Tag Archives: healing.

The Search for Excruciating Joy

Posted on by learning to live like water

joy is

The closer I get to retiring the less I want to go to work.  It’s hard when you are a relatively short timer.  This morning was particularly difficult.  Maybe because I was up for about an hour in the night last night.  And maybe because when I woke up I had a little vertigo, which happens from time to time. Maybe because I was alone all weekend, which was 3 days because of the snow Friday. Maybe because it’s going to snow for the next 4 days, on and off.

UGH. I am really a whiny baby this morning.

I am going to get my oil changed on the way to work this morning. It’s so overdue, I’ve never let it go this long. I just kept forgetting. Bad, bad. I need this car to last me.

On a positive note, I got a couple necklaces made yesterday, one of them a gift for my sis when I go to Florida. I got the tray cleaned off that I lay them out on, it was so full of single beads and chips and chain and clasps left over from other projects it was almost difficult to lay a new one out.

I guess my problem at the moment is that ordinary is not cutting it for me. I want joy, excruciating joy. The kind of joy that makes your skin sensitive, your head spin it is so intense. Joy. My life is good, it’s fine, but at the moment, so ordinary. So bland. I don’t want drama, God knows I’ve had enough of that. I just want joy.

So I was looking for a picture to put at the top of this blog. I searched “Joy”. All I could find was “choose joy” or “joy comes from within”. Or something along the lines that it’s not something you find, it’s something you decide to live.

I know this. I’ve always known this. I shake my head at how far from my center I am this morning. I see where my work lies. About to do a little resetting of my attitude.

Yeah, excruciating joy. That’s all.

Sweet Surrender

Posted on by learning to live like water

surrender

Surrender….God what a scary concept that can be. 

To many people, it means give up.  Just give up.  What good would that do? How can you even consider it, when something is weighing on you and seems so vital. How can you let go of wanting to direct and control the outcome to be what you want it to be?

I had this moment during my divorce, when my son was traveling with my ex to a hockey tournament. I didn’t know where they were, I couldn’t call them because neither of them would give me the cell phone number of the new phones my ex had bought them. My son was playing for a new team, I didn’t know any of the parents to contact them.  I knew my ex was an alcoholic, and would think nothing of driving drunk. I was in a panic attack, the only real one I’ve ever had, terrified for my son.

They were supposed to be back on a Sunday morning, and I was going to go over to my old house and just see my son for 5 minutes, to reassure myself he was ok. But I needed to pull myself together somehow, because I didn’t want him to know how freaked out I’d become. So I x’d out of my email, shut the computer down, and I went in the shower, and hoped that would straighten me out.

I ended up on my knees in there, naked, alone, letting the water (oh it’s always the water) just cleanse me. “God, I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t. I’m giving it to you, to do with what you will. I’ll go along with whatever you do.”

Surrender. I had never thought of it, never considered it even as a concept. I was just doing it, because I had no where to go. I could not deal with it one more minute, so I gave the burden over to the universe.

When I got out of the shower, I felt better, but not great. I dressed, I headed out of the small condo I was renting. But as I headed for the door, a voice was in my head, “check your email.”

WTF? I had just checked it an hour before. I am not obsessive. But it felt like a command, so I sat down with my coat on, opened my laptop, and checked my mail again.

There, was the only email my son had ever sent me, written while I was on my knees in the shower.

“Hi Mom. The tournament was good, I broke my stick and had to get a new one. Are you coming to my game today?”

Immediately. I didn’t wait for an answer, it was there the moment I surrendered.

Surrender isn’t giving up. It’s giving it over to the unconditional love of the universe to deal with, and because that energy is love, nothing but love, I got what I needed.

From that moment on in my life, I have always known that everything will be ok. Every time anything, anything happens that I can’t deal with, I know it will all be ok.

It is one of the most freeing acts you can do as a human. I remember a year or two later, reading the chapter in The Power of Now about surrender. I laid the book down, just sobbing, knowing that that’s what I’d done (that’s when I got a name for it). And realizing the power it had.

