Category Archives: Life in Love/Like/That Stuff

The colors are coming back

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Facebook, it is the Borg. I’ve been sucked in.  And I’m starting to enjoy it.  I’ve run in to some friends I haven’t seen in almost 30 years and it’s very good.  A couple of old flames too and that is extra nice.

One of them sent me this last night:

I do believe in that same force of change, and the kindness of the spirit, and connectedness and am glad to be reconnected with you. Late nights of me knocking on your door and you letting me in are in my fond memories of kindness and passion.
I wasn’t so kind back then and never believed I meant anything to anyone. I’m sorry if I ever hurt you. I always thought you were beautiful and cool though, and only remember you as nonjudgmental and accepting for who I was. So thank you for reaching out to be my friend after all these years.

I really needed that.  This fella was one of my favorite people then and I was seriously smitten with him.  I took buses to far away places to be with him.  He hit me in the head with his mic stand one night (accidentally) but he never hurt me otherwise.  And he?  Was adorably gorgeous.  Oh goodness.  I think M. and I will get to this point too and it won’t take 30 years.  We’re trying and it’s a bit awkward and bizarre at times but it’s working.  It will get better with time.

I’m sorting out stuff, working on the downsizing, making some progress but I do need to focus. It’s hard to get rid of some things and yet I’m really tired of other things.

I had a reading yesterday.  She said that The Forgiven was a catalyst (too life changing to be a test waffle) and M. was the test waffle.  And that there is another waffle coming but it will soak up lots of syrup.  Be really, really sweet.  Bring it on Baby.  She said three months but definitely before my 50th.

And that a great job is coming but mid-May. The other ones in the queue won’t be good. That money will be coming in but she doesn’t know how or from whom, but it will get me through this.

I seriously did wake up Saturday morning having heard the trumpet.  I feel so much better.  So. Much. Better.  Movement is good, focus is good, a project is good.  The folks are making space for me that will make this work out well.

funny-pictures-snow-cone-cat-tastes-the-rainbow

Judgment

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I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about this whole thing with M.  How could I not.  And I have to say that while I wrote things about our time together, we spent hours and hours together.  That time doesn’t come close to translating fully on a blog, nor does the blog reveal all, NOR does it mean that anyone could possibly understand another being through the writings of another.   M. didn’t do a darned thing wrong.  He did the best he could with what he had.  He did all he could to act with honor.  So did I. We both tripped a bit but we soared too.  No regrets.  If I want others to understand when I follow my heart I must do the same for them.   How on earth can his choice to go to one he still loves possibly translate to him being unworthy of me.  Perhaps dear ones, he is more worthy for having the courage to say so and try it.  Perhaps, just perhaps, his being true to his heart was a gift.  I do not feel used.  I simply miss what I can not have.  But I’m glad to core of myself that I had it for the time I did.

My mother says we gave each other very meaningful gifts.  If my mother can say this then well, there you go. So can you.

M. is as worthwhile as myself.  He is on the same path with the same goal.  While we might not be walking shoulder to shoulder at the moment in no way does that mean that one of us is greater or of more value than the other.

Nothing, NOTHING, makes me angrier than having a loved one judged by those who don’t know them.  Well that and full on betrayal.  I was not betrayed by M. in any way.

If you can’t say anything nice about M. don’t say a damned thing.  Seriously.  I don’t care how much you think it will make me feel better.  I assure you it will not.

My heart breaking has to do with how much love I gave, not who I gave it to.  And I only give it to the worthy.  In this case I didn’t get what I wanted.  Does that mean that I cast my pearls before swine?  I seriously don’t think so.  Not with hindsight.

We are all sacred.  We are all worthy.  We all matter.  And we are all worth loving and being loved.

M. and I still care a great deal about each other, still see each other, still talk to each other.  It just doesn’t look the way it did for those wonderful three weeks.

So stop.  I will heal.  Time will pass. And I will still have a friend who I value.

Fine. Just rub it in. Cancer this week.

