Tag Archives: growth

A Friend Request

Posted on by learning to live like water

Scott now wants to be friends on FB. We have never been friends on FB. It has certainly been his demise. It’s how I found out who Betty was, where she worked, that he was with her too when I thought he was only with me.  (And she thought he was only with her.)

Apparently it’s over with her if he is willing for me to be seen in his friends list. Wow, lucky me.  That has always been a temporary situation anyway.

All I can say is, NO. He is offering up sloppy seconds to me, again. I don’t want them. He apparently does not realize that if he were my FB friend, my son and all my friends would see it. All the people who had to watch as he reduced me to a pile of mush, and played with me, and used me. The same people who told me over and over who he was and to leave him alone. The last time I told my son that I thought he might come to our house in CT, uninvited, my son said, “Just saying Mom, if he shows up in our driveway, I will walk over to his car and punch him in the face.” He was not kidding. I told him, “no, I’ll deal with it.” He said, “Just saying Mom. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

My son is the one who had to see me reduced to a slobbering pile of sobbing mess after he did the prison whore. He also had to watch me then again, 9 months later, when I got the text that instead of us being together for the weekend, he was going to be with “someone else” (Betty) and that he was “busy and didn’t want to talk about it.”

When I saw Scott a year ago, after Betty had found out about me, my son said, “What the FUCK is the matter with you Mom? This guy made you cry more than my dad did.”

And still I talked to Scott through the move down here, on the phone, even though he was still officially with Betty, though I haven’t seen him in over a year. Until a couple months ago, when I just got so sick of the games he plays. The disappearing act he pulls, and then comes back as if it never happened. I just got so tired of being messed with.

And now he wants to be FB friends.

He had never been a friend. He has been my lover and my adversary. He has been my teacher of hard lessons, he has been a soulful connection. But he was never a friend to me. I was one to him. Every dark day that I knew about, I tried to help him. When she found out about me, and left him, (temporarily…but that’s another story) I was there for him. I loved him so dearly, more than I ever thought possible. And he used that love to bolster his own ego. To take what he could from me. And give back nothing, nothing permanent, nothing that lasts. We could easily have stayed friends. But he chose not to.

And so we are not. Not on FB, not in life. Not in any way. When I hear from him now, I feel dread, I feel a foreboding. Feel like the darkness is knocking on my door again. Do I love him, yes….always. Can I have any semblance of him in my life? Absolutely not, at least, not the way he is.

We can all change. It is hard hard work, to change and grow. If at some point he was able to convince me, look me in the eye, and tell me what he’s done, what inner work he’s done to change from being an egocentric, selfish man to someone who actually can be a friend, I might listen. I might then open the door. If he could actually apologize to me, and to my son, for his shoddy treatment of me, I might listen. But it would have to be heartfelt, sincere. I am good with words. I am intuitive. I would know the difference. He will say he has apologized to me enough. But what good is an apology when the behavior continues, unabated?

When I went through my divorce, I didn’t date for 5 or 6 years. I went inside, I learned to go deep, I learned to look at myself and forgive myself, but that also implies that I changed. And I did. I’m not angry with Scott (or my ex for that matter). I am just saying that I can’t have in my life what he has brought to it for 2 years now. (The first year, up until he did the prison whore was good with him, even after that, it was good. Then came Betty.) I have joked that he should go to the monastery for 6 months, like he often said he was going to. It’s a journey he has to take by himself. Even if I was inclined to help him, I would not. There is never real growth without real pain. There is help…but you have to seek it out. And not seek it from me. Not look to have the gaping wounds once again soothed by me so life can go on the way it has for decades.

So, I write this knowing he will read it. I don’t want to open the doors of communication with him, because it’s not safe for me. I know that somewhere inside there, I still love him as I always did, and that I would just be hurt again. I need to heal, I need distance, emotional distance to match the now physical distance I have purposefully put between us. He needs to heal too, and see himself. And acknowledge his soul and his spirit and stop feeding his ego, which is doing a good job of killing him, and hurting everyone who loves him. When he does that, when he can realize that he too is a child of God, as deserving as all of us, he’ll be able to love himself, and forgive himself, and then he’ll have something to offer the people he wants in his life.

I wish him Godspeed on that journey should he choose to undertake it.

Love and light, everyone.

A conversation

Posted on by learning to live like water

Sitting in silence, in my small, old, adorable bungalow, thoughts run through my mind of what was, and is no more, and what is, and what will be. Observing the journey is all.

