Tag Archives: love

The Door is Open

Posted on by learning to live like water

I have lived on the lip of insanity,

Wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door.

It opens.

I’ve been knocking from the inside.

                                                                                                               –  Rumi

The last day I was in VA, my little sister, my niece (her daughter) and I went to a shop where my older sister sells her paintings, and is full of beautiful handcrafted goods, pottery, paintings, jewelry, woven cloth, candles, soaps, bird feeders, stained glass.  Professional grade, really, just gorgeous.

I bought a coffee mug with the Rumi quote above inscribed on it.  It resonated with me.  I think, that I need to look at the break-up as the door finally opening. Instead of closing. My world in fact, expanded, it did not shrink as I thought.  Looking for reasons why things are the way they are, I can look through the door, I can walk through the door, into the light now.  I can leave the torturous questions about why….in the past.  I can love without regret, but I can keep my heart safe.  At least, this time.  I may make a mistake, but the door is open, to loving, and being loved. I can love without longing for things to be different than they are.

I have always said, we don’t know what our soul’s journey is.  I can’t know what S’s soul is here to learn in this lifetime.  Nor mine.  We were meant to know each other, of that I’m sure. And I feel sure that we have known each other in other lifetimes. Now, we are meant to go our separate ways.  The human in me wants reasons.  But my soul, just says go.  Go through the door. You will never understand any of this in human terms.

And so I go.  I haven’t been able to trust myself, I doubt my own judgement.  But my soul knows that this path is the one I have to walk. In the silence I give to myself every day, I have heard. I trust….once again, that love is walking my way.  I thought for so long that S was it.  But it was a story I made up, and I have unmade it.  There is someone there though…

The door is open.

Half a Moon

Posted on by learning to live like water

There’s a half moon hanging in the sky tonight.

It lights up the thin clouds that pass between it and us,

Half a moon,

Half a love affair.

Half a heart.

The light is ghostly

Shadows of what was creep around the edges

And glow momentarily,

Then disappear into the darkness.

Half, not whole.

The full moon comes eventually.

Love Never Hurts

Posted on by learning to live like water

I started having a text convo with A last night, we were joking about how it rained in Santa Fe all day yesterday.  Santa Fe is out west in the desert, so it was a completely unique experience there to have a day of rain.  I asked him how it was going with his new girl, he said well.  I told him I was dating.  We began to talk about our relationship, and how we love each other but are happy for each other.  Suddenly he was calling me.

He missed me, I missed him.  But we love each other enough to want each other to be happy.  I told him I wished I’d made different choices when he was here, but then, I would have been heart-broken when he left.  He said, me too, but I’ll take a heartbreak for a real love affair…..

I was protecting myself, I guess, is what I thought.  (And now I realize that I was headed for the biggest fall, the most pain and hurt I could imagine.)  I wasn’t done with S, but am so done now, and I have missed A the last few days, when I was tired, and not feeling well,  I told him too, and he tells me.  I would have loved, when I was exhausted my first night back to have curled up next to him and gone to sleep, knowing I was safe in the arms of a man who loved me.  He also has those moments.

But he said, he’s pledged his fidelity to his new girl, and I’m just happy for him, because I know she is a great woman if he did that.  He said he has not told her he loves her….We both said that to each other last night.  He wants me to find someone who adores me, as I do him.

It’s a true, intimate, sweet, deep friendship.  His woman knows about me.  Obviously does not know the intensity of the conversations we have, but they are rare.  We have a special connection, maybe because when I first met him, and before we were seriously going out, his wife, who died 18 months ago, came to me in a dream.  I had never seen her, didn’t know at the time it was her, until I saw her picture about a week later on his FB page, and realized it was her in the dream.  He had told me he didn’t believe in God anymore, he was so devastated by her loss.  So I told him, about the dream, and told him, I think she came to me, because she knew I would tell you, and you would know she’s still around, that you didn’t lose her…

At the time he just hugged me, and in the days following, told me I gave him his spirit back.

The night before he left, when he told me he loved me, we were laying in his bed, just cuddling.  He wanted me to spend the night, and I didn’t, because of S. S and I were in one of our momentary breakups but I still loved him, so I didn’t feel right to spend the night with A.  I wish I had stayed, and had that memory.  But it was a sweet, warm, loving memory anyway.

He has repaid me, 100 times, being there for me when I was crying over S, he reminded me that I have value, and deserve to be loved.  And that he was willing to love me.

