Tag Archives: pain

Thoughts on Healing

Posted on by learning to live like water

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.

 

 

Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa

Posted on by learning to live like water

When I went to Florida I stayed for a couple of nights with a friend from high school who lives in the town I’m moving to.  Turns out she’s been singing the blues at local places around there for over a year.  One of her favorite female blues singers is Beth Hart.  I have to sheepishly admit I did not know her.  My friend put on a few youtube videos of her, one was with Jeff Beck at the Kennedy Center honoring Buddy Guy. I realized I had seen it, live, because it was way tooo fabulous not to burn a spot into your psyche.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward, really forward, to going with my friend to see her sing.

Anyway after she played the Hart-Beck Kennedy Center video,  she “introduced” me to Joe Bonamassa, except when I heard him, I remembered that Scott had already introduced me to him, and I loved him.  One of those moments where we weren’t having sex, lol.  Listening to and discussing music.  With our clothes on!  (Ok sometimes we were naked, but not having sex, lol. Just sayin’ it wasn’t what some people wanted to believe it was!) OMG, and we did that with books too!  Anyway, my friend played the video below, and all I can think when I hear it, is damn…that was me last fall.  October 3.  And damn, I want to love someone else like that.  Except, I don’t want to ever have to watch him walk away again.

Listen to it…I bet you’ll feel the same.

Exorcising The Ghosts

Posted on by learning to live like water

I took a walk on the beach alone this morning. I have only been twice now, because I was gone for the weekend. My sis went with me last time. It seemed I had some emotional processing to do, when I got there.

It was low tide. My head kept echoing “Low Tie…..” Which was what S always called it, from his days fishing.

I had a hard time silencing his voice in my head. I took pictures, of waves breaking on the sand bars. Of the waves breaking on the shore, leaving shells, broken sand dollars, pieces of coral and coquina. I took this picture, and also a video, which I can’t seem to get to transfer here..

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I kept wanting to send the video to him, with the sound of the waves breaking, and just say, “Lo Tie….” He would have appreciated it I think. At least for a moment, before he deleted it.

I walked along the dunes, remembering last March, when I was there. We had broken up, because of the prison whore. I had been seeing Addison. S was working all his magic on me, while I was gone, to take me back from Addie. I was walking on the beach, I was talking to him, I was falling so in love with him again, missing him so much. He was sweet, contrite, he wanted me. There was no her, there was nothing but he and I. Addie….loved me, like crazy. But I never stopped loving S.

We planned for S to come over the night after I got back. To talk, to see if we could repair the damage that had been done by the prison whore episode. But in my head, I already knew who it was that I wanted to be with.

Addison was picking me up at the airport at midnight. He had my car, there was no way around it. He expected to spend the night with me. “Please don’t sleep with him Deb.” “I won’t have sex, S. He’ll just sleep there, it’s going to be late.” “Even sleeping together is intimate….”

I knew it was, I knew that it wasn’t fair to Addie to sleep with him when my head and heart were with S.  I really didn’t want to either.  I knew I had to tell him on the ride home from the airport. I was dreading breaking that sweet man’s heart.

God that was a hard  beach walk. I guess there were a few ghosts here anyway, even though he never came here with me.

Anyway, I was overcome with the desire to communicate with him, and of course. I mean how could I remember all that and not want to just say hi. Just let him know that I was thinking kindly of him after all that ugliness last week.

I tried to send him the video, just as I’d imagined.

I say tried, because it couldn’t be delivered. The cell reception here was not good enough.

I let it go. I just acknowledged, it wasn’t supposed to go.

And I thought, “thank you universe, for watching out for me.” Because no good would have come from sending it, from opening the communication back up. None.

I said to myself, well, last year you were here, falling in love with him all over again. This year you are here, letting him go again.

The breeze blew gently, blew my hair off my neck, the sun shone on my face, the sand was soft, the sky was blue, and I turned to walk back to the bank of cubbies that are there to hold your flip-flops when you walk on the sand.

By the time I got there, I was just so grateful it didn’t get sent. I didn’t want it sent. I would have been horrified with myself if it had gone through. All it would have done, even if there was not response, or even a positive one, would have been to reconnect all the connections I have tried so hard to break. I would have undone weeks, months worth of work.

I had thought, while doing it, that I might unblock his phone. I hadn’t decided yet. When I got my flip-flops back, I sat on the bench nearby to dust the sand off my feet. I looked at my phone, and deleted the text to him. I put my flip-flops on and began the walk home, 2 blocks. Grateful, ever so grateful, that the universe stopped me from doing something that would have damaged my psyche again, and set me back so far. That would have in the end caused me more pain that I already have around that man.

