Tag Archives: games

Working Out Sleeplessness

Posted on by learning to live like water

I see my old friend Pat sleeping on my couch, in deep sleep and I think how nice it would be, to be able to just sleep anywhere. She’s one of those people who can. My mom used to be able to do that. My mother-in-law fell asleep at an NHL hockey game once. You know it was not quiet there, lol.

I went right to sleep last night, and well I should have. 3 hours sleep the night before, 2 rum and cokes at the restaurant, and we had a little smoke when we got home. I slept for a couple of hours, and then woke up, and of course, couldn’t get back to sleep. It’s getting old, this not sleeping thing. I had taken a full Ambien, just to make sure I slept, but there you go. So at 1 AM I took a Benedryl. That’s ridiculous I know. I am aghast at myself for putting so much crap in my body, but I am craving sleep and it is just evading me.

Lately when I’m like this I have to get up and write. Stream of consciousness…just let out whatever it is. Last night I felt very comfortable with my friends sleeping here. I was not overstimulated. When I went to bed I was only looking forward to climbing in between my sheets in that bed I love. But there I was, awake at 1:30 AM.

I picked up my laptop, opened it up and began to write.

What came out was, all the tentative hope I had for this relationship with Tim. He sent me an email this morning. Telling me about his night, and that he can’t wait to see me. Not gushing, just loving. He included a poem, I don’t know if he wrote it. I don’t think so, it was in quotes but the author not id’d.

I also realized that I still miss things about S, which I wish I didn’t. But that is always overridden now with his ability to play games with me and others, and the way I am always the big loser with him, that there is nothing to be gained from him. I guess when you love someone you always love some parts of them. The funny, smart, sexy parts. But they aren’t worth the brokenness, the chaos, the confusion.

I know where I stand with Tim, and it is so reassuring. I also am physically attracted to him, and that too is reassuring to me that we can get to that place eventually. He’s not overbearing, but likes to stay in touch. He’s not demanding, but expresses himself. He is not afraid to put his arm around me, he is not afraid to take my hand and talk to me seriously. He is not overly demonstrative, but is demonstrative. And he’s also smart, and has an artsy side. He loved his wife, who died after a 7 year battle of cancer. He was her caregiver all that time. And happy for the job.

What do I not like about him? Well, he has a drawl, lol, and my mind always clicks to a redneck when I hear a drawl. But he’s so not. He is so much an aging hippie like me, even though he’s an ex-firefighter, and ex-cop.

So, I have hope that this will go somewhere. He’s a really good man. I am cautious, too cautious with him. Like I should have been with S, and wasn’t, jumping in with both feet. I resolved not to do that again. To let things grow, to fill the marble jar, before giving myself over completely. S would always put 5 marbles in the jar, and then dump it over and just watch the marbles roll out. It’s just too hard to retrieve yourself, when someone breaks your heart. Jumping in set me up for heartbreak over and over again. I can’t imagine Tim willfully breaking my heart. Nor me his. I’ve broken a man’s heart before, but not willfully. It was just that I could not match his emotions for me. That man was needy, and I am so not. I love to be in love, but not with just anyone.

So that dichotomy, between the two men, that chaotic jumble of emotions, is what was keeping me up. Tomorrow Tim and I will go manatee watching, sunset watching and really see if we connect. I’m looking forward to the growth of the seed that’s been planted.

Love and light to all.

Considering the Possibilities

Posted on by learning to live like water

Last night I went to bed exhausted at about 10:20. I was a little sad, because Tom did not call yesterday. He had only said this weekend, but I thought I had detected some urgency in his message and thought I’d hear from him yesterday. Instead, I saw him online, but he didn’t call or even message me. My sadness was exacerbated by my exhaustion.

As I went to bed, I thought…..here I am setting myself up for more drama. More games. More stuff I don’t want in my life. I’m feeling the old push / pull thing that was part of my last relationship. There’s no need. I thought about the other guy Tim, who was excited to get my number, and committed to calling me tonight. How honest, and forthright he is, how he also makes me feel important, without any game. How he doesn’t have the need to tug at my heartstrings. And also how attracted I am to him, as well. Then there is a local guy I met at the artwalk, named Larry. My sister and my friend both told me he was obviously interested in me. I was oblivious. He’s a park ranger of some of the coastal parks nearby and also a photographer. We met at a gallery which shows his photography. My friend knows him from a charitable project she’s working on, which he’s involved in. She’s been trying to get me involved, and I think I may do that now. It’s a great project, and the added benefit of maybe working with or getting to know Larry makes it very appealing.

I thought, why have I kind of started to tie myself to a man who when he’s there, is really there, but when he’s not, he’s really not. Do I love the game on some level? No. I don’t think I do. But I think I’m a little gullible. Too much Pollyanna.

