Tag Archives: truth

Awareness

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

third eye

Aware
That I can love
That the energy which powers the sun
Also powers my heart.
Powers my words to express.

Powers my body
To be one with my heart
That the physical manifestation
Of love
Is powered just as my heart is.

By the one thing.

True and honest.
I never lied,
(I could not)
With my words,
With my thoughts,
With my body.

The electrifying touch
Comes from the same place
As the soft words.
The connection that can’t be broken.

The face will come into focus
The face that will know what I know
And feel what I feel.
Another connection;
Stronger,
Sweeter,
Still unbreakable,
Is in the making.

Bliss.

Solitary Thoughts on Revenge, Truth, Happiness, and Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

your center

I was alone all day today, after my son went to work around noon. I was going to take a walk with a friend from my book club, but after I grocery shopped I was exhausted. I suppose because I only got about 4 hours sleep last night, and worked around the house changing sheets, doing laundry, cleaning windows, until I went to the store. So, I didn’t go for the walk.

I had a text conversation with the new guy from a dating site, and it went nowhere. Boring, lol. Might have been a scammer, Idk. But when he asked what I wanted in a man, I said, “Hmmm, funny, interesting, creative, maybe slightly outside the box like me. Someone I feel a connection with.” And that was the last I heard from him, lol. Literally. Not, “well it’s been nice talking to you”, nothing. Just disappeared. I wasn’t interested at all, so didn’t follow it up. Boring. Self absorbed.

I had asked him why he was single. Was he divorced, or widowed? He said, “Didn’t you read that in my profile?” Well, if I did I forgot….. Geezus, I didn’t memorize it! So when he asked me what I wanted in a man, I said, in the middle of the description, “This is all in my profile too, lol.” Trying to make him look at himself. Apparently, he didn’t like me or me throwing his words back at him.

God I can’t put up with crap, at all, any more. Geezus. Be real.

When I said it, what I wanted in a man, I was actually describing all the things I loved about S. Too bad he balances it with all lies, deception, unhealthy living, not being able to stand in his story, not being able to own his actions. And casting blame all around him rather than look it in the eye and deal with it. Too bad he can’t recognize and accept love, given to him just because he was. Too bad he had to assign motive to it. Well, there was a motive, then. To help him to be happy. That was all. I already was, am. I loved him enough, just to want him to be.

I doubt that he is, happy. I doubt he has what he wants, and I doubt he even knows what that is. I don’t think it’s what he professed it to be, or his behavior would have been different. He had some pie in the sky thing that was going to make him happy, but it wouldn’t have. Sooner or later he would have fucked it up again. Because he couldn’t/can’t be happy on his own. He couldn’t/can’t love himself. Neither she nor I, nor both of us together at the same time, could love him enough for him to love himself. No matter if we both loved him with every fiber of our being. It would never have been enough.

It makes me hurt for him. But it doesn’t make me want to unblock him on my phone. I can’t do it again with him. Even if that’s not on the table, I have no way of knowing, and I am not going to take the chance.

I talked on the phone to Montana, my friend who lives up there, this afternoon for about an hour, maybe longer. That was nice. She had me google these Arched Cabins. They are pretty cool, I gotta say, and inexpensive. We talked about books, about dating, about our men or lack of, about our abusive ex’s, our kids. Covered a lot of ground, lol.

But then I was alone again. I have to stay busy when I’m alone, that’s when it would be easiest to crack the door open to S again. Just unblock him to see if he tried to reach me. Or just leave him a message. Or an email. Or a text, to see if he’d answer. Or carry on a conversation with him in my head that I will never have. It’s when I’m home, and alone, especially if I’m tired, that he starts creeping into my psyche again.

So, I vacuumed. I washed the floors. I made some buffalo wings. I cut up some fruit. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes on the couch.

Now I’m watching Wild, which was such a wonderful book, and the movie is very true to the book. I’ve seen her, Cheryl Strayed, many times, mostly on OWN. She is one amazing woman.