Surrender. Don’t give up. Give up the idea that you have any power over the outcome, and trust in the loving energy of the universe to work it out for you. You are, no matter what you think, an integral part of that loving energy, and it will work in your behalf, if you just let it.

Peace….

 

Doing The Best We Can

Posted on by learning to live like water

the best we can

Do you think people are doing the best they can, usually?  It’s a question we were asking at book club last night, as we sat around my kitchen table eating my soup and biscuits.  We read “The Untethered Soul”, and it seemed ironic to all of us, that the place we used the lessons the most was at work.  Because all of us spend 8 (at least!) hours a day there with people with whom we have to get along, by necessity not by choice.

In her book Rising Strong, Brene Brown has a whole chapter on whether or not people are doing the best they can.  I remember reading it on my way to Virginia to my nieces wedding.  I was reading before the plane took off, and 20 minutes later, I was reading this chapter, the break-up with S very fresh, only 2 weeks before.  I was looking so forward to being with my whole family, in their loving arms, for a joyous occasion.

I wasn’t doing well with the break-up. I was devastated.  The text I got, ending our relationship, was just so cruel, I couldn’t get past it.  I knew I was the one that holding onto the pain would kill.  But I couldn’t seem to find a way out of it, and then, I didn’t even know the whole truth, I didn’t even know they’d been together all summer, and S denied it vehemently.

I was sitting in the plane and read this chapter about whether or not most people are doing the best they can.  A door was opened for me, with that chapter, to walk through, toward forgiveness.  I clutched my kindle to my chest for a moment, and turned to look out the window, so my seat mates wouldn’t see the tears rolling down my cheeks.  As I looked out the window, I saw we were flying down Long Island Sound, over places that I loved, that my ex and I had gone to in the boat many times.  Places where. I have memories with my son as a toddler, long hot summer days.  Shelter Island, Three Mile Harbor, Sag Harbor, Montauk.  I have called them places of my dreams.

It was like a gift, to see those places at that moment, the water sparkling in the autumn sun, the islands and harbors clear and crisp.  I realized then, that S, and my ex, were doing the best they could at the time.  Caught up in something they lost control of, emotions that had their root somewhere deep inside of them.  And me too….  I had been writing out my pain here, because that’s how I deal with pain.  I knew S read it, I was lashing out at him.

Doing the best I could also.

I hadn’t spoken to him for some days at least, at that time.  When the plane landed, I sent him a text telling him that I knew he was doing the best he could, and that I hoped he knew I was too.

I find acknowledging this so much easier than being angry and vengeful.  I believe in unconditional love, which means we don’t get to pick and choose who we love.  I have been blessed to have unconditional love all my life, and I was flying into it, going to my family.  Who was I to judge anyone else?  We don’t know the burdens another carries.  Even though I thought I knew him well, obviously I didn’t know him that well.

My ex….was all about power and control, because he didn’t know how else to keep people in his life.  The idea of unconditional love was foreign to him, and he never realized that the only control he ever had over me was the amount he loved me.  Which, by the end, I didn’t feel at all.  And he blindsided himself, he thought I had no choice but to stay with him.  Thought that right up until I walked out the door.

But I think, in all honesty, he was doing the best he could with the tools he was given, to keep his family together.  He just wasn’t able to love, wholly and unconditionally.   He didn’t know better.  What’s worse, is he didn’t believe he was worthy of love just because he existed.  He was taught that love had to be earned, and could be taken away at any moment.

I can’t think of anything more painful that believing for your whole life that you are not worthy of love and belonging.  As if, because he was the child of broken people, it changed the fact that he still, on his own, was worthy.  He tried, really, to be different, but he didn’t have the tools.  I didn’t understand, and was caught up in that cycle of abuse, power, control.  I was unequipped to help him.

But yeah, I think people, for the most part are doing the best they can based on their level of consciousness at the time.  I try to remember that when I’m at work, and people irritate me.  I try to take a breath, and be kind, compassionate.  I don’t know what burdens they are carrying.

It’s a lesson worth holding on to.  We’re all just walking each other home, after all.

