Tag Archives: Attachment

Small Steps

Posted on by learning to live like water

I tried sleeping without an Ambien last night.  Fell right to sleep, woke up 2 hours later and was up 2 hours.  So, I’m a little tired today.  I’m good though, I’m really ok emotionally today.  I have been doing the Ho’oponopono a lot, and it really helps me to stay centered and grounded.  Just say it while I’m walking around the plant at work, or driving.

A friend at work said to me yesterday, “You still care for him don’t you.”  I admitted that yes,I did,but it’s the only way I can let go, is with love.  She said, “Its that connection isn’t it.”.  Yes.  I told her that right at that moment, I could tell her what he was feeling and it’s really hard to ignore that.  She has been married 40 years, and adores her husband.  She said, “I’ve never had a relationship like that.”  I told her “Me neither.  I don’t even know what to do about it, but to try to just learn to deal with it, and go on.”  So that’s what I do.  If I get an intense “knowing” of what he’s feeling, I have to remember it’s not my deal now, I can’t let it affect me, and I go on.  I have to consciously make an effort to change my thoughts when it happens, and get engrossed in something else.

I’m learning to do that.  When I woke in the middle of the night, I thought of him for a moment, but then much more about Jim, the man I’m meeting for lunch today.  And that was not purposeful thinking, it’s just where my mind drifted.  I’m looking forward to seeing him today.

So onward.  Small steps every day toward healing.  Toward a healthier life.

Consciously, with Love and Gratitude

Posted on by learning to live like water

I made a decision today, this afternoon, to consciously let go of the pain and heartbreak.  In order or me to be true to myself, I have to stick with my values, the idea that is the basis of who I am, my center.  It is a belief in the power and the importance of unconditional love.  I will let S go, with love and gratitude.  I will not become bitter, I will not be angry, I will not berate him, I will  not judge him.  I will love him, always.  But I will move on, and wish him peace.

A few months ago, he wrote a poem, called “Night and Day”.  It was about us, and how different we were, how we could never occupy the same space.  I posted it, but then took it down, because I wanted to keep it for myself.  It was sad, but real.  I hung on anyway.  But he was right, all along.  Our relationship was the beautiful dawn, and dusk, when the sun and the moon complement each other and set the sky ablaze.

I loved loving him.  It is really none of my business if he loved me or not, though I suspect he did in his own way.  He hated vulnerability, and could not put himself out there the way I could.  Our life experiences were opposite of each other.  But I love the man, his humor, his quirky way of seeing things, his intelligent off-beat brain.  I loved going to the beach with him, though it was always in winter, when it was cold.  We would have endless stretched of beach to ourselves, and took advantage of that when we could. There were many months that went by when we never had a bad moment.  Those are what I take away.

I have always put myself out there.  I’ll risk the pain of rejection, and really, in all my years this is the first time I’ve experienced it, because I’d rather risk that, than risk having regrets for not speaking up, not offering myself completely.  So, there are really no regrets here.  If he has any, I don’t know, it’s none of my business.  I have gone back to the light, he has receded into the darkness that he loves.  He feels safe there I think.  I get that.  I only feel safe when I can see, or when I love.  I never was any good at hiding.

I’m going to try to make this my last post about him.  I am going to try to write more about other things that are important to me, that drive me.  There may be a new man in my life, I don’t know yet where it’s going to go.  But I want to give it my energy, instead of hanging onto a relationship that was never going to work.

I sent him an email today, I said what I needed to say as lovingly as I could, and said goodbye.  I am glad he was in my life.  And now, I am determined to find joy in the divergent path.  In my mind, the relationship really ended last spring.  Alternately, we each tried to hang on to the parts of it we liked but they were never the same thing.

Day and night.  Night and day.  Can’t have one without the other.  Peace, S.  Love always, all ways.

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.

Wow, This is So Hard.

Posted on by learning to live like water

This is hard.  Really hard.  I think the universe did me a favor, really, in my head I know this.  I needed something from which there is no return, I needed the bridge to be burned, to begin the letting go. And as my close friends, and my son, have told me, this relationship has been bad since the beginning.  It’s what I said, when, a month ago, he told me she was back in his life.  He somehow convinced me that those words didn’t mean what I thought.  But in the end, they did.  What they meant is exactly what I thought they meant.  He was not just talking to her.  She was back in his life.  I should have stayed with my gut, it never lies.  I knew it then.  I knew it last night, i knew it this morning.

