Tag Archives: letting go
Getting Grounded in Reality
I finally talked to S. Well, that’s stretching it. We texted. And I think in the end, we came to an amicable understanding that we needed to stop seeing each other. That’s how I hoped it would be. I have no anger, I have no regrets. I understand him, and I think that while he may not completely understand me, he at least respects my feelings now. I didn’t want this to end in a blaze of anger and ego, and I think that’s what we managed to do.
Last night I had a strange dream. I had been thinking how S was now free (he always was, but there will be nothing pulling him back now) to go discover who he is, on his own, discover his passions, decide how he wants to spend his retirement. That thought converted to a dream as I fell asleep, I guess. I dreamed he came to just “check in”, just visit. I was sitting outside, on the side of a hill, next to a border garden, backed up by a fence.. There was another man sitting with me, who I didn’t recognize. I never saw S in this dream but I know he was sitting with us. I said to him something about my sister…and then “my sister knows everything.” (LOL, I know I was talking about my older sis, even though I have a younger as well.) When I said it, suddenly a human form began to break out of the garden, sitting up, forming before my eyes from the dirt and grass and flowers in the garden.
I guess that kind of freaked me out, I wasn’t scared, but it was just weird….and it woke me up. I don’t know what it had to do with S, or me. I don’t think I can look up “human form created from garden” on dreammoods.com, lol. I would guess it had something to do with being grounded, a spirit, connection to the earth. As for how my sister ties into it, I really don’t know. She went through such a hard time this winter, trying to care for my mother after her stroke, and has spent the couple of months regrounding herself, in much the same way I do when I get lost.
That’s two strange dreams I’ve had in a couple of days. The other one upset me, this one didn’t, but I thought about it a lot, had a hard time getting back to sleep, and ended up texting S, further explaining to him that I still can see him, I still know there is something in his soul worth loving, and that someday I hope he is able to believe it and open it up to someone. And I felt quite grounded, loving and detached when I said it. So maybe that was the point of the dream, to help me to become grounded in the reality that it is over with S.
On to a new day, a new week. I hope there are some new and exciting things coming my way. And yours.
Love and light.
Acceptance Comes Slowly
So dawns a new day. I still have not heard a peep from him. I left another voicemail, I have texted him. It is unlike him to hold a grudge with me, especially when I am so obviously trying to find my way back to him. But this morning, acceptance is setting in.
I had a nightmare about him last night. And now I’m trying to see if I can logically understand why he is silent. So far these are my choices.
1. He’s still angry with me for being so hurt the other night. He cannot stand being the bad guy. All it required was an “I’m sorry”. We all make mistakes, he made one in not telling me he was not going to come. He made one in underestimating how much it meant to me. But a heartfelt “I’m sorry” would have gone a long way. A phone call would have been nice.
2. He read the blogs I wrote after, “Crash and Burn” and “Sifting through the smoldering ruins” and was furious. He dislikes i when I write about him, us. When we are published on the internet. No one knows me, or him. He says, “yes, but when your book is published they will know who you are, and then who I am….” That’s still such a long shot. But I have to write about me. I have told him any blog I write is a snapshot in time of how I am feeling at that moment. So why don’t I just journal it, why publish? Because when I am in pain, confused, fearful I long for feedback from my peers. The community helps me through it, helps me not to feel so alone. I am quite able, obviously, when my feelings change, or circumstances change, to own it, and correct it here. I rue the day I ever gave him the link to this blog. It puts a bracket on my freedom to write what I feel here.
3. Maybe he is too sick to communicate with me. I can’t know that he actually went to work yesterday. I do know that he wasn’t in the hospital. I do know that he didn’t die, because I checked the obits this morning. Sounds morbid, I know, but if he had an aneurism, which could kill him instantly, I would never know, I would never be told by anyone because no one knows of me. So it was some kind of black comfort not to see his name there. Maybe he is just in too much pain to add the stress of talking to me to it. But…he doesn’t have to talk with me. Just to tell me how he is, in a text or an email, and then ask me to continue to leave him alone, and I will. Just to ease my mind.
