The house is silent,
Save the echoes of your words.
Do they matter now?
By Deborah E. Dayen
Image from Google Images
Tag Archives: loss
Foolishness
To love beyond reason
Is kind of foolish,
She thought.
Though she had loved him like that
Forever.
There was no gain
Ever, in loving him,
Except
The joy that comes from having
A heart that’s full.
There was some game
To be played
But she could never
Understand the rules.
She never played it right.
She wasn’t a player
She was a lover.
Waiting
For a sign
That the game had ended.
But he disappeared.
His disappearance filled the void
Where once he lay
Beside her.
Now she wondered if he was real.
Were they, he and she, real
In the time-outs between rounds,
When playing stopped momentarily?
What was there?
Nothing? Or something?
There were times she grew weary
Of the game.
Times she said,
Go. I can’t play this game
Anymore.
Her heart aches still.
She waits for answers
As yet unspoken.
So she moves on,
And tries to love again.
Why Is It So Hard
Why is it so hard
to say, “I fucked you over”?
How do you even know
Who you are
If you can’t own it?
Is it worth losing people?
People who loved you?
A son, a lover
Because the shame is so strong
For what?
Hold onto that shame
And lose everyone who ever loved you.
Lose everything that ever meant anything.
Because you can’t stand the shame
so you lie, you steal
You rewrite history
To avoid feeling the shame.
Your son has no father
Your wife has no husband
You have your pet shame
You hide it in the closet,
But with every word you say
The closet door cracks open
And the shame creeps out and
Stinks up your world.
Would that you could own it.
And we could embrace you
And tell you we are ok.
And tell you we loved you anyway
And that shame is no friend.
Lies, fear, shame,
Causing so many people so much pain.
Why? Because you can’t own it.
So no one ever trusts you.
No one ever knows you.
Not me, not her, not him.
So you walk through this world alone.
Your whole life
Miserable, unhappy.
Believing shame, when it tells you
You don’t belong
and you don’t deserve love.
If you only knew
If you only could see
How simple it is to leave it.
Let it go, own it
Send it to the universe
To atone.
Join life again.
Life Without My Stuff
(I had such a hard time titling this post. I kept wanting to call it Breaking My Life Into Pieces but thought that sounded too much like a sad love affair, and I’ve surely written enough of those, lol. Athough the emotion is not dissimilar, strangely. Big change comes hard, most times, whether it’s a love affair, your kid moving out, or you moving away. There is always some degree of loss, and some degree of gain.)
The people who bought my deck furniture two weeks ago finally came back and got it last night. The wife is very excited to have it, which makes me feel good. But now, I can’t sit outside in the morning and write and have my coffee and listen to the birds and feel the cool morning air because there is no place to sit. I can’t even take a chair from my kitchen table out because I sold the kitchen table.
It feels like watching my life get broken into pieces and sold off, or given away. I was able to schedule the Salvation Army to come pick up my son’s couches on Sept 12. I’ll give them a bunch of other stuff that I have that’s in decent shape. I have to call a guy whose name a friend gave me, to take a bunch of stuff to the dump for me. I have a large collection of half burned candles I want to give away….Good Yankee candles for the most part. But I think I’ll have to throw them out.
I never thought I was attached to things. Really. My ex is attached to things, he can’t let go of anything even when it drags him under. I’m not attached like that, I can divest myself of what I don’t want to take with me, but it is harder than I expected to walk through my house without all the stuff that is normally there, just part of my life. I am a bit shaken by it.
I’ll be glad in a few weeks, when I can start putting it back in a place I want it, in Florida. When I can again have my house with my stuff, and feel like, yeah, it’s my house when I come through the door. Right now, even my bedroom is beginning to look strange to me. The nightstands almost cleared off, the closet with nothing in it except shoes, and my summer clothes. Drawers have been emptied out.
I’m making lists of what has to be done yet. Call the insurance co, call the utilities, call the cable company, call the garbage pick up. I wish honestly I’d quit working last Friday. I just have so much to do before I take off for Denver.