I think about the conversation I had with my close male friend last night on what’s happening in the world, and why it so triggered an emotional response from me. His calm, loving, focused care of me as I explained to him how much I have been reminded of my ex, and how last weekend I so felt that darkness over me again. When I told him, in a very abbreviated way, about my marriage, he asked, “What did you do when that happened?” (My ex just going off on me or my son for any random thing, just to cause chaos.) I said, “Usually I just got quiet, because to say anything just made it worse.” He nodded. Then I said, “But eventually, what I did was leave him…..” And he smiled. Because he saw that I realized that I actually didn’t let my ex kill me. That I took my own power back.

Now, I think how if I ever complained to my ex about anything, like I was sick and felt awful, even when I was in labor (!) he would have to make sure he told me how much worse he had had it than me. That I still didn’t know what pain really was. (I was trying to give birth to a 10lb. 15 oz. Child, 22 1/2” long, who was posterior. No, not much pain there…..idiot.) Always he had more, he was worse off, my pain or whatever I felt or experienced was negated.

You learn not to say anything, because you will feel worse.

With S, he always would say, “Whine whine whine….” as if I was just making up something to bitch about. Never wanted to listen to my troubles. Could never extend an ounce of empathy toward me. Because it was all about himself, always and forever. I guess I thought that was an improvement from the treatment I got from my ex. S was just telling me to forget about it, I guess, it wasn’t important. Even though it apparently was, or I wouldn’t have said anything. I was looking for support, he couldn’t give it so told me to forget it. Stop whining, as if I were a petulant child. Now I see who the petulant child was though.

I can already tell that L would be there if I needed him to be. He would not negate my feelings or emotions, by telling me his problems were worse, or that mine didn’t matter, minimizing my feelings, so I should move on. He’s much more like my friend that I talked with last night. We may not be on the exact same page politically, but I feel, at least right now, and it’s very early to even go here, that he would not negate my feelings, and try to make his dominant.

Once I let my friend last night know how I dealt with the triggering (by taking a couple of days off, walking, meditating, reading) and got myself centered again, and grounded in unconditional love, looked at me and said, “It’s insanity. What’s going on is just insanity.” His first action was to make sure I was ok, then he expressed his feelings on it. I knew we were on the same page about it anyway, we have had a lot of close conversation about our beliefs and feelings.

He’s a gift to me, really. He is quite a bit older than me, and married to a woman who is in a convalescent home with the final stages of Alzheimer’s. He is loyal and faithful to her, a trait which I totally admire in him. I think we serve each other well. He reminds me what I really want in a partner, and shows me how amazing it could be. I imagine being physically intimate with a man who can communicate, and feel empathy the way he does, and know I will not settle for less. I think I also offer him the companionship of a woman, and the sweet, intimate conversations he misses with his wife.

So many blessings, and so many lessons I’ve learned. So many gifts I’ve been given. I have to remember that in the end, I believe tRump will be his own worst enemy. I know he’s going to cause a great deal of pain and hardship in this country, maybe the world, before he is driven from power. I’ve never experienced growth on any scale, without pain. But in the end, he’ll be gone, impeached, or imprisoned, or at least not re-elected, or maybe even worse. The world will right itself again. I believe what you think about expands. My ex thought only about making me penniless, and ruining my relationship with my son. I thought only about having a beautiful home with my son. My ex ended up penniless, and has no relationship with my son. He attracted to himself what he wished for me. The universe only hears the wish….not where it’s directed. I ended up with a beautiful home, and a close relationship with my son. I don’t wish ill on anyone, not even tRump. Meaning I wish he would see the light, and become someone who could stand up for it, but I don’t wish him dead or any other ill. I wish love and freedom for us all. That’s what I want to manifest, so that’s what I’ll focus my thoughts on.

Enough philosophy, lol. Time to get another cup of coffee. Love and light, all.

Knowing

Posted on by learning to live like water

truth at center

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.

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

Posted on by learning to live like water

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

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

It was never gonna happen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want more.

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

Growing Pains

Posted on by learning to live like water

Today was kinda rough. But there is no growth without pain, is there?