We will always be close friends.  His new woman is a lucky one, but I’m sure she knows it.  🙂

What was with S, in the end, was just pain.  And love never hurts.  And what was with A, still is, and it never hurts.

Blessed, Just Blessed

Posted on by learning to live like water

It’s the day after, lol.  I am exhausted, but happy.  Sitting in my sisters gorgeous home on the side of mountain, it looks like a castle, and feels like one.  I feel like a princess at the moment.

The wedding was the happiest most wonderful experience I have had in so long.  Years, maybe.  My whole family, except my son and my mother, are here.  My sisters, nieces and nephews, and old family, my ex brother-in-law and his awesome new wife, his sister and her husband, my current brother-in-laws family, his daughter and son. Friends of my niece that I haven’t seen in 30 years or so.

We were cracking up, saying it’s just a lovefest when we are all together.  So much laughter, hugging, catching up, and in this gorgeous setting.  The wedding was at the log cabin I put up a pic of in my last blog, it’s another of my sister’s beautiful homes.

The vows took place at 5 pm under an arbor built on the dock in the lake.  There was a bar set up on an overturned john boat down near the lake, with wine, beer and hot apple cider.  Up near the house was a huge tent, heated, with a dance floor, dj and tables for 160 people.  There was another bar near the house, and appetizers everywhere that my sis had planned and we had all pitched in to put together.  The dinner was a buffet BBQ.  Perfect.

The weekend was so what I needed. To be surrounded by people whose values, and life experiences are shared, and are the basis for all our interactions.  We have all had our setbacks, we have all dealt with adversity, tragedy, but our love for each other overrides all else.  I had forgotten how my little sis can make me laugh.  She’s the one person that with me, can get hysterical and we can’t stop laughing.  It was joyous.

My older sis just did so much work for this day.  She had everything laid out perfectly.  She had a minute by minute itinerary, so that nothing would be forgotten.  (Although, my little sis and I are so much more laid back, we were laughing saying to each other “our sister had some control issues.”  because when she tasked us with getting the cheese trays for 160 people ready, she wanted to tell us exactly how to cut the cheese into cubes, lol )  But she is beautiful, smart, funny, and only she in our family could have pulled this off.  Not to mention between the two houses, there were bedrooms enough for all the immediate family.

At one point after dinner, in the tent, I was watching the dancing and “We are family” came on.  I got up and ran to my two sisters, and we danced together, to “We are family, I got all my sisters and me.”  We included in our dance circle, where we had our arms entwined, everyone who cared to join us and brought in everyone we could find.  We all felt like family. I am so blessed.  Just so blessed.

I got a few nice texts from A, hoping I was having a good time, and making me laugh.  I got a nice voice mail from a man I spoke to last week, also wishing me a wonderful weekend, and saying he hoped to meet me when I got back.  And a text from yet a man who has asked me to call him when I get back.  I have let go of the past, I am so looking forward to the future, and letting the old stuff just rest in the realm of life experiences.  I am good with it all.

I think I’m being redundant, here, lol.  I think I said that last blog, but it is so true.  At the end of the day, we only gain from each life experience.

And so, onward.  Life is indeed wonderful.

The Keeper of the Secrets

Posted on by learning to live like water

I had a text conversation with S yesterday.  It was not with the intention of getting back together, it was with the intention of not leaving things so ugly.

S is S.  I fell in love with the man I saw last winter, a year ago.  The man who would have me over, we’d talk, eat, listen to music, dance in his living room, watch tv, make love, sleep, spend Sundays as he showed me all the secret beautiful places he knew, while he told me stories. There was always laughter, there was never an argument.

In the spring, he began to withdraw, to want time to himself.  I don’t know if he was afraid he was falling in love, he told me in late winter he was open to whatever developed between us and those two glorious weeks that he gave me will always be some of my best memories.

Then his best friend became really ill, (he was older than S by quite a bit) and died.  With his death it seemed, went S’s joy.  Maybe it was coincidental, that he began to pull away at that exact time.  I just know that’s when it began.  I remember going to his house, and finding him sitting on the couch, bereft.  I just sat with him.  I didn’t know his friend (or anyone else in his life) but I knew there were not too many people he felt close to, and this man had been his friend for 40 years or so.

I would say that’s when the walls went back up.  When he decided that loving someone hurt too  much, and chose to withdraw.

