Growing Pains

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

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

As in the Rumi quote, watch my rising.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wanting, or Needing? I Know My Answer

It was late. The pain was still raw, as if I’d had surgery done on my heart. The anger visceral, because it covered the pain. Demons gnawed at my very sinew, baring their bloody teeth. Some of them churned my stomach, like a hurricane in the middle of my body. My breath, my very breath, was being stolen from me. I could feel the fury coursing through my veins, my eyes and head and heart pounding in an evil dance.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t want to get in.” I said, to nobody. “Maybe I’ll go sleep on the couch. Then I won’t think of him. Sleeping with her, never with me again.” Although loathe to sleep in my bed, I knew I had to do put one leg in, then the other. Lay on the pillows that we used to share. I had to be comfortable in my own bed.

But first, I put on a nightgown. So I wouldn’t have visions of him, not next to me naked. Next to her naked. So I wouldn’t feel the luxury of the sheets on my skin. So I could avoid the worst pain.

I sat on the edge of the bed again. I had to know. “Is she sleeping in your bed?” I asked. “No.” I drew out some more anger, to mask the pain.

Sleeping pills and wine… I got a little sleep somehow.

I woke 2 hours later, it was 3 AM. I called him, but he wouldn’t answer. I wanted to know. I needed to know. How long had I been the fool?

I’m still the fool. Because I still let it hurt me. Because I still allow the anger to consume me. Because he’s not worth it, he’s never given me back anything. Yet, I sat there, sit here, empty. Wanting him to fill the void.

I guess I always did, and because he was here with me, I thought some day he would.

There’s always a lesson. Some people can’t. Just can’t, fill an emotional void. Some people run from the emotions. They don’t want to feel. So they numb. Numb with drugs, numb with alcohol, numb with cigarettes, numb with food. Some people numb the present by living in the past, because, you can rewrite your past. You can make a nightmare into a dream. Or a dream into a nightmare. And believe it.

I’m kind of getting it. Having someone who needs you to take care of them, keeps you from having to invest in them emotionally. “See, see what I did for you. How can you question my love for you?” “I gave you a kitchen, I bought you a car. Of course I love you.”

But something made her run, into the arms of another man. Who, of course, she didn’t even know, let alone love. A grown woman? No, an emotional teenager. And now she wants out, and of course, he will take care of it for her. Of course. It will prove that he loves her. Of course, it doesn’t prove that she loves him. It only proves that she needs  him.  Then when she runs again, after she is free….he can wear his pain like a badge, “All women hurt me. I don’t ever want to love again.”

All women, except me. I didn’t hurt him. But I didn’t want anything either. Except his love. That was it, that was all.  The one thing that he gives no one.  Not even himself.

But I’ll be gone. I’ll be in the arms and bed of someone who wants me, and doesn’t need to take care of me.

I don’t want to need anyone, nor do I want to be needed. But want, oh what a glorious thing that is, to want someone, and have them want you back. I’ll find him.

Disclaimer:  I don’t know for a fact that any of that about her is true.  It is my intuitions best guess.  Only time will tell.