Love.
It was a gift to myself
To love you.
The joy of loving
Outlives the pain of losing.
Precious moments lived
Delight my senses.
Painful moments
Teach me to rise
To surrender
To grow
To learn.
There is no loss anymore.
Gratefully I give up
The attachment
And keep the ethereal joy
Of knowing I can love.
It’s Christmas morning. I’ve been up since before dawn, and managed to catch the sunrise, which was beautiful. It is such an unusual Christmas morning. It’s warm out, I went out on the deck to take this picture, and left the slider open, it’s almost 60° outside! Certainly not a normal New England Christmas!
I have had a few epiphanies this morning. One was while I lay in bed, luxuriating in the fact that I did not have to get up, and go to work. For the last couple of months, my elbows, forearms and wrists have been in a lot of pain while I slept and when I wake. I believe it’s just arthritis. At least that’s what I’ve been saying.
I did realize this morning, that the pain has increased substantially since the break-up. I also realized I have not been dealing with it, just trying to ignore it, and have been focused more on obsessing about the break-up. What he did, to me, to her, to himself. Trying to understand that mindset that would create a situation that was bound to fail, to hurt himself most of all.
I decided that starting today, I was going to redirect that energy to myself, and find out what the emotional components of arthritis presenting in my arms was. Louis Hay’s book “You Can Heal Your Life” has a permanent place on my coffee table. I got up, I did my morning meditation, (which I gave a little extra time today), and then consulted the book. I was not surprised at what I found, because I knew there was an emotional component linked inextricably to my recent experience. But here’s what it said.
Elbows (I have a limited range of motion at the moment): Represents changing directions and accepting new experiences.
Wrists (also limited range of motion): Represents movement and ease.
Arms (specifically for me, throbbing pain in my forearms when I rest): Represents the capacity and the ability to hold the experiences of life.
Wow. I am obviously not accepting, nor moving through the experience of the break-up, the deception that was visited on me, well. It is manifesting in my body.
It had also caused sleep issues, causing me to be dependent on taking a prescription sleep aid. I have not taken any this week, and I am finally getting back into my own old sleep patterns. Which probably allowed me to re-evaluate this pain in my arms.
I have to look at the lies and deception that culminated in such a painful break-up as an experience. An experience from which to learn something, about myself. I learned about trust, about loving myself first. And I also learned that I still have the capacity to love someone intensely and passionately.
These are lessons that I would not know, if I didn’t live through that experience. It is now my task to accept the experience, without regret. To embrace the lesson. It is said that those who make your life the hardest are your greatest teachers.
Perhaps, if my purpose in his life was to remind him of his intrinsic value, his was to teach me those invaluable lessons. That trust is something earned, not given freely like love. That we have to love ourselves first, and enough, to walk away when we recognize that a relationship does not serve us and only takes from us, causing us pain. To know that I can love passionately and intensely? Well, that’s just a gift.
The break-up also has brought me to feeling compassion for the man with whom I spent most of my life. He also created a situation which was bound to fail. There could be no other outcome of the way he was living.
It is obvious to me, that there is a healing in the wind. Healing my bruised psyche of the pain that the lies and deception caused me. Healing the relationship with my ex, because it may be that it’s possible now. I will take that as it comes. The journey back to life is still his to take.
Healing between my son and his father. I can only pray. It’s not my relationship, I can only facilitate the loving kind of environment that would make space for it.
I hope there is healing for Scott. Not necessarily the way he wants it, but for him to reconsider the way he lives his life, and change it so that he can live out his life in a rich full way. But his journey is his, it’s none of my business. I am hopeful for him, but there is no expectation. And I doubt if I’ll ever know what the outcome is for him, of all this trauma. So I wish him love and light, he is in my prayers. But my life diverges, and I will be leaving that path behind me. I just deleted the whole text thread with him, which went back almost 3 months to the week after I initially found out about Betty. I intend also to delete all the emails I have sent him, including a lot of writing I did just for him. I let it go, I send it to the universe now, where I trust it will be atoned and turned into something beautiful.