After texting with S yesterday, which never comes to any good end, I just cut it off, and thought that I’d not hear from him for a few days, but I heard from him today on his lunch break. And again, to no good end.  Yesterday I cut it off when it started to get ugly, today, it got ugly, and I blocked him, for good.  I have no desire to argue with him, and that was the only point.  To argue over nothing, as if it mattered how it turned out. It didn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, and I’m sick of it.  Why argue when you have no relationship?  What’s the point?  I don’t want anything from him, except to be left alone by him.  It’s over and done.

As in the Rumi quote, watch my rising.

There is no need for ugliness.  The love doesn’t disappear, it just transforms, into something else, a different kind of caring, that doesn’t leave your heart aching and your stomach upset.  It wasn’t my choice then, now it’s a choice I agree with.  It’s a choice I want, I want to be free of the old encumbrance, I want nothing to hold me back from finding that which I want.  I don’t want to ruin what are good memories with any more bad ones.  It’s like my dysfunctional marriage, I still can remember many good times, even though the ending was ugly, but I want no more ugly memories to add to it.  And the same with S.  No more memories at all, just let it be done.

As it should have been ages ago, way before Betty Boop came back.  Long ago.  With the prison whore probably.  Or when the first signs of withdrawal showed after his friend died.

But whatever, it’s over now.  I don’t want a text, a voice mail, an email.  I don’t want one more minute of it.  The longing is turning into something that I don’t want to feel, the missing him is starting to feel ridiculous. Missing what?  I don’t know.  Nothing that I can’t live without. Nothing that I haven’t lived without for a long time, and nothing that I don’t feel better without now.

He has his “one, the one”.  My opinions about that are none of his business, nor is how I feel about him or see him.  Whether or not I can still unconditionally love him, is none of his business.  I hope he quits thinking about it, and tries to make something work in his life.  With her.  And leave me alone.

He said he wanted to find a way to keep me in his life.  There is no way.  I don’t want to be in it.  I get to make that choice, and I made it, irrevocably today.  Too much ugliness.  I’m just done with it.

Lessons, there are always lessons.  Even the ones you think are hard, and you hated learning them, raise you to a place you’d not been before, if you choose to learn them.  Watch me rise….watch the experience lift me into a smarter, wiser, more tender, more loving place.  Every experience can lift you or knock you down.  Trust always, that what happened was supposed to happen, and glean from it what you can that will help you grow.

That is my intention.  To grow, to be better than I was.

Learning the Lessons

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was walking with my cousin yesterday.  We take these long 5 mile walks and talk incessantly.  We both have our issues, and we talk and listen without judgement.  She’s actually my ex’s cousin, lol, and the only member of that family with whom I am still close.

We were talking, finally, yesterday about the lessons we have learned or are learning from our current situations.  She and her family have some serious issues they are dealing with.  I suggested what I thought my lesson was this time, but she has not been able to see a bigger picture with hers.  Though, hers is fresh, and the wounds are still bleeding, she is still reeling from it’s presence in her life.  She was blindsided by it, as was I by mine.  We both believe there is always a lesson we are supposed to learn from every difficult situation.

She expressed a wish that she could just stop for awhile, learning lessons.  And me too.  We both could take a stretch of easy, instead of so difficult.

I said though, “You know there is no growth without pain.  Perhaps as our soul evolves spiritually, the lessons become harder to learn because they are more important.”

I first learned the power of unconditional love when my son lived with my ex, about which I have written a blog, and won’t go into the specifics again.  Let me say though, that that lesson came easily, even though the situation was harder and scarier than anything I’ve ever lived through.  The lesson, to just unconditionally love him, came naturally. I can’t take credit for even thinking of it consciously.  It was just a natural reaction, of a mother for her child, and only after all was resolved did I realize that it was the power of that unconditional love that brought about positive change.

Now, the lesson seems to be a deepening of that lesson, for me.  But I’ve had to acknowledge in the last month that there are people who will reject that kind of love.  People who absolutely don’t trust it, or believe in it.  I am committed to it, regardless.  But I think there will be no reward in the end as there was with my son. So…while this lesson has been devastating to me, in my personal life, it was not as hard as knowing my son was in danger every minute.  But the lesson is harder to stay with.

One might ask, why would I continue to love someone unconditionally who absolutely will hurt me without cause, will betray and disrespect me?  Why would I unconditionally love someone who is incapable of that same emotion?

I suppose that is the lesson for me, to answer those questions.  My only reasoning now is, unconditional doesn’t allow us to pick or choose who we love.  It has to be, unconditional – without limit, without reason, beyond thought or judgement.  As so often has been said, the people who seem least deserving are the ones who need it the most.