I was able to remember his callousness. The way he now tried to negate memories like that one.  His last advice, “why don’t you focus on finding Mr. right?” As if, as if, you can just stop loving someone you love and replace him with another. He of all people should know. It was a stupid thing for him to say. “I’m sorry” might have been better. I know what a shit he is. I know how unreliable, how self-absorbed, how disingenuous he is. I know he uses people, and makes the wrong decisions all the time. I know all his bad traits.

Just, today, I remembered “low tie” and “high tie” and those moments when he wouldn’t be any of that shitty stuff, and how he could make me feel like he loved me. Those times when the light I always saw would break through, and blind me from its pure beauty.

But I made it through, by the grace of God, back to myself, back to my path, away from that pain. Away from all the craziness, the chaos, the mixed signals, the drama. Away from him and the darkness he spread into my life.

I made it.

Trying to Find My Courage

Posted on by learning to live like water

courage vs comfort

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love and light.

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

 

Swimming in the Moat

Posted on by learning to live like water

castles-and-moats-225x300

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

 

Christmas Morning Epiphany

Posted on by learning to live like water

Christmas Sunrise 2015

It’s Christmas morning.  I’ve been up since before dawn, and managed to catch the sunrise, which was beautiful.  It is such an unusual Christmas morning. It’s warm out, I went out on the deck to take this picture, and left the slider open, it’s almost 60° outside!  Certainly not a normal New England Christmas!

I have had a few epiphanies this morning.  One was while I lay in bed, luxuriating in the fact that I did not have to get up, and go to work.  For the last couple of months, my elbows, forearms and wrists have been in a lot of pain while I slept and when I wake.  I believe it’s just arthritis. At least that’s what I’ve been saying.

I did realize this morning, that the pain has increased substantially since the break-up.  I also realized I have not been dealing with it, just trying to ignore it, and have been focused more on obsessing about the break-up.  What he did, to me, to her, to himself.  Trying to understand that mindset that would create a situation that was bound to fail, to hurt himself most of all.

I decided that starting today, I was going to redirect that energy to myself, and find out what the emotional components of arthritis presenting in my arms was.  Louis Hay’s book “You Can Heal Your Life” has a permanent place on my coffee table.  I got up, I did my morning meditation, (which I gave a little extra time today), and then consulted the book.  I was not surprised at what I found, because I knew there was an emotional component linked inextricably to my recent experience.  But here’s what it said.

Elbows (I have a limited range of motion at the moment):  Represents changing directions and accepting new experiences.

Wrists (also limited range of motion):  Represents movement and ease.

Arms (specifically for me, throbbing pain in my forearms when I rest):  Represents the capacity and the ability to hold the experiences of life.

Wow.  I am obviously not accepting, nor moving through the experience of the break-up, the deception that was visited on me, well.  It is manifesting in my body.

It had also caused sleep issues, causing me to be dependent on taking a prescription sleep aid.  I have not taken any this week, and I am finally getting back into my own old sleep patterns.  Which probably allowed me to re-evaluate this pain in my arms.

I have to look at the lies and deception that culminated in such a painful break-up as an experience. An experience from which to learn something, about myself.  I learned about trust, about loving myself first.  And I also learned that I still have the capacity to love someone intensely and passionately.

These are lessons that I would not know, if I didn’t live through that experience.  It is now my task to accept the experience, without regret.  To embrace the lesson.  It is said that those who make your life the hardest are your greatest teachers.

Perhaps, if my purpose in his life was to remind him of his intrinsic value, his was to teach me those invaluable lessons.  That trust is something earned, not given freely like love.  That we have to love ourselves first, and enough, to walk away when we recognize that a relationship does not serve us and only takes from us, causing us pain.  To know that I can love passionately and intensely?  Well, that’s just a gift.

The break-up also has brought me to feeling compassion for the man with whom I spent most of my life.  He also created a situation which was bound to fail.  There could be no other outcome of the way he was living.

It is obvious to me, that there is a healing in the wind.  Healing my bruised psyche of the pain that the lies and deception caused me.  Healing the relationship with my ex, because it may be that it’s possible now.  I will take that as it comes.  The journey back to life is still his to take.

Healing between my son and his father. I can only pray.  It’s not my relationship, I can only facilitate the loving kind of environment that would make space for it.

I hope there is healing for Scott.  Not necessarily the way he wants it, but for him to reconsider the way he lives his life, and change it so that he can live out his life in a rich full way.  But his journey is his, it’s none of my business.  I am hopeful for him, but there is no expectation.  And I doubt if I’ll ever know what the outcome is for him, of all this trauma.  So I wish him love and light, he is in my prayers.  But my life diverges, and I will be leaving that path behind me.  I just deleted the whole text thread with him, which went back almost 3 months to the week after I initially found out about Betty.  I intend also to delete all the emails I have sent him, including a lot of writing I did just for him.  I let it go, I send it to the universe now, where I trust it will be atoned and turned into something beautiful.