I see the break-up now, as a fissure. A huge crack in my life, which not only allows the light in, but also allows space to grow. Like a seed breaking ground to become a beautiful flower, or a tall tree, or some other magnificent creation. Everything reaches for the light.
On this Christmas morning, I change my focus, to accepting fully and with gratitude the experiences which continue to shape my life. I regret nothing. I will hold the experiences, not only in my arms but in my heart. I will change direction gracefully, and let go of the pain and devastation that has been my focus for the past few months.
The best Christmas gift I could give myself.
Merry Christmas everyone. Love and light to all.
I just got home from a gong meditation. I had no intention going into it. But I was tired, I didn’t sleep well last night. And work this week was beyond crazy. I was so happy to end the week with the gongs.
This week was another week in letting go of old stuff. There was the thing with Addie, there was the strong vibe I had about Scott’s health, and then for a few days I felt no connection to him at all. Which was a relief, because I mostly worry about him when I feel connected. Which is, I know, kind of crazy, considering he’s the one who caused all this heartache and pain. I wish I didn’t see his soul so clearly. But I do, I’m going to have to deal with it somehow.
Tonight at the gong bath, my friends who put it on suggested because it is the Christmas season, that we (there were about 20 or 25 of us there) say the names, or at least put the names out into the universe, of anyone we know who needs healing of any kind. I thought of my 94 year old mother, who had a massive stroke over a year ago, leaving her unable to speak, read, write and partially paralyzed. Yet, she goes on. She laughs on the phone. But we all know she’s ready to go on. Her memory is failing and though she knows who her daughters are, she can barely understand some basic things. Like my sister makes her get out of her wheel chair so she won’t forget how to walk.
I also thought of my ex, of Scott, of Betty, of Addie. And sent healing energy to all of them.
I was soon into a deep meditative state…lying there in the dark, snuggled under my blanket. I wanted to let go of the past, if anything. But I kept remembering one afternoon last summer when Scott and I feel asleep spooning, and he had reached around me and was holding my hand and wouldn’t let go. It was in the summer, so he was seeing Betty then on the weekend unbeknownst to me, although that may have been a Sunday, I don’t remember. I guess it must have been if it was the afternoon. I don’t know why I couldn’t stop that image while I was so deep. I guess it was so symbolic, now, of how he wouldn’t let go of me all that time.
I’m not gonna lie, it made me sad to remember that tender afternoon.
I began to say the Ho’oponopono, to myself. To say I love you, to myself. To try to become strong enough to let go of that memory, and the rest of it.
I think I regained the stillness I had last night and this morning. I hope. It wasn’t a voice in my head, it was just a memory, embedded deep in my heart. I wasn’t holding a conversation about it with myself, I was just remembering it, in living color. Feeling it again. There are a lot more where that came from, and I need to let them all go.
I really do feel for Betty. I don’t know her at all…..but I am pretty sure he convinced her he would never cheat on her again, for her to take him back. And she had to deal with him being with me too, the whole time he was with her. That’s hard.
And Addie…trying to fill holes with every woman he meets. Not letting himself feel what he feels. He tells me I keep breaking his heart, and I know I have a couple times, because I could not love him the way he wanted me to. Then instead of allowing himself to heal from that, if it’s true, he jumps into a relationship with the first woman he dates, and the first woman he meets on line. I know him well….it’s not because I’m on some kind of ego trip about him, I just know how he is. I know how we were, I know how he buries his pain. I do believe that he loved me very much.
My ex…I don’t even know what to think about him. Living in the teeny cottage next door to our old house. Not working, all alone. He probably needs healing the most, and is the least likely to ever crawl out of the depths he’s fallen into.