So….I will continue to love this way.  My door will be open, not to the hurt, but to extending the love.  If I am true to myself, and what I absolutely believe to be true, in fact, KNOW to be true, that love is the most powerful energy in the universe, then I have no choice.  It doesn’t mean I will expose myself to danger or hurt.  It means I will love.  Always love.

If I ask the person I’m directing it to at the moment, hard questions…it is because I want them to see that there is another way to think, to live, that being fearful of love, and alone doesn’t have to be the way it is.  Wanting connection, love and belonging is the natural human condition. To pretend it is not, is just pretending.

There are other ramifications, if this is the path I choose….because as it trickles down into the cracks and crevices of my life, I have to change myself to fully be that person.  My anger, which can be self-righteous and flare on a short term basis, has to be tempered with the knowledge that what was done to me by anyone was done by someone doing the best they could with the tools they have been given, with their level of consciousness at the time.  And that perhaps over time, someone loving them regardless of their actions, might help them to evolve too.

There are those more highly evolved than me, who say we contract before we are born to learn the lessons that face us here.  We even contract with other souls to join us in the journey.  And if we take this life time and don’t learn them, then we will come back again to learn the same lesson.  That’s karma. It’s not what goes around comes around.  It’s whether or not we open our hearts to learn the hard lessons that allow us to evolve.

Who knows?  The world is a mystical, incredible place, and our journeys are also.  I will go with what has been put in front of me, and find a way.  Live like water…..

On Vulnerability and Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

The morning was gray, and quiet. I sat on my deck, having coffee, reading blogs, reading email. Doing some pensive introspection. About myself. About S. About vulnerability.

I have been a champion of vulnerability. I have watched Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability maybe a dozen times. She speaks to what I have always known, but did not form into a cohesive thought until I saw her speak.

I have never been afraid to be vulnerable. Not with my friends, not with strangers, not with the men in my life. Not in my blogs, or my book, or with my son. I do believe that you don’t give someone all your secrets, until they have proven the right to hear them.  I give it out a little at a time, but I give it.  I will initiate it.  I am not afraid of it.

I believe it is the only way to have a real, fulfilling, human experience. I believe, as Brene does, that it is the birthplace of creativity, of joy. It is the ying of the yang. You can’t know joy if you don’t risk something. You can’t be creative if you are afraid of failure. You can’t expect someone to open up to you their deepest darkest secrets if you won’t share in kind.

Vulnerability means that you take a risk, you put yourself out there. Not knowing what the outcome will be, if you think that there might be a reward that makes it worthwhile. There is no risk-free existence. You can’t imagine that just because you love someone they will always love you back. You can’t believe that everything will always stay the same. Change happens. And when it happens, and you hurt from it, instead of closing your heart, you have to thank God you are able to love so passionately, so fully. Because it means you are alive. If you hurt….it is the ying to the yang. There is no great reward without great suffering.

Ram Dass tells a story about his guru, who when given the option of love vs. suffering, chose suffering, because it was then that he would grow. Learn about himself.

So, we wish those who cause us to suffer, love and light. We let them go on their way, in their life, and hope that they find joy. We find ourselves better prepared to go on with LIFE, and LIVING, because we have a deeper understanding of what brings us joy, and peace.

One of my favorite quotes is from Khalil Gibran. It states:

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

I have a friend who was devastated by an ex. This persons heart is closed now, for the most part. They do not want to love again, to risk giving of themselves because the pain is so great. I see cracks in the wall occasionally. But the person quickly fills them in, and retreats behind the wall again.

To me, it is like being dead before you are dead. So love didn’t work out that time, or the time before. Maybe it worked for awhile, a long while, and then it changed. Change is part of life. Loving to me is living. I cant’ separate the love of a person, from love of myself, my family, of every living thing. To stop one is to diminish all. Because they are all connected.

This being said….if we love someone to the best of our ability, and they choose not to return it for whatever reason, it’s not healthy for us to continue to dream that they will. There is a time to let go, and acknowledge that this is not the one for you. It comes with self awareness. Let go with joy, wishing all blessings and happiness to that person. And then risk being vulnerability again.

Never forget that once you decide what you want, the universe will conspire to make that happen. Thoughts become things, so think the thoughts about what you want. Not about what you don’t.

And live. LIVE.