He came here, when I was losing my mind a month ago, a few days after he told me she was back in his life.  He got right in his car and came here.  He told me the night that he said she was back in is life that he wished I’d be happy for him, that was all he ever wanted, when he left a voice mail.   Then when I saw him that night, he said, he meant all he ever wanted was MY happiness. That he thought I’d be happy because I knew he had so many loose ends,questions that had never been answered with her. But when he told me it was my happiness that he wanted,  I cried, and I melted, and I took him to me, and loved him again.  And it was all a lie.  She was all he ever wanted, just like I first thought.  My happiness was not even on the table.  So played.  She must have played him, not wanting to see  him right away.  He was hedging his bets, I guess.  In case she didn’t want him, he’d still have me.

God I am stupid.  As if the words “She’s back in my life” can be misunderstood.

S always said water seeks it’s own level.  Usually it was in reference to me, still being with him when he treated me badly.  But I see the wisdom now.  I could never seek the level he wanted.  I could just not do it, it was so far from what I wanted.  Betty Boop…she wants it. She wants a relationship, at least, from what he told me of their past, where there  is no communication all week, except maybe a “are we on for the weekend?” message, email…and then get together for a lustful weekend.  He thinks that’s love.  Now that someone has really loved him, I wonder if it will ever be the same for him.  If he’ll figure out that sex is not love, but should be an expression of it.  He knew that with me.  Because I told him, those exact words. Now he has the words….from me, to fool himself with her. ]

He chose the level he’s comfortable with.  He was never comfortable with my level.  Too much emotion, raw emotion from me.  Too much truth on the table.  And I could stay with it, physically, emotionally.  I only ran when he made it all about a physical relationship.  Ran.  Told him a hundred times, we want different things.  Go get what you want, I don’t want that.  So…he has what he wants.  He doesn’t have to be accountable, he doesn’t have to acknowledge emotions that are uncomfortable for him.  He can pretend that sex is love, and he can set himself up to be hurt again….I feel bad about that, really, but it’s his choice.  It’s his comfort level, and he has no desire to rise above it.

I still see him, I still feel him.  I know when he’s with her tonight, and tomorrow, he will be held back by the scope of what he did to me.  I hope he is.  I hope he finds he cannot fuck people over that easily.

He should have taken some time off from either of us, and figured out what he wanted, and met with me face to face.  But he’s not able to stand on his own two feet, he’s not able to man up, and face the consequences of the choices he makes.  I deserved so much better.

He says he told me he was no good, that he would hurt me.  I said, so what, that relieves you of no accountability for what you have done.  So what if you know who you are?  You don’t change, and you think I’m gonna write it off?  Make excuses for you?  That’s the most pathetic of statements.  “I told you I’m bad,and I’m bad.”  It implies I should excuse it, because after all he told me he would do it.  Just like he told me about the prison whore, last winter.  When he fucked the hooker as a test….this is just another prison whore.  Just another test for him.  To see…..

He reads this.  He will know what I mean.

Shoudda, wouldda, couldda.  He wrote it all off.  I need to do the same.  Just putting things right in my mind.  Trying to make sense of senseless hurt.  Senseless pain.  Unspeakable cruelty.  And really, unbelievably stupid, ego-centered but self destructive decisions on the part of someone I loved.   Of course, when the ego rules, it is always self destructive.  That’s how the ego keeps power, by lying to the heart.

A month ago when he told me she was back in his life….I was driven by jealousy.  I could not stand the thought of him with another woman.  This time, almost a month later, it’s not jealousy.  If that’s what he wants, he better go for it, because I will never fuck a man over like she did, and if that’s what makes him comfortable, then he needs to be with her.  But how he played me, how he purposefully made me think something else was going on between us, how he manipulated me for his own benefit, not giving a good goddam whether or not his actions would devastate me, that’s what’s unforgivable.  At least for now.  To use another human for your own purposes is the lowest of the low.  She used him…in their last relationship.  I would guess he also used her.  They are both users.  Liars. Manipulators.  They belong together.  I don’t belong with him.

But the pain of what he did to me will take some time to get over.  The way he devastated so easily my emotional landscape.  For his own prurient interests.  And I fucking loved this man, as he’s never been loved before.

I guess this is it for now.  There will be more.

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.

The End Is In Sight This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

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.

Compromise, or Self Accountability?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Damn, I needed a glass of wine tonight.