I recognize now, that it was all another layer of pain that I peeled off the onion tonight. It was not painful, not in the way it has been in the past. It was more wistful, just some sweet tender memories from before it all blew up. Before the explosion of emotions that ended in such destruction. I’m glad to have a few real moments to remember besides all the sadness in the months leading up to to that explosion.
I am grateful to have the gong meditations to work through this stuff. Since I was going through my divorce, it has been my biggest healing tool. To go there, and let whatever is ready to come up, come up, and for me to see it, feel it, honor it, and let it go.
In gratitude this morning. I awoke early as usual, about 5:15. I felt peace, for a lovely change. No angst over the past, no worry about the future.
I have a ring with a large larimar stone. This is the stone of the Caribbean, it’s only found there. It’s metaphysical properties are tranquility of sea and air to the heart and mind. It is supposed to soothe and uplift hurt, fear, depression, pain of life and changes, with love. I bought the ring in St. Thomas when I took my son on a cruise when he graduated from high school.
The day I was decorating my house for Christmas, at about 5 PM I looked at my ring and the stone had fallen out somewhere. I had no idea when or where. I had been digging in boxes of ornaments, and decorations, doing laundry, cleaning, run an errand to the drugstore. I dug through the boxes I’d been in but to no avail. While I was sad it was gone, I had a feeling that it would just turn up somewhere. I don’t know why, I wasn’t frantic, I just thought it would.
Two days later I was at work, and my son called me, that he’d found my stone in the washing machine! It fell out while I loaded the sheets into the washer. Now I just have to reset it into the setting and I’ll have my ring back.
This is how I am feeling about my life right now. It isn’t perfect, but what I want I know is going to come. And I can let go of the angst, at least for today. The angst, and all the other negative emotions that the last 6 months have brought me, I just let go. I almost brought the drama back into my life this weekend, but it wasn’t supposed to happen and didn’t. I am so grateful for that I can’t even express it. I am so grateful to have a wonderful life to just settle into, and know that if I just believe, the things I want will manifest. It has always been so, and will always be.
I remember during my divorce, thinking every day, that what I wanted had already happened, it just had not manifested yet. I feel this now….the things I want, in the vast expanse of the universe in which there is no space and time, have already happened. They are waiting for the perfect time to manifest. I know they are coming.
Breathe in love. Breathe out all that no longer serves you.
And believe….just believe.
Happy this morning. A is fine, I got my “goodnight sweetie. I love you.” He feels bad he left his phone at home, and he banged his head with a floorboard and has a big bandaid on his forehead. But he’s safe and whole, and I’m relieved.
Looking forward to the day. Making some new friends on here, and elsewhere. Future looks bright, continuing to be drama free. I still get the energy vibe from S, I am getting good at recognizing it, and it’s not that I ignore it, its just that I know he needs to work through this himself. He kept telling me he wanted to be alone, and even though it was an excuse so he could see Betty and keep me, now it’s true for him, so I hope he makes use of the time. Could be that what he said, the lie, was closer to the truth of his soul. He set his life up to fail, and bring him where he is. He manifested the state he’s in. I hope he comes out of it better, stronger, wiser, kinder, and more whole. I hope the child who steers that riverboat makes it to the distant shore.
Most of us know that great beauty can be borne of tragedy. I sincerely hope he can find it. I think I’m well on my way, to creating a more beautiful life out of the tragedy of loving him. The picture at the top made me think of this. There are 3 hands, one for me, for him, for Betty. And the bird, flying….we reach for it, to fly with it. I know it’s carrying me now. I hope its carrying them too. Out of the darkness, into the sun.
Life is good. Love and light.
I am so full of thanks I can barely move. But…my kitchen is cleaned, all the food put away, the turkey carcass is in the soup pot. The kitchen is closed, except for a momentary opening to whip some cream in awhile. My son is sound asleep on the couch in a tryptophan coma. We have University of Connecticut basketball on the tv. UConn is ranked pre-season at 18th in the nation. They are playing Syracuse, one of their big rivals, who are unranked, and Syracuse is winning at the moment by 6 points.
