Tag Archives: pain

Fog

Posted on by learning to live like water

Shrouded by the fog

Tears stuck in my throat,

Unwilling to make themselves known to the world.

Embarrassed to be seen

Because the reasons lay behind them, not in front of them.

Sleep is such a welcome guest

But even sleep asks,

Who are you?

Should I be here?

Solitude,

making me look inward

and see what others see.

Necessary.

Chaotic.

Like the head of Methusala

With a thousand tendrils pointing in different directions

Each one squirming to be heard, to be seen,

Which is real, which is not?

The fog narrows the world

To my small circle of vision.

I lean back, and dream

The path appears,

there, in the corner of my eye.

But I have to walk it alone, I fear.

Fear.

Paying the price.

Loss comes to me with the fog.

Suddenly all the tendrils lay together,

And weep.

A Time of Transformation.

Posted on by learning to live like water

  

The sun comes up so much later in just the last 2 weeks.  I’m outside before it, again.  There is a wee, crescent moon, a single star hidden behind the leaves of the tress and the eastern horizon is lighting up pink, fading to gray blue in a cloudless sky.  It is cool, but not cold, about 68 degrees.  No blanket needed this morning, the cool air fees lovely on my bare arms.

I still have a ball in the pit of my stomach, and food is still difficult though I am able to eat without feeling like I’m going to get sick.  I think now, it is not so much pain, but is so much regret, and confusion, and inability to comprehend what this whole past weekend was about.

First, the snake. I knew that the metaphysical meaning of a snake showing up in your life meant change.  I just looked it up for a closer look, at the meaning, it’s been a long time.  Here is what I found.

“Transmutation is the key word here. The shedding of old skin and emotions and transforming them into something bigger and better. If Snake winds itself into your life know that change is in the wind and that you are at the center of it all as the catalyst. Make sure that your intentions are clear and that you have clear a clear sense of the direction that you need to strike out in. Snake is letting you know that these changes are safe and that there is no need to fear them.”

And another site.

“The snake animal meaning is powerfully connected to life force and primal energy. In many cultures, it is revered as a powerful totem representing the source of life. When the snake spirit animal appears in your life, it likely means that healing opportunities, change, important transitions, and increased energy are manifesting.”

So, believing that there are no coincidences, I should probably look at the snakes appearance in my life in the very middle of all the weekend chaos, as a sign, that there is huge change coming, and not to be afraid of it.  That, combined with the message from the Secret Scrolls that I  published a couple days ago, which both said the same thing.  I need to lose the fear of change.

I sat last night, after I published my last blog on wanting to know the truth, and rolled around the events of the day and the weekend.  I am not meaning to be obsessed.  This is a habit I got into when I was married to a man who delighted in being devious, and loved to gaslight me, and just see if he could create a situation that would make me believe all the wrong things.  He did it for the pure joy of knowing he could control my mind and emotions.  So, I learned to read the signs, to be hypervigilant, to do my best to stay one step ahead of him.

In replaying everything last night, I still know that the conversation I had with S was not the truth.  That it was far from the truth. And that it’s design was to lead me into some chaotic path, back to him, without him having to own up to whatever it was he had planned, designed, and carried out.

Maybe it was like I said, they were together, it didn’t work out, and he was backtracking, to undo the damage he had done. Maybe the entire scenario was a fabrication, right from the start, maybe he never talked to  her at all, but made this up because he knows how jealous I am, to reassure himself that I still wanted him, and to get me to stop with ending the relationship.  I had been publishing all week prior to the appearance of Betty Boop, that I was done with the screwy relationship, that caused way more pain than pleasure for me.  Nothing adds up to him receiving a call  from her, telling me she’s back in his life, I should be happy for him, and it’s all he ever wanted, and then telling me they have just talked for a week.  I believe either they got together, hence me not hearing from him all weekend, and suffering all weekend, because he just didn’t give a damn, he was so caught up in the possibility that she was “back in his life”, or he made the whole thing up to keep me from breaking  up with him.