First a little update. A bought the house. I got 2 or 3 group texts, with pictures…waxing poetic about Santa Fe. He got to Santa Fe on the weekend. Previously he spent less than a week there last winter. And in 3 days, he decided to change his mind completely about his lifestyle, and put a contract on a house, which he couldn’t even have had inspected yet. WTF? I kept thinking something is really wrong with him. Then later today, probably because he had no response from me about the house, I got a private text. I have NO idea how it got through, but he asked if I had the surgery. I deleted it without reading, or even opening, so it would show on is phone as “undelivered”. That really threw me, I mean, how does he get a text through when I have both his numbers blocked, and it’s coming from a blocked number? And made me more concerned about his motivation to do what he’s doing. I mean, that would be severely delusional, if I had anything to do with his decision. But then, I was married to a man who still thinks his 23 year old son could be a professional soccer goalie. People are quite capable of spinning great yarns and believing them. So yeah, that gave me a little headache.

The wine tasted good. I’m only having one glass, even though I’d like more, lol. But it’s a week night, yada yada.

But then.

I was thinking about my relationships with S, and A. Before A’s text. And how I compromised myself, both times. With A…I accepted his love for me, misdirected and perhaps ill motivated as it might have been. I accepted it without loving him back, because he made me feel good. It was a lush feeling, for awhile, to have someone adore me. To hold me, before he left and tell me he loved me “so much”. To hug me and say, “Thank God you came back to me.” I had just gone to say goodbye…he was leaving forever….I didn’t say I was back, he told himself that story. I didn’t disabuse him of that notion. I felt he was leaving, I’d probably not see him again, let him leave happy. Which is probably why I worry about his motivation in buying a house so impulsively. I mean…it’s not my worry really, he’s a grown man, but how can it be a good decision based on so little information.

But I compromised myself with him. I didn’t tell him the truth, at least not all the time. When it got too much, I did. I never told him that I loved him, I never led him on, but I accepted love from someone who I didn’t love back, and that feels wrong. Like I should have been more honest, I shouldn’t have been so self absorbed in enjoying the huge ego boost I got from it. Just feels wrong. Like I used him, even though that wasn’t my intention. I tried to love him but I couldn’t. I knew I could love S, so I went back to S.

I knew I did love S. I adored him. And he broke my heart so many times. Finally I got smart and headed him off at the pass, but not before I cried a river, a fucking ocean, over that man. Wondering what was wrong with me, that he could so easily dismiss me. So the compromise there was, that I allowed myself to love a man, with everything I had, who didn’t love me back. He would tell me he missed me, but he only missed sex. He said once he missed making me laugh. But he also told me he didn’t want to be in love, or a relationship, that he wanted to see other women. So I guess the lauging and the sex wasn’t that big a deal. I gotta give him honesty. He only led me on once.

After he fucked the prison whore, which I have lots of blogs about last winter, as I tried to work through that. He knew I had begun to see A, and just didn’t want someone else to have me. I thought he wanted me. He told me everything, almost, that I ever wanted to hear, he did everything I’d dreamed about. It took me about 30 seconds to cast A aside and be with S.

And then once S knew I was with him, not A….all those things disappeared, never to be seen again. And we went back to our non-relationship status and it hurt more than ever.

Because I compromised myself. I gave myself willingly, because I wanted to love him. And I didn’t care that he didn’t love me. I let myself do that….treated myself like a tramp, like shit, because I wanted to love him. He treated me…ok, unless he was having a bad day, but he never was dishonest with me, except that one time, to keep me from being with A. I shouldn’t have allowed that either.

So here I am, compromised. By two men, on opposite ends of the spectrum. One, I let him love me, and I didn’t, couldn’t, love him back, but let him lavish it on me, just to make myself feel valuable. The other, I loved, with nothing in return. I let myself be used. Used honestly. It was only my fault.

So the question is…..should I be feeling bad about any of this? Am I responsible for the fact that A loved me, unrequited? No more than S is responsible that I loved him, unrequited. We can only control our own emotions. We can only set our own standards for ourselves.

A loved me, (I am not sure that’s even past tense at the moment), but I’m not responsible for his emotions. I never led him on, I just enjoyed his company. Until recently, when he was wanting a bigger camper “in case” I wanted to come see him, and then suddenly a house. And the way his conversation went far more intimate than I was comfortable with.

S…didn’t. I knew it. He’s not responsible for my emotions. I guess I kept thinking that he would love me someday, that some day he’d want me the way I wanted him. But it was my stupid dream, his was to be free. Over time, I began to detach. We saw each other rarely, we talked a lot, but there was nothing growing there, except separation. I accepted that over the summer, and little by little let the dream go. When he lost his temper with me over nothing this past weekend, it was not hard at all to close the book, and decide not to turn the page. I hadn’t seen him in a month. While I thought I missed him, I was actually in the process of detaching. This was the first time it has not hurt. Maybe there are no tears left to cry, but at any rate, I’m not and that’s a good thing.