I am starting my 2nd glass of wine now that the kitchen is done. What a huge amount of food for two people, lol. I won’t have to cook though, until next week. I talked to a lot of friends, and family on the phone, by text. It has felt warm and close and lovely all day.
I really am grateful, for so many things. I try to make at least a mental list every day. It is so nice to have my son here all day, and he’s been hanging with me, all day, instead of down in his man-cave. Still not sure if we will be joined this evening by his friends.
My sister suggested I start volunteering at something even a few hours a month. She said, that will lift you more than anything else you can do. I think she’s right. My bff was talking about starting up something to do with seniors, I sent her a text and asked her to talk to me about it sometime over the weekend. I need to expand my horizons. I need to give back, I have been so blessed. And I need to stop focusing on some stupid drama I should have never been involved in.
Want to spend my time focused on improving this world, and giving back. I am sick of myself. And grateful. LOL.
Love and light on this Thanksgiving Day.
I am in much better shape this morning than last night when I wrote my last blog. Pretty much back to the place where the whole affair just disgusts me, that I participated in it at all, even though I didn’t have any knowledge of the facts. I am back to seeing him as a defective, sick man. Completely devoid of normal human empathy and compassion, as my friend Megan pointed out. He feels it for himself, no one else. Not missing him at all.
It’s good to be in a place where the random memory bombs just set off a small detonation, and then disappear. I feel like I have a clearer understanding of what happened to me. I see where I was feeling the truth, even though he constantly denied it. I needed to trust my gut, my intuition more, and going forward, will listen more astutely. It’s a good lesson for me.
I had been feeling so bad for Betty when I first realized she had no idea, but really….she had a relationship with him that left him to his own devices all week, and he’d already proven to her he was untrustworthy with her former best friend. She also set herself up. Yesterday I realized that he didn’t lie anywhere near as much to her, he wasn’t trying to blow her off to see me, so lies weren’t needed. Just the lies of omission, lol, that he was with me when he wasn’t with her. But ignorance was bliss, for awhile. We both had to get the big lie. I’m just way ahead of her on the healing path. Who knows, she may forgive him, and let him back. He can’t be monogamous, he can’t draw a line for himself he won’t cross. If it’s not me, it will be someone else, one day when she least suspects it. It’s just who he is. Lies and deception and living on the edge are what he likes.
Enough about him. Really. This morning I’m sick of it again, lol.
It’s Thanksgiving. I made a beautiful pumpkin pie last night. This morning I am making a jello mold, the stuffing for the turkey was made Tuesday night. I have a small 12 lb turkey for my son and I, and will put it in the oven around noon so we can eat around 4. Then a few other things, twice baked potatoes, baked butternut squash. My son bought a really good bottle of wine, which was really sweet. He’s growing up and realized he should contribute. It will be fun to hang with him for the day. He’ll probably have friends over tonight, which is also good with me. I love having young people in the house, even though they mainly stay in his space, my finished basement. Still, I like the energy. It’s invigorating.
I’ve been talking to A a lot. He’s really gutted his new home. His son smashed his finger in a car door and had to have it stitched up. A is not pushing it with me, though I can feel his feelings have not changed. And right now…as long as he is not pushing me, it is soothing, and a blessing for me. He said he wishes he were here, he’d love to go to the sweat lodge with me tomorrow. He sends me love every morning, every night, he reminds me of my worth. I try to also remind him. I wish I could love him the way he wants, he so deserves it. I really have a lot of self introspection to do, though….I am not really in a place to be with anyone.
But I’m oh so grateful for A and his loving attention. Lots of things I’m grateful for on this lovely cold Thanksgiving morning. For my son, for my friends who have been hanging with me through all this stupid drama. For my book club, which is 3 of my best friends. We’re going out to dinner on Tuesday. I’m grateful for this blog, which allows me to release my emotions in a productive way. I’m grateful to live in my lovely home, to have a decent job. Grateful to be able to put a feast on my table today. To know what I know, lol, and be open to continue learning. Grateful that a relationship that caused me far more tears than joy in the last 6 months is over. I think the dark days are over for the most part.