She undertook walking the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail, the west coast equivalent of The Appalachian Trail on the east coast) because her life was a mess. She ruined her marriage cheating on her husband with anyone she met. She was a heroin addict for quite a while. So she walked this trail, by herself, about 2000 miles. She ended it a different person than she began.

I hope S can find his PCT, his journey out of the darkness. It’s my most sincere hope for him.

I know he thinks I posted the truth about our January together as revenge to him for saying he didn’t want me at his house. But it wasn’t revenge. It was for her, it was all for her, so she would know the truth he would never tell her. So she could decide, with all the facts in her hand, whether or not she really wanted to be with him or not. Maybe she did, maybe they reached some common ground. Maybe she walked away forever. Maybe she’s still stuck in limbo, loving a man who would screw her over because he has no center, no ability to make a good decision. No comprehension of right and wrong.  Loving a man who will always pick immediate gratification over the long term repercussions.  He’ll always deal with those if and when they show up.

I know she loved him. I know I loved him. Like I said before, it would never matter how much someone loved him. Until he can find his own light, and let it shine, no one can love him enough.

So I posted it for her. It had nothing to do with him. It was for her, I hoped she’d read it, and at least know the truth. I knew it would hurt. But not as much as finding out you’ve made a decision based on the lie that poured out of the mouth of someone you loved and wanted to trust. My mistake was thinking that love and trust went hand in hand. They should, but they don’t. Or didn’t, in this case.

He said all the right things to me during that short time. About changing, about living honestly. He confided many things to me that he had not before. I really had hope for him. Then the moment he was under pressure, he defaulted back to that underhanded man who can’t own his actions, who can’t stand in his story, who has to not be at fault for a situation he created.

And I knew then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I couldn’t have him in my life, no matter how much I loved him and wanted his happiness. I knew that at the end of the day, there would never be anything but endless pain for me if he was in my life.

It was small, compared to the betrayal of last summer. But it was the confirmation I needed. I needed to see if his words were real, or contrived to keep me in his bed, while he pulled himself together and figured out how to get her back. I got my answer. She told me, he can’t stand to be alone.

I don’t know if he is alone now or not. I am, but I’m ok with it. I can make myself happy. I have a rich full life without a man. Friends that call, that will go out with me. Things to do, things for which I have passion. I feel like I have a place in the world that I’m comfortable with.

I wish him well. I hope he finds some happiness, true, real happiness within himself before he dies. I hope she is well. I hope her heart is healing, and isn’t broken again. She’s still showing up on my FB page, I like to think that’s because we are friends on another level.

I suppose, considering the connection that I have always believed S and I have, that he and I are friends on some other level too.

So this blog has stretched out, lol. I guess I had a lot on my mind. Hope everyone has a nice evening. Or whatever it is, wherever you are. Love and light.

Just Bringing the Truth

Posted on by learning to live like water

truth

I wrote that blog last night about the hammer, and didn’t think about the fact that S might read it.  I don’t have any idea if he still reads my blogs.  I don’t know why he would, except to reassure himself on some sick level that I still think about him.  I would guess if he reads that one, he’ll get angry, and think it was all about revenge.  (My pendulum still says he does, though not every day.  It just seems illogical to me, that he would.  We have not spoken since I told him he was dead to me.  So why he would want to read it?  Maybe to reassure himself he is really not dead to me?  Who knows?)

Well, of course I think about him.  But I don’t think of him with any pangs of longing, it’s more like a bad habit I’m breaking now.  Kind like when the text alert goes off on my phone, I still first think of him, because we used to text so much.)  He is less and less on my mind.  What he did is more and more just another experience I lived through and learned from.

Neither of the experiences that I wrote about, he or my ex-husband, were about getting even.  Neither of the experiences was about revenge.  My ex was about getting what was mine, and being fair. I only brought the truth to light so I could survive.