4. I have occasionally, thought, what if his ex girlfriend leaves her new husband (that she found within 4 months of breaking up with him after 12 years) and wants him back? He told me many times he was not over her, that he thought she was the one. I asked him not that long ago, maybe a couple months, what he would do if that happened. He said he didn’t know. Which didn’t help me feel secure with him at all, obviously. There is no making sense of who we choose to love, he says he loved her, and she took him for so much….. I just don’t know. But it is what it is. I mean, I still love him after all the ups and downs we have had, when it is quite obvious to me that this is not a healthy relationship. This #4 reason leads me to the nightmare.
I dreamed he finally called me. We were, in the dream, on the phone, but I could see him at his house as well. He told me he was in love. His voice was odd, kind of a falsetto. He has in reality a deep, sexy voice. I kept asking with who? And he just kept telling me it was real, he was finally in love. (He constantly told me he didn’t want to be in love.) Then I could see his ex girlfriend in his jacuzzi. And I said, “tell me who it is or I’m hanging up.” He got mad at that threat and started yelling back at me on the phone. I hung up, I woke up.
This morning I can’t help but wonder if the universe was telling me something. I don’t even know what to look up on dreammoods.com. It is so unusual for me to dream about him, about anyone I know, and to remember it, though I am sure I remember it because it woke me.
So where am I at this morning? Still numb, thankfully, from the wine and an Ambien. It’s nice how the two combine to knock you out on a night when you’d not have slept otherwise. Especially after the dream. I am accepting that I can’t do anything about his refusal to communicate. I can call the hospitals again, and make sure he’s not there. I considered calling his ex-wife, who doesn’t know me, and asking her to check on him. Because I am pretty sure, that unless he goes in the hospital, he has not told his family about his health issues either. By family I mean ex-wife and kids. But then I think, in my best Byron Katie mind, no don’t do that. Then you are in HIS business. (you know, there are three kinds of business: Mine, other peoples, and God’s)
So to try to stay in my business, only mine today, I won’t try to reach him but just let it be, as he used to tell me all the time. Maybe he’ll be in touch when he feels up to it. Maybe he never will be again. My business is to go on with my life. So, I’m going to go get my hair done, go to the grocery store, go get 2 new tires for my car and maybe talk to my ex husband about our son while they put the tires on, since his business is right next door to the tire place. But his business is weather related and we are supposed to have a huge storm this afternoon (of course, it’s Saturday) so he might not be there. That should keep me clear of him until tonight.
Acceptance of what you truly don’t want to have to accept is such a mind-fuck But again, it’s reality. He is not communicating with me, and I need to respect that is how he wants it, for whatever reason. I can’t put too much energy into that thought, the lump in my throat begins to grow again.
Slowly taking steps to move beyond this pain.
Red Wine and a Summer Breeze
Glass of red wine and a summer breeze
Heighten my senses, yet…
Silence the self-absorbed egoistic babble.
I can’t help, and I can’t care.
So, I don’t. I won’t.
I won’t think about it.
I’ll think about where I’m going
and what I want,
and who I want to go with me.
And sip the red wine,
And feel the looseness in my limbs.
The lovely deep garnet of the
Cabernet Sauvignon
Hypotizes my psyche
So I can’t think about it,
or remember it.
Just every now and then,
a memory crawls out of the murky depths
But I send it away.
Not now, not tonight, I scold it.
Not tomorrow, not ever.
I stand my ground.
The balmy breezes whisper my name,
in light caresses that remind me what love feels like.
Love is out there, somewhere
waiting to join me and the red wine
and the summer breeze
and the looseness in my limbs.
So I’ll think about that.
And send the rest of it back to the murky depths
From which it came.