In the conversation with him yesterday, I realized that’s the attraction to her.  She demands nothing of him.  He demands nothing of her.  They don’t talk, there is no deep, loving conversation between them.   I think he can fully justify his real lack of care for her because of what she did. I think their relationship has always been like this, and he says it has, then they have been doing to each other, and paying each other back, for the entire time.  He doesn’t tell her his secrets,and I’m sure she doesn’t either.  I’m not sure what’s between them, at all.  It seemed to me that to be with her, he has to deny who he is.  And I guess he does this in exchange for a silent, literally, partner.

The man I loved would never ever be untrue to who he was.  But I found out yesterday all the secrets he hides from her, including wanting to have sex with me during the week when they are not communicating, including very heavy sexting with me (which I no longer respond to).  She doesn’t play with him during the week as we did. I asked him what the attraction is, because she seems kind of uptight for him.  He said, she doesn’t talk much.

I was not hurt in this conversation.  I realize that the longer it went on, the easier it was to let go.  I don’t even know this man.  I don’t get exchanging a closed mouth for a relationship that leaves you needing to go outside of it to be satisfied.  But I suppose in the same way, he can’t understand wanting a rich close intimate in every way relationship, though we had that for awhile.  I thought he was happy with it.  Until he lost his best friend, and I think decided love hurts too much.

I wouldn’t have hurt him. Ever.  I still love the man I loved.  This new man, I don’t know, and don’t particularly like, though I still see the one I love, buried in there and will never just walk away.  I’ll always be around to talk to him.

I feel like the keeper of his secrets.  I don’t know if I even know them all, but he told me many, quantified that he’d never told anyone else.  I had no judgement of him because of them, they just helped me know him.  I always thought they were the incidents that made him into the man I loved.  He was the sum total of his experiences, and I loved who he was, then.  I remember sitting in his living room, him telling me how bad he was, how could I say I loved him.  I said, “It was all a long time ago.  It made you who you are.  And I see you, I see you completely and I love that person.”

This new guy, who is detached, and self serving, and would get involved with this woman who has no scruples, but doesn’t talk to him, leaving him free to be with whoever he wants during the week…I don’t know him.  He’s not someone I would fall for.  But the one who sat on my deck and we talked about our lives and lessons and philosophy and flirted and bantered back and forth, for hours, I love him, I will always love him.

So when I miss him, I miss the guy I loved.  There’s nothing there for me to miss now, so I can let go.  I have let go.  I will be friends with him, I think he, more than anyone I’ve ever known, needs to have someone consistently love him, but love is a many faceted jewel.  I won’t love him the way I did, but I’ll always love him without judgement, without limit.

I’m going to my niece’s wedding today, and I feel free of that huge burden of rejection, hurt, pain.  I’m not jealous of Betty Boop.  I would NEVER want a relationship like they have. I don’t want the man she has.  My heart is free, two weeks later, to find love again.  I’m happy that I feel this way, especially going to see my family.  I will be able to fully enjoy them, there will be no dark cloud over my head.  I am open, and that’s a huge part of attracting what you want, being open to letting it in.

I’ll be his keeper of secrets.  I’m good with that. I’m still honored to be trusted in that way, and won’t break that trust. (My ability to trust him is another story altogether.)  I’ll always feel tender toward him, because I see him. I’ve always seen him.  That’s probably why he could tell me what he has.  Because, I see him, and love that being in his center, just because he exists.  Even though he’s locked up right now.

The Experience of Loving Too Much

Posted on by learning to live like water

My friend Megan, who has a wonderful blog, Finding My Way Home, https://wordpress.com/read/blog/feed/35347124, put up a bunch of posters today and these two really resonated with me.  This one, because what happened to me in the last two weeks has forever changed me.  For the better.  Wiser, smarter, more accountable to myself, more intuitive, more sensitive. I lost nothing.  I gained tremendously.  I can never see what was, the way I saw it before.  And I can never go there again.

https://lovewillleadyouhome.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/1654124_10152243489908628_1118880557_n.jpg

This one, because this is something I believe with every fiber of my being.  It’s the way I am.  Hold nothing back.  Have no regrets that you held something back. It’s too intense for some people.  But I know there is someone else out there, who wants to squeeze every drop of passion out of this life that they can, and will join me on this incredible ride.

https://lovewillleadyouhome.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/10712882_940728489270657_7209657586118780195_n.jpg

That’s all for tonight.  I am packing to go to my niece’s wedding, to spend 4 days with people like me, that believe this too.  I cannot wait to be immersed in that energy for 4 days.