S was about bringing the truth to light as well, so that everyone knew exactly what was going on, and so could make their own decision about whether or not they wanted to be part of it.  I feel that I did the right thing for myself, for her, and whether or not he wants to believe or accept it, for him.  A relationship based on a lie is nothing, except an ego boost for the narcissist, that he once again pulled the wool over someone’s eyes and got away with it.  While I normally stay out of other people’s business, I felt that since I was the third leg of his triangle, it was my business. He involved me where I didn’t want to be involved.  And when you pull one leg out of the triangle, it’s going to collapse, it’s a law of physics….

Both men were someone I loved, and men I hope the best for in the new year.  I am so happy to be moving away from all that drama.

I have a nice New Year’s Eve planned with a friend.  We’re going to try to get an early dinner somewhere, (because we have no reservations and probably can’t get any at this late date) and then hang out at my house and talk, drink wine, watch movies, lol.  I’m glad I won’t be alone, but if I was, I’d probably just write and write, lol.

Love and light everyone.  May 2016 be our year!

Which Will You Be?

Posted on by learning to live like water

strength acourage

Strength

Measured in lies

Measured in pain caused

Measured in lives destroyed

Is weakness.

Is less than zero.

 

Strength

Measured in open hearts

Measured in joy given

Measured in lives connected

Is power.

Is heaven on earth.

 

Courage

Measured in willingness to lie

Measured in willingness to deceive

Measured in willingness to devastate

To crush, to harm

Isn’t courage.

It’s cheap cowardice.

It’s emptiness of a soul.

 

Courage

Measured in Willingness to to be honest

Measured in willingness to trust

Measured in willingness to show oneself

And be seen, truly be seen

Is courage.

It is wealth of spirit,

It is fullness of soul.

 

Which have you been

The weak morally bankrupt coward?

Or the courageous, powerful rich spirit?

 

Which are you?

 

Which will you be?

Non-Monogamy?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Another weirdly warm December day today. Yesterday it was in the mid-60’s, today will be similar, but cloudy not sunny.  We are all loving it.  Our heat doesn’t go on, we don’t have to wear 5 layers of clothes to stay warm, my winter coat has not come out of the closet yet this year!

Awesome, just awesome.

I don’t know what’s going on with A, he was acting weird last night.  He did finally text me, and quickly said “goodnight sweetie” then began to talk about his date Friday night.  How she’s nicer than the last woman he dated, and how she’d invited him and his son to Christmas.  I said, “Wow, on the first date….”  because that actually seems a little weird to me, to ask someone on the first date to come to your home for Christmas.  I will say he exudes kindness and love, but still…just seems a little needy on her part or something to me.  And on his, to accept that quickly.  To me, coming to someone’s home on Christmas speaks to a closer level of connection than a single date.

But then I began to think how he’s going to meet the Michigan woman in a month…and this one wants him for Christmas, and I wondered…and asked… “Did you tell her about Michigan?”   Because, really…someone who is asking you to Christmas on the first date obviously likes you and I would guess she’s not thinking about being one of many partners.

He didn’t answer.  At all.  I have not heard since I asked the question.

Maybe he feels it’s none of my business, but we are close friends, I can ask him anything, I thought, or tell him anything.  And if he’s going to get chummy with this new woman, she should know his plans.  I will always advocate having the truth on the table.  Anything else is just self-serving.

I’m thinking I don’t really like this new thing he’s doing, deciding that he doesn’t want to be monogamous.  He said he wants to learn to share better. ??? I think it’s an idea he picked up from the Michigan woman, who last week, was “off with her other boyfriend.”   Speaking from experience, it’s a recipe for disaster.  When he told me that a week or so ago, I said,  “I can’t do that, Addie.  Scott would have loved it if I could, but I can’t.”  Reminding him of the pain it caused me.   It is incongruous with the man I have known for the better part of a year, for him to not be monogamous, for him not to be forthcoming about his intentions with others.  I’m not jealous, I’d love for him to find someone who loves him madly.   I can’t love him that way, and lord knows I tried, but it wasn’t there.

I’m afraid he’s a mess.  And I still know if I wanted to be in a relationship with him, he’d give it all up….  I don’t know if he’s more hurt than he will admit by my not wanting him to come here, by my not wanting to have an intimate relationship with him and is trying to fill the hole.  I’m not tuned into him like I am/was (hopefully was) to Scott. So I can’t read it that well from 2000 miles.