Inaction is Also an Action
Its raining this morning which suits my mood.
I haven’t heard from S for a long while, not since he wanted me to talk to him about why I was upset as I tried to go to bed Thursday night, and I said I didn’t want to talk about it now, that I wanted to go to sleep (because I haven’t felt well, and haven’t been sleeping all that well, and am trying to beat the bug I have, if that’s what it is.) I knew talking about it would upset me, I could already feel the stirring in my solar plexus. I needed to hang up before it was tumbling and turning and keeping me up all night, yet again.
My few texts yesterday were met with silence, except one I sent to him in error, to answer a friend’s text. I don’t know what it means. Usually he comes back with “if you don’t hear from me for a day it doesn’t mean anything except you didn’t hear from me for a day.”
I find that unacceptable, it discounts my feelings. It feels like the silent treatment abusers use (my ex husband comes to mind) to let you know they are displeased. With my ex-h, I got to the point I was glad for it, because it meant I didn’t have to listen to him pontificate on what horrendous and unforgivable things I had done. With S…it is not so intent, I think it means he just doesn’t want to talk to me.
Well, that says something doesn’t it? I mean, no action is neutral, really. Not doing something is also an action. Right now, I am meeting inaction with inaction. It seems easier, at the moment, than hearing his voice with it’s lack of interest. The result will be separation, if it continues, what else can result?
I still trust the universe to work it all out for our higher good. I’m adjusting. I have a pretty busy weekend coming up. Even if not…I won’t have to question my sanity. It’s not what I wanted, but its what I’m given to deal with. I’m good at that, dealing with what is, I think. Or, getting better anyway. I’m getting a lot of practice.
Sliding Away
Slowly I step
From rock to rock
Across the stepping stones
Covered with moss.
The rocks are like a well laid trap
Unable to see which are stable, and which are not
I slip into the cold murky water.
I try to claw my way back.
trying to hold on
To the thin little reeds
that are all the connection there is
to keep me from going under.
What is left?
Every time I grasp a reed
It pulls out
It’s roots are shallow
I slip a little farther away.
Soon…all connection to where I was
Has been uprooted
by me
Trying to hold on.
And so, without a movement, or an intention
I have let go
Because there was nothing to keep me there.
No hand reached for mine.
No voice called me back.
No memory guided me
Back to where I had come from.
I slide away,
away from the stepping stones that would have led me to the other side.
Away from the place I knew and loved.
I guess sometimes we are just meant to move on.
Accepting Reality
I heard from him, not long after I put up the blog yesterday. He thinks I’m attacking him, in my communication with him. Since what I said in answer to his “Are you pissed off” questions was to tell him how I felt, and nothing more, I have to assume that my being unhappy is perceived as an attack on him. He said he didn’t talk to me for the whole day because he was “annoyed that you played the same broken record again.”
So….It’s an annoyance to him if I am unhappy, if something is bothering me, wearing on me. If I am struggling. It’s an attack on him.
Not struggling to understand this morning. Struggling only to accept.
Reality, standing in front of me, hands on it’s hips, saying, what are you gonna do now? Now that you know????
Winding Down
Ah. Winding down. Friday night. Was supposed to go to a gong bath, but they canceled it. It’s rare that they ever cancel one, but it’s about 5° out, wind chill in the ungodly sub-zero’s. Which would mean all the equipment would have to be hauled out and loaded in the truck, and then unloaded at the church, then reloaded after. 8 gongs, and their stands and the bowls and the drums, and hell, I wouldn’t want to do it either.
But dang I was looking forward to it. At last weeks gong bath, I was able to begin to really process all my emotions regarding S. I had not been to a gong bath since “it” happened. Funny it seems ages ago, but it’s only been about a month I guess. Maybe 5 weeks. Seems so much longer. But in the end, I knew the road I had to travel. So I was looking forward to this week, to continuing this journey, to finding my center even more clearly defined.