I have the voicemails still, that he left telling me he wished I’d be happy for him.  But I don’t want to listen to them again.  In my memory, they seem genuine, his voice seems as if he’s not acting.  But then again, he’s good at taking on roles,

The point this morning is, it doesn’t matter to me right now exactly what happened.  I know I don’t have the truth, and what the truth is doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that I was lied to.  And that is only equal with the fact that he knew how much pain I was in all weekend, and did nothing at all to ease it.

He is incapable of loving, but even more important he cannot empathize, he has no ability to understand another person’s pain, and he cannot stand to be accountable for the consequences of his actions.  Childish, immature, and so far from the man I thought he was, and so far from the man I want.

Back to the snake, I know the ball in the pit of my stomach is the transformation which has begun.  My transformation, out of this relationship, to open the door in a real way to a better, happier life.  It is letting go of something I held dear for a long time, and had dreams around, but every minute the fog is burning off my psyche and I see the truth a little bit better.  As it comes into focus, I will heal.

This morning, even though I can look at what happened and still feel enormous anger at S, I have to feel sorry for him too, that he felt compelled to make up a story to me, rather than tell the truth.  That he has so little confidence in who he is, that he can’t be real, even with me, who never asked him for anything except love which was the one thing I could not have. I hope he does what he’s been telling me he needs to do for 6 months, and that is to go and find  himself.  Find what he wants, find what he needs to be, and do with the years remaining on this earth.  He has so much potential, but he sets himself up for failure in his belief that he is not worthy of love and belonging.  I thought I could help him learn to believe that he has value because he exists, for no other reason.  But I can’t, couldn’t.  He needs to find that out for himself, to love himself.  He needs to learn to silence his ego, and allow his spirit to lead the way.  Then there is a possibility he will be able to love another person and not cause them both endless pain.

The sun is up now.  It promises to be a hot late summer day.  This time of year, I always think, is this the last hot day until next summer?  Will I feel the waves of warm moist heat on my skin again for many months? Every warm day in September is a blessing.  It is a good time for change, for transformation.  The autumn here is known for it’s beauty, the hills and mountains heavily wooded, covered with red, and gold, and orange, and still some green.  It can be breathtaking.

I would like to have my breath taken away by something beautiful for a change.

Note:  the picture at the top is from my deck as I wrote this blog.

The End Is In Sight This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m up early this morning.  I have been out on the deck since the very first rays of sunlight edged the eastern horizon.  It’s still, the birds are not even singing yet.  And it’s cool, I’m wrapped in a blanket.  It promises to be a beautiful day.

I’d thought I was going to the beach today, but that didn’t work out.  It’s ok, though.  I am going for a walk with a friend this morning, just back from Martha’s Vineyard where she has a summer home.  It will be good to catch up.  My son will be home from his music festival in the early afternoon, and it will be good to see him, have his somewhat chaotic energy back in the house.  And his help in finding and getting rid of the snake!

I am better this morning.  I have a selenite healing wand with a fluorite tip on it.  The two stones are very healing.  I held it to my heart last night.  One of selenite’s metaphysical properties is that it helps to break up patterns, and I felt it was exactly what I needed to get over S.  I need to break up the pattern that my mind and heart go through when I think of him.  I held it there, and repeated “detach” like a mantra.  Focusing on the word, on visually seeing the energetic cords break off and fall away.  I fell asleep with it that way.  I think it helped.  Because this morning when I think of him, I remember all the ways we did not get along, all the reasons I tried to break it off with him all summer, and he kept drawing me back in.

Looking back, I suppose he just didn’t want to be alone.  I don’t think that he thought that, purposefully.  Just, he really has so few people in his life.  His daughter and son, and one good friend that I know of.  He wasn’t in love with me, but he liked the fact that I was.