Which is another stressor altogether. I should be down about 10 lbs by the time this is over. I know my friend, my bff, is planning a goodbye party of some kind when I get back from Denver. She invited me to dinner the 9th. But I KNOW her. Besides her nephew said to me last time I saw him, “Well, we are having that party for you anyway, right?” LOL. Gave it away, lol. But I’m not telling her, I will fake it and be surprised. That will be nice, really, to see everyone one last time before I go.
I’m sure my blogs are getting kind of boring, just about the stress, and the angst, and things I have to do to accomplish this. Let me say it is WAY more stress than leaving my ex-husband was. For one thing, I was running full-tilt boogie from a life that was killing me, literally. I couldn’t wait to get out of the pressure-cooker of that house, away from him and his lying power trip. I couldn’t wait to live somewhere where I could wake up and everything was the same as when I went to bed. I didn’t take much with me, and I was going a mile and a half away.
This move…the life I have here is wonderful, and I don’t particularly want to leave it. I just want to stop working and I can’t, and live here. And I am sick to death of winter. It’s so difficult when you are on your own, and have to deal with all the snow, and cold and heating bills by yourself. I’m sick of driving to work and/or home in snow, shoveling my car off, getting snow in my shoes, when I leave work. But mostly sick of having to go to work anyway, lol.
My life….I’m just blessed. My son and I are happy sharing the same space while we both have our own lives. I have a ton of friends, so I’m not usually alone unless I choose to be. But I can’t keep this house if I don’t work, and I don’t want to work, so off I go to my mortgage free bungalow in Florida. It will all be good, but the transition is difficult, really difficult.
Time to get this day underway. Love and light, all.
Thoughts on Healing
I’ve had a lot of thoughts about healing in the last 24 hours. This is just me, working out my thoughts.
In the circles I run in, “emotional healing” is a big deal. It is what we are always doing. Sometimes with a narrow focus, like trying to get over a failed love affair, or the loss of someone close to us. Often though, to heal from these things, we find out we have to dig deeper. Sometimes the healing is very broad, it encompasses all of our pain, and comes down to the base idea that we have decided we are separate from the one great thing. That concept, that idea in itself, is faulty and will lead to all kinds of emotional angst.
In my case, it is easy to understand why I grieve and and have healing to do from the loss of the people and animals I have loved, who have moved on to the next level. The healing there is just really adjusting to life without them, but knowing they are in truly a better place, and haven’t really left us.
Getting over a love that didn’t work out makes me go deeper, and ask questions.
Why was I so attracted to this person? Why did I ignore the red flags? Why did I allow him to treat me so badly? (And by allow, I mean, stick around continually after he did it?) Why did I think so little of myself? And, finally….what did I learn?
These same questions can be asked in a million different situations, which have made us unhappy.
I really believe that our soul’s purpose in this life, (which makes it our purpose….our only real purpose) is to learn the karmic lessons we have agreed to learn, so that our souls can evolve. I believe that this is the definition of karma….that if we don’t learn these lessons they will keep repeating until we do. That can become, what goes around comes around. But I don’t believe karma is about paying for it if you do something which harms yourself or someone else. That just perpetuates a negative cycle. I think it’s more about learning, and evolving. I think if you learn the lesson and truly change your path, then the lesson is learned, and won’t come around to bite you. The payback, if there is any, is the pain you feel when you truly understand the damage you did and truly feel remorse over it. Empathy, to understand how another feels. The pain you feel, if you are truly changing and learning and evolving, will cause you to do all you can to repair the damage done by your false ego.
The three R’s…recognition, remorse, repair.
The universe, the great consciousness of which we are all part, is unconditional love. Unconditional…..meaning, you don’t have to do anything except exist to have it. It is not earned, or given, and can’t be taken away. Unconditional. That one great thing, wants you to remember you are part of it, and that we are all so connected. That if you hurt, I hurt. If you hurt someone, you hurt everyone. If you love someone, truly unconditional love, not selfish ego-boosting pretend love…then everyone benefits from the extension of that love.
(If this sounds like lessons from A Course in Miracles, it probably is, lol.)