Gettin’ It Done

Posted on by learning to live like water

gettin_it_done

Sunday Sunday.  Ok, I know the song is Monday Monday, but whatever, lol.  I sent to bed at 9:30, I slept til 7.  I was awake for about an hour  in the middle of the night, but that’s still a good night’s sleep.  Feeling way better, and less confused today.

I have been able to be productive today.  I got the house vacuumed, the floors mopped, the furniture dusted, well, some of it, lol.  I got my bedroom back to normal after having Maggie holed up there all last week.  And I just put a loaf of banana bread in the oven.  I still need to run to the store for bread.  I have not one piece of  bread, lol.  And I want to make a meatloaf for dinner, so I need bread.

Maggie is healing just fine, I am so grateful and happy.  I didn’t want her when I got her, but I got attached.  I was just done with pets, but now that she’s been here for 8 years…she’s a good little buddy.

It’s warm and pouring rain here today.  They have snow in the forecast for next weekend but I’m hoping they are wrong.  Because I don’t want any snow, and because I have a birthday party to go to that is about a half hour drive from here.  I would like to get through winter with no snow.  However that is pretty unlikely, lol.  It has never happened in my memory.

I am making plans to go to Florida in March for maybe a week.  I can’t wait.  I’m going to scout around the areas I’d like to live and check out the affordable neighborhoods.  And go to the beach.  As much as I can.  🙂

I am reading 2 books at the moment, one fiction, “All the Light We Cannot See” which is good but not what I expected.  And also “The Untethered Soul” by Marc Singer for my book club.  It seems to be a lot like The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, which I read years ago and was life changing.  But it’s always good to get another take on it.

I have to pick our next book.  I think it might be The Gifts of Imperfection, by Brene Brown.  Or The Return to Love by Marianne Williamson.  Maybe we’ll take a vote.  I’ve read them both, but I can always re-read.  And I don’t think the others have read either of them.

I guess I’ll go and fold my laundry, while the bread bakes, before I go to the store.  I hope everyone is having a good day.

 

Trying to Find My Courage

Posted on by learning to live like water

courage vs comfort

I have so much to say this morning, and feel like I should just not say a lot of it, at least not right now.  Talking to Scott dredged up a lot of old stuff, that I’m hoping will settle back down where it was.  Not longing, but anger, disappointment, confusion.  My head is spinning, my emotions are a little raw again.  And I don’t want to write anything that can be taken wrong, that might cause pain to Betty, that will fuel a divide that is already huge.

He said that Betty told him I was still in love with him.  It sounded as though she said it not in a jealous way, but kind of as a revelation.  I told him, well that’s not news Scott.  I told you I will always love you, and I will.  But that doesn’t mean I can be with you, or accept your behavior, or would ever trust you.

He asked me what I wanted from him now.  I thought about it….but nothing.  I want nothing.  I want to move on, I want to fall in love with someone who can love me back as passionately as I can love.  I am happy that we talked, even though it came to no good end yesterday.  I hate cutting off communication with anyone, I don’t think that refusing to communicate ever eases anything. Not that I want to be communicating with him the way we used to, constantly.  It is just easier to know we can communicate, than thinking that  we can never talk.   Especially with this frigging connection that we have, or at least that I have with him.  Sometimes I feel compelled to let him know what I’m feeling, and it’s nice to know I can, especially when it has to do with his health.

I have to talk and write, to work things out.  I had to stay silent in my marriage for so many years, just to stay safe, just to keep the sleeping dogs sleeping.  If they woke they were vicious.  I refuse to do that ever again.  It almost killed me then, really. When I left that marriage I was diabetic, way overweight (I’ve lost about 40 lbs since then) and my heart was beating irregularly, pounding in my chest.  I prayed every night, literally, “Please God, don’t let me have a heart attack while I sleep.  I can’t leave my son with his father as his only parent.”  Thankfully, that prayer was answered night after night.  When I moved out, it stopped the very first night I was alone, and it’s never come back.