I am putting that in the past tense.  I think I can just begin to feel the transformation of what I felt for him, becoming something else.  Something less painful, something more like the words of that song “You’re just someone that I used to love.”   No mean intent, just that I can feel the first tendrils of moving my heart away from him, and the pain and chaos loving him has cost me.

I’ve known for months we were not meant to be.  We never saw each other for one, which was his decision. Not mine.  But I stopped fighting it long ago.  I saw him maybe 4 times all summer.  So why is it such a big deal that he is not with me now?  Because he’s with someone else, and it feels like rejection.  Because I am jealous, I would have liked to be someone he wanted to spend more time with, but I never was, so I need to stop making it out to be like he ever wanted to be with me anyway.  He just liked keeping me on the periphery of his life, liked knowing there was someone out there who adored him.

Well, I don’t, adore him at the moment.  I’m not mad, but this morning I am real.  His relationships are all pretty dysfunctional.  He has been healing the one with his daughter, but Betty Boop will probably reverse that in a big hurry.  Too bad.

I have lived such a dysfunctional life with my ex, that I was comfortable with S’s ability to create a dysfunctional relationship with me.  I realized that this summer, there are probably 3 or 4 blogs about how I tried to end it with him, and he talked me out of it.  Most notably, the time in maybe July, where he had just pulled me back in with the possibility of him being very sick, and then disappeared on me for 4 days.  I mean, literally, on the weekend, he called and asked me not to “dump” him, and told me how he is sick and the constant pain of his headaches was making him behave poorly, and so I didn’t, and I think he came up to my house that weekend, maybe.  Then the next weekend his mother died and he disappeared to New Jersey, without a word, and I was calling the hospitals here to see if he’d been admitted, because I was afraid he had an aneurysm.  I was so terrified.  He came home and texted me like it was nothing.

Dysfunction.

I don’t need that.  He once told me that he and his ex gf used to fight passionately, and make up passionately, and that there had been many times when they had separated for months at a time.  This was when we first met, and I thought, I don’t want any fighting passionately.  When a fight begins, I run.  I was the runner.  I have had more than my share of hard fought, blood and guts fights in my life, and I don’t like them.  Back then, he didn’t yet know she had married within months of leaving him.  I think he thought it was just another temporary break up.  One day she messaged him, after I’d been seeing him for a couple of months, said she wanted to see him.  Of course, I was terrified, and he was kinder then, than now.  He told me to not worry, that I was taking him out of the equation, that he was just going to talk to her, and it didn’t mean he was going back to her.  Turns out she wanted to meet with him to tell him face to face she was married.  He disappeared then for 2 days.  Wouldn’t talk to me, or answer my texts, left me hanging out to dry, just kind of like this weekend.  The difference was he gave our relationship no consideration this time, He just said, “she’s back in my life.”  After 18 months.  He let go of me so fast, that it’s taken me days just to get up on my own two feet again.  I was blindsided, not only by Betty Boop’s appearance in his life, and mine by extension, but by how easily and quickly he threw our relationship to the wind.

Well, it’s all moot now.  She’s back, and I am letting go.  I think about all the hurt, all the times he disregarded my feelings because he couldn’t cope with his own.  When I am in a relationship with someone, him included, generally I consider their feelings first.  He and I both were dysfunctional, we could not figure out how to make it work.

It was a bad relationship.  It is good that something happened to make it actually end, to create an ending that there is no bridge from to get back to where we were.  Where we were was not a good place anyway.  I know there are much better places ahead of me, than behind me.

I’m going to have a good day today.  The knot in my stomach has unraveled some.  I made a pot of chili yesterday, but couldn’t eat any of it.  We’ll have it today, with some good bread.  I’ll work at opening the door for something “magnificent” to walk through.  I know the rest of my life will be wonderful, I know what I want, and where I’m going and what I’m going to do when I get there. S is beginning to fade, and I can imagine, for the first time, that a day is coming where I don’t think of him wistfully.  Maybe kind of, he was kind of a cool guy but so messed up.  I’d like to remember him fondly, but not painfully.  Someday.