S has said to me a few times since the truth became known, “I know I’m going to pay 5 lifetimes for what I did to you.” (I’m using this as an example only, not to be talking about him. It’s just such a clear illustration of the kind of faulty thinking that separates.) But he didn’t change, he kept doing it, or attempting to, until she and I put a stop to it. Even though he’s not doing it now, as far as I know, he has not been able to feel empathy for what he did to she and I, he has not repaired the damage, at least not with me. He has run from the implications. He left it, with the lies that were exposed, acknowledged. But there were more in the works. Lies about the things that can’t be proved, but are known. About feelings, and motivations. I believe it’s just a matter of time until his ego forces him back into the same lesson, over again. Not to be berating him, but to see him. My heart aches for him to keep living this lesson over and over again.
He recognized, but there was no true remorse, and no real attempt to repair. When push came to shove, he couldn’t cross over, and stick with it. (I think it is in large part because admitting it, and truly seeing it causes so much shame that it becomes easier to continue rather than face it. Short term gain, vs long term ramifications.) So…yes, he will continue to experience the same lesson over and over, because he is a narcissist, who puts his ego ahead of everything else. He once told me the only reason he hadn’t finished himself off was because he had so much fear that the next life would be worse than this one.
As if he had no control over that. As if, he couldn’t change his life and his thinking right now…..and alter his path. Imagine being such a slave to your ego, that you would keep causing yourself the same pain over and over at it’s direction. As if the unconditional love of the universe would hold a grudge. The universe simply wants us to evolve. That loving energy is not hell-bent for revenge, or punishment. It’s hell bent for us to evolve into more loving, caring beings. The ego, on the other hand, uses fear to drive us. Why anyone would want to live their life in fear instead of love, when the choice is made clear to them, is beyond me. But we have a choice, because we have free will. To learn the lesson, or not.
So…healing, for all of us, I think, is a matter of peeling back the layers, one at a time. As humans, there is always another layer. We are, after all, spiritual beings having a human experience. Healing is evolving. Evolving, to me, is why we are here.
Love and light, and sweet healing, to all.
I’m Back, but I’m Sad
I’m back. One blog. But today, I am dedicating the blog to my mom, who we lost last night.
Mom had a massive stroke in October 2014 that left her unable to speak, read, or write. Since then, for 16 months, she has had only her memories and her thoughts. Even though she could understand,she couldn’t communicate. I know she is at peace now, with my dad. I am so glad I went to they psychic a couple months ago, because my dad’s spirit was there, and he asked me to write her a letter, a long letter, relaying stories of us growing up and letting her know how much we appreciate her and loved her. I did that, at his request and I’m ever so grateful for that direction, so that I know nothing was left unsaid with her. The psychic also said that my dad was with her in the convalescent home she was in and would stay there with her, which gave me a lot of comfort.
My mother and father were the people who taught me the value of unconditional love. We never talked about it, we just lived it. My sisters and I grew up knowing that we had value just because we existed, and that knowledge, when I was able to actually form it into a thought, was what I knew would save my son. At the end of the day, with both of my parents, I never went to bed wondering if they loved me. I took it for granted, as all children should be able to. I know now, in a very personal way, what happens to people who don’t have that luxury. It has always been our rock to stand on our whole lives.
My mother’s own mother, my grandmother, died when my mom was 4. She lived with her large extended family growing up, as her father looked for work as an iron worker during the Great Depression. We had a family reunion for her 80th birthday. The whole family came, kids, grandkids, great-grandkids….She told us, “you can’t imagine how happy this makes me to see this, to have this big loving family, after growing up without one.”
The lessons I learned from her I am still uncovering. Grace, even under the worst pressure. Survival. Thriving. Moving past things and going forward. Forgiving. Compassion. Countless more I can’t even put to words at the moment.
She was the glue that held us together, and I know that her love will live on in my sisters and me, and will continue to be the glue that holds us together going forward. Blessed, so blessed to have had her as my mother.
Knowing
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.
Caught in the Riptide
A….just always there for me. I don’t know why, I just don’t have any idea why but he is. It choked me up all day.
He got my message, and his response was….
“Good morning, my love.”
No chastising me. No questions. No anger. Nothing, but unconditional love.
I wished he were here with me. I wished we were snuggling, sharing a cup of coffee, talking, anything. I do love him, really….but I can’t sustain that. And I don’t know why. Before, it was because of Scott. It’s not him, now. But I think it might be repercussions of him.