Happy Thanksgiving, with love and light.
Early morning sunrise is beautiful this morning. I have been up since well before dawn, but I slept well last night.
I did my final day of the Deepak Chopra 21 day free meditation this morning. When it was done I saw this sunrise, like a simple gift from the universe.
Every morning I wake up a little farther from the chaos of the last few weeks, and it usually lessens throughout the day. I am not slipping backward, which is a huge thing. I have no more rogue waves knocking me down. Nothing pushing me backward.
Grateful this morning, I guess. Just grateful. There is so much to be grateful for, even the hard lessons. I can see it all as a gift. Even though at times, I still pick my jaw up off the floor at the depth of deception that one man can create, he deceived himself worst of all. His deception made me smarter, and wiser. I have grown from the experience. As long as we do that, it’s never a waste.
It’s only a 3 day work week this week. Hopefully I will go to the sweat lodge Saturday. I know it would be really good for me. I feel blessed that there are so many healing opportunities around here to bring me back to myself. Every day I remember more who I was, and who I am.
Thanksgiving will be quiet as usual. Just me and my son. I’m grateful he’ll be home all day. It is the first time in a few years he has not had to go into work in the late afternoon to work overnight for Black Friday. In fact he has the day off, his new job is not a hot spot for Christmas shopping.
Been texting with A this morning, since early, which is really early for him. He is telling me about his son’s girlfriend, coming to see him from Maine, to New Mexico, talking about moving out there. I think he is wistful, that I have no interest in doing that. I have always told him I could never live in the desert. I wouldn’t mind visiting, but probably not him for more than a day or two. I love him, but it’s a love that’s better from a distance than up close.
I’m still sure the up close one is headed my way.
Love and light.
A few days distance from the lies, and the waves of my emotions are returning to a place I am more comfortable with. Gentle swells on the ocean, rhythmic rising and falling. My head has stopped spinning and the heavy weight of so many lies and such deceit has been passed from me to the universe, where it will be righted, and atoned.
I have so often espoused unconditional love in my blog. Last night, I suddenly felt a wave of deep sorrow, not for myself or Betty, but for S. I just cannot imagine living a life in which I thought I had to lie and deceive to keep people in my life. I have this same feeling about my ex, I cannot imagine feeling so unworthy of love and belonging that I felt the only way to keep people in my life was to control and abuse them.
That being said, I know it is the journey of both men to discover that they too have a center in their soul which is an expression of God. I cannot help them. If they don’t want to find it, they will not. Free will….lets them choose.
If only they knew the joy that lay in letting that light shine.
I know my ex, when he was young, was trying to let it shine. He tried to do the right thing. I have to say, he was faithful to me and never lay with another woman. But he was unfaithful to me, in his lies and dishonor and disrespect, his anger, his self-centeredness.
I still feel that when I met S, and he was just out of chemo, he was grateful to be alive. He was trying to live his life in gratitude. While he didn’t disabuse me of the notion that Betty had done him horribly wrong, he didn’t talk much about it, and only said occasionally he didn’t know how he could have been so wrong about someone. He added no other lies to his repertoire that I know of during that time. There was the prison whore, but he did come to me, look me in the eye and tell me he knew he wanted to be with other women. The fact was that he couldn’t take my sorrow and my sadness. I think he was shocked to see the depth of the love I had for him. He told me he would rethink it, and we continued on. But the desire was in his heart, and he did the prison whore a couple of weeks later, and told me. Then he came to me, and told me about it from where he stood, and I understood him, and I forgave him.
The point is, he was trying to be honest then. That’s when I fell madly in love with him.