Peace out.  Thank you Megan.  I’m so glad we have become friends, half way around the world from each other.

Disconnection

Posted on by learning to live like water

I saw S last night.  It was a kind of swan song, I guess, though not so graceful as a swan.  We got a take out pizza and took it up to a park and ate it outside, it was nice out, about 70.  He had been asking me to talk to me, so I finally relented, having things of my own to ask, and to say.

I wrote a blog last night, and then took it down.  I wrote another shorter one, and put it up, but it’s not here this morning, so I don’t know what happened to that one.  No big deal. I had just begun to process what happened anyway, and I felt confused, disjointed.  I still do, I will for some time.

He says he is not “with” her.  That he still does not want some intense loving relationship with anyone.  Ok, I can buy that.  But he’s spent part of the last two weekends with her, so he obviously would rather be with her than me.  I suppose, because I do feel intensely about him.  There is nothing about me that is not passionate.  The way I loved him, the way I love the ocean, the way I write, the way I feel about anything.  She and he don’t talk all week, they never did, he told me that when I met him. He likes that.  They would get together on the weekend, for some of the time.  I can’t even fathom, a 12 year relationship in which i didn’t communicate with my significant other all week, but got together on the weekend for some semblance of intimacy.  I could not even consider it a relationship, to bed someone that I was not involved with 5 days a week, and then suddenly saw on the weekend.  It would be like being with a stranger.

He always complained I talked too much.  I think he and she occupy the same space at times, but don’t have much to say. He buries his feelings, they are not up for discussion.  My feelings…well, my heart is on my sleeve.  No one ever has to wonder how i feel.  It’s the only way to be connected to the rest of the human race.  I know it is the only way to allow love into my life, and creativity, and joy, and trust.  I know now that not everyone deserves to hear my story, to have my trust.  But still, I will only temper the ease with which I lean into vulnerability, I won’t change it.  I think all humans crave connection, I agree with Brene Brown that it is basic to the human psyche.

To fall in love with a man who wished no real connection….well, it was not something I ever considered, that there are people who freely admit they don’t want that deep, rich, full connection with others. In this way, I understand that part of why he is “with” her, or not “with” her, as he says.  She wants no connection, nor does he.  They are acquaintances, who share some physical intimacy at times, but not really connection, because then they go their separate ways and have no interest in maintaining the tie for the next week.  No deepening of it, no reveling in it.  Just do it, enjoy it, and go home.  It’s a lifestyle I can’t fathom, and can walk away from, and leave it to them.

Personally I think she wanted more, which is why she cheated on him and left him.  Perhaps, in practicing disconnect all those year, she was unable to put herself out for someone else, and after the infatuation wore off, she couldn’t connect with her new husband.  She also went back to what she was comfortable with.  I would expect that she is a lot like S, with walls up to keep people out, and herself walled in.  The fact that she could leave him when he was dying, and take all she could from him, is another thing altogether.

I still don’t understand, why he would invite back into his life, someone who did what she did to him.  He said he wipes the slate clean, he doesn’t hold a grudge.  I said, I don’t hold one with my ex either, I have forgiven him for what he did to me.  But would I welcome him, and that, back into my life?  No, never.  I know what chaos he can cause…I know he hasn’t changed.  I know what he would bring.  It’s one thing to forgive, it’s quite another to ask to be taken down again by inviting it back in.  But it’s not my cross to bear, and I won’t be there to pick up the pieces for him when she does it again.

In the meantime, he has the relationship with which he is comfortable.  Physical need fulfilled when he needs it, and not to have to give anything up.

The whole thing makes it much easier to let go.  I can love the man, I will always love the time we spent together on my deck, in my bed, driving around on excursions, our funny flirty texts. But knowing that what drives him is an intense desire to be alone, even when he is with someone, just allows me to let go.  It is the opposite of what drives me.

I love connection. I love intimacy, emotional, spiritual and physical intimacy.  I know there are men out there who love it too.  I now look forward to finding one, and putting S into the “someone that I once loved” category.  It’s where he wants to be.