Because I got so triggered this past weekend, and by A, the gentlest, most loving of souls….I have to say, I’m not relationship material yet. I’m ok on the surface, but there’s still a lot of grief, loss, sadness, anger running like a riptide underneath, and at any moment, it might sweep me out to sea and risk drowning anyone who is with me. And it’s A who has been by my side.
He hated Scott for me when I could not, lol. He brought me around to feel sorry for him, when the depth of his depravity was uncovered, he was the first to say, “I just went from hate to pity. He needs our prayers…” Because S’s actions absolutely indicated a deep and terrible illness. And even A, who has played 2nd fiddle to S for months, when I couldn’t let go….can see it, and offer up his compassion.
I love A, and I want him in my life.
But I’m not consistent. This morning I was gonna try to Facetime him when I got home but tonight, I don’t feel it so much. I really scared myself, realizing that I almost kicked him out of my life. God, stupid. This morning, I felt jealous of the woman in Santa Fe….and tonight, I am back to where I was. I can’t be what he needs and deserves. But I want him in my life, for sure.
I was still triggered today. I imagined talking to S….what would we possibly have to say? “Why did you do that?” He won’t know, or won’t say. He’d ask “Why did you tell her….” Because she had to know. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. You were never gonna tell her the truth, I was going to remain a lie somewhere there. I’m sick of being a lie, and a secret. And you would have made me stay that way, and she would have never known the truth. I fucking loved you, and I wanted to make sure she knew that. That I didn’t just fuck you, that I LOVED you with every fiber of my being. That you were trying to be with me just days before. That I wasn’t what you wanted her to think I was. I was not going to be minimized by you and your narcissism.
You didn’t want to save her pain, you wanted to continue to manipulate her feelings, her love, her emotions. Just like you did me, but I found out the truth.
So….what would he and I have to say? Nothing. Nothing, except I loved you, you tried to kill me. I don’t know when my heart will ever open up again. When I will trust someone again. It was not that you were with her that hurt so much, it was the lies, the cruelty of every thing you did after 10:30 on October 3. All the voice mails, all the texts, all the sexting, the phone calls, you tried to keep me hanging on while you were with her. Cruel. Why couldn’t you just let me go? Why couldn’t you let me go when you came to the park back in May, and told me you wanted to be by yourself. Why didn’t you just stick with it? Instead of asking me to come over? Instead of calling me and telling me you should have come to Florida with me? Instead of coming here and making sweet love with me?
It’s the loss, of finding out that who I thought you were and adored was some shell you put on for me. I had to give you up, and then I had to GIVE YOU UP…because you didn’t even exist. I fucking miss that man who doesn’t exist. And I grieve for him.
What would I have to say? Nothing, that could lead to anything but to bring back the pain.
So I almost pushed Addie away today, because the ghost man that I loved hurt me so much that what he did still, 3 1/2 months later, can stab me in the back when I’m just out for a stroll.
I was drowning this weekend. Today I managed to get to shore, but I’m tired, out of breath, and traumatized. I need to do what A wants me to, to “rest in his love.” And I will. And S….I’m pretty sure he’ll be alone. Which is the safest place for everyone else.
Dealing with Grief and Loss from a Relationship
I went to the gong meditation tonight. I picked up my cousin who goes with me, who is going through some family stuff, and she was talking about grief. I don’t like to talk too much about S anymore, because I don’t feel like I’m grieving him, but she was talking about it generically. She said, it’s just grief, Deb, it’s a loss. That’s all, it’s just grief that we have to work through.
During the meditation, what she said was rolling around my head, and my heart. The gongs and crystal bowls facilitated a very deep meditation. I thought how can I be grieving HIM, I mean….after what he did to me, how could I grieve him? Because in all honesty, I don’t think I do any more. I don’t have that visceral pain that I had for the first 30 or 45 days when I thought of him. The pain that would wake me in the middle of the night sobbing into my pillow. The pain that came out in anguished poems, that made me keep texting him, talking to him, even though I knew he was with her, because I knew he’d egg me on, tell me he missed me, tell me to come see him. I had no doubt if I’d allowed it, we would have been naked in bed together in no time. I missed him with ever fiber of my being, and it hurt.