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Over the course of your lifetime, if you’re average, you will spend about 336 hours kissing. But why be average? Especially now, when the cosmos is begging you to use your mouth to incite ingenious bliss and explore the frontiers of closeness? To be in maximum alignment with the great cycles of nature and make God happy, I suggest you experiment with Guinness-Book-of-World-Records-levels of smooching and licking and sucking. If you can’t find a human partner to collaborate with, then kiss the sky, the trees, the rivers, and even the mist. (P.S. For extra credit, use your mouth to murmur lyrical praises and whisper poetic temptations.)

WAAH!!!  Shoot I kiss the trees and rivers and mist all the time.  Getting old lately.

can’t help it.  my heart is broke.

So here’s the deal folks

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I spent 9 months last year hating, just hating, The Forgiven. Did he deserve to have such strong negative emotions flung at him? Yeah, I think so. Was his behavior reprehensible? Absolutely. Was he selfish and self serving and did he disappear when I needed him most? You betcha. The boss I had two years ago deserved it too. BUT…

That hatred and resentment nearly killed me. It soured me. Hardened my heart. Overwhelmed me until I couldn’t get past any wrongs anyone did to me.

I really and truly, very simply, do not want to live like that one moment longer. I still will let myself feel the emotions of disappointment, loss, anger. But as I’ve said here many times, I simply can not afford to pitch my tent there. I can not afford resentments. It will kill me and my heart, after the death of 4 friends this year and the complete and unexpected disappearance of another (she disappeared in early December and no one can find her), the draining of job confidence, the stress of the money situation, I simply can not afford to stay there.

The only BF/lover/partner I never want to see again under any circumstances is the man I divorced in 1984. All other relationships ended in friendship, even if I don’t see any of them any more. Even The Forgiven and I made up and are friendly when we see each other. Some of those men? Well their wives sent me birthday cards and there is a standing invitation to visit the Oregon coast any time I like where one ex lives with his wife (who was his wife before me AND after me, god the tangles).

So last night I walked in to the meeting and I smiled at him and made a face. I did get called on and got as honest as I could. There is no way I get to deal with my stuff in public at her expense. I don’t even get to deal with it in public at HIS expense. After all, I’m sure he has his own version of this. We all have our filters and meetings are not about punching folks in the face. His GF was there, she doesn’t know about us (surely not, she smiled at me, we like each other), I don’t want her to, and I am not going to bite off my nose to spite my face.

But I did share this vision I’ve had for the last few days. That I can see my heart in pieces, laying on the floor, starting to collect a little dust. That it’s tempting to just sweep it up and throw it in the trash. But underneath the cracks and the dust I can see the barest hint of a glow and while I have to look very hard I think there is still a pulse. What is oddest about this vision is that for the first time in my life I’m not picking it up and forcing it all back together with glue and tape. I’m The Observer, just watching it do what it’s doing. At some point I’m sure that it will heal itself and do a better job than glue and tape. But it is strange to be so detached on this level. “Oh look. My heart is broken. Interesting.”

But before you think that TCM broke my heart you need to remember the lost friends, the lost work, the lost security, the lost love that was actually real love. You have to remember the horror of 2008 that was my life. Many of us experienced that in 2008. I know many many people who have dealt with staggering loss.

“Frieda” whose husband had a severe reaction to some meds and was burned, literally, from the inside out, all his organs, and all of his skin. BURNED. Third degree burns. From a medication. He lost his eyelids, the skin of his lips, inside his cheeks. Only now is he off the feeding tube. And what does he do? Blame her. The PTSD is overwhelming her. She is grief striken beyond belief. She can’t work. Her mortgage is astronomical. She has an 11 year old child. She is still sober. She is walking it one day at a time. And then there’s Karen whose husband Terry died a couple weeks ago. She was there too for the first since his death. She couldn’t even speak.

My pain, my suffering really doesn’t come any where near theirs. But it is mine. I get to have it and experience it and heal it. And who comes to comfort me last night after my share about the heart on the floor and the thoughts of suicide and the pain of my losses? Frieda. Of course.

M’s GF left at the break in the meeting to go home. She didn’t stay to finish, she didn’t go out to eat with all of us after wards. Hope things are working for them. But I don’t want the kind of life they seem to want. And that’s good.

M. hung around after the meeting and I felt surprisingly comfortable. I was able to talk to him. And I wanted to let him know that I do actually want to keep being friends. I want to keep that. And when he finally arrived at the restaurant, the only vacant seat was next to me. So I told him. And he said he was glad. So we made up as best as two people can when they are surrounded by people who don’t know that they even saw each other outside those two rooms. I’m glad. And can at least move on in this part of my life. As my friend R. said at lunch yesterday. This will be a blip in the story of my life.