He said, “Can we still know each other, can’t I still call you and see how you’re doing in Florida?”  I suppose, maybe someday, his voice won’t hurt me, it won’t remind me how I loved a man who wanted no part of it.  Maybe someday we can be “friends”. The trouble is I will never be that disconnected.  The love I feel for him will always be there between us, even when it’s buried, and I have let a new love into my heart, and built a relationship with someone who wants to reciprocate, I’m not sure I can ever talk to him without remembering.

Right now, I am looking forward to moving on, but I’m not moved on yet.  I still feel wrecked, broken, confused, rejected.  I had hoped for some tenderness from him last night, I guess that’s why I went, hoping he’d at least own the fact that his actions devastated me.  But there was none.  There was more him telling me it was my own fault, that he was honest with me.  He was….but he knew how I felt, and did nothing to mitigate the pain that what he was doing caused me.  I can own the fact that I loved him without limit, knowing he didn’t want to, and didn’t feel the same. But so what, he knew.  He spent time with me knowing how I felt.  He pulled me back to him in every time I tried to leave. Why he did that I don’t know.  It was dishonest. There is something abusive about that, being pulled in, just to fulfill his ego, with no intention.  “I don’t want you to dump me” he said to me back then.  So, he wanted my adoration, he wanted what I did for him. And he used me, and threw me out.

Last night I realized that I am left by myself to find my way back.   He says he has feelings too.  And he’s all about what he’s feeling, making sure I understand what they are, but he’s not able to feel empathy for me.  Disconnect.  Walling oneself in, so no one can get in, and you can’t get out, and the only thing that matters is what you feel.  As I can’t comprehend the disconnect he has, he cannot fathom the love I felt.

He watched me cry and shake.  He made no move to comfort me.  He had no remorse, no empathy. Cold.

It was a little hard to take.

But he is who he is.  Like I said, I can much more easily let go.  I knew when I met with him, that if nothing else, I would get clarity.  And really, that’s all I got.  But it’s something. It is positive motion.  Pretty soon, I’ll stop writing about him.  This blog will anger him I’m sure, but that seems to be all he can feel with me anyway.  Anger because I wanted to be with him, anger that I loved him and wanted him to love me back.  Anger that I wasn’t satisfied with the non-loving relationship he’s been trying to push on me for 6 months now. Anger that I can write so openly about him and I.  Don’t worry S, no one will ever know who you are.  She walked back into his life, and he could suddenly have that disconnected, shallow relationship that he wants, where he doesn’t have to give anything of himself.  Oh, maybe money, maybe things, but not anything of himself.

It was me who finally said, “We really don’t have anything to talk about” and got up to walk to the car.  There was no hug and kiss goodbye, there was nothing said.  I gave him the pizza I’d bought, that i didn’t eat one piece of. We just each got in our car, and drove home, knowing that there really was no way back.

Disconnected. Over. Done.

Onward, as Liz Gilbert says.  Onward.

Add-on:  I just remembered, when I talked to him on that fateful Saturday, when he told me he was going to be with her, I asked  him if she knew that he texted me at 4 am, that he asked for pictures of me the night before.  He said, no.  I said “well tell her, she deserves to know the truth. ” When he objected, I said, you tell her, or I will do everything in my power to tell her myself.”  At that, he got furious, and threatened me, enough so that I screen-shot the text, for my own protection.  So, that he’s not “with” her seems to be her doing, not his.  He clearly thought he was “with” her when he spoke to me that morning, and didn’t want any interference of the truth to change it.  And now he rewrites history.

How to Keep From Falling into the Abyss

Posted on by learning to live like water

It was a roller coaster ride today.  But, as it turned out…I feel much better tonight about everything.

I had sent that text this morning to him, and another one…yeah, I know, what am I doing?  Then I sent him one saying, just please ignore those.  They are waves of pain and anger washing over me, and you can just ignore them.  A bit later, at 11:30 AM, I got a voicemail from an “unknown” number.  I usually listen to those, in case they are about a credit card, or something….so I listened to it, it was him….

Saying he wanted to talk, but there were no avenues open to him, since he was totally blocked.  He went on to say it wasn’t true that he didn’t care about my feelings….I was crying when I listened because he was that calm sweet man that I fell in love with.  I only listened once, because it was too upsetting to listen twice.  So I didn’t get it all. I answered via text…that I can’t talk yet.  Maybe some day, but not yet.