It has been difficult for me, and for him. For different reasons. For me, because even though I knew I needed to break it off, that it was not healthy for me to be prolonging the final ending of this relationship, I still loved the guy, I had pretty deep feelings, I missed him like crazy, I wanted his energy around me. Didn’t want to let go. Still wish I hadn’t had to, completely.
For him…idk. I can’t really speak for him. I know he enjoyed flirting with me, I know he enjoyed our intimate conversations, I know he enjoyed my fearless outspokenness. We both enjoyed the other’s honesty. I know he enjoyed our physical relationship, and so did I and we will both miss that.
But you know, it needed to grow, to evolve. It was time. I was all for the evolution of it. He was not. So he did what he did in large part, to end it rather than evolve with me. And even then…he did not end it right away. But now…I see…it’s ended. It went round about. My emotions went up and down and on and off, until the gong bath last week, when they pretty much went to the off side. We talked, since. But when he began his flirting with heavy sexual content, I asked him to stop. And again. And again.
Because I don’t want to go there again. And really…it still hurts me, to think about what happened. Maybe some day I can joke about it. But now, right now, it is still raw. I wanted the evolution. I didn’t want the break-up. It hurts still.
I wonder why someone would want to stay in the same place…especially at this age. Why would you want to grow old alone? Face all your nights alone, and with whatever advanced age brings you. Why would you not want to be with someone who understands you, gets you, loves you, enjoys you, someone who will sit with you through your pain, and celebrate with you your triumphs. Why not be with someone with whom you can learn to play each other’s bodies like a fine instrument?
A one night stand will never get you those things. Strange will always be strange. It will never be comfortable, close, loving. It might be exciting for a few minutes. A partner can be exciting forever.
I don’t get it. I really don’t.
But…I do accept it. I accept that S doesn’t see it the same way, and he needs to follow his heart, like I told him. And I need to follow mine. I accept that he doesn’t want to talk to me, or be part of my life in another capacity. At least, at the moment. I accept that our roads have diverged. I’m not crying over it. I’m really ok with it. I have no regrets.
I went on a date last night, with a man a bit older than me. On paper we had a lot in common. Creative, love the water, boats, cruising. But there were no sparks. We met for coffee. Then he invited me to dinner. We talked, it was interesting, pleasant, but there won’t be another date.
No connection. With S…there was connection before we even met. I guess that’s why I couldn’t quite envision not having him in my life at all. But whatever, it’s not my call. I made my position quite clear, in my never to be subtle way, that I wanted him in my life, but that we needed to redefine our relationship, set new parameters. He was not so clear, but his actions said he only wanted it as it was.
I have to remember that all relationships are fluid, constantly moving, changing. We are all moving like water, in our own way, around obstacles, over the rough spots smoothing them out, breaking through the dams of our emotions. Who knows what’s next for any of us?
Just, livin’ like water. Getting back to source.
Scratching That Itch
I don’t know. I just don’t.
S (the man I just ended it with) is like an itch I can’t scratch. I am committed to not having sex with him. I am committed to continue my search for a man who can love me as I love him.
But I can’t seem to let S quite go, like I don’t want to. I want to talk to him, mostly text with him, during the day. Apparently. Because we texted a lot yesterday. Not really about anything in particular. Just banter. Just conversation. No intent, really, except to stay in touch.
My question is why? I don’t know. I can’t seem to break this connection, and I don’t want to. I enjoy him, he’s still funny, still smart, still interesting. Still has this slightly skewed view of the world that makes me look at it differently at times. Some of it is shocking and abhorrent to me, some of it is interesting and opens my head. But he doesn’t insist I accept his point of view, he just offers it.
Yesterday I told him he was like an itch I can’t scratch. In typical S fashion he says, “I have a special tool for that.” Which caused at first, a smile on my face because it was so typically unashamedly S. Then I said, “Yeah, and it causes me a lot of trouble. I think not.” Or something similar. He didn’t respond. I said, “Besides you will loan it to anyone who has an itch.” He took his time responding, and said, “I’m a humanitarian.”