Not there yet, but like I say, I know where I’m going and what I want, and that’s what I want.  Just to let go of it all, say I loved him once, we had some fun, but we had more pain, and we let it go.

The end.

Coming Full Circle

Posted on by learning to live like water

My first tears fell last night.  The anger gave way to the cause of it and I broke down sobbing last night.  I woke up doing the same this morning.  Thank God I have the sleeping pills from my carpal tunnel, they afford me 5 or 6 hours of sleep.

I miss him so much, if I think about it for a second, my heart just squeezes and all that pain just pours down my face, just wracking my body.

This morning, I unblocked him and sent him this pathetic text.

“I miss you so much I can’t breathe.  I can’t stop crying.  I’m a mess.  I tried so hard to love you so well and it didn’t matter even one teeny bit.  I unblocked you in case you have a pang of conscience about walking so briskly away from the woman that loved you.”

Because, this ex gf, Betty Boop, I don’t believe she loves him.  I believe she needs something from him, and is using his love for her to get it. I don’t think anyone who leaves a 12 year relationship, runs off an marries a man she doesn’t know, and walks out on the marriage 18 months later, has a clue about herself.  I don’t know her. I don’t need to know her, her actions tell me who she is.and my intuition.

Maybe S likes being so much smarter than her.  Maybe it feeds his ego, to have some sexy dumb woman think he’s smart.  It feeds his ego enough that he doesn’t mind being used by her to take care of all her financial needs.

Damn the connection I have with him.  If I am right they were together last night, and this morning.  I know he’ll go read the text in private, I know he won’t have read any of my blogs until he’s alone.  Maybe he’ll stop reading them altogether.  After all, I suppose he doesn’t really need to know what I’m thinking now.  He’s got her to occupy his mind.  Maybe he’s spending all of the long holiday weekend with her.  Something he would never do with me.

I need to let go.  I forgot how painful this roller coaster is.  Last night I was pretty high, I was not caring, until I got home.  This morning, I feel like I’m gonna die if I don’t talk to him. I know it would be so much better if I could just cut off communication, but I just can’t, quite yet.

I still know that I’ll be ok.  I know I’ll get through this.  I know there is someone out there who will love me and what I have to offer.  It is just so hard to think of him with her.  That’s where I get stuck.  I need to do a lot of work around that one thing.  I just can’t stand him being with someone else.

He used to tell me that they never talked during the week.  Sometimes a quick, “are we on for the weekend” message.  I thought that so strange.  He and I talked all the time, texting during the day at work, in the evening, sometimes talking on the phone.  Seems so strange that he loved someone so much that he never talked to.  Just seems…a cold way to have a relationship.

Well, if that’s what he wants, that’s what he wants.  I could never want it.  I loved our conversations.  Intimate, flirty, downright sexual, intellectual, spiritual, debates at times  One reason I loved him was his ability to discuss intelligently a huge wide rage of subjects and interject his pretty expansive and varied life experiences to them.  I miss his stories.  I miss how he made me laugh.  I thought he liked it too.  I know he liked what I did for him in bed.

And she shows up, and he just takes her back, and tosses me to the side.  It’s killing me today.  Just killing me.  So much rejection, so suddenly.

I just had a glimmer though, a small one.  I thought how a week ago, he called me dumb because I misunderstood his two word communications when he was in NJ.  How angry it made me.  How unnecessary it was for him to talk to me like that.  I knew it was because he was in a bad mood from his sisters, and taking it out on me.  When I stood up to it, it got worse.  He was swearing at me, because I misunderstood him.  He had forgotten his phone charger altogether, and was trying to save the battery.  He’s always had one in the car, I’m pretty sure, and I just assumed that since he was driving he was able to charge the phone. that he only hadn’t been able to charge it when he was in his sisters house.  I told him he was the stupid one for forgetting the charger, and that he was also an asshole for calling me dumb and everything else he called me.  And later that evening, when I knew he was home and wasn’t contacting me, I sent him an email, telling him that I missed the man I thought he was, but the one that showed up that day, I didn’t want within 100 miles of me.

