Tag Archives: Breaking up

Getting Grounded in Reality

Posted on by learning to live like water

I finally talked to S.  Well, that’s stretching it. We texted.  And I think in the end, we came to an amicable understanding that we needed to stop seeing each other.  That’s how I hoped it would be.  I have no anger, I have no regrets.  I understand him, and I think that while he may not completely understand me, he at least respects my feelings now.  I didn’t want this to end in a blaze of anger and ego, and I think that’s what we managed to do.

Last night I had a strange dream.  I had been thinking how S was now free (he always was, but there will be nothing pulling him back now) to go discover who he is, on his own, discover his passions, decide how he wants to spend his retirement.  That thought converted to a dream as I fell asleep, I guess.  I dreamed he came to just “check in”, just visit.  I was sitting outside, on the side of a hill, next to a border garden, backed up by a fence..  There was another man sitting with me, who I didn’t recognize. I never saw S in this dream but I know he was sitting with us.  I said to him something about my sister…and then “my sister knows everything.”  (LOL, I know I was talking about my older sis, even though I have a younger as well.) When I said it, suddenly a human form began to break out of the garden, sitting up, forming before my eyes from the dirt and grass and flowers in the garden.

I guess that kind of freaked me out, I wasn’t scared,  but it was just weird….and it woke me up.  I don’t know  what it had to do with S, or me.  I don’t think I can look up “human form created from garden” on dreammoods.com, lol.  I would guess it had something to do with being grounded, a spirit, connection to the earth.  As for how my sister ties into it, I really don’t know.  She went through such a hard time this winter, trying to care for my mother after her stroke, and has spent the couple of months regrounding herself, in much the same way I do when I get lost.

That’s two strange dreams I’ve had in a couple of days.  The other one upset me, this one didn’t, but I thought about it a lot, had a hard time getting back to sleep, and ended up texting S, further explaining to him that I still can see him, I still know there is something in his soul worth loving, and that someday I hope he is able to believe it and open it up to someone.  And I felt quite grounded, loving and detached when I said it.  So maybe that was the point of the dream, to help me to become grounded in the reality that it is over with S.

On to a new day, a new week.  I hope there are some new and exciting things coming my way.   And yours.

Love and light.

Ater the Fire Is Out, Sifting Through the Smoldering Remains

Posted on by learning to live like water

Last Friday night when I saw the psychic, my native American spirit guides told me, first thing, first message they gave me, was “Stand your ground, don’t back down.” The medium said she could hear the Tom Petty song. My friends and I knew what that was about, I was trying to end, at that time, the relationship which had become purely physical and was not nourishing me.

The medium said, “You stand it lovingly, not with meanness in your heart.  And with no expectation that this other person is going to go along with it.”  Which was exactly what was happening.  He didn’t want me to break it off, but I was unhappy with it as it was.  She also told me that standing my ground would open doors for me.

Then he brought in his health issues.  Because I loved, and still love, him, i caved, I could only feel love and concern for him  He wouldn’t tell me the possibilities, because he didn’t want that energy out there. And because he thought I would “go ballistic.”

Yes, I would have been upset, but I was already upset.”Ballistic” is not what I would have become however. “Ballistic would be how I might describe a reaction of anger.  I wasn’t angry, I was upset, concerned, in love. Wanted to know what might be in store for the man I loved, and wanted to be able to determine if I could in anyway help him get through this.   Based on the symptoms, there wasn’t one outcome that was better than the other.  He promised when he knew something definite he would tell me.  Until then, he said, “I need you to just be with me.”  And so I was.  I was there when he called, I did what he asked, I didn’t ask him to tell me.  I did tell him that I loved him, I did express concern about him.  Of course.  Not a lot, not often, but when I felt it was appropriate.

So, I did what I could do.  I sent him Reiki, I sent him all the positive energy I could, I sent up prayers to the Universe that he come through it ok.  I kept that to myself, because I felt he preferred that I act like nothinig was wrong.

Apparently, my acquiescing to his wishes gave him license to treat me however he needed to.  And last night’s no show, on the heels of not knowing all week what was wrong, just broke me.  He was scared and in pain he said.  Why is that an excuse to hurt someone?  I don’t know.  If he wasn’t going to tell me the whole story, he shouldn’t have told me any of it.  But he told me what he did, to keep me in his words, not mine, “from dumping” him.