(Let me just note here, that I have not been blogging about S and I for some time now.  The things in this blog are all things I have published before, so I don’t feel like I am breaking any trust by talking about them.  I cannot write this blog without mentioning them.  I am not going into any detail about why I closed the book on that relationship, now or ever.  If I did, I would be breaking the trust.)

Going forward….I don’t want to compromise. I will choose, yes choose, to love only someone who is capable of loving me back. I will not stay with someone just because he loves me. I will have balance, or be alone. It’s only myself that I have to not let down. No one else. Maybe I’ll be alone, but that would be preferable to not liking the person I have become. I’m alone right now, and you know what? It feels fine.

What Is Going On With A?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Some of you may remember A, the guy I dated after S did the prison whore, and then on and off as S and I went through our 2 week on-off cycles. A had a plan to sell his 3800 sq. ft. home and live with his 44 yr old son out of a camper. Which he did.  Put about 30,000 miles on his truck in 6 months. Finally, I realized that #1, I would never want an intimate long distance relationship, #2, that I was not really attracted to A in any kind of long term intimate way, #3, that the continuing communication wit him, mostly via text, was a distraction to me figuring out what I really wanted.

I communicated this to A, and he responded by trying to change my mind.  Just before this, he had been talking about buying a bigger motor home (the one he had was tiny, 150 sq. ft.) “in case you want to visit me” was his first reason.  I didn’t respond to that.  Because, it’s just not an idea I could wrap my mind around, and assumed there were other reasons, like even for his son and him there was no privacy in the small one.  I had seen it, it wasn’t really pleasant in any way.  He said that about the time he asked me if I’d have time to visit him next summer.

In talking to me after my communication, he told me that he would never get remarried (he is a widow of just over a year), which is fine with me because marriage is not an idea I ever want to visit again.  He also told me he planned to be homeless and live out of the camper/motor home for a couple of years because he was enjoying their travels so much.  He said he had wanderlust enough to last a long time.  When he left CT he had a plan to be in Santa Fe by this fall, then go back to his brother’s ranch in TX, then decide where they might want to stay for next spring/summer, but he loved Santa Fe the best, it was his first choice.

Now, I think it is fine for someone to follow their dream, or their bliss, it is, in fact, what anyone, everyone, should do.  However, I would not have any interest in visiting him (or anyone) for any length of time in a camper/motor home.  It’s just not my thing.  I told him I was a home body, just talking in general, that I would always want to have a home base.  (To be clear, I could stay on a boat for 2 weeks, a nice, good sized boat, but then that’s my thing.  Not camping.)  So, I was happy for him, I knew I would never want to be a part of that and he didn’t seem to be asking me, until he started with the visiting thing, and the needing a bigger camper/motor home in case you want to see me thing.

So, for all these reasons, I decided to just block him.  Then I wouldn’t get texts I felt compelled to answer, and if he just stopped hearing from me, hopefully he would move on, and let go.  It felt like a clean, necessary break to me.

For some reason, even though I have blocked all  his numbers, and everyone on his group text list, I still get his group texts.  I cannot stop them.

So a week after I just stopped the communication, I got a picture of his new, much larger, camper/motor home. This is about a week after he said the thing about needing one in case I came to visit him.  I immediately thought, “Damn, I hope he didn’t buy that thinking I would come to see him.”  But I thought, that would be crazy…no one would do that, would they?  No…I hope not.

Today, I got a group text with pictures of a house, and the scenery around it, in Santa Fe.  With the message “going to make an offer on this house tomorrow.”  WHAAAAA?  This is a guy who not more than 3 weeks ago insisted he didn’t want to own a home, wanted to continue to roam the countryside, seeing new sites, visiting new place, meeting new people, and was quite content to be “homeless.”  A couple weeks later he’s buying a house.  And he JUST got to Santa Fe about 3 days ago.

Again, I thought…I hope this has nothing to do with me.

I’m probably just paranoid.  He has not tried to reach me that I know of.  Of course, being blocked, I don’t get any texts, which was our main way of communication.  But there are no blocked call voice mails, and no emails.  It’s just that he was the kind of guy who got into me so much that all my interests became his.  Except the camping thing, which he and his son planned long before he knew me.  But the music I loved became what he listened to, my spiritual journey started to become his.  If I was going to Sam’s club he wanted to come with me.  Or anywhere.  ….idk.  That was something I didn’t really like.  At first, I found his attention flattering.  Then…it became too much.  We didn’t go out that long, only a few weeks, maybe a month.  He pushed it along way too fast.  When we first met I was broken, and bruised by S and the prison whore, it felt good to have someone who adored me, and made me his world.  But I realized that was totally selfish, and that I just didn’t feel the same, and found it easy to tell him I was going to try again with S.  That was 6 months ago.  Then I saw him a little bit before he left, when S and I were constantly breaking up. I just fear that A hasn’t really let go of some story he made up.