So the question I’m asking, that’s given me a little glimmer, is….If he were to decide he didn’t want to be with her, and wanted to be with me, do I really want that back in my life?  Because that’s our two week cycle.  I still don’t want to that man, that calls me names, and flashes his anger like a weapon, within 100 miles of me.  I only want the funny one, the one who makes me laugh, the one who tells great stories, and the one who is so physically passionate, though selfish. I can’t have one without the other. And I really don’t want the other.

That answer makes it easier to deal with the fact that he’s with her right now.  Tears have finally stopped.  If I remove Betty Boop from the equation, it is all the same.  He and I can’t work for more that 2 weeks without a blow up.  That book needed to be closed.

God, I have come full circle with this blog.

Writing is so therapeutic.  I couldn’t do this if I couldn’t write and work this stuff out.  I didn’t expect this to go here, but here I am.  My circle may look like the one in the picture, full of twists and turns. It may be convoluted, but I ended up back where I was before Betty Boop showed up.

Wanting, or Needing? I Know My Answer

Posted on by learning to live like water

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.

Going to Clean House

Posted on by learning to live like water

Image result for Getting over a broken heart

I was going to do house cleaning anyway, it’s the first day I have been able to since my surgery.  But I am going to empty it of any vestige of him, there will be nothing around to remind me of him.  Except…you know the furniture.  The places we spent time together, the deck, the family room, the bedroom, the kitchen.  Those memories will have to just fade away.

I have some white sage smudge sticks.  I will set one up in every room we spent time in, and clean the energy.  It will help me to forget him.  It will help my anger.  It will help my hurt.  Thank God I have some knowledge of how to deal with energy.

I will ask a friend to send me reiki.  She helped me after the prison whore, when I thought I was gonna die.  She will help me again this time.  I can do self-reiki too.

I can get productive.  I can make plans with friends for tonight.  Hopefully for tomorrow.  and Monday.  But I’m gonna get my house spotless, clean out my garage, if my hand can take it. Gonna sit out on the deck and try to get into a deep meditation, on releasing the past.  Releasing the pain.

I texted with S a little this morning,  I wanted to know how long…he has only talked to her, and for 3 days.  But he stopped answering me, I was a bit to caustic I guess.  But in the same way I wear my heart on my sleeve, I also wear my anger and my pain.  And the truth.  He disappeared.  I don’t care.

That was cool to write.   I DON’T CARE.  It just came out of me with real ease.  Without any thought.  I don’t care.

At least not right now.

I’m so glad my son is gone for the weekend.  I’m so glad he will never have to know about this.  He hates S for the amount he’s hurt me.  Just seriously can’t stand him.  My son has seen me get so hurt in his lifetime, he can’t understand why I would continue to see someone who continues to hurt me, and use me for his own benefit.  And the kid is right.  I’m just glad he’s gone.  I won’t ever tell him, S has not been around in weeks, so he will just leave it be and be glad he isn’t around now.

I’m going to be fine.

Maybe The Universe Is Working in My Behalf.

Posted on by learning to live like water

This is me this morning.

Thank God for Ambien.  After working almost 40 hours in 4 days, I was exhausted.  But….didn’t consider going to bed until about 1 AM.  I was on the phone with a friend out in Montana for hours, crying on her shoulder, venting my anger, my hurt, my pain. I didn’t want to go lay down in the bed that he would  never join me in again.  I was afraid a torrent of raging tears would start that I couldn’t stop.  Somehow I calmed myself and slept for 4 1/2 hours. I guess due to 2 glasses of wine and an Ambien.  Bad to do together, but it worked for me last night.