And I? Feel very good about myself. The nerves are gone. Several people came up to me last night and said that I told their story. Which was not about a guy. But about loss and pain and survival and walking through your life one day at a time.

You know, when I had 2.5 years sober I was worse than M. I had an affair with a married man. There was the time I invited a fellow I knew over to my house for dinner the day it snowed and he stayed 3 days. He said he was impotent so I felt safe.  He was a liar. Turned out he was a sexual predator, not sober 10 years but using needles.  And I had thought at the time that I was the one with the power in the relationship.  Learned a lesson there. The internal shame that I felt (because how could I admit to anyone about that 3 day snow weekend because I thought, well, I can’t exactly articulate but my motives were totally selfish suffice it to say) when the cops came and arrested him in a meeting for failing to register as a sex offender I can not begin to tell you.   In many ways, M. is doing much better than I was at the same time in my recovery. Really.  Took me 12 years to have an actual real relationship longer than three months in sobriety.  And I wasn’t able to fix it.  It was truly broken, probably because it was never really whole to begin with.

I have a job to do. How am I to teach anyone how to walk through difficulties with other people, because let’s admit most of our difficulties have to do with other people, if I am resentful, angry, and unforgiving when people act out in ways that, yes, hurt others, but mostly hurt themselves. I would rather show that I am capable of love and tolerance. I would rather show how to heal than harm. If I react to M.’s behavior with behavior that is ugly, what good comes of that? NONE.  And I can show them that when I err, I can make amends asap. For the better.  In this case only me and M. and my sponsor know the truth of this.   Just because folks don’t know doesn’t mean they aren’t affected.  What if I had thrown a fit, raged against him, there in our home group?  What would I show them how to do?  How would that hurt me?  Hurt the GF?  Hurt him? What good comes of that?  So they don’t know the gift I was able to give and receive but it will affect them forever none the less.

So. I show him I can forgive. Maybe he knows that already. There are other things I can show him. I can show him that I am a person of great value and worth, and that I do have some wisdom and while he might not want me the way I want him, he wants what I have.  Sobriety. Recovery. Decency.  Healthy Choices. And perhaps one day he will grow a deeper conscience and make a real amends to me for his part.  And I will do the same for mine.  Perhaps he will want to do what I do to have what I have. Perhaps, just perhaps, the only reason we came together in this lifetime is for me to model for him the behavior that he wants to integrate into himself. That behavior I modeled?  No sex without care of the other, that no one is a “convenience.” And for him to show me that I am still desirable because I really thought I wasn’t.  Maybe, just maybe, this situation will be enough for him to really become willing to change his stripes as he says he wants to.  I believe him.  He’s going to fall down.  He’s going to make mistakes. Just like I do, continue to do.  Because I played a part in this whole thing too you know.  I knew he wanted to slow things down and yet I hugged him too long suspecting what might happen if I did. I said to him that I wasn’t planning on making it easy for him.  I have to apologize specifically for that. I’m sure one day I’ll get the chance.  Welcome to my world, full of chances to do better next time..

Because this girl? Used to have stripes too. And spots and black holes and swastikas.  And there are still a few spots although they aren’t nearly as obvious as they used to be.

Forgiveness? Feels pretty darned good.  I’m not ready to forget, I rarely do that.  But I can forgive.

The good things I got out of this brief affair:

  • The knowledge that at 50 I am still HOT. That men 10 years younger still think so.  That I am NOT past my pull date.
  • That I can keep the core of myself, be true to myself, that I don’t have to be a hater any more.
  • Aren’t those first two good enough? 😉

One last thing. I refuse to say bad things about M. which means that, even though folks mean well in support of me, you are not welcome to do so, not here. He is not scum. He is not a jerk. He is a sick person trying to get well and I must give him the same chances I was given.  Am still given.  No matter what I do the people in my home group at least do not reject me.  When I fall down, when I am in pain, when I lash out, when I implode they give me love.  They model for me what and who I want to be.  M. and I both have our good days and our bad days and I still value him in my life very much.  His friendship, what we can have of it at this point in time is of importance to me.  And it appears mine is to him.  How truly good is that?  If I call him names or call him out or threaten his attempts to do what is right with his GF, well that is not who I want to be. It just isn’t.