I started writing during that time.  I started writing down what I was living with because I just thought, “I have to write this down.  No one will ever believe this.”  I discovered the therapeutic benefits of writing it out.  My ex didn’t know I did this, though the journals weren’t hidden.  He went through my room a number of times, to see if I was hiding money, because once he found $85 I had squirreled away.  He had to see the journals when he rifled through my drawers and closets, but ignored them, because for whatever reason, he was not interested in my thoughts.  Until I brought them to court, and the judge showed an interest.  Whatever.  I wrote them for me, but they had a bigger benefit than I ever imagined they would.

I won’t go there again.  I’ve learned to have the hard conversations.  Scott asked what he could do now,now that he’s done all this damage.  And he apologized.  I thanked him for that, I told him it was a good first step for him to recognize and feel remorse for the damage he did.  But what could he do now?  He seemed genuine, as if he wanted to know.  I said, “next time you have a choice to tell a hard truth or a pretty lie, choose the hard truth.  Just choose the truth.  Practice it.”

I’d like to tell him to journal his day, to look back and observe his behavior, to see where he was selfish, and where he stood up for something.  But that’s my method, it’s not his.  Even though, I’ve read bits of things he’s written and he’s very talented.

All of this pain, every bit of it, could have been avoided by the truth.  Well, ok, I still would have been hurt and sad to lose him, but I wouldn’t have had all the other emotions around it.  I would have gotten past it, through it.  All of Betty’s pain, and his current pain, would be non-existent.  I acknowledge that the pain I would have had, I could have just looked at myself, and taken responsibility for it, because I dismissed 100 red flags because I didn’t want them to be true.  I loved being in love, I loved him beyond reason, and refused to accept anything that said to me, “NO, not now, Deb, not this time.  Don’t do it. Stop…..”  Because I thought he just wanted to be alone, and work things out, I thought too, that someday he’d not want to be alone.  If I’d known he was in love with Betty, I would have let go.  Quickly.  It’s the one boundary I will not cross.  It’s the only one I ever set.

Yes I’m a little fixated, as was said in a comment to me on my apology blog.  I need complete understanding to let go of things, or as much as I can get.  And really, I had it, I will have it again, I will gain clarity again, once all this stuff that was dredged up settles back down.  I have been moving away from it, in small, but steady steps.

I am looking forward to my lunch date today.  We’re going to a new Mexican restaurant.  It will be fun to meet this man that I’ve been talking to all week.  I have no expectation though.  It has been nice, so far.  Sometimes meeting in person makes it better, sometimes you find out there’s no connection.  But it’s a brave thing to do, to put myself out there again.  It’s a step in the right direction, toward where I want to go.  Brene Brown says that making yourself vulnerable is the most courageous thing you can do.  I think she’s right.

Love and light.

Adder:  My date is off.  It’s fine.  He had a what appears to be a valid reason, and said maybe we can meet after work one day next week.  But I knew when Scott’s energy got thrown back into my life that this date might not happen, it’s just the way it is.  I was not focused on meeting a new man, I’ve been, obviously, focused on still working my way out of this old relationship.  That’s the way the energy ripples out.  I have some work to do still, and until I get it done, nothing will work out the way I dream about.

 

Clutter

Posted on by learning to live like water

clutter and stuff

It was 7° this morning when I went to get fasting bloodwork done at 6 AM.  I have an appointment with my endocrinologist next week.  It’s just routine.  But dang…bad enough to be out at 6 am, let alone have it cold enough to freeze the buggars in your nose.

Seems my mind was a little cluttered today.  Scott, Maggie, online communications, work….

I found myself wanting to call him this morning, leave a voice mail, just saying, “I miss you.”  But I didn’t.  I know he doesn’t want to hear from me, just one of those things I know.  Why I would miss him….when I stand back and observe myself, I have no idea, except it’s that connection, that just tugs at me every once in awhile.  I got over it, I was glad I didn’t.  If he heard that it would be like a pass for him.  Like asking to get set up again.  No matter what our infinite relationship is, the one here in this world is on hold, or non-existent, for the time being.  As it should be.