I called him back, at midnight, or12:30 and asked him if she was there now.  No, he said.  I didn’t even know why I called him. I said, “You piece of shit.  You fucking piece of shit.”  and hung up.  I don’t know why I did it.  I just had, have so much rage.

II called him twice at 3 AM. He didn’t answer. I wanted to know when this happened, how long has he been seeing her.  I want to know if that’s why I never saw  him all summer, why he couldn’t make any plans ever, why he was always wanting to come here to my house, and never me to his.  I feel like I have a right to know how blind and stupid I’ve been and how big an asshole he is.

He said in his voice mail, “It’s all I ever wanted and you knew that.”  WHAT AN ASSHOLE.  No, I did not know that, when he was sleeping with me, talking to me all day long, having intimate conversations with me, begging me to come see him the Sunday before last.  No I did not know that he still was stuck on the fucking woman who tried to break him and abandoned him and took him for all she could.

Was I too strong for him?  I didn’t need him, but oh I wanted him and he knew that.  I loved being with him.  I put my heart on my sleeve and he fucking chewed it up and spit it out last night.  “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

And you didn’t fucking mean not to.  You meant to use me,and what I so willingly offered,to make yourself feel good.  The way it affected me was none of your business I guess.

But then there’s this.  Last Sunday we had a blow up, I just got sick of him calling me stupid because I couldn’t translate the two word texts he was sending me, and ended up misunderstanding him.  Just sick of it.  The wall went up, and I spent the week, trying to get over him.  Sure I would, I didn’t even miss him til yesterday.  I didn’t even see him as the same man til yesterday.

So, maybe, just maybe, this whole thing, the whole week, has been the universe working in my behalf.  Last Sunday was just preparation for him to tell me this last night.  As angry and hurt as I am, had I not spent the week trying to get over him, and move on by myself, last night would have been even worse, so much worse.

And seeing that, looking at that, I feel better.  I feel maybe the Universe is about to bring me what I want, about to open a door that’s been closed, because I couldn’t close the door on S.  Even though he clearly wasn’t actively participating in our whatever it was relationship.

They psychic back in June told me to stand my ground, that when I close the wrong doors the right ones will open.  She didn’t mention that I would have the door slammed in my face, and feel broken again, but still…the door is now shut for good.  I think it was probably necessary for something like this to happen for me to shut it and seal it shut, never to be reopened.

I’ll get over it.  That much I know.  I am still in shock, but I’ll get past it.  He can be with her, and find some more misery to cry about. He can work til he’s 75 to keep her out of debt, probably will pay for her divorce.  That’s probably why she came back.  She married someone very impulsively, she’s unable to manage her money, and can’t afford a divorce, so she’ll probably mooch the money off of him, and he’ll gladly pay some more so the bitch can continue to hurt him.  Stupid idiot.  Who would want someone back that took them for so much?  Someone who is used to being punished by those he loved.

Well that’s not me.  The people I love are given wings to fly.  Even him, when he told me he needed to go find himself.  figure out what he wanted.  I told him to go do it, that I fully supported it.  And what a bunch of bullshit that turned out to be.  The first chance he had, he dove right into the past.  Setting himself up to spend his life in more pain.  He survived liver cancer.  The liver is where we hold all our anger.  So, do I think they had 12 years of bliss together?  Doubtful.

And his daughter, with whom he’s become close…I’m sure she’ll be very happy.  She hates this woman, who she feels broke up her family. He told me, his daughter wanted nothing to do with her.  The woman was the cause of a rift between he and his kids that lasted years.  Welcome to the past again Scott.  It’s what you always wanted.

Where is the joy?  I know in my head I’m lucky to be out.  As my friend said last night, I’m glad it happened, it needed to happen for you to get away from him.  He’s really a loser.  You deserve so much better.  You make loving you so easy.  And he just couldn’t see it.