I see the break-up now, as a fissure.  A huge crack in my life, which not only allows the light in, but also allows space to grow.  Like a seed breaking ground to become a beautiful flower, or a tall tree, or some other magnificent creation.  Everything reaches for the light.

On this Christmas morning, I change my focus, to accepting fully and with gratitude the experiences which continue to shape my life.  I regret nothing.  I will hold the experiences, not only in my arms but in my heart.  I will change direction gracefully, and let go of the pain and devastation that has been my focus for the past few months.

The best Christmas gift I could give myself.

Merry Christmas everyone.  Love and light to all.

 

 

Even in My Sleep, Again. Sigh.

Posted on by learning to live like water

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

It’s Supposed To Be This Way, Isn’t It?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Happy-Winter-Solstice-12.png

I always thought the winter solstice was today, the 21st.  But it’s actually tomorrow morning at 4 in the morning, GMT.  But tonight is the longest night of the year.  Tomorrow, the shortest day.

And then, the days get longer.  Sigh.  Dreams of summer begin to float in my mind.

Long days, days at the beach with good friends.  The Beach Whores, we call ourselves. Any Beach Any Time.

I may be moving this summer.  I hope.  Last summer was my last full summer here, and I can thank Scott for making sure it was an unhappy time in my life, playing his narcissistic game.  Except when I was with my friends, which gratefully I was.

However long I am here this summer, even if it’s all summer, I will enjoy the whole thing.  Who knows, maybe I’ll even find someone to sit out on the deck with me and stargaze.

But now, it’s winter, the world sleeps, Christmas is upon us.  Then the New Year.  The short days and long nights give us pause for retrospection and introspection.  What lessons did I learn from the last year? What direction do I now want my life to take?

I’m still kind of on a happiness hangover from having such a good day yesterday.  The gongs brought up some stuff, and I dealt with it Saturday, really just sat with it, and it came up, and it went.  The place where it was, that old sadness and pain, was filled with joy on Sunday.

I think that’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?  The old stuff comes up, and if you don’t try to re-bury it, but honor your feelings, they just dissipate, and we can allow joy to come in.  Because, I think it’s there, just waiting.

Happy solstice everyone.

 

 

So Disappointed

Posted on by learning to live like water

disappointed

So A and I have been having a conversation.  I told him I cannot support what he’s doing, that it affects our friendship because it affects the way I see him as a man.

I can’t find a redeeming quality in not being monogamous.  He can follow his heart, I just don’t know what he and I would even have in common.  He says, “We can’t be best friends now?”

No.  I have nothing in common with someone who wants to hop beds, whether or not I’m one of the ones he’s hopping into.  I find it distasteful.  I find it callous, thoughtless, a recipe for disaster for someone’s heart.  I’ve had mine shredded from it. I told him I don’t have any friends who are not monogamous with their partner, or wouldn’t be if  they had one.  Not one.  I don’t get along with people who want to have multiple partners.

He says, it is me who keeps breaking his heart….

I know this,  though I never meant to.  I was crazy in love with Scott.  I am not now, I am completely unattached but what does that matter?  I couldn’t love A whether or not Scott was in the picture, not the way A wanted, not the way I loved Scott.  I tried, God knows.

He says, I’m not asking to bed you, but can’t we be friends.  I know that, I said.  But I don’t know what we’d have in common, to base a friendship on.  That speaks to the basic level of commonalities.  If he wants to be like Scott, and have a different woman every night, (which Scott told me was his fantasy), why would I have an intimate close relationship with him, even if the intimacy didn’t involve sex?  I don’t respect that, I can’t honor it.  I can only see the pain it will cause at sometime.  And, I see that it will leave him alone, all alone….which is not what he wants either.

I told A it will not fill his holes. It will not bring him what he wants.  That he’s going to have to be patient, and keep his heart open, and the right woman will come into his life.  But this….this sets him up to break someone’s heart.  I don’t think he wants to do that.  Even if he’s up front about it, which is better than Scott’s deception, but still, is just something ugly, in my book.

I told him he has to follow his heart, he has to do what he has to do, but I won’t be able to support it.  I told him it changes how I see him.

What is with these men in their 60’s who are so focused on having sex that they give up human connection.  My God, their parts might stop working soon, so many men have issues with it at this age.  What will they have when if that happens?  No one, no connection, no one that will soothe their brow, or hold their hand, or kiss them goodnight.  Are they in a hurry to get as much sex in as they can before it happens?