A couple hours later I went up to my room to change out the closets, and take a nap when I was done. (This was after I spent two hours power washing the deck.)  I was exhausted. I looked at my voice mail, there were two blocked ones, from him.  This time, not unknown, it was his number.  He asked me to get in the car and drive down to the beach (I don’t think he said his house but he might have) and we could talk.  He said at the very least, I could have  “nice day at the beach.”  ??!!  It was far too late to even think about that.  Besides, I don’t want to meet with him.  I can’t…without losing it.  I don’t want to go there with my emotions.

I texted him, and told him what a nice afternoon at the beach would be to me.  And what he suggested was not it.  I told him I would unblock him so he could text, but  to please don’t call, please, I am not ready to talk without breaking down.  Apparently he had read my blog in between, where I said he was like a juvenile 14 year old in texting me to tell me he was back with Betty Boop.  So what I got was an angry text, “Would that be the same texting as the fucking 14 year old juvenile…?”

Yes, I answered.  It would be.  That was a man I adored, breaking up with me like an adolescent, that he had a new girl, and was too busy to talk to me about it.  NOT like a 66 year old man.  It wasn’t texting I objected to, it was the use of it, to devastate me and run and hide.  It was childish, and juvenile, and cruel, and I will stand by that til the day I die.  I also told him, if he can’t own up to the repercussions of the way he told me, we have nothing to talk about.

I have not heard from him since.  I assume he is not going to own it.  I assume he can’t be responsible for his actions.  For the decisions he makes that hurt others, because he has not responded.  He is angry, I could tell from his text, that I  publicly called him a juvenile 14 year old.  I am gonna say, every single person I have told this story to, has responded, wow, how immature. No one needs to hear from me that it was a childish, adolescent thing to do.  What I stated here was the obvious.

I am not supposed to speak the truth here.  I am not supposed to say what is on my mind, what hurts me, what I need to work through.  I am supposed to sweep it under the rug, to pretend it didn’t happen.  Apparently.

So, the end result is, I am not angry.  But I see him more clearly, and see that there is nothing we have to talk about, that he is not the man I thought he was, and is not the man I want.  So, I feel stronger in my resolution to just get through this, and to get over it. Right now, it still makes me uspeakably sad, but I at least see that the path I’m on is the right one for me.

I am leaving Betty Boop out of the equation.  She has nothing to do with the relationship between he and I, or the repair of the damage that was done that day.  She may have been the catalyst, but he is the one who chose the path of devastation with me.  I remember wondering where she was this morning, that he was free to talk to me.  But only fleetingly.  I was glad she was not there.  I was happy I was on his mind, because I missed him so much this morning.  Because I loved him so much this morning.

I feel stronger tonight. I still love him, but right now it is not the debilitating kind of thing it was earlier today.  I would guess I will always love him, but the baseline between us, whatever our relationship evolves into, or doesn’t, is that he has to be able to own his actions.  I don’t have and don’t want a friend who can’t say, I’m sorry.  I was wrong.  I didn’t mean to hurt you.  All of my friends and I have apologized to each other at times, for misunderstandings.  We ALL own what we do.

I want a man who can man up.  I want to be able to talk these things through, not to sweep them under the rug and pretend they didn’t happen.  Not that he wants me anyway.  But even in a friendship, even without the deep-seated love I have felt for him, you have to be able to own what you did.  I have so many times apologized to him for misunderstanding something he said.  I don’t want to hang with a 14 yr old.  I want a full grown, adult male.  If Betty Boop wants the 14 year old, and likes sweeping this stuff under the rug til there’s a lump in the rug and someone trips and falls on their face….she can have it.  It has nothing to do with me.  I would guess it’s one reason he chose her.  I don’t run from this shit.  I don’t bury it so that it makes me or him sick, or the relationship. I will always do what makes me stronger, I will fight the good fight, I will have the hard discussions.  And if I hurt someone, I will do everything I can to make amends. The Sunday before, two weeks ago, we carried on an intimate text conversation, about feelings and emotions, and for the first time I felt like he got me, and could be with me without being defensive. It went on for a couple hours.  It’s a wonderful thing to be able to talk about these things with the man you love.  It’s sexy, it’s a turn on.  And he liked it, too.  He told me at one point in that conversation, “I think you need to tell me that about a dozen more times.  XOXO”  He doesn’t use that, XOXO much.  It meant something to me.  I would have loved to tell him what I said, again and again.

I will tell him, now, since he is still apparently reading my blogs.  It was because I loved you, that it worked.  It was an expression of my love for you.  Love changes everything.