I’m better this morning.  I am moving away from all of it.  It’s like a car wreck, and even though I was shaken and bruised, I am basically unscathed.  My soul is intact.  I still know who I am, and where I’m going and what I want, and I know I’ll find it. He loves the car wreck, it’s where he wants to live.  He likes to live close to the edge of the abyss and occasionally see what happens if he falls in.

Once he told me, when talking about being rescued off a sinking fishing boat on Georges Bank or somewhere out in the Atlantic, that he feels the most alive when he’s close to death.  That should have told me everything I need to know about him, shouldn’t it?

Ok, rant for this morning over.  If you made it through this, thank you.  much love.

Losing Pain and Gaining Clarity

Posted on by learning to live like water

Image result for clarity

I had a glass of wine again tonight.  Not because I had a headache though.  I was just in the mood. I did work another 10 hour day, well, 9 actually, since I was gone for an hour to physical therapy for my hand.  I’ve been at work from 8:30 til 7 all week, and no closer to catching up, lo.

Difference is, I am not freaked out by it.  I am gonna do what I can do and be content.

I can’t stress how much not having constant pain has changed my attitude.  I am happy, again, like even when I’m working my ass off.  One of the guys at work took one of his grandfather’s old bowling trophies and made me this welcome back gift.

 
Every one laughs when they see it, and I tell them, every time I look at it, I remember that I’m a champion!

But seriously, to be able to sleep through the night, to turn the ignition on in my car with one hand and no pain, and to shift it the same way into drive….  To turn a door knob, drive with 2 hands…  I lived with that pain way too long.  And it was gone the second I came out of the anesthesia.  My muscles are stiff, but loosening up daily.  It’s awesome.

My heart is open, really open, for good things to happen, for good things to come into my life.  I have some adventures waiting, maybe someone to share them with.  Not yet, but the possibilities are endless.  I have no regrets about loving the men, well, there’s only been one man, since I left my marriage.  But I’m free of that pain too, and it’s all good.

Last weekend was the full moon.  Some people get emotional, depressed, by the force the gravity of the moon asserts on our small beings.  It seems that it gave me clarity this month.  Much needed clarity.

Love and light everyone.

You Are Enough

Posted on by learning to live like water

enough

Thinking about connection this morning.  Brene Brown, in her TED talk on vulnerability says that after  you’ve been a social worker for 10 years, you know that the reason we are here is for connection.  It’s the basic premise of her work.  She goes on to say how her research (6 years of it) proves how so many negative emotions are outgrowths of the fear that something about us, or something we have done, will cause us to be not worthy of love and connection.

I think it starts with our family of origin.  I was blessed to be born into a family who never ever made me doubt for a minute or even a second, whether I was worthy of love and connection.  I took it for granted, that all children got this from their parents. It took a long marriage to someone whose parents were incapable of unconditional love, to understand the ramifications of that one seemingly small, but actually enormous and boundless thing, having or not having unconditional love. The shame that my ex experienced crept into every corner and facet of his life.  I truly believe that because he felt so unworthy of love and connection, that he believed that anyone who professed to love  him, like myself or our son, either wanted something from him or was just stupid.  And in the end, this is how he lived.  He treated me like I was stupid and sought to protect himself from me by excluding me from all things financial.  He was sure one day i would leave him….

A self fulfilling prophecy, I would say.  Of course I would eventually realize I was not part of any equation involving the two of us.  That apparently I was there to serve him, yet only to reap the benefits which he chose to give me,  which in the end were none, because I was, in his fearful mind, stupid and/or (alternatingly) out to take him.

Although, it was the abuse of my son that really moved me to get out of the marriage.  I realized at some point that if I didn’t get out, and offer my son a clear choice of love vs. fear, that I would lose him forever, and quite possibly condemn him to a very unhappy life.  I realized it when he was 9.  It took me until he was 14 to actually put together an exit plan.