But I do still, see his soul, and not all the bullshit he hides it under.  I suppose I always will, I always have.  That light, when he exposes it, is blindingly beautiful.  He just never lets it stay lit.   And I’m also real, and I don’t want to ever go through something like that again.  Until he can learn to value love, he will always be sad and alone, I’m afraid.

Tomorrow I have to take Maggie to the vet for surgery.  I’m going to be praying all night that I don’t have to have her put down.

I began a conversation with a man online tonight that for some reason seem hopeful to me.  He likes the beach and said maybe I can teach him to find sea glass.   He’s nice looking in his picture too.  And he lives fairly close, no more than 20 minutes from me.  I can only hope.  So often they go nowhere.

I’m feeling so much more settled tonight with everything.  Peaceful.  Just concerned about Maggie’s surgery tomorrow.

I guess this blog tonight was for de-cluttering, lol.

Love and light, everyone.

 

 

Swimming in the Moat

Posted on by learning to live like water

castles-and-moats-225x300

It was back to work today after 10 days off.  Winter hit with a vengeance this morning.  It was 22° when I got up.  It was 16° when I came home from work at 7:45 PM, and windy after a 9 hour work day, plus an hour drive time.  I froze my ass off filling the gas tank.  It’s going to single digits tonight.  I effing hate the cold.  It’s my most unfavorite thing about winter, closely followed by driving in snow as the 2nd thing I hate the most.
I’m sitting in my pajamas watching my favorite movie, Eat Pray Love.  I tried to watch the DVD over the weekend, and my cheap DVD player is apparently no longer working.  But tonight it’s on Lifetime. It’s perfect for where I am tonight.
I’m settled in, I guess, as much as possible with the twin flame idea.  Things keep popping into my head about our relationship that just made no sense, and now they do, even if it’s in a other-worldy sense.   Like, why neither of us could really let go, why I still want to talk to him, even after all he did to me.  Like why I continued to love him so much, when he was treating me so badly.  Why I hung on when I and everyone knew he was an ass.  The attraction was undeniable.  He called it the heat.  He said, when we broke up and I didn’t want to talk to him about our sex life any more, because we didn’t have one, and it hurt me to talk about it, since his was now with Betty…..he would say, “Deb the heat will always be there between us, why fight it?” He said to me, “I’m trying to find a way to keep you in my life.”
He knew, he just didn’t know what he knew.  I was in his life, I will always be in his life.  But he didn’t know what was going on, nor did I.  But I couldn’t share the leftover bits of his life, I’ll never be able to do that with anyone.  It’s painful.  It wasn’t just me being obsessed with this man, there was so much more in play.  I felt it so intensely.
And then….there are all the lies, the huge deception. While I have a better understanding of the forces that were in play, that he couldn’t deal with, and chose to lie about, rather than face, I wonder if he’s learned the lesson that has been repeating in his life since he was young.  I wonder if he’s learned it, or is going to have another round with it, in this life or the next. I mean, those same forces were in play with me, but I made different choices.  I didn’t lead Addison on, I didn’t play anyone.  I was honest and forthright in everything I did.  I’m not bragging, or blowing my own horn.  I’m just saying, we both had the choices to make.  He chose differently.  His choices caused two women who loved him more pain than I can adequately express here.  And he knew it would, and he knew that eventually, it would come to a head.  So why….did he choose that path?  I’d so like to know, just to understand his thinking.  He is such a dichotomy.  Here he can write a beautiful poem, describing not only our relationship on the physical level, but also on a soul level.  He could tell me that he felt the connection.  We never had a bad moment together until she came back into his life.  I loved being with him.  And then….he could lie, and cheat, and deceive like he had a phd in it.  He could hurt people, me, her, indiscriminately.  He could hurt himself, and then want you to feel sorry for him.  So full of contradictions.
I wonder how his health is.  I know he’s hurting.  I know he’s sad, but I’m not at all clear if he’s learned anything from all this.  I would guess that much of the contradictions in him, come from the difference between what he knew on a soul level, and was trying to be heard, and the life experiences he had that were in complete opposition to the soul level messages.
I think about how many times he tried to convince me that he was not a good guy.  And he proved that out.  But the same number of times, I told him I saw his soul, that I loved his soul.  Why would I say that?  I’ve never told anyone else that, not my son, not my ex husband of 40 years. But with Scott, it’s all I saw.  It blinded me to his human faults, and it set me up to fall, hard, face down in the dirt, because I could only see the center that was all love.  Just like in everyone else.  He couldn’t see it, didn’t believe in it.  And all his lies and deceptions, all the pain and devastation he caused me,  don’t stop me from seeing who he is at his center.
It’s friggin painful.  I have to leave it alone, it is a discovery that he needs to make on his own.  I thought if I loved him enough, I could convince him.  But he doesn’t love himself, so no one else’s love will ever make a difference.
It doesn’t matter.  It really doesn’t.  We have a connection which I will learn to deal with, without allowing it to disrupt this life.  I was happier not knowing  who he is to me.  I was happier just thinking that I knew him from a past life, that we agreed to meet up here, for some reason.  I was happier, because I thought I would be able to let go of him eventually.
Last night I saw Marianne Williamson on OWN.  She taught that the universe is “intentional”.  That nothing happens that is not supposed to.  I guess there are lessons inside of lessons….The dealing with this situation and being able to move forward in my life, will be a lesson in itself.  Learning to feel his energy and not get lost in it, will be a lesson in itself.  If I can attract it, being able to love someone else, and still keep a place in my heart for this man, my twin….will be a lesson in itself.
I’m sure there are more.  Honestly, right now I’m thinking, my life in it’s last quarter.  I’m sick of lessons.  I really am, and they keep falling into my path.  I really just want to be happy, to have an uncomplicated, easy life.  I want to downsize, into a smaller house, into a smaller life, into a safer life, into a life filled with love.
I am watching Richard From Texas tell Liz Gilbert, “Groceries, you want to get to the castle, you got to swim the moat.”
I guess that’s about it for tonight. I think I’m in the damn moat, and I just want to stop swimming. Maybe I’ll just float on my back for awhile and look at the sky.

