I told A I have a blog, all this time he didn’t know.  But I told him no one has the link to it, because it would cause me to censor what I write.  That was not true, S has the link.  I regret every day that he has it.  It caused so many problems in our relationship, and it prevented me, at times, from writing what I felt.  Now, I try to write imagining that he doesn’t read it, because I need this outlet for myself.  If he can’t contact me, then I won’t ever know if he read it or not.  I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to deal with his emotions over it. But I vowed no one else would ever get the link that knew me.  So I could keep the purity of what I write as coming from my heart.

Last I talked to S, on Monday, he was still reading them.  I shake my head….why would he?  Maybe he’s afraid I’ll tell some of his deep dark secrets.  I won’t.  Geezus.  I won’t.  I also know he misses me, and wants to know what I’m up to.  I hope that will go away if we never communicate.  I hope I will stop missing him too.

I feel bad that A is unsettled by me again.  I may lose him….that would be awful. I didn’t shut him out, I just don’t want to be intimate at the moment.  I have to heal, I have to get the connection with S out of my psyche.  I tried to explain about learning lessons from the hard things we go through. A said, “he has nothing to teach you.”  He doesn’t get it, what it is I need to do.  It was frustrating, to me, to have him try to get me to change how I feel.  Because he loves me.  He doesn’t want to lose me.  Again. He wants me to come see him, to stay with him.  To make love to him.  I’m not ready to do that with anyone.

I feel what I feel.  Geezus.  I’ve been on this journey for a long time.  I will honor what I feel, I will have the hard conversations.  But I won’t be deterred.

It was a hard day anyway.  My job is ridiculous, totally get stressed out there.  For the next 10 days I’m covering 2 desks, and my own desk is keeping me there at least 9 hrs every day.  Then I am dealing with the roller coaster of emotions still, from S.  They are like a stormy sea, they are calming.  I have been boating in some seas where when you look up, all you see around you is water, and a small patch of sky.  That’s where it was.  The patch of sky is bigger now, but the seas are still rough.  Every once in a while a 50 ft wave knocks me down and dismasts me.  Rogue waves. From a rogue.

From  Merriam-Webster:  Rogue.  A vagrant, a tramp . a dishonest or worthless person.  A scoundrel.

Rogue waves. Still riding them.

Johnny, I Hardly Knew You

Posted on by learning to live like water

The hard thing is reconciling the man I loved, with the man he was.  I love the guy I loved so much.  It wasn’t him.  It’s hard to comprehend how I fooled myself for so long.  It’s hard to accept that I gave my heart away, to someone who didn’t want it, didn’t cherish it, didn’t even think of it as a gift but treated it like a burden.

Hard. Really hard.

But I’m getting through it, because I have clarity.  There is no mistaking the man who showed up last night, or the one who texted me to tell me he was going to be with someone else.  No mistaking that it wasn’t the man I love.

And I swear, yesterday he sent a few flirty, very sexual texts, followed by LOL.  It was his thing, it was, I thought, our thing.  It seemed inappropriate now.  I didn’t respond.  But I swear, what he thought was he might be able to get me to agree to see him while he’s seeing her.  You know, what’s wrong he said, with being with one person Tuesday and another one Friday? (With, like intimately)  I am pretty sure that he thought I’d have sex with him last night, because I was so bereft.

But I saw him, clearly.  I hugged him hello, and started to cry.  I didn’t sit by him.  I was almost doubled over most of the time, my stomach was so upset.  I am holding all of it in my sacral chakra, and it was on fire.  Sacral, the abdomen is where we hold our creativity, our sexuality, and as a result, our vulnerability.  I was hanging way out there on a limb, holding on for dear life, while he was defending his indefensible behavior.  I had known that he would not be able to ease the pain, and he didn’t.  He doesn’t know how to be compassionate, or kind, when he’s done something wrong.  It’s not intentional.  He just doesn’t know.  No one taught him, and he never tried to learn.  It was the same after the prison whore.  He couldn’t own up to the pain he caused there either.

Today he finally, in his last message, said he was really sorry I was so hurt.  SO WHAT.  He didn’t apologize for what he did to hurt me, not today, not ever.  He can’t own it.  Who care that he feels bad I was hurt.  What matters is that he was the one who caused the hurt, and couldn’t even own it.  He thinks whatever he does is ok, because he does it.  If you don’t like it, walk away.

Which I have done.  Not even reluctantly.

I still see his heart, which he has barricaded up so no one can get in, and he can’t get out, not even to comfort the woman who loved him.  He comes from the attitude of scarcity.  There’s not enough of him as it is, he’s not going to give any of it away.  He never learned that giving it away is the only way to get more.  Too bad.