All of that pain, though, every bit of it originated in my ex’s belief that since his parents could not unconditionally love him (Love for them had to be earned, and could quickly be taken away.  They thought it was motivation.) that he simply was not worthy of it.  When I realized this, my anger at him turned to sorrow for him.  I can’t imagine living a whole life, not ever believing you were worthy of love and connection.  Is there a more painful way to live?

Some people can  figure it out.  Some people can find a pathway to a creator that unconditionally loves us, or realize that we are all connected.  That there is a vast ocean of love, that we can all dip into.  Some people manage to figure out that the lessons they were taught were just wrong, and that the people that taught them  were flawed people doing the best they knew how.

Since I have been out of the marriage, I tried once or twice, when my ex opened the door, to show him a different way to see the world, and a way to rebuild a relationship with our son.  He has so far been unable to hear it, or see it.  I think some progress may have been made, that maybe he no longer believes me to be the cause of all his problems, although I don’t know this for a fact, and I do know that he doesn’t have any good answers to why he is in the dire straits he is in.

I have a friend, who had a similar childhood, who has tried to reconnect with a sibling now that their parents have both passed.  I wish this person much luck with this endeavor.  I hope it happens.  I also am real, and know it’s chances are slim. And my job, if I have one at all, is to make sure this person knows, no matter what the outcome that they are worthy of love and belonging.  That they are enough.  Just because they are, because they exist, and for no other reason.

You are enough.

From Anger to Hurt

Posted on by learning to live like water

This poster is about how it was.  He knew, he didn’t feel it, and he didn’t care.  It had no impact on him at all. He still wanted what he wanted, the effect on me of that was inconsequential in his mind.

Anger has subdued this morning, and turned to a visceral pain. I didn’t sleep well, I was too angry yesterday, and had a hard time calming my psyche for sleep, even though I was also exhausted, after leaving the house at 8, and getting home at 8.  Going to be a long day today.

I don’t understand how a seemingly fairly enlightened man can treat someone the way he treated me. How he could push his agenda, knowing it caused me pain, knowing I didn’t want what he wanted.  I tried and tried to end it in a way we could stay friends, telling him we just wanted different things.  And in the end, he still was trying to come here for the night, even though in the next breath he said he just wanted to be free.  How does he reconcile those two actions?  I have no idea.

He says he has loved women and been hurt by them all.  I wonder….did he treat them all as objects to use for his own gratification?  I have no idea.  He didn’t love me, i knew that.  But I thought he cared about me.  I can’t imagine asking someone to give themselves to you when you know they adore you, and then saying, well it’s nice but I want to be free. That’s caring??  Not in my book.

I feel stupid, then I say, at least I know I can love. At least I know I can feel.  At least I know I am capable of empathy.  I gave myself to him in love.

All winter we would spend the day together, go to breakfast, he would take me places, we would laugh, we’d come back, take a nap, we’d have fun. Then suddenly he stopped, he no longer wanted to do anything.  At first he said he was busy getting his yard in shape in the spring.  But he just stopped cold, anything except “a nice afternoon” or a “Nice night” together. My dreams of summer, that he knew I had, just slipped away.  He was oblivious.  I tried to end it, he pulled me back. Why?

Did it fill his ego to have an adoring woman in the background?  I suppose. He was unconscionable to ask of me what he asked. He knew I was incapable of enjoying that. But I allowed it, a few times, because I missed him.  Finally in the end, I knew the pain I would feel if I allowed it would offset any pleasure it gave me, times10.

It’s over.  I’m sitting with my sadness, and hurt.  By tonight I would expect I will be on a much more even keel, or at least by tomorrow. I am glad I stood my ground, I am happy that I left myself with a shred of dignity.

Onward, as Liz Gilbert says all the time.  Putting one foot in front of the other, making tentative, but real,forward movement.