And a month later, when Betty came back into his life, the lies began. Based on the man I knew and loved, why would I have even suspected? Maybe he just reverted, maybe the pull to his younger self was too strong, the energetic ties there too strong for his newly found honesty and gratitude to survive. There was so much history there to remind him, at the deepest level, of who he used to be, and he succumbed.
I think he liked the drama. He loved living on the edge. Once he told me about being rescued off a ship by helicopter. I asked if he was afraid. He said no, that he felt the most alive when he was living on the edge. Every time he was with one of us, and we hadn’t figured out that the other existed, he felt had walked on the edge and survived.
Sadly, I think the only time he felt loved was when someone was crying over him. And maybe when one of us took him to our bed and adored him.
The only time he felt alive was when he was risking it all.
Therein lies his work, if he chooses to do it.
What do I do about my belief that the love never dies, that my love for him was unconditional? It is, it was, it will always be. But that doesn’t mean that I accept his behavior. It doesn’t mean I would ever subject myself to the possibility of that kind of pain again.
But I look at him, and still see that child’s soul, just wanting to be loved for simply existing, but never receiving it. Never having his own soul’s beauty validated. He became what he believed he was, he lived up to the expectations of other damaged people.
I hope he will go within, if he remains alone. Or even if he doesn’t. I hope he will try to learn to love himself, and let that light, that I glimpsed for a few lovely months, shine. I hope he will own his own story and see the incredible lessons he can learn from it. It’s not too late for him, even at age 66 he can redeem himself. He can still evolve.
I’m just much more comfortable with love than hate. I am more comfortable hoping for the best in his future, than dwelling on the ugly in his past. Who more than S, needs unconditional love? He is in my prayers.
Not that I want his future to include me. My path has gone far from him, but he will always be a big part of who I am. I learned so much from this experience. Hard lessons, and some happy ones. The one I am happiest about is that I am capable of loving someone so intensely. That I am not afraid to be seen, regardless of what the outcome will be. Obviously, the outcome here was not one I wanted. But I trust that there is a reason for that, for my higher good, and everyone else’s. I trust that I needed to learn these lessons to be ready for the outcome I want. I have faith that it will manifest one day with someone more closely aligned to my vibration.
The hard lessons, well, we all know what they are. I’ve talked about them enough.
Looking for balance this morning, I guess. I know this much is true….The love never dies. It has become like water, transformed into a cloud, and will rain down somewhere else soon.
Hard time waking up this morning. I was in such a deep sleep. I don’t use an alarm, and woke at my regular time, around 5:15 AM, or 5:30, but I kept dozing off for minutes, again, and I slept well, and 7 hours. It’s as if the many nights I have slept badly are all trying to get undone. There was a text from S, about 10 minutes after I shut off the light next to my bed, that I didn’t even hear the alert for. Dead to the world.
When I finally crawled out of bed, shaking the cobwebs from my head, and wandered into the kitchen, it was very dark, darker than normal, because it’s a rainy dank week, and very cloudy. But the skies must have cleared for a moment in just the spot where the last morning star this time of year shines. I looked out my kitchen window, as I made coffee and saw it shining, like a beacon, like a gift. One beautiful star…..It was gone again moments later,covered over again by clouds.
A little gift from the universe. As was finding the text from S when I woke up. As are a lot of things I often don’t bother to be grateful for.
We’re supposed to get Hurricane Joaquin Sunday night and Monday. It’s now a Cat 3 storm. Not likely at all that it will miss us completely. This weekend will be storm preparations, even today, I’m going to go to the store and stock up on water, and foods that I can prepare in advance of having no power for a few days. I live about 30 or 40 miles from the coast as the crow flies. It wont be the worst, but we’ll feel it. Last tropical storm we had 4 years ago we lost power for 3 days, and that was a short time, many were out a week or more. UGH.
I’ll keep in mind the morning star….and know that it’s there under the clouds. And will return, when the storm is over.
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