I’m going for a walk around the lake with a woman I met at the meeting last night. It will be good to get out of myself, she is in pain too.  A freelance graphics designer who moved here last autumn her work situation is even more desperate than mine.

I have a get together with my High Priestess this afternoon and then she is making me dinner. It’s a good day.

Scorpions on the back of frogs

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Some folks are just the best damned liars I’ve ever met.  They really don’t mean to be, in fact I believe that they aren’t even aware that they aren’t being fully honest. If honesty is an onion they have peeled down to layer 4 and think, hey, this is full honesty but level 15 hasn’t hit them yet.

Mostly they simply aren’t truly and rigorously honest with themselves. Not yet, maybe one day. They tell you just enough truth that they read as real (and they can tell themselves and you that they are being honest) but there is so much left out, not enough peeling has been done, and so many carrots are dangled (at the time they mean every single one) that even though there are alarms in your head and some things just don’t feel right, you follow the carrots for awhile. You know you need more information and are intrigued enough to detect a bit further.

And then they then tell you that they warned you. And indeed they did.  But because you are friends, it is stunning to find out that there is absolutely no caring for you as a person.  They used you. And they might even feel slightly bad about that.  As if that makes it better.  You thought that you had some value as a human being at least, but really thought that you had value as someone who meant at least a little more than that.  And when you are told point blank that you were just convenient? Just a body?  You implode.  Because how could that be?

They don’t have to take full responsibility for their behavior, it’s just who they are, their nature, that you must take some responsibility for going for it anyway. Ah. Of course you (I) must take responsibility for my part but at least I don’t shrug it off as something I have no control over. I didn’t use them.  I had feelings for them as a person, as at least a human being. Some thing’s never change. And yet I wasn’t wrong about a lot of it. There was something there.  And to be honest, I think he actually DID lie about not having feelings for me.  But mostly his feelings are all about HIM.

On to the next one. Or, in his case, back to the last one, poor thing. Because, what a surprise, he got back together with his old GF.  A relationship that was causing them both pain and that they both broke.  They want to fix it.  Good luck with that.

And here you are, several days later, facing the fact that you both have the same recovery home group and that tonight is that home group meeting.  That you had promised, gave your word even, that you would do nothing to ruin the safety of that meeting for him.  But he made no such promise to you.  And now, your one safe place in the world that isn’t your bedroom?  Isn’t safe.  I am trying to wrap my mind and my heart around the fact that I get to go to this place and if called on, can’t be honest about how I’m feeling about things right now.  He’s going to be there tonight and if past behavior falls true, then he will be there with his ex and now current GF.  So I get to see them all happy and shit (or hey if there is justice, maybe they won’ t be all happy and shit) and pretend I don’t see it at all.  And then put away the coffee that he made.

*puke*

And yes, I’m going to do it. Face it. Get it over with.  I’m stronger than that.  I don’t run from challenges and difficulties. And if I give in and don’t go tonight I lose my meeting really.  I have no idea what things are going to look like tonight.  I vacillate between Ice Queen and Miss Indifference (with a little hidden Raging Bitch with a new athame that hasn’t been consecrated yet but is still the military dagger it was made to be cuz I’m cuh-razy).  I’m reminded of a scene from Firefly, episode Shinding:

MAL:

Sure. It would be humiliating,
having to lie there while the better
man refuses to spill your blood.
Mercy is the mark of a great man.

Very quickly, offhandedly, MAL stabs Atherton!

MAL (cont’d):

Guess I’m just a good man.

He stabs him again!

MAL (cont’d):

Well, I’m all right.

Really, I’m jesting. But mostly I’m sure I’ll just do what I can to go in when there are more folks (a little later) and try to focus on the people there who actually love me and and who are glad to see me and turn a blind eye to that corner where he always sits.

Nothing like screaming down the highway at 70 to clear the air, a hug from your High Priest, some linden tea, and a session with your High Priestess who also happens to be your acupuncture reiki healer.  Which, it turns out, just wasn’t enough.  I don’t feel much better at all.