Well, I’m not going to obsess over it.  Things change, and it seems he is too.  If this path continues, we won’t be so close anymore, because I can’t admire what he’s doing at the moment.  I’ll miss him, but it is what it is. I’m still grateful to have him, to have had him in my life, he’s never treated me with anything but love and respect, except for his little anomaly yesterday asking to come see me after he’s been with the MI woman.  But it does show where he’s headed….not a good thing.

 

The Ordinary, The Mundane

Posted on by learning to live like water

tumblr_nvwy5rWiCC1r67m1to1_500

It’s odd, now that I’ve been out of the relationship drama for over a week, how I have to search for something passionate to write about.  I am sick of writing about that drama.  I am sick of living it over and over.

I’m leaving it behind me.  I leave the two of them to deal with what’s left of the drama.  I feel like I did my job, I got the truth on the table, and whatever happens will be a result of people dealing with the truth in a positive or negative way.  But I no longer am part of it.  Thankfully.

My life is becoming mine again.  What do I want?  What do I want to do?  Who do I want to spend time with? What will I give my sisters and my mother and my son for Christmas?  When will my bff and I make Christmas cookies?  What will my son and I have for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day?

Just the mundane, ordinary, questions of life that involve happiness, family, joy…

A huge sigh of relief.  It was like being in high school again, so immature, so unnecessary, so draining.  It’s over, and life returns.  Back to where I was two years ago, before S ever entered my life.

Happy to live a mundane life for awhile, lol.

 

Releasing the Past, With Love and Light

Posted on by learning to live like water

I did a meditation this morning on releasing the past.  Bits and pieces of memories still pop up from time to time, usually first thing in the morning, and I ask the universe, why?  He just so didn’t have to do that to me.

So, I’m trying to just find a way to let those memories come and go, and not unpack and take up a room in my psyche.  The guide in the meditation suggested re-framing those things, realizing that people who did things that hurt us were acting from their level of consciousness at the time.  Brene Brown, in her book Rising Strong, has a whole chapter on the debate as to whether or not people are doing the best they can.

When I went to the wedding in VA, a couple of weeks after I was devastated by S, I read that chapter of Brene’s book on the plane.  I had to stop reading, when I read that, and hugged the book to me and looked out the window, tears in my eyes.  I sent him a text, when the plane landed, and told him that I knew he was doing the best he could.  And so was I.

But that was before I found out that he’d been lying to me all summer.  That’s when I thought they had just gotten back together the weekend he dumped me.

Now I ask, do I have to still accept that he was doing the best he could?

Do I have to accept that when he would tell me he wanted to be alone, that he didn’t want a loving relationship right now, he wanted to find himself, all the while the truth having been that he was seeing Betty Boop on the weekend, that he was doing the best that he could?  When I would tell him to let me go, and he would ask me not to go, when he would tell me how he missed me, and come to see me, all the while lying to me, and to her, was he doing the best he could?

Do I have to accept that?

It seems naive.  It seems false.  He knew neither of us would share him, if we knew.  And he played us both to keep us in his life.  He played me harder than her, because she had no idea he was doing anything other than spending Saturday night with her.  She had no desires that weren’t getting met, she had no longing he wasn’t fulfilling.  I had them every day, and every day I had to hear what I now know was another lie as to why he wasn’t available.  I was far more work…and got far less.

But back to the question, was he doing the best he could?

I wish I could say yes.  I wish I could say yes, and just forgive it and move on from it.  Sometimes I can.  More and more of the time.  But sometimes I say, this is a smart man. It was one of the things I loved about him, was how smart he was, how he could discuss almost anything, could solve problems, could fix things.  This is a man with whom I was so clear…he would get aggravated with me for saying the same thing over and over in a million different ways to make sure he understood me.  I never wanted to hear from him, or another man, that they didn’t know how I felt.  He knew, unequivocally, how I felt.  And how Betty felt for that matter.  At least, that’s what he told me back at the beginning of our relationship, that she had told him that she wouldn’t tolerate him cheating on her.