“You’re making it all about you” he said last night.  When you turn my world upside down, it will be, for me, about me, until I right myself again.  Never disrespecting that he has some real serious issues..  But he disrespected me, and my love care and concern for him.

So, contrary to the spirit advice, and what my own gut had told me, I didn’t stand my ground, I did back down.  But this morning, after dealing with the pain of his carelessness last night, I will stand my ground once again.  He asked me to leave him alone, and I will.  I said, do the same for me, please.

It’s what he wanted all along, to be alone.  Now he is.  Me, well…I am alone in a sense that I’m not with him.  But I’m blessed with a life full of people who love me.  I’ll be fine.

No More Heartbreak

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was with my ex-husband for just shy of 40 years.  We met when we were 18, married at 25, divorced at 58.  In that time, he broke my heart 1000 times.  Rivers of tears, countless sleepless nights.  Days of deep-seated fear, hours of sheer terror.  A broken heart was not something I wanted to revisit.

I left him when I was 55, almost 56.  I felt only relief from the moment I was gone.  And fear for my son, who stayed with him.  But mostly relief, that my world upon waking would be the same as when I went to bed.

When I was 63 I met S. A full 7 years after leaving my ex.  I was attracted to him before we even met.  I have often commented on our connection.  It seemed uncanny, it seemed that we had to already know each other on some level.  It’s never been a balanced relationship, but it’s been fun, interesting, and passionate. But then, last winter, he fucked the prison whore, and broke my heart.  To his credit, he knew he was going to break my heart, and tried to break it of with me before he did that.  But I was too convincing, I guess, in my misery, and sadness, and he couldn’t do it.

Since then….it has been off again, on again for us.  We have that connection, a physical desire, but we want different things from life, I guess.  We see things differently.  We react to things differently.  And the places we came from on our separate journeys were a long ways apart.  Each time now, that we are off again, it is a little harder to put it back on.  No matter that the love is there, will always be, it just isn’t making either of us happy.  My heart is broken again, I am guessing that his heart is feeling a little pain too, but I could be wrong.  I can’t speak for him.

Then there is A….who I met after the thing with the prison whore.  We became close.  A loves me, is not afraid to be vulnerable and tell me exactly how he feels.  He knows I have this thing with S.  A, however, is not here.  He’s off on his grand adventure, and sends me pics and  tells me how he misses me, and loves me, but he’s not here.  He’s out west, in one of the national parks….he won’t be settled in for probably a year.  There is no future really there.  And I never could drum up the passion for him.  But love, yes, I love the man. He treats me like gold. I think his purpose in my life is to remind me how I should be treated.

When I first told him I was going to see S again, he sent me a beautiful email, telling me he knows he only offers heartbreak on a platter, because he knew he would be leaving on this great adventure, but that he would balance it with love and tenderness.

But God, I didn’t want another heartbreak.  I don’t want any more of them.  I want to love someone who can love me back, fully, unafraid….  I am tired of the games people play in their heads, holding back out of fear, fear not caused by me, but by a past love.  Fear which has no basis in the present, but still colors everything.  I’m tired of having a passionate physical relationship, which never carries over into life, and living.

I think I’d just rather be alone that deal with another heartbreak.  I’m not saying that if someone came into my view I wouldn’t give it a chance.  I’d sure like to find the love that lasts before I leave this earth.  But I think when it begins to go bad, I need to just let it go, instead of trying to make it work.  Better to be alone, and whole, than have my heart axed in two again.

Hiding Out

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was told my head was up my ass.

I knew that this would come to pass.

The words that came had no class

They had the stench of real bad gas.

And so I will remain this way

Until the all clear comes one day.

Better to have my head up my ass

Than to breathe someone else’s really bad gas.

It seems an odd way to end

But on this I won’t bend.

I have been this way once before

And I swore I’d travel it no more.