I hope some day he can see that owning your actions, and the fall out from them…is a mature grown up way to deal with things.  I hope some day he will see that pretending it was something other than it was, and didn’t ripple out the way it did, does nothing but ruin relationships, and will make you sick.  The anger he feels at me at this moment, for making him look at it, will make him sick. If he could own it, and make amends for it, he would only free himself, and perhaps (not saying definitely) allow us to at least be friends.  What he did to me….doesn’t make him unworthy.  Which is why I told him even today, I still love you. He is worthy of that because he exists.  But it does keep the bridge burned without any ability to rebuild even a friendship.

I couldn’t go to the beach and pretend that I was happy to see him.  He hurt me, more than I have ever been.  I still cannot have a conversation with him without breaking down, which is why I said I would text, and I know even that may be a mistake.  I don’t know if he even wants to build a bridge between us, for any purpose. It would seem to me that yes, he does., based on his 3 voice mails today.  I could be wrong.  But the foundation of a bridge for any purpose, if one is to be built, will be the ability to own one’s actions and the consequences.  Or it will just fall into the abyss with the first footstep that goes over it.

Stuck

Posted on by learning to live like water

The last 12 hours have been the hardest yet.  I guess it’s just waves that wash over you.  I am always blindsided by the sorrow, the pain, when it comes back.  I think I am ok, better, healing, and suddenly all I want is to hear his voice, to have his arms wrapped around me.  Like an idiot, it is stupid, my head knows this.  I wish my heart would tag along.  It is all I can do not to call him, not to have direct contact.

I know that sending that text was wrong.  I know in the end, it does not facilitate healing but keeps the energetic cords between us. I know all this.  I believe it, I am a Reiki Master, for God’s sake, but I cannot shake this.  I can perform self-Reiki, I have done this, almost every day, it is only effective enough to get me to sleep.  Or make me stop crying.  But the physical ache for him won’t go away.  To send that text, when he is determined to be with her, is just self defeating.  Stupid, to be trying to get answers.  If I get them, will I feel safer?  Will I feel less pain and anger?  No.  There is nothing to be said for the cruel way he left me for her, for the heartache he didn’t care about, for behaving like a teen-age boy, sending me a text. A cowardly, juvenile text.  It is still unfathomable to me, that he could do that.

So, I know I have to get through this, without contact.  I will never heal if I have contact.

My girlfriend and I power-washed my deck this morning.  It’s a beautiful fall day, and we talked and drank coffee.  She asked how I was, I said, you know, it comes and goes.  She said, You’re mourning.  I said, yes it’s almost like someone died.  Today is hard.  Weekends are hard…and told her why. It’s only been a week.  She hugged me. I guess I’m doing ok for only a week.  I’d so rather be angry at him.  It’s so much easier than just loving someone who doesn’t want you.  Geezus. so much easier to walk through.

I’m grateful my son is home today.  We planned a good dinner tonight.  I’m going to make brownies too.  I am beat from doing the deck.  I need to vacuum my bedroom, to change out my closets for the winter.  I need to stay busy, so I can get through this day.  I need to be so tired I pass out tonight.  Maybe some wine would help, usually a drink and an Ambien at least gives me enough rest to get through the next day.

I keep writing about it, hoping I will release the pain through my words.  Maybe it makes it worse, I don’t know.  At times I feel like I am OCD with writing.  But usually, it seems to give me the only relief I can find, so I’ll keep doing it. I’ve always had to put my emotions out on the table, so that even I can see them.  And whatever happens happens.  I made myself vulnerable the first time I told him I loved him.  Sometimes it works, sometimes you get knocked down.  But at least I know I gave all I could to the possibility of him.  I know I held nothing back.  I have no regrets about my actions.  I have learned a few lessons.  Lessons I think I could have done without, but who knows what my soul’s journey is.  I must have wanted to learn what this feels like or it wouldn’t have happened.

Next lifetime I think I’d like to know what a healthy loving relationship is.  Please…..

12 Hours of Being Wretchedly Pathetic

Posted on by learning to live like water

God, I am so pathetic.  Why in the world do I even care what he does or thinks.  My head doesn’t, my head knows I am better off out of that crazy, immature, unbalanced relationship.  I wish the message would get to my heart, I wish the wounds would close and stay that way.

Weekends are hard, really hard.  I know he’s spending the weekend with her, and I know with me he could barely find an afternoon or evening for me.  I am jealous.  Mostly because he’s with this woman who according to him just devastated him, yet he chooses her. And chose to just be cruel to me, like I was a task he needed to get over with so he just got rid of me as quickly and carelessly as possible.