Was he doing the best he could?  God, I hope not.  I hope he knows better than to treat people he loves in that way.  There was no honor, no respect, not even a tiny bit of love for either of us, in his actions.  It was just self-serving, it was stealing our love, and our energy, to fill his holes.

Perhaps therein lies the problem.  His holes.  He has so many….and I knew of them.  He told me.  He told me so many things, of his past.  Things that were horrible, that he lived through.  That he did.  Things that he swore he’d never told another soul, and didn’t know why he was telling me.  I still will hold his confidence, and never tell a soul those things.   I never judged him for any of it.  It was all in the past, way past, and I always felt that his experiences made him into the man I loved.  Let me say, though, that the knowledge of these things, allowed me to always see his inner child, the one who just wanted to be loved like all children do.  I gave him an inner child crystal early in our relationship, after he told me some of these things, which he used to keep next to his bed.  When we broke up over the prison whore, I think it was, he threw it into the river near his house.

I suppose it doesn’t matter how smart he is.  I suppose that what happened to him, and the way he acted out on it in his lifetime don’t have anything to do with his ability to solve problems, and do the work he does.  Emotionally, with me and Betty, he was doing the best he could.  He had two women who loved him the way he always wanted to be loved, unconditionally.  Although, I can’t speak for her.  I can only speak for me.  He didn’t want to lose that, but he knew he couldn’t keep us both if we knew about the other.  He lied and lied, to create a false world, a different world for each of us, so we would stay in his life, and continue to love him.  Fear…of losing what felt so good to him.  What is not love, is fear.

The answer is, yes, I guess he was doing the best he could.   The best he could was destined to eventually blow up in his face.  And mine.  And hers.  It was destined to absolutely devastate me.  I assume it did Betty also.  I think it has more than anything devastated S, because he now has neither of us (unless Betty has forgiven him, but I kinda don’t think that’s happened….) and has none of that unconditional love that he had.

If he had been honest with me in the beginning, when he began the song and dance about wanting to be alone,  we would still be friends. If he had just told me that then they had talked and he really wanted to see if they had a future. That he still had a lot of feelings for her.  If he had just been honest.   We would still be talking.  The hurt would have just been hurt, it never would have turned to anger, it never had to affect Betty at all.

I told him, so many times, that I would always love him.  That the love I gave to him he could take to the grave with him.  My heart still aches for that child, the one who steered the riverboat right into the deep and was lost.  My heart also sees the grown man, who denied the light, who fought for the darkness, who chose to allow his darkness to hurt people who loved him.  That was a choice.  No matter what he felt emotionally, he knew it was wrong.  He should have made another choice.

He can’t undo what he has done.  He can only make different choices going forward.  As can I.  I have to, as the meditation suggested, re-frame his actions, realizing that what he did reflected his level of consciousness at that time.   The pain is down to the level of a thorn stuck in my thumb every once in awhile, that needs extracting. I keep wondering why I keep grabbing the thornbush, and don’t just walk away from it.

I’ll attempt to do that, so that I can fully let it go, with love and light.  I can wish for him, that in his final years, he will welcome the light that I always saw in him, that he will learn to love himself enough to make himself proud from here on out.  To make decisions that he can live with, to be honorable, because I know right now, he’s having a hard time living with what he did to us.

Love and compassion are, apparently, and gratefully, my default settings, and I’ll return to those.

Love and light S. May you someday see the light in you that was always so apparent to me.

 

 

 

Truth, Wounds, Scars

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m at work now, using my computer there.  This will have to be quick, lol.

I was hoping that the blog I had written but not finished might have been saved by WP, because sometimes when i have inadvertently lost it by flipping a page or some other weird malfunction of cyberspace, it shows back up in the form of a message that I had a blog started, do I want to restore it.

But no, of course not, this time.