 

Moving Onward in 2016

Posted on by learning to live like water

OnwardAndUpward

2016, Finally!

I am so glad to leave the past year behind. I learned so much, I lived such extreme experiences. I can’t say it was a waste of time, I can only say it was really hard. Not what I expected at this age.

This year, I have some plans, really good plans that will propel me closer to the life I want to live. I’ve been off of work, and have been able to do some of the things I need to get done to sell my house. The more I do, the more I want to get done. I am so excited for this move. To be far away from the drama that played out in my life, unbidden. To live within 20 minutes of the beach will be a dream come true, in a climate where I can walk on it and not freeze ever. That sounds like heaven to me. I’ll still come back to New England in the summer, and visit friends, during the hottest part of the summer in Florida. My friends and I figure I can spend a month here, staying with various friends. Who will be visiting me in Florida in the dead of the cold winter. It feels win-win to me.

My mom seems to be doing well. She is slipping into dementia, at 94. Caused mostly by her inability to communicate, or read or write, which were her passions. But she seems pretty healthy, and when I spoke to her yesterday, she could still laugh, and recognize my voice. Which brings me joy. I would love if even for a few months I could go visit her daily.

I went out with a friend last night. We went to a hibachi grill and really enjoyed the show the chef puts on in front of you. Flicking food from the grill into people’s mouths from the grill, shooting saki in to people’s mouths, building volcano fires with rings of onions. The food was good too. We totally enjoyed it.

Then we came back to my house, watched some of the New Year’s Eve shows on TV, and talked talked talked. We both had relationships in which we were totally in love, that ended badly during the last year. But we are both moving on, both doing our best to let them go. We are both selling our homes in the spring. Her kids are thinking of moving away to be close to their father for awhile, he’s lived away from them for a long time now and wants them to move near him. She would never stop them, but is not happy about it. She says if they do, though, when she sells the house she may move to Florida too! If her kids move, she has no family ties here, and is a nurse, she can work anywhere. She has a friend near where I want to be that loves it, and it’s really starting to look like a good idea to her. That would be so much fun. She’s my one single friend here who likes to go out and have fun! She’s younger than me by almost 15 years, but we have been friends for 18 years, we used to boat together when our families were intact. Our kids went to school together. My son and her daughter have been really good friends for most of their lives.