I slept solidly for 6 hours. I wish I’d slept for 10. My sleep has really become disrupted this week.

This morning during my meditation, I performed self reiki. I think I’m out of balance. Really out of balance. I worked this morning on restoring that balance. In Eat Pray Love, Ketut tells Liz Gilbert that to be out of balance for love is part of the balance of life. I agree. But, I’m not in love, yet. I’m only in possibilities.

There is no need to be so intense about any of this. There is no need to feel I can’t meet both Tim and Tom, and maybe get to know Larry. I’ve never been a player, and I don’t think I am now either. Until there’s some kind of connection with commitment I will continue to meet people and enjoy meeting them, getting to know them. When the next level occurs, then I’ll make that step.

I am surprised at myself, when I stand back, how much I want to have a significant other. I don’t want a husband, but yes, I’d be so happy just to feel my energy balanced out with male energy. I love to be in love, but I see this morning I’m pushing it with Tom, and that he’s probably not right for me. I think he likes the game. But whatever it is, it shouldn’t be this hard. I shouldn’t have had to push to get him to call me, and meet me, if he’s being honest in his messages. I’m sick of pushing. I’m sick of things not flowing. They flow with Tim, just a nice flow. And I am quite physically attracted to him. I love that he takes his grandson out manatee watching. He has a creative outlet. I also really like the way he tells me about himself, is willing to be vulnerable. We are a good match. Tom writes sweeter messages, but doesn’t follow through. I love words so much, I want to believe him. But his actions are telling me no, don’t. Not yet.

It’s all good, because I am confident that all the old stuff is behind me. I’ve really been alone a long time now, 10 years….. Even when I was with S, I wasn’t really with him. I was really alone. So I don’t really count that as being with somebody. I loved him, yes. But was I ever with him, no. And now, in hindsight that’s definitely 20/20, I know there’s no going back to that place where I spent the last at least 2 ½ years. I came down here for a fresh start…new beginning….to leave all that was in my old life in the past. My ex, my contentious divorce, my aloneness for 6 or 7 years, the roller-coaster and crash and burn that was my relationship with S. Every day, it’s farther behind me, and the future looks brighter.

But I have felt some of that old stress in trying to build a relationship with Tom. And stress is not what I want. Starting last night, I am backed off. I’ll talk to him, if and when he calls. I’ll meet him if and when he wants to. But I will also talk to Tim, I will also get to know Larry, and anyone else who crosses my path and whose company I find I enjoy. Until, that next level arises at the direction of the universe, not at the desire of my mind.

Here I am obsessing about this again, and I’m sorry. It’s boring I’m sure. But it’s really how I work these things out. Seeing much more clearly this morning. And hopeful that I’ll be able to get a nap in today, and alleviate this exhaustion I’m feeling.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. Love and light to everyone.

A Rainy Saturday Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

My sis and I went to the artwalk last night and had dinner in town. It was lovely, though the artwalk was somewhat subdued. Not as many vendors, or people. I suppose part of that was because it’s right after the holidays, so people weren’t doing Christmas shopping. And because the forecast was for rain, which we sorely need. It started raining after we had dinner and met up with one of my friends. So we came back to my house, and hung out for awhile.

It’s still raining this morning. Rain, and t-storms, and though it was 70 when I got up, it is going to drop into the 50s today. We haven’t had rain in over 2 months, it is so welcome. It almost seems weird! Get so used to sunshine every day!

Last night I got a message from Tommy, the one who won’t make plans. Except that he was making them. He says he’s going to call me this weekend, today I think. And then we’ll make plans to get together. I am very excited about it. He’s the first man who has really sparked me. He seems equally sparked.­ I am a little worried because the firefighter, Tim is also supposed to call me Sunday. If it goes with Tommy the way I kind of think it will, I won’t want to see Tim….even though I really like him. I’m a one-man kind of woman.

It will be nice to get the show on or off the road with Tommy. It’s weird how my pendulums said we would not meet this week but will by the end of next. It seems that’s true.

My sis and I want to go down to the art district in St. Pete before she leaves. Then we may go to a little Italian market I know she’d love. We might run up to Home Depot or Lowes, because I need to get something to put up in my guest room for people to hang their clothes on. She’s so funny, she gets here, and within minutes is coming up with ideas of things I need, and what might make this or that work better. I love her for it, she has such an artists view.

We were talking last night over dinner about what a perfect place this little town is for me. How it’s so exotic, artsy, so many good galleries, restaurants, and it’s such a small town, and no one even knows it’s here. It’s exactly the community that I need to be in. I saw the keyboard player at his booth selling his paintings last night. He gave me a big hug, and then told me he’s playing on Sunday at that same restaurant. I do like him…but really, I need to see where this is going with Tom. He’s really so far ahead of any of the other men I have talked to as far as an overall attraction. Anyway, I probably won’t go to the restaurant this weekend and see G play. Just would be too much like playing someone.