No apology for who he is. No excuses. Which I find refreshing. And honest. And painful. What? In the same sentence? I responded after a bit, “I’d call it something else.” Because when push comes to shove I can’t let go of what he’s done, I can’t accept the hurt he caused me. Yet. But I don’t want to piss him off. ??? After a bit he texted “?” I did not answer.
The something else I’d call it is man-whore. Just like I’d call a woman who spread her legs for anyone who wanted it a whore, I would call a man who puts it in any vagina that asks a man-whore. I don’t know what else to call it. I didn’t say it to him…because it sounds mean-spirited. And I don’t want to be mean-spirited with him.
I also don’t know how to accept it, that he’s that way. He’s also self centered, narcissistic, as he himself told me (and I chose to ignore). Sex with him is mostly all about him and his pleasure. Which is another reason, up there with the fact that he will loan his tool to anyone who wants it, that I won’t have sex with him anymore.
But I still like him. I guess, I love him in a whole other way.
I was listening to Marianne Williamson’s live stream of her Monday night talk on ACIM last night. And she happened to be talking about relationships. How those people who just have sex, are seeking connection, but that the ego tells them that connection of the physical body is connection, when the truth is, just having sex with someone, with no other connection, is really all about maintaining separateness. It’s the ego’s way of making you believe you are connected, but not being.
I have said so many times that the best sex is when at the end, you don’t know where you end and your partner begins. That connection, that becoming one thing energetically lifts the physical into a whole other realm. It has happened to me…not enough! I also realize now that one person in a couple can feel it, and not the other. I can know that my partner and I are one thing, one blended energy, not separate. But he may not. He may still believe us to be two separate people.
In fact, that’s how it’s been with the two men I’ve felt it with. I incorrectly believed if I felt it, they must or how could I? But it’s not true. I can feel it, because it is the grand, omnipresent truth, that we are all one thing, and I can feel it at this personal level of two people’s energy blending intimately. That our energies have blended and we are one thing. But that doesn’t mean my partner will feel it.
So…I want to find someone who is capable of going there with me. Because I’ve had the purely physical, and it doesn’t compare to the physical and energetic combining of two people. It just doesn’t.
When that happens, I am sure I would never have to question my partner. I would know he didn’t want to loan his tool to just anyone. That he would want to only have sex that could go there.
Before I met S, it had been about 12 years since I had real sex with someone. A couple of false starts that never came to fruition. But he and I are looking for different things. He has only felt safe, he says, when he depends only on himself. Separateness.
I feel safe because I know I am not separate, that I am part of one thing, one huge energy that includes us all. I also can shut my ego up most of the time, when it begins to advocate separateness to me. Because that’s lonely, it’s sad, and it’s not real. No matter what the ego says, you can’t separate yourself from the one thing. Not really.
But I need to be with a man who knows this.
In the meantime, I love S. I enjoy this man, who teaches me without trying. I have learned about the struggle of those who grow up without unconditional love in their lives. I am not going to be another one of those people to him. I am thinking that I can continue to love and adore this man, without being physically involved with him. And I can at the same time find someone who wants that physical and energetic connection.
Still searching, still trying to find my way back to source. Living like water.
With Love and Gratitude, Good bye.
So I broke it off with him. I spent the night with him the night before he went in the hospital. I was scared. I was allowing myself to love him, setting myself up for hurt again, at some point. But I didn’t let it stop me. I thought about how I wanted to be there for him. I wanted him to have a nice memory to think of and wake up to when he came out of the anesthesia. I wanted him to know that someone cared how he was, and whether or not he hurt, or felt alone. I wanted that. I loved him. I loved him whole heartedly, without consideration of what he had done. It was true and honest and I don’t regret it.