I was talking to her about blogging and showed her some of my work. She read one of my poems while I was out of the room, and it made her cry. I showed her some of the stuff I wrote about Scott, the good stuff. She was like God, what is the matter with him, to have someone who loves him like this and then do what he did? She noted how I wear my heart on my sleeve, especially in my writing. He knew, he always knew how I felt. The fact that he could not honor that is his defect, not mine for loving him.

It made me feel good that she felt what I felt when I wrote it, but it also just made me laugh, because there I was, thinking I’d never get over him, and I’m over him, lol. Even last night, we were talking about what we did last New Years. I said, I was with Scott, it was one of my best New Year’s ever. But it didn’t hurt to say it. Nor did I feel the need to question it, and his motives. We had a good time, then. It got all f’d up months later. But I have to say, it was real back then. It was just the two of us, there were no other people involved. I think his feelings then were as genuine as he can be.

No regrets.

I got a Happy New Year message from Addison. Nothing more, no message, just happy new year. Later, I sent him one back, and said “Happy New Year Addison. I hope you find what you are looking for in 2016. I wish you peace.” I heard nothing else from him, don’t expect to. I’m sure it hit a nerve that I called him Addison, not Addie. I talked to my friend about him. How he met this woman on a Friday, Saturday he’s talking about coming to see me, and how I have broken his heart so many times, and Sunday night he’s living in this woman’s house for a week, “to see how we do after we’re together for a week.” Talk about dying to fall in love, and doing it with the first woman that smiled his way. Too needy for me. Needy is near the top of the list of things I can’t stand in a man.

On Christmas, I sent him a Merry Christmas text. I said I hoped he was well. He answered me, “Merry Christmas. Tobi and I just finished breakfast.” Which was just, weird! This is a man who called me his best friend, who sent me kisses and hugs and hearts with every message. Until the Sunday night (two days after he met her) that he had decided to stay with her for a week. He said, “She knows about you.” Scott also told me that about Betty.

And I want to say to both of them, “What does she know?” I knew for a fact that Betty didn’t know the truth at all. But she does now. To Addie, “does she know how much you were in love with me? How you sent me pictures of yourself lying in bed every morning and night, (not naked pictures, just like, good morning and good night, with a smile on his face.) and wanted to come see me for 2 ½ weeks at Christmas? That if I’d agreed, she would not be in the picture?” I doubt that she knows that.

The fact that he had to change the way he communicated with me, immediately, spoke volumes about her being uncomfortable with his relationship with me. Which is fine, but he should have said that to me. “She’s not comfortable with the way we communicated, so I’m going to honor that for the time being….I still love you, as my friend.” Whatever. He never could have the hard conversations. And if you can’t, you probably won’t be my friend for long.

It’s amazing how these two men tried to rewrite history when they were with another woman. I couldn’t do that for a minute. I was clear with Addie, that I was still grieving Scott, when he wanted to come here. I made sure he knew how I loved Scott. I’m not going to let someone make up a story in their head about what was or wasn’t going on.

But I wish him the best. And Scott.

This morning, the first day of 2016, I feel my life is richer, fuller, that I have a greater wealth of experience for having lived through the trials of 2015. My perspective has broadened, my understanding of what I want, and what it will take to get it, is deeper. I always knew I could get through the heartbreak, the trauma. I always said I was strong. Scott disagreed with me, because he could make me cry so easily. I bet he sees me differently now.

It’s a good way to start the year. Positive, looking forward, happy.

As Liz Gilbert says, “ONWARD!” For 2016, let us all move ONWARD!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Making Progress in Small Steps

Posted on by learning to live like water

progress-in-the-small-steps

It was a good day today, a very nice Christmas.  Breakfast and dinner with my son, gifts….We hung out together for a good part of the day.  Got his computer set up and working. I asked him if he thought I should invite his dad for dinner.  He looked at me like I was kind of crazy and said, “No……”

Progress is made in very small steps, I guess.