I wrote that A has been backing off since I told him not to come.  While he was ok on Tuesday after I told him, yesterday I barely heard from him, though at night I did get my normal “Goodnight sweetie” with some hearts.  I know he is having to face the fact that there is no future for us, and I won’t press him, I’ll just be here when and if he wants to talk about it.  I did hear from him this morning a bit…but not as much as usual, and with much less emotion.  It’s all good.  I couldn’t have led him on, who can live with that kind of stress.  If I don’t feel it I can’t do it.  Simple.

Much better not to lead him down a path to believe there’s something there, as happened to me with S.  No devastation.  Hard truth, but the pain is so much easier to bear, when the truth is known up front.

I realized too, that what has hurt me the most about the unknown FB account, was not just the lies and deception about having it at all, and realizing that he has been in contact with BB for a long time, but just as much if not more, because I realized that there are people that he lets into his life fully, that knew about and could comment on his FB page.  Here was the pic of his friend, and BB could comment on it, and I was the one who ran to his side when his friend died, and was excluded.  I was always excluded, it was always a problem for me, not to know anyone, to be his secret. When he got a phone call and I was in the car he might say I’m not alone, he never said, I’m here with Deb.  Because no one knew about me.

Just opened another wound up a little.  It’s probably why I’ve been hurting all week.  To love someone so much and have it shoved in my face, again, that I was just on the periphery of their life.  Never to mean really anything.

So, I am healing, once again.  I have a gong bath tonight, and some events this weekend that will help.  One of these days all the wounds will be healed, scarred over enough that they can’t be reopened.

Still rising…..

Questions

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m trying to learn to stay in the moment.  I’m trying not to make up stories in my head, and even more, I’m trying not to believe the stories I tell myself.  Byron Katie teaches a method to inquire as to the truth of the stories we believe with the following 4 questions.

Do you know it’s true?  no.

(In case the first answer was yes)….Do you absolutely positively know it’s true?  No.

(If the answer is yes, then move forward based on that absolute truth.)

How do you feel when you think that thought?  Afraid, insecure, unloved, uncared for, disrespected, hurt, lonely.  (In other words, all the negative unhappy emotions that you can think of.)

Who would you be without that thought?  Content, patient, loving, self-assured, trusting, safe, busy, relaxed.

So why would I hold onto a thought that I don’t know (and in my heart don’t believe) is true, when it makes me feel like shit?

Because…history…triggers…fear…ego…

Ego.  Goddam ego, telling me maybe it’s true, and what will you do if it is, and how will it feel when you know it wasn’t real, you’re about to get blindsided, and yada yada yada.  Stupid monkey mind egoic voices screaming in my ear, “fear fear fear.”

In my marriage, I had to assume the opposite of what came out of his mouth was true. I had to take all the clues, and hints, (because there was always a piece of the truth in what he said, and he spun his lie around that truth) and then investigate and he never disappointed, he was always lying, when the whole truth came out.  It got so I didn’t even get mad, I couldn’t confront him with the truth, and expose his lies, because my anger and indignance at being lied to (again) only exacerbated the situation.  I just had to deal with the lies, work around them, discover the truth on my own, and then do my best to act based on whatever the truth actually was.

Of course, I was just burying anger, but that’s another blog.

I don’t have to do that anymore, but my mind is so trained to do it, I can’t seem to stop, unless I can find stillness somewhere.  I try hard to hold myself back from seeking constant reassurance.  I know it’s irritating, to people who have never lied to me.

So back to Byron Katie….my problem lies between acting on the third question and rising to the fourth, so that I don’t create problems that don’t exist.  The negative voices are so many, so deep-seated, they don’t want to let go. They tell me I’m being a fool. I fight to ignore them.  Because I know….they don’t have any good news, and are only afraid of losing their power.

Buddha teaches that attachment and desire are the causes of all pain….(or something like that…).  But how can we not be attached, nor desire the object of our affection?  When that attachment and desire is fulfilled, it is a beautiful thing.

I don’t know the answer to these questions. Well…I do know that I have to continue to try not to listen to my monkey mind.  I do know that I need to wait, to have patience, I have to let the truth make itself known, in its own time.  To fill my own time, and be flexible, because that’s what it takes right now.