Something I’ve noticed about myself is that I’ve become much more measured in what I tell a man about myself. While my heart will always be on my sleeve, I am only slowly telling my story. One thing I like about Tom is that he seems to do the same, but also can put his heart on his sleeve. Last night he asked me to google Stay a Little Longer by the Brothers Osborne, because it reminded him of me. And what it did, for me, was to let me know he’s in about the same place as me. I can’t tell you how nice it is to do this with no head games going on.

I love too, that he would love to go to open mic with me, and actually perform there.

Well that’s it for a rainy Saturday morning. Lots of good things happening. Amazing how it all comes together when you get the toxic stuff out of your life.

Love and light.

Foolishness

Posted on by learning to live like water

To love beyond reason
Is kind of foolish,
She thought.
Though she had loved him like that
Forever.

There was no gain
Ever, in loving him,
Except
The joy that comes from having
A heart that’s full.

There was some game
To be played
But she could never
Understand the rules.
She never played it right.

She wasn’t a player
She was a lover.
Waiting
For a sign
That the game had ended.

But he disappeared.
His disappearance filled the void
Where once he lay
Beside her.
Now she wondered if he was real.

Were they, he and she, real
In the time-outs between rounds,
When playing stopped momentarily?
What was there?
Nothing? Or something?

There were times she grew weary
Of the game.
Times she said,
Go. I can’t play this game
Anymore.

Her heart aches still.
She waits for answers
As yet unspoken.
So she moves on,
And tries to love again.

4 AM Introspection

Posted on by learning to live like water

Awake at 4 Am, out of bed at 5. Not really a whole lot on my mind, except reflection of where I’ve been, and where I’m headed.

I thought a lot about the two men I’ve loved, my ex and S. I clearly saw how I fell in love with them, and why and how both relationships turned out to be so unhealthy for me. I thought about the article on Metta Buddhism, about how you can’t, just can’t, care for anothers happiness at the expense of your own. Any more than you should care for your own happiness at the expense of someone else.

So many of us were brought up to be pleasers, wanting to make everyone happy. Which is ok, as long as you include yourself in that equation. But when a relationship is making someone else happy,or even just filling a need of the other person, but bringing you a lot of discomfort….it’s time to let it go. I stayed in my marriage WAY too long, in the end it brought me only discomfort.  In trying to be the woman he wanted me to be, I lost myself.  It took me years to remember who I was.  Even now, that’s all that talking to him does, so thankfully, I don’t do it often. And S….yeah, I should have let that relationship go long before I knew the truth. It started bringing discomfort to me within the first year, even before his ex came back into the picture and he began the grand betrayal of both of us.  It was always a push-pull game, and I’m really not much of a player. I don’t understand the rules. Nor do I want to.  Again, I filled some egoic need of his, but he was careful not to allow himself to give too much to me.

Both relationships were a matter of me thinking that I could please them enough eventually, and they’d love me the way I loved them. In retrospect, with time and distance, I don’t think either man is capable of that kind of love, mostly because neither one of them loves themselves.

It was just an observation this morning. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

I get “Notes from the Universe” in my email every day Monday through Friday. (www.tut.com) They are written by Mike Dooley, who some of you might recognize from his work with the Law of Attraction. Everyone gets the same note. This was today’s note, which seemed to speak to the observations I was making in the dark, under my comforter.

“Just do it, Debbie.

Everything you need to know, you know, and everything you need to have, you have. Everything!

Time and Space is a primitive school. There are bigger challenges “out there,” bigger adventures, and lots more friends, but you gotta do what you gotta do, here and now. You gotta live the truths you’ve discovered, apply the principles, and never again think, “Why isn’t it working?” “It’s hard,” “I don’t know,” because such thoughts are like hitting the replay button for whatever you’ve just been through.

Look ahead with your dreams in mind and give thanks, because you know exactly what to do.

Tallyho,
The Universe”

I read this, thinking, I know this. I KNOW this. So…gonna try to do this more now. Not forgetting the lessons of the past, but incorporating them into my vision of the future. I hate covering the same ground twice, so I need to stop putting myself in a position where I’m doing that, going forward.

I guess some needed introspection was why I woke up at 4 AM, clear-headed and rested. I guess I needed to put this stuff in it’s place in my psyche

Love and light to everyone.


Halloween Morning Musings

Posted on by learning to live like water

Feeling a little disjointed this morning, I have so much I want to do today, but it’s early.  It’s Halloween, and my neighborhood is Grand Central in this small town. A friend is coming over to help me hand out candy.  I’ll make dinner, we’ll have a glass or two or three of wine and enjoy the kids.   I was just reminded we set our clocks back tonight, whoo hoo. I guess that means I’ll be waking up even earlier tomorrow, lol.