Change and Connection

Posted on by learning to live like water

I sat outside last night for a few minutes before I went to bed. I was tired, I have been sleeping poorly, as I guess could be expected from the events of the weekend. I hadn’t talked to S for most of the day. I gazed at the half moon, with thin clouds racing by it.  Sitting out there, I could feel S’s sadness. I knew he was at his home, 50 miles away, and feeling bad. I messaged him, and my intuition, that connection we have, was right.

I know he just doesn’t get it, why I just can’t do it anymore, why things can’t stay as they were for me.

The only thing that is permanent, is change.

My emotions of the last week, maybe 2, have been more and more to separate our lives, to end this relationship that never could get off the ground. I look at him, and I love him in that unconditional way. I accept who he is, I accept the direction he has wanted to take. He is the one who has come to me in times when he’s been introspective, to tell me he needs to be on his own, he needs to find out who he is by himself, without being attached to someone.

I totally support that.  I can’t imagine being this age and not knowing what I want.  I have told him to do it, to keep me in the loop if he wants.  I have told him I’m not going anywhere right now.  No one can forsee the future. But if we keep the communication open, we can remain friends, and honor the connection that I find rather exceptional.  It doesn’t mean that we have to be intimate, it means that we can remain close friends, if he wants to.

Right now, we want different things.  Neither of us can cross over to the other side, not and remain true to ourselves.

I know…that in the end, he knows that, he will get it, that we want such different lives. At least, that’s how it seems to me. Since he doesn’t know what he wants, I guess I can’t speak for him. But I certainly want something different from the relationship I have had had with him, than he wants.

I think it’s just hard to be single at this age. I don’t think anyone makes it to being single in their 60’s and doesn’t have baggage, even though I have seen profiles of men who say they don’t. They do, they have just buried it. I’ve tried to let mine bubble up and deal with it when it does. It’s not always easy. Like I told S, early in our relationship, he was the first man in my life since my marriage, and even though I thought I took plenty of time to be aware of my baggage, my triggers, there are some you don’t even know about until you are in a relationship. And lucky him…he got to experience those.

Don’t worry, he had plenty of his own, to pay me back, lol.

But the fact remains….I’m ready to move past friendship. I’m ready for someone to love me, the way I loved him. I’m using past tense, because I feel like there’s no way back. It will take time for those emotions to ebb to the actual flow of the events.

It was fun, for awhile. But since I came back from Florida in March, when he came to my house and came as close to saying he loved me as he ever would, it’s been work. The enthusiasm is gone, the desire to just hang out isn’t there. For him it’s backed off to wanting an occasional “nice afternoon”. For me, it’s progressed to “I would have liked to spend Saturday night until Monday night with you this weekend.”

How’s that ever going to work?

It’s not. And I’m OK with it. I really am. Enough water has passed over the dam that my grip has loosened, I am not holding on any longer. I’m sure S’s grip is also loose, he maybe isn’t as clear on why as me, I hope he gains that clarity.

I hope we remain friends. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I wish him love and light. Always.

BEWARE

Posted on by learning to live like water

Beware Some People Will Sell You A Dream And Deliver A Nightmare

Beware of Those Who Play Their Cards Close to their Chest

Because they are lying to everyone. They only tell you so much, so they can manipulate your thinking about who they are. And then they go on to the next person, and only tell them so much, so they can manipulate that persons thinking just as they did yours.

I was a secret. No one knew about me. Oh, he told me they did, a long time ago. But I was never introduced. I never met his kids. I never met his friends. If they called while I was in the car he either didn’t mention me, or said he wasn’t alone, but never, that he was with me. How stupid could I be? After a year……

Meanwhile…I was falling in love with the person he coached me on. I was writing all the secretiveness off to “he’s just not ready yet…” making excuses for him. Like an idiot. Like a fool.

After all, he took me to his “special places”. Bullshit, special. Bullshit. They were just beautiful places that he knew, from living there forever. It was just part of setting me up to love him.

For 2 weeks I reminded him a 3 day weekend was coming up. I was met each time with, “It’s 2 weeks away…..” I reminded him my son would be gone, I’d have the house to myself. I had visions….hopes….dreams….

But what I got was….an offer to come here for an afternoon. And a lot of grief again, for wanting to plan ahead, to plan for more.

Last week we met and talked, I did not want to be friends with benefits. If that’s what he wanted then we should split up. If he doesn’t know what he wants, then he should figure it out, by himself, and if he wanted to, check in with me when he knew.