He’s a really really cool but totally fucked up guy.  I will always love the man who he won’t let out.  But I see him, I see him.  The last thing I said was if he ever figures it out, he knows where I am.

I don’t expect to ever hear from him.

Questions

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m trying to learn to stay in the moment.  I’m trying not to make up stories in my head, and even more, I’m trying not to believe the stories I tell myself.  Byron Katie teaches a method to inquire as to the truth of the stories we believe with the following 4 questions.

Do you know it’s true?  no.

(In case the first answer was yes)….Do you absolutely positively know it’s true?  No.

(If the answer is yes, then move forward based on that absolute truth.)

How do you feel when you think that thought?  Afraid, insecure, unloved, uncared for, disrespected, hurt, lonely.  (In other words, all the negative unhappy emotions that you can think of.)

Who would you be without that thought?  Content, patient, loving, self-assured, trusting, safe, busy, relaxed.

So why would I hold onto a thought that I don’t know (and in my heart don’t believe) is true, when it makes me feel like shit?

Because…history…triggers…fear…ego…

Ego.  Goddam ego, telling me maybe it’s true, and what will you do if it is, and how will it feel when you know it wasn’t real, you’re about to get blindsided, and yada yada yada.  Stupid monkey mind egoic voices screaming in my ear, “fear fear fear.”

In my marriage, I had to assume the opposite of what came out of his mouth was true. I had to take all the clues, and hints, (because there was always a piece of the truth in what he said, and he spun his lie around that truth) and then investigate and he never disappointed, he was always lying, when the whole truth came out.  It got so I didn’t even get mad, I couldn’t confront him with the truth, and expose his lies, because my anger and indignance at being lied to (again) only exacerbated the situation.  I just had to deal with the lies, work around them, discover the truth on my own, and then do my best to act based on whatever the truth actually was.

Of course, I was just burying anger, but that’s another blog.

I don’t have to do that anymore, but my mind is so trained to do it, I can’t seem to stop, unless I can find stillness somewhere.  I try hard to hold myself back from seeking constant reassurance.  I know it’s irritating, to people who have never lied to me.

So back to Byron Katie….my problem lies between acting on the third question and rising to the fourth, so that I don’t create problems that don’t exist.  The negative voices are so many, so deep-seated, they don’t want to let go. They tell me I’m being a fool. I fight to ignore them.  Because I know….they don’t have any good news, and are only afraid of losing their power.

Buddha teaches that attachment and desire are the causes of all pain….(or something like that…).  But how can we not be attached, nor desire the object of our affection?  When that attachment and desire is fulfilled, it is a beautiful thing.

I don’t know the answer to these questions. Well…I do know that I have to continue to try not to listen to my monkey mind.  I do know that I need to wait, to have patience, I have to let the truth make itself known, in its own time.  To fill my own time, and be flexible, because that’s what it takes right now.

Loving What Is, Until There’s Something Else

Posted on by learning to live like water

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.

The Story in His Eyes

Posted on by learning to live like water

I know an old soul. He gazes at me, at the sea, at the night sky, knowing all of us, all these things, in days past. Days long gone, eons before.

He knows that he knows these things. He never speaks of them. He is not even sure why he knows, only that he has loved someone a century or two ago. That he traveled the high seas guided only by the stars. He understands bits of languages he never learned, and finds solace on an empty winter beach.

No one knows how ancient his soul is,

No one, except me.

How do I know?

I know because his soul and mine reached for each other, through the humanness that would deny his soul’s age. We may separate for a few days, even at times a few weeks. Then one of us will reach out, one of us will call the others name. Because we knew each other then, and we found each other now.

Maybe.

I know, because he understands me, without being told who I am. Even though I have an incessant need to tell him.

I used to say to him, “I see you. Underneath it all, I see you.” He said, “did you ever think that maybe you see me because I choose to reveal myself to you?”

Perhaps.

It could be the reason. Perhaps what I arrogantly thought was my ability to perceive who he really is, was only because he allowed me to look in.

In which case, I am grateful, and honored.

He understands the way it works better than I do, I think. Except perhaps the idea of unconditional love. His humanness finds that concept to be pleasant, but rare.

Mostly I know, because when I catch him unaware of my gaze, I can see the depths of the sea, and of life, in his clear, smiling (usually) blue eyes.

When I ask him, “Do you think we knew each other before? Do you think we agreed as souls to meet up in this lifetime?” He answers, “I don’t know. And we won’t know til this lifetime is over, will we?” And he smiles, usually, laughing at me and my insatiable desire to know what happened before, and what happens after.

I still think he knows….His blue eyes tell me the story, when I get the chance to see them, gazing out to sea, or under the night sky.