But after 4 or 6 weeks, I had somehow moved out of that pain, it no longer seared my heart to think about him, or him with her even worse. I did what I had to do to heal myself, and began to move on. When the depth of the lies and betrayal became known, I just wanted to get away from it all. And did….have not talked to him since, and I know for a fact I don’t want that in my life.
But every once in awhile I still get an ache, and I can’t imagine why. But my cousin explained it without trying. There is loss, there was a part of my life that was full, it was rich for awhile, and now there’s nothing there. It’s like a hole in my heart that he used to fill, and now he doesn’t, but neither does anything else.
Grief. Loss. This is what takes the longer time to heal. The pain and betrayal we can rationalize, we can know it was wrong, that it hurt, we can learn a lesson and go on. The general grief and loss, the hole that is left empty when you lose someone you loved, I guess has to be filled with something else. A passion for someone or something else.
I pour it out in my writing, I have been working hard at work, mindfully, to keep my mind busy. I have been talking to friends, reading, trying to fill the space, taking care of my house, trying to love and appreciate the people who are in my life. But I think it’s a slow go. That’s the wound that’s hard to heal, it just has to fill with the light, and the light will shrink it til it’s gone, I guess. But it’s a process. It will just take time.
So I’ll keep going to the gongs and searching for the light to fill that hole. Tonight I continued with the Breathe in Love, Breath out Scott. I also did the Ho’onopono (I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you) to myself, for the hole in my heart put there by choices I made. I started thinking about all the people I know that have real issues to deal with and started saying it for them.
The gongs crescendo, the tsunami of sound, and I was crying, releasing the tears that I refuse to cry anymore. They weren’t for him, they were for me.
It’s just loss now. It’s grief and loss for something I had that now I don’t. I know Scott thinks it’s my fault I feel it, because I insisted he tell her. But the loss happened long ago, it started over the summer during the weight of lies I was sitting in, it happened the day he told me he was going to be with her, it happened every day that he tried to engage me, after I knew about her and I had to say no. Then it was covered up with anger, when I found out the depth of his betrayal and deception, and covered up by disgust, when I realized he did it to two of us, juggling our hearts in some cruel game.
But the anger is gone, the pain is gone. Now there’s just loss to deal with, and to grieve. I’ll let it come, and I’ll grieve, and I’ll fill my heart with loving people who need it, and want it. That hole will be filled with gold one day, golden light.
Set Back
I set myself back today, way back. I was so good this morning. And I cried all the way home, and haven’t stopped. He started off with an angry text because of my last blog, Questions Without Answers. I apologize to all of you, who were cheering me on.
First off, he’s with her. Why is he even reading my blogs, and 2nd, why does he care what I write? What does it matter, she’s his life now, what I say is just peripheral, and should have no effect on him. I have to write. It’s my only outlet. My friends are sick of listening to me cry. Complain. Bitch. And cry some more. I can’t even tell A, he has been so good to me, he loves me, but even he will want to excuse himself if I start up with him again. This is all I have, and he hovers over it as if he cared, but he doesn’t.
He says he apologized. I said, yes you apologized for choosing her, and breaking my heart. You didn’t ever apologize for telling via text, like a 14 yr old adolescent boy, hit and run. “I’m with someone else and I’m busy and I don’t want to talk about it.” Never. No apology. You should have been here, face to face, and dealt with the devastation you caused like a man. Not left me in the street bleeding. Not treated me like yesterday’s trash.
But this is all repetitive.
We texted for about 3 hours. I told him that calling him a 14 yr old adolescent was only stating the obvious. That everyone’s first words, were “Really??? Like a teenager?? How old is this guy?” No one needed me to tell them how immature and cruel and thoughtless that was.
But it’s water over the dam now. He wants her, I don’t want him. Well, I do. I will for a long time. But he wants her, even if he didn’t want her, I could never ever expose my heart to this much pain again.
He told me I wasn’t devastated, just jealous. Wow…..I said, Yeah I’m jealous. A woman who is a whore, a bitch and a bimbo is sleeping with the man I love. You BET I am jealous.