I am glad I didn’t spend more than a week figuring out Jim was not the guy for me.  I need to let my intuition guide me a little quicker.  I have been saying I didn’t really feel a connection, and trying to allow one to form.  I should know when there’s not one, there’s not one. When there is, there is.  I’d like one that is good, intimate, loving connection but not so intense that I feel the person all the time.  That’s way too distracting.

I realize I tend to be too direct for a lot of people.  I just don’t believe in pretending to be someone I’m not. Especially in the beginning, when just meeting someone.  I am not brazen, not pushy, I can usually get across what I need to say with a smile, a flirt, some humor, some self deprecation, a little funny sarcasm.  But I get it across.

Games are not part of my personna.  You know, where you pretend to be what you think the other person wants.  Or just be untruthful, because you’re unsure of yourself, because you think another person won’t like you as you really are.  Personally, I think games bite you in the ass.  I think they lead to depression, to insecurity.  Control, manipulation.  Because you have to keep up the fake personna to keep the person.  Sooner or later, you wish you could just be yourself. You would wonder why you couldn’t be, why you thought the person wouldn’t care for you if you were yourself, but by then…you’ve lied to them so much, you’ve worked so hard at this fake personna, you risk ending the relationship if you make yourself known, and admit that the person they thought they knew wasn’t you.  Vicious cycle.

Vulnerability is hard.  It’s scary to put yourself out there, not knowing what the outcome will be.  But lying, faking, game playing…is harder.  It will never end well.  At some point the truth will be known, and it will leave you cold, alone, and empty.

I think the thing that shocked me the most about S was that he was playing a game….with me, with her.  with everyone, I think. He was obsessed with the game “Go”, an ancient Chinese game where the point was to have no losers so that everyone saves “face”.  I always said, look if I screw up, I don’t need to save face.  I need to own it, and change that about myself, and make amends for any damage I did.  Save face?  A mistake is just a mistake if there is no lesson learned.That’s the bullshit about shame.  We all have it, the point is to learn from it, and use it as a tool to become a better person, and raise our vibration.

I know that the fact that I kept allowing S into my life after all the crap he pulled on me was starting to damage my relationship with my son.  What a mistake that would have been, to trade off my relationship with my son for S.  Another bullet, that would have literally killed me, dodged.

It just occurred to me, that my ex, who obviously didn’t think he was lovable because he grew up in a family where love was a reward, not a fact of life, felt he had to manipulate and control people to keep them in his life.  He truly thought that if I professed to love him, which I did, it meant that I was either a.) stupid or b.) wanted something from him.  I think perhaps the same was true of S.  Because it is an innate human condition to want to be loved, but when we are taught at a young age that we are not lovable, we learn not to trust it.  To see it as another manipulation, since in an abusive household everything is a manipulation. My ex’s father was physically and emotionally abusive, his mother was passively abusive, she didn’t stop his father, and used the threat of him to keep my ex in line and in fear.  S had the same situation.

S says I can’t let go of my marriage, that I talk about it all the time.  Well, yeah, I do talk about the things I learned from it.  It was the experience from which I learned the most in my life.  I spent the first 5 years of freedom trying to understand what happened to me and my son, and undoing the damage.  I realize that the wisdom I gained from that search, might be valuable to someone else.  It has nothing to do with the marriage, or letting go of it.  It has to do with life lessons, and learning, and sharing.  I know for a fact that sharing the wisdom has helped others, when I was active in an online community for abuse survivors.

I couldn’t convince either my ex or S that they were lovable just because they existed.  It’s water under the bridge now.  I need to find someone who already knows it.

I was watching Amy Schumer on HBO last night, after my boring date.  She just cracks me up.  I love her honesty, and she’s hilarious.  She reminded me of how my relationship with S used to be, open, funny, physical, flirty, honest….  Watching her just made me laugh, and remember part of my life.  I didn’t get sad, or upset.  I know S is not that guy all the time, I know he morphs into another person when he’s with a woman that probably wouldn’t find Amy Schumer funny. Or if she did, she would think she was outrageous, and that no one is like that.  Not knowing that S was for 18 months with a woman pretty much like that, though not as funny, lol. I know he and I both thought she was hysterical.  Real.  She’s very real.

Well, whatever.  I’m sure there’s a man out there who would appreciate and enjoy an open, honest, monogamous, sexy woman, and is open to falling in love, and monogamy too.

God, I sound a little needy.  I think I just miss having sex, lol.  Nah…I need a connection to have it.  I’m just longing for that connection with someone.  I’ll find it.