Yesterday after explaining and re-explaining it for 36 hours…that I was not interested in an afternoon. A “nice afternoon” as he put it. That was the offer. After 5 or 6 times of saying “Look either come for the night and the day tomorrow or don’t come….” He finally told me he had a “family BBQ” at his ex wife’s that night, and wanted to watch the Indy 500 on tv tomorrow.

As if he didn’t know this 3 days ago. After playing me all day and night and morning this morning, bitching at me for wanting to make plans, for never being satisfied, for trying to control things.  All the while withholding information so that he could manipulate and control me.

He’s been hiding this, trying to manipulate me into believing that I am too demanding,that I want too much, because I wanted to spend time with him.  He probably went to his “family BBQ” and played the poor guy who’s girlfriend of 13 years left him last January after he put in a new kitchen for her out of his own pocket, and then got married. Never let them know he was in the process of fucking over a woman who adored him.

Gee….I wonder how sick the girlfriend was of his games. Imagine 12 or 13 years of this.

Me…I only lost a year to him. Believing his lies to me about how he was open to whatever happened. He was open to whatever he managed to make happen, which was to pull me from someone who really loved me, just to do it, and then use me for his own pleasure. How often did we lay together, and the next morning he would tell me how I “scared” him, how he was afraid of the feelings he had for me, and how he didn’t want to be in love or in a relationship.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I loved him unconditionally. I made excuses for him every time. I made myself vulnerable. I put myself on the table, emotionally naked and brave, for him to use. Believing that he wouldn’t AB-use me. I was there on every dark day he had. When he had to have surgery, even though he’d fucked the prison whore 2 weeks before, I was there for him. When his best friend died, and he hadn’t talked to me in days, I was there for him.

Because I loved him.

Stupid stupid me.

He didn’t and wasn’t ever going to love me. He wasn’t man enough to walk away from me. He liked the attention. He liked the adoration. He liked my eagerness. He liked what I could do for him. Even though he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it for me.

I loved him anyway

Stupid stupid me.

Allowing myself to be a secret. Allowing someone to use my sexuality for their own pleasure, with no care about how he was using me.

One of these days I will stop beating myself up over being so stupid. But not for a few days.. I drowned my shame in a bottle of rum, last night.  Good rum.  Gosling’s Black Label.  There’s enough left for the rest of the weekend

Gonna try to forget what a foolish woman I am.

Beware of those men, and women, who hold their cards close to their chest. They are full of deceit. And they will hurt you.

I’ve Been Played by an Expert

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’ve been played.  By an expert player. While last night’s poem “Sweet juice of the grape” aptly described where I was then….I just found out the real truth, and I have been so played.  So used.  So uncared for and fucked over.  S is not the man I thought he was, he is not the man I was so in love with.  He knows how to play me, to get my sympathy.  But I tired of his game, and stopped playing and the truth came out, and I am so done with him….more done than I was when he fucked the prison whore.

Right now, I think that’s what he deserves, is a prison whore and no more.  Certainly not a woman who is capable of loving.  I’m gonna go lick my wounds with a bottle of rum, and  have myself a good cry, and when I get back from Florida maybe find a man who deserves me.

I might even give A a call.  We are friends, and I know he’d gladly hang out with me.  He’s moving in a few days, but I bet he’d be happy to do something with me to take my mind off of what S has done to me.  I know I’ll get over S, because I’m capable of it.  Because I know what I want, and even though I thought it was him, now that I know it’s not, I can deal with it.  Hope he can sleep at night with what he’s done.  My ex-husband was called unconscionable 9 times by the CT Supreme Court.  I wonder how many S would get.

i love my strangers :) especially the ones I have memories with aka friends

Sweet Juice of the Grape

Posted on by learning to live like water

letting go

Sweet juice of the grape,

Mask my sorrow,

Hide my pain.

Keep it from cutting a hole in my heart.

I will bleed, if it is on the surface.

I will writhe in pain on my floor.

Sweet juice of the grape,

Drown the voices in my head

and the ones on the phone.

Keep me from racing to him,

begging him to take me just one more time.