The two days he was at the hospital, I worried over him. He didn’t get me the patient code as he’d promised, so I had to go through roundabout ways to find out if he was ok, or spending the night, or released. People I worked with didn’t understand why I cared so much. Hell, I didn’t understand. But I did. That’s all. I did. So I talked to him that night, and the next morning. He was in so much pain. I would have liked to just be there, sitting beside him. Just so he didn’t have to open his eyes and be alone.
But that wasn’t the way it was. There was too much water under the dam. I was going to take the time off from work, but he chose to go it alone. As he always does. I was afraid, anyway, to be so close to him. Because I still loved him, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not feel the same.
But then, what he thinks of me is none of my business. Right? I don’t know if it’s smart to allow myself to be so vulnerable. But I did, it’s done. I don’t think I regret it, because I gave it everything. It was his to accept or deny. He chose denial in the end. Why? I have my theories. But only he knows, somewhere in his soul, why he didn’t want the woman who loved him.
But then the gong bath happened…
And the next morning I woke up and didn’t care that much. I still cared, but not the same way. It was not visceral, it was not that intense, heavy kind of caring. I think it came together for me as a result of the gong bath. Suddenly, I knew he would never love me, that if I stayed with him, I would be repeatedly hurt by him. It is not his fault…it is mine, I stayed knowing he and I were not compatible on many things. One of them is our views on sex, and monogamy. And there were other things…which are none of anyone else’s business, personal things that he and I could not come to common ground on that I kept pushing into the background, because I loved him. But eventually, they would have surfaced, you know…those things you bury don’t die….they rot and fester and make you sick. In a relationship, they make the relationship sick. They cause resentment, and anger, and feelings of rejection, and loss of self esteem. I knew that would happen.
Trouble was, he was still in a lot of pain on Friday. I didn’t want to talk to him about it. Not until he felt better. We talked, I tried to be my same loving self, but I know the difference in how I felt showed through the phone lines. The next day he asked, what exactly is going on with you.
He knew. We have always communicated on a nonverbal plane when we are apart. He knew. Thus began a long and hard conversation. It was still too early to have it, but he knew,and I couldn’t lie. Or pretend it was different. I told him, I still love you, but I don’t think I’m in love with you.
And so, now, after 36 hours of texting, questions, accusations and then an attempt to see me to say good bye, we are done. I was not ready to see him. I don’t think I’m in love with him, but there is still hurt and rejection over the betrayal. Seeing him is painful. I told him, not yet. Maybe later. He got mad. I’m sorry he got mad. I’m sorry I couldn’t just see him and wish him well. But truth is…the wound has healed enough for me to see clearly, but it still hurts. The way an incision hurts under the surface for a longtime. I know we are mis-matched, and I know neither of us would ever be happy going forward. I don’t believe I could ever quite let go of his betrayal if I stayed with him. It would come back every time I felt threatened, every time he flirted with a waitress, or the girl behind the counter at the drug store. I would have made him miserable, and I would have been too. I told him, the prison whore sunk our ship, at the end of the day.
I will miss him. I will miss his flirty, sexual innuendo’d texts. I will miss having him in my life, kind of having a “significant other” after all the years of being alone. I will miss our excursions. Sunday afternoon naps. His wild and crazy stories of his youth. His hands. His passion.
But I won’t miss that feeling in the pit of my stomach when I don’t know where he is. I won’t miss the questions, I won’t miss the distrust that is now there permanently.
Done. Gonna take some time off. Let the wound heal, so that it’s not even tender before I meet the next guy. I don’t want to bring baggage into a new relationship, just like I took off years before I started this one, to try not to bring baggage from my marriage to it. And still, the baggage was there. There is relationship baggage you don’t know about until you are in a relationship, I found out. It wasn’t easy, this first one. But it was fun. It created growth in me. And I know myself much better. I know what I want better today than before I met him.
So…I thank him, I love him. We are done. May we both continue our journey back to source.
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