Just another piece of housework for him, like taking the trash out.  The nausea is back.

For all I know, none of what he told me about her was true, or it was only part of the story.  I tended to believe him and all his tall sad tales, but too many of my friends have asked, “Why do you believe him?  You shouldn’t believe anything he says, or said.  It was all manipulation.”  Maybe. Maybe all the “secrets” he told me, that no one else knew, not his wives or Betty Boop, were just stories fabricated by him, to see if I’d believe him, or still want him.  A test to see how I reacted, so he could see how far he could go with me and still have me loving him. That’s what it was with my ex, he is not unlike my ex.

I tend to think now, that what she did to him was revenge for what he did to her, that he declined to own up to his part in it when he told me the story.  But it kind of leaked out, over time.  I remember one morning when we were out to breakfast, maybe a year ago, when he was wondering how she could tell him that if he cheated on her they were done.  He believed “those things just happen, they aren’t planned.”  I remember looking at him, over my breakfast that morning, kind of incerdulously, saying, “It doesn’t just happen!  You don’t just happen to take your clothes off and have sex with someone.  You choose it, you can stop at any time, and say no.”  He said, “Well, shouldn’t unconditional love allow you to forgive it, I mean isn’t that what it’s for?”  I said, “unconditional love is never wishing ill, always wishing the best for everyone.  It doesn’t mean you want or keep people in your life that behave in ways that are hurtful to you.”

As I learned with the prison whore, he is an opportunist, and if he has the chance to fuck someone, he’ll do it if he’s in the mood.  And deal with the consequences after.  (With the prison whore, he found out he couldn’t perform, which added a whole new dimension to his confusion over it and me.)

Then not that long ago, a few months maybe, he said that he was pretty sure she “regretted” doing what she did.  I asked why.  He said, “well why did you go with A?  Because you wanted to get back at me for the prison whore.”  I said, “No, I went with A because I was devastated by what you did, and he was loving, and kind, and sweet and made me feel like I had some value to him.” To which he had no answer. (He always shook off the devastation, as if it was not real, that it was just drama. He couldn’t accept that his actions could do that to someone.)  She may have cheated on him, and run off and got married as revenge for him cheating on her, but I did not….  I cannot relate even to doing that.  I mean, yeah looking for someone who cares for you when you’ve been treated as if you don’t matter, but marrying them?  Drawing someone else into a triangle that is only going to hurt most everyone involved?  That’s deviant.  That’s sick.  That’s unconscionable.

Which is why they are perfect for each other.  They can pretend to love one another, but they have treated each other miserably on and off for all the many years of their relationship.  Hurting each other, breaking up for months, getting back together to feel the rush of emotion all over again.  Addicted to the adrenalin.  He has a very addictive personality, and has, at times in his life, been addicted to many different substances.  I would guess maybe she is the same, and their common tendency to be addictive is the strongest bond they share.

Who the fuck knows?

I’m so pathetic, I sent him a text when I went to bed last night, I don’t know if I was hoping to put a tick in his weekend by sending it, but I was just hurting so much.  I said,

“You prick.  I still can’t believe you did this to me. Why did I ever deserve to be treated so badly?  What did I do to you that deserved this?  Is real love such a painful experience for you that you have to kill the giver?”

He has no way to respond, except to leave a voice mail that I have told him I will delete without listening to.  I would try to keep my word on that, because I know he is incapable of saying anything of comfort to me.  He is incapable of seeing or caring how much he hurt me, he will only defend himself, he will only be feeding his ego, and I know that’s all I did when I sent the text.  He delights in knowing how much I loved him, and the power over my emotions it gives him.  So if he were to respond, I know he would only fuck with my head anyway.

A friend is coming over this morning to help me powerwash my deck.  I need to get it done, so I can paint it before winter.  Hopefully I can paint/stain it when I get back from my nieces wedding next weekend.

I need to just be grateful for all the loving, caring, normal people in my life.  Men who love their wives, families that love each other, and are strong, that include me without question, or judgment.  Who are there to help me, to cry with me, to lift me off the floor when I’ve been knocked down.  People who are only addicted to the pleasure they bring to the people they love, and the pleasure they get in return.

Ok, enough self pity.  Done with him again for awhile.  Writing is cathartic.