God, such a shallow sad life.  I never dreamed A would have anything in common with S.  But I was wrong.  I am disappointed, so disappointed.  A is honest about it, but in the end, it’s the same thing.  A shallow attempt to fill an empty soul.  The answers will never lay in sucking the energy from someone else.  Neither one of these men understands that the answers are within, and that’s the only place they will find them.

Choices

Posted on by learning to live like water

I had an unusual conversation with A last night.  He had taken a “good morning” pic of himself in his bathrobe, and said something like “Good morning sweet Deb” or something, but sent it to the woman who he’s been seeing in Santa Fe by mistake.  It was not risque, it’s something he does every day.  But, of course, it did not make her happy…..

I felt bad for her, really, and for him.  He likes her, and I’m sure it would be hard for her to understand our intimate but non-sexual relationship.  I asked him about the other woman up in Michigan, and he said she was off with her “other” boyfriend.   He’s thinking he’s not going to try to be monogamous.   The woman in Michigan is obviously not, the woman in Santa Fe obviously wants to be, but apparently that picture ended it between them.

I told A I could never NOT be monogamous, I can’t do casual sex.  I said, “S would have been happy if I could have done it.”  LOL.  Personally, I don’t see A as the casual sex type, and in fact, I’m pretty sure if I agreed to have a relationship with him that way, he would be completely faithful to me.  I think if he falls in love again, he will be monogamous.  I think he’s just craving affection right now, reacting to the fact that I had to shut down the plans to get together over Christmas.  I know I broke his tender heart again.  I had to be honest.  Maybe it was too soon for me, but I think it was just chemistry.  I have tried before to feel passion for him, and I sometimes feel it but it never lasts.  I want to feel it for someone like I did for S, every day, every moment.  I want to be enough for the person I feel like that about, and he will be enough for me.

I don’t want to share, I don’t do it.  Don’t want to even know how to do it.  S once told me I can change myself so I’m not so jealous.  I said, I don’t want to…..I see no benefit in it.  S felt every relationship was different, what he had with one person he could never have with another, so he wasn’t sharing.   No, except his body.  His intimacy.  Probably his thoughts and feelings.  The things that make a relationship special, and wonderful, to have one person who knows you and cares for you, and has your back.

Nope, not interested in multiple partners.

But the difference between A and S is that A will tell a woman up front, that she is not the only one.  He won’t pretend to two women that they are the only ones, and then do what he wants, the way S did.  A will give a woman a choice first, if she wants to be with him when he might be with someone else.  Neither me or Betty was given that choice, we were taken by deception.

A can stand in his truth and be himself, and own his story.  S cannot.

A has never been anything but monogamous.  I don’t think this choice will last for him anyway.  I think he’s just looking for affection til he finds love.

Interesting, though.  To compare A’s telling me this, honestly, and S playing me (and Betty) for the same end.  I wish he’d been honest with me.  That’s all.  So I could have chosen to have done what I did with  him, knowing the truth, or chosen not to.  But he took my choice away with lies and deception.  We cannot even be friends now, the truth would have at least salvaged a friendship.  It’s too bad that he chose that road.  It’s too bad that he still has not owned it, at least with me.

He will say he has.  He said he will pay 5 lifetimes for what he did to me.  But that statement is about him….how it affects him.  It has nothing to do with acknowledging how it affected me.  It is about how he will pay, not about how I already paid the price for loving him so much.  He’s sorry because he will have to pay.  He’s not sorry that I had to deal with lies and betrayal by someone I completely adored.  He can’t feel my pain, he can only feel his own.  I would guess he feels his own pain with Betty too, but I doubt that he can feel the real pain that he caused her with is lies and deception too.

I have managed to pick myself up, on my own.  To take the hand of the universe, and my friends, and stand back up, dust myself off, bandage and care for my own wounds.  S caused utter devastation and walked away from it, uncaring, unfeeling.  Truth be told he did that with Betty too.  He called her on the phone to tell her, he couldn’t go to her house and face her pain. I told him to go sit with her while she read the hard truths in my letter to her, and face her pain, and deal with it. To let her see him deal with it.  But he didn’t.  He left her alone, to deal with it by herself, as he did me once the truth came out.

At least he treated us equally.

Any way, my feeling is when you choose not to be monogamous, especially physically, you open the door to pain and hurt.  At least, you have to be like A and say it up front, and let someone have free will and choice in whether or not they wish to be with you.  I would always choose not to be with someone who was with other women.  Always.  I should have been given that choice with S.