Anyway, when I got the text, I deleted it, as I do all his texts.  I hope he decided to buy a home because he wanted one, not because he suddenly thought I might come visit him if he had a home.  It just was so sudden, as was his purchase of a much bigger camper/motor home.  Didn’t seem particularly thought out…planned out…and was the opposite of his intention just weeks ago.

I sure wish I’d stop getting his group texts.  I’m looking forward to the day when I’ve shed past entanglements and made room for something new to come in the door.

And So I Am

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m still angry this morning.  At hm for continuing to push his agenda that I clearly stated I didn’t want. For months I have stated it. For months he has continued.  The last time he came to me with the understanding that we’d spend the day together.  And then he changed his mind in the morning, and left me.   Disrespect.  Selfishness.  Egocentric.  UGH.

I’m angry at myself, for continuing to offer him my whole self, when it clearly was not wanted or appreciated.  For not walking away for good.  Oh I walked, many times, and when he’d pull me back, I’d willingly go, like some hypnotized zombie.  That’s not who I am.

I wrote just yesterday, that if I’m gonna miss him then let me miss him and get over it and move on, or have the longing fulfilled.  I will, without a doubt, get over it and move on.  Because that’s what I do.  I don’t waste a lot of time grieving over what never could be.  I’ll give it all I have, to make it work.  Once I come to terms with the reality that it will never work, I’ll walk and never look back.  I’m about 100 miles away now, with a lot more walking in front of me, and the view is lovely,.

I sent him a text last night, telling him not to try to reach me.  To find a hooker if he’s horny (because that way he can have sex with no attachment).  Then I blocked him, just to make sure I wasn’t disturbed.

Maybe he won’t try.  I hope.  I  hope he goes off and does his “being free” thing.  That’s what I’m gong to do.  Be free until I find someone who wants what I have to offer, and offers what I want to have.  I know he’s out there somewhere.

Just to prove my point, I got a text from A yesterday, who is staying in the Michigan UP, and has very erratic phone service.  He said, “I miss wishing you good morning and good night every day.  It’s just such a nice way to start and end a day.”

WTF was I doing, attaching myself to someone who is incapable of a thought like that?

This is how I sit with my anger.  I write about it, and then it disappears.  Ok, vent over for now.  I may have one or two more as I continue my walk, but eventually, I’ll be back in that happy place all the time.

To Be, or Not to Be

Posted on by learning to live like water

To be or not to be, that is the question.

To be what?  In love with S?  He isn’t in love with me, though he likes me well enough, likes being with me.  Our relationship was important enough to him to follow through this weekend.  It’s not love, but it’s  nice.   I can’t help but love him and his funny, off beat, intelligent, and quirky personality.  But that’s my problem, lol, not his…..

To be friends with A? I don’t love A, I’m pretty sure he still loves me, it makes me uncomfortable to be close friends wit him and intimate with S.  It just doesn’t feel right to me, I don’t know how to balance it.

To be alone?  I am fine alone, but not all the time.  I enjoy the company of a man.  Particularly S, Most everything we do together is fun.  My problem is I get very attached.  I get a little, and it makes me long for more.

I don’t know where I am this morning.  I am still not wanting to put any parameters on my relationship with S.  I enjoy every minute with him, so why should I not be with him?  I am ever so afraid of heartache down the road with him, but isn’t that the hallmark of most relationships?  You have to take a risk, and as it develops, your fears should subside, right?

I am going to be moving to Florida in a year or so.  I will be moving away, not he.  Our relationship is bound to be changed by that.  There are endless possibilities of how we could manage it.  But what right do I have to be demanding now, when I’m the one who’s going to make the biggest change to our relationship?  I can’t.  I can just be with S for as long as we want to be with each other, as long as we enjoy each others company.

As for A….I was going to send him an email, telling him more or less to bugger off.  I don’t think I will.  I think I will just let that relationship die a slow natural easy death, like going to sleep and not waking up, he and I will just fade into our histories.

To be…in the moment, to be mindful, to learn acceptance and gratitude for what is, and find grace.  I guess I am really getting sick of pushing, and am realizing that it’s not necessary.

To be or not to be?  I think, just let it be.