I went to my friend’s house this evening to take part in her huge family celebration.  Her family treats me as one of it’s own.  I have spent Christmases and Thanksgivings with them for years, since I left my marriage.  It’s loud and noisy and there are little children playing, pregnant nieces due any day, and tons of food and drink.  It’s so much fun, so lovely to be included in that wonderful chaos with such an incredible undercurrent of love running through it.

Crazier still, to be sitting in her kitchen with all the windows and doors open.  It was downright warm today!  There is a lake in town, I lived on it for 30 years with my ex.  Last December it was frozen almost all of December, with ice boats and hockey games on it all the time.  Today some of my friends launched their boat, and went water skiing with a Santa Suit on!  It was on the news!

I made plans to go out tomorrow night with a single girlfriend.  It will be fun, I’m looking forward to that.  But I hope to get a walk in sometime tomorrow and walk off some of this food, lol.  I felt good at my friends tonight, because family members I hadn’t seen in a long time noticed my weight loss. 🙂  There is so much food in my house right now though, I will have to work at keeping it off.  I’d like to drop another 10 lbs before I go to Florida in March.

Working still, continuously, on focusing my energy on what is, and acceptance, and holding the experiences of the past year in my hands and my heart.  This too, is a work in progress.  And progress in this work is also measured in small steps.  But we move forward, a little bit at a time.

Even in My Sleep, Again. Sigh.

Posted on by learning to live like water

Last night was a kind of tough night.  I’m trying to get off of the Ambien to sleep.  I’m not a good sleeper.  I started taking it when I had carpal tunnel last summer because it allowed me to sleep through some of the pain that condition caused at night.  Then that was immediately followed by the break-up with Scott…and I’ve been taking it ever since.  It seems that no matter how tired I am when I go to bed, the minute the light goes off my brain goes into a busy conversation about everything.  Ambien gives me about 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, which was such a blessing.  But I know it’s not good to be dependent on it, so I’ve been trying to wean myself.

Last night I didn’t take one. I’d been falling asleep on the couch and I felt like there was nothing going on that would keep me up.  But as usual, I had a hard time getting to sleep, but finally did.  Then I woke up every two hours, did a lot of tossing and turning.

And dreaming.  I normally don’t remember my dreams, but of course….this one woke me up.  I dreamed of him again.  He came here, I could hear the slider to my deck open, and at that point I thought I really heard it.  Then he came up to my room, began snuggling, and then asked me again if I would see him while he was with her (I am pretty sure they aren’t together actually, and won’t be). That part was so real, again, like the last time I dreamed of him.  I felt like he was there.  It feels like a visitation of his spirit or soul, not a dream.  But then some weird, real dream stuff.  It was day, and my cat kept getting outside and chased by male cats.  Scott was severely allergic to my cat. But I had to deal with getting the cat back in.   Then we were sitting outside, in a place I don’t recognize, and we were talking, but I was saying no, I can’t do what you want.  He stood up to go, and I buried my head in his chest crying, and he held me.

That’s what woke me up.  (When he came to see me after he first told me about her, he just watched me writhe in pain, and didn’t make a move to even ease the pain he had caused.)  I haven’t cried over him in weeks, maybe two months.  And I’m not sad about it, now that I’m awake. Nor do I have any illusions about who he is or want him in my life.  But I guess that the dream is some indication that I still have some pain buried from the whole thing which I’ll have to deal with.

I still feel like I have a happy life.  He can’t take that away from me.  I’m tired this morning, but I’m ok.  I just wish he’d stop coming to me in my sleep.  It’s only been twice, but it’s two times too many.   The first time I still feel was more than a dream.  When I woke that time I could still feel and taste smell him in my room.  This time wasn’t quite that bad, but more than I want.

It’s a process.  I wonder when I’ll get to the bottom layer of the pain and hurt, and finally be completely free of him.

In the meantime, I will be grateful for all that I have, and that I have a wonderful life of my own.  That will be my focus, as I continue to work him out of my psyche.