Into that place from which I find such great joy

And then such great sorrow.

Sweet juice of the grape

Be my friend.

Be my solace.

Help me find a place

Where his blue eyes will not torment me.

Where his smile will not lure me.

Where I won’t find false comfort in his hands.

Empty my mind of all the memories

Empty my mind of the dreams

Empty my heart, empty my eyes,

Empty all of it, sweet juice of the grape,

Let me forget, for just one night

How I loved him.

How I love him still.

Always……

A Painful Impasse

Posted on by learning to live like water

She loved him so much. Every day she would wait to hear the popping sound of her text alert, just to know he was thinking of her. When he called….he melted her heart. Not by what he said, but by the sound of his voice. Sometimes she’d play his voice mails just to hear him.

He seemed to like her, most of the time. Once in awhile he would say something that gave her hope. Hope that maybe he was losing his fear. Hope that maybe he was going to allow himself the luxury of loving someone. Once or twice he kissed her like he meant it. And stayed with it through the night. She was in ecstasy.

Then….the darkness came. He wanted her around….But he didn’t want to know her. He wanted her close by, but he needed to be taken care of, but not to take care of her. At all. In any way. She made up excuses. He’s in a bad place. His friend is sick. She did the best she could to bring him some happiness, even if it was only temporary. When she left she said, “I hope I helped your sadness.” He said, “I think you definitely did.” But her sadness lay hidden deep in her heart until she left, and drove down his road with tears running down her cheeks.

The next time….he called her and asked her if she still wanted to come. Of course she did. She wanted to be with him more than anything. She wanted his strong arms around her. She dreamed of another long passionate kiss. He sounded happy, he told her the door was unlocked to come on in if he wasn’t home, he had errands to run.

But then….he said he wanted to talk, and told her he was very annoyed with her……she tries to restrict him, he says. She is trying to tie him down and bind him up, he says. Why is she so jealous, he asks. Can he not look at other women? He doesn’t want to be in love, he doesn’t want a serious relationship, (after almost a year…..) He still loves his ex girlfriend, (who was brutal to him).

And in her heart she was asking, why does he want to look at other women? Why doesn’t he look at the one he has? She was done looking. She found exactly what she wanted. She thought.

It came to her….he’s just not that into her. He complains about her all the time now. He holds her at an arms length. Don’t get too close….. Once again…feeling rejected, feeling alone. No care, no concern. As if he wanted her to go. In the middle of the night, she lay next to him. Listening to him sleep, snore. She knew….the truth was smacking her in the face in the wee hours of the morning. She shook the bed with her sobs, trying to be soundless so she wouldn’t wake him. She wanted to disappear, to get dressed in the dark, and silence and get in her car and go home. But she knew she couldn’t do it with out waking him. In the morning, she sat down on the bed and looked at him. She said, “you were right last night. This isn’t going to work out for us.”

Terrified, she went on to say how miserable she was. How alone. How much she loved him and she knew he didn’t feel the same. And how she was tired of trying to make it happen, and tired of being ignored, and uncared for.

It spilled out of her, like someone had punched a hole in the dam. She believed his kiss those few weeks ago. She thought they were finally in a similar place. But now she knows they are not. That he is once again fearful and pushing her away. Breaking her heart again.

They talked around and around, nothing was accomplished. She packed her stuff and went home. She drove, numb. She didn’t cry. She didn’t think. She had had 2 cups of coffee. Nothing else. She’d been up most of the night. She didn’t stop for anything, she just sped home. Down I-95. Up Route 85 and Route2.

Her house was empty, gratefully. She unpacked her bag. Looking at the lingerie she’d bought for him. She put it away. Would she wear it again, she wondered abstractly. She didn’t look for an answer. She wasn’t thinking. She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to give form to what was going on. She wanted it to go away. She wanted to be in his arms and be sure of how he felt. She wanted him to reach for her in the night. She wanted……

She wanted what wasn’t there. Broken heart, splattered across I-95 and Route 2. Pieces of it scattered on the beaches from Watch Hill to Matunuck. Dreams that need putting away. Tears that need drying. Hope that needs squelching.

But what of the love? In the end, it’s the only thing there is. And when all the rest is finished, the love will remain. Forever.