After I’d said that about 5 times, he asked why I keep trashing her. I said, I call a spade a spade. I had to learn to read people when I was married and divorcing a manipulative asshole. She #1) makes sure she gets paid for her time with you. A new kitchen, a new car, maybe help with her credit card debt. Who knows this time, probably help with her divorce. Just like the prison whore, just the stakes are higher. No different than the $50 you paid the prison whore, just cost you way more. She #2) left you when you were diagnosed with untreatable liver cancer. (A miracle experimental drug saved his life). If that’s not being a total bitch, and devoid of any human feeling, I don’t know what is. She thought you were dying, and she left you. She #3) left you then, as soon as you were done with the kitchen, I think you said the day later on your birthday…to marry some man she’d been cheating on you with. That’s a bimbo. The definition of all 3, in Websters, should have her picture. I asked him what he did to piss her off. Because he says he hates my temper. I said, oh, yeah, well I do have a temper, and I lose it and then I get over it, and I don’t hold a grudge once something is settled it’s settled. I don’t store it up, so that I can fuck someone up 6 months later when they are at their most vulnerable moment. Personally, I think THAT’S a bad temper. And a devious one, and a manipulative one. Mine, is flat out anger, at injustice usually. It is fiery for a few minutes. Seems to me, that would be easier to deal with than having someone leave you when you’re sick, after they’ve gotten 10’s of $1000’s from you, to be with someone they cheated on you with. But that’s just me. I’d take the honesty any day.
And then I said, so she comes back to you. And she’s so sweet and cunning, isn’t she….you just can’t resist….You don’t even know where she’s been all week? Do you care? It is sickening, that that’s the kind of woman he wants. Just sickening. Fucked up. Royally.
I think that’s when he told me to leave him alone. But I didn’t….because I was on a roll. And he didn’t either. But we did say some t things that weren’t ugly, that we both needed to say. And I ended up in the bathroom at work, sitting in there, crying. Wondering how I was gonna finish the day. Not devastated? No, decimated. Crushed. Used Up. Wrecked. Shattered. Broken. Bruised. Beat up. DEVASTATED.
Someone else is in his bed and his heart, no, I’m not devastated. He is denying it, but he knows it’s true. He knows I loved him more than I can say. He knows I gave him everything I could give him, and asked for nothing. Those things he knows.
I will never ever be the same. I will be ok, I will recover, but I will never ever be the same. I will look twice before I trust again. Maybe 3, 4, 10 times. 100 times. I will hold onto my heart, and probably fuck it up with a good man because I’m so fucking scared to give my heart away again. I’ll never go to a beach around here without wishing he were with me. Good thing I’m moving. New beaches, new places, where he won’t be ghosting my psyche all the time. Even the town he lives in, I won’t want to go to anymore. And it’s a beautiful little town. Lots of tourists because it’s so beautiful.
He wanted me to go to the beach with him yesterday, why didn’t I go? “Do you think I want to see you when you are sleeping with someone else? Do you think I want to look in those eyes and see someone else’s reflection? Are you THAT cold, that you think that would be ok with me?”
He blasted me for being online, on a dating site. Why does he care? What does he expect. Yes, I said. Of course I am. Of course I’m looking for a man that will soothe my aching heart, and make me forget about you.
So, I have been messaging with a nice man, looks nice in his pics, loves the ocean like me. Seems we have something in common. My heart isn’t in it, but I’m going to meet him for coffee after work one day, because I have to force myself to get out there, and stop sitting home making myself sick. I got a nice message from a different man today, but too busy to check him out. I might respond, just to put the energy out there, just to get used to trying to deal with the fact that this is where I’m at. That the man I love wants someone else, and ruined me. The fact that she’s the kind of woman she is, only rubs salt in the wound. I have to start from square 1 again.
So, I guess I need to stop talking to him, again, because this is all that’s going to happen. I’m gonna miss him more, and hurt more, and still know we can never be together. I just want to curl up in a ball and hide out. He’s gonna get an ego boost out of my pain. He’s going to keep me engaged. I need to let go.
It’s only been a week and 2 days. I guess I shouldn’t be beating myself up so much for still wanting him so much.
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