this hits home

So good. I try to keep this in mind as I pick myself up again, as I pursue someone but also let there be room for him to pursue me and see how it goes. To see what I mean to him, if the feelings go both ways, and if they do…if this could really go somewhere. I’m cautiously hopeful and also like a giddy school girl. I’ve been getting to know this guy for a few months and holy hell am I into him. We will see. Slower is better, especially when you’ve been hurt.

What else do I keep in mind? Where I’ve been. The men who said they loved me. Those that didn’t know what that meant, who didn’t understand love is selfless. Those that treated me like I was expendable. Those who wanted me but not really. I’ve heard it before and I’ll repeat it: a weak man can’t love a strong woman, he won’t know what to do with her.

I think of the one I missed so deeply recently. I love him, but I can love him from over here while he’s over there. It hurts. But I’m glad it didn’t work. I deserve better, and someday I just might find it.

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Growth through heartbreak

Read an old blog post and it got me thinking. I think a lot lately about my life and where it’s going. Specifically, I actually wonder where the hell it’s going. Right now I focus on getting by and working my ass off so I can stay afloat. But there’s more to life than this.

I’m not really sure how to say any of this well, but I’m going to give it a shot. I’m not thankful for the lies, the betrayal, all the things my ex spouse did that messes with me to this day. It changes your worldview completely to learn you lived a lie for so long, and to have never seen it coming. I’m not thankful for this at all. I miss my husband. I miss the predictable safety of my old life. I miss feeling loved.

What I am grateful for is what came after all of the heartbreak. I found myself.  More specifically, I found a strength in me that I didn’t know I was capable of. I started building my friendships. I started focusing on myself. I felt like I was building a life around my needs instead of putting someone else’s first, or building my life around them.

I made some questionable decisions at times. Then I got involved with my now ex-boyfriend, a friend of a few years. That one still hurts. They both do. But this one really stings because I was learning to trust another (and myself) again. And because it felt right, deep down. Completely right. And it wasn’t. And even though a part of me is still in denial about how it ended and hopes he’ll get it together, I’ve given up hope. I need to focus on finding hope in myself. I need to focus on wanting better… someone who loves me the way I need to be loved instead of treating me like a burden. Instead of making me feel used. He was good in certain ways, but ultimately he was very bad for me. That’s hard to say. I still have feelings for him, but I’m trying to kill those feelings. As if he didn’t do enough to bring that about.

I’m not grateful for the hurt he caused. It’s pretty fair to say I feel even more emotionally messed up (fearful, afraid to love, questioning if others are truly good and if they are what they seem to be, etc) since what happened with him. I know what I want, and yet I’m so afraid. 

But out of all the heartbreak I’m continuing to find myself. I’m growing my resilience. I’m finding my voice, I’m growing my confidence, I’m learning that I deserve better and it’s okay to say what I want. It’s okay to say no, and yes, and I don’t know. It’s okay to take the lead instead of going along with those I trust. It’s okay to be, and to have feelings, and to have my own needs. 

I think about my future, and things are still up in the air. But through all of the pain I’m beginning to feel more free, I’m finding clarity. I don’t have all of the answers, and I probably never will. But now the only one holding me back is me…and there’s a freedom in realizing you are your main obstacle. Not to say I didn’t love either of them, because I did. I still do. Real love never dies. But we were on different paths. I’m on my own now. I’d love to find a partner who is resilient, wise, and who wants to make life an adventure. I miss the predictability of my old life, but predictability is boring. 

I’m learning to make peace with the idea that I can miss someone very much, and the life we shared, and the dream I once believed we shared (but later found out that was also lies). But I can miss all of this and still not only recognize we weren’t right together, but that a part of me feels relieved it didn’t work. I couldn’t have grown the way I have if we were together. The same goes for my ex-spouse. We’ve both found ourselves. As for the ex-boyfriend, who knows. 

It’s hard to say these things, but this is reality. Life is full of paradoxes, and this is one of them. Without heartbreak, I’d still wonder where I was going without a clue at all. Now, though I still don’t know, at least I can say I’m on my way.

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Fire and ice, smoke and snow

I thought I’d be random for a change and just call it what I’m looking at.  Life is full of some contradictions lately, kinda like the simplicity of enjoying what’s burning in the house and the pretty little ice crystals outside (not so pretty to drive on).

I’m doing a lot of reflecting lately.  The (upcoming) divorce has forced me to do that…for the first time in my life I’m having to be independent, even though I’m still somewhat dependent on him financially (which sounds ridiculous because I’m actually paying bills alone this month due to him only recently starting to work again since being fired in September).  But I could probably pull this off better than I think, maybe.  See, I’m experiencing a ton of self-doubt lately.  A ton.  And I don’t necessarily always share feelings this personal publicly, but here goes I guess.  Besides leaning to be independent, I’m figuring out how to draw lines and have boundaries in ways I never thought I’d have to think about.  Maybe that doesn’t make sense…but it does to me.  I’m full of mistakes, just like other people.  I’ve made some big fucking mistakes that I’m sure not everyone can relate to, and while I will always struggle to forgive myself (because I’m naturally pretty self-critical anyway) I can at least learn.

It all comes back to being independent and drawing from myself what I’ve been drawing from others, namely my ex, for all these years.  I’m trying to draw hope from myself.  Stability.  Peace, even.  That’s really hard to do because a lot of the time these days I have no hope.  I feel so lost…I feel like a fuck up for not having a clear career path figured out (just watched this at work last night and loved it: http://www.ted.com/talks/emilie_wapnick_why_some_of_us_don_t_have_one_true_calling), I feel like I’m somehow responsible for the way my ex treated me (everyone including my ex tells me it wasn’t me), I feel like I’m wandering aimlessly, like I’m broken, like people can’t be trusted.

A lot of this comes from trusting the wrong people, getting too close to the wrong people…people I sensed I couldn’t rely on but hoped I was wrong.  Though my ex wasn’t one of those people…he broke my trust repeatedly in so many ways I never thought possible.  But the mistakes I made with trust after we split, those I saw coming or had a gut feeling.  So again, I need to learn to trust myself first.  I need to learn it’s okay to draw lines because I feel better about it.  It’s okay to say “no”.  It’s okay to feel unsure about something, and I don’t have to feel obligated to explain why.  I have to learn tact.

Most importantly right now, I’m trying to learn balance between sharing just enough of myself and who I am and sharing too much.  I’ve become so ridiculously guarded, especially this last month or so, that I could easily come off as standoffish.  Maybe even more than I already did.  All I’ve ever really wanted, even before all this, was to find people who I could relate to and who could relate to me.  (There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but other people can’t fill a void in me that’s been made by self-hatred or even just not knowing myself.)  That’s still really all I want, but I find myself just wanting to be left alone sometimes.  Not always.  I have my people I really trust, people I’ve reached out to and who reach out to me.  A handful of people that have proven that when they say they care, they mean it.  But I find myself afraid to really connect to others.  And this is what I mean by contradiction.  I want it but I’m afraid of it.  A couple of recent bad experiences (ex-husband aside) have taught me that people will pretend to give a shit because I have something to offer them.  They seemed genuine, and maybe in a moment here and there they were.  But when their needs changed or I put boundaries in place, then my presence in their lives no longer mattered.  This all happened at a point when I was already low, vulnerable, and I wasn’t as strong in myself as I should have been.  So yeah.  Shit hits harder when you’re already down.  And I’m learning from others’ experiences that there are so many people like this.  And so many people like my ex who, years into a relationship when you thought things were going well, or at least not going bad, will become someone else practically overnight and treat you like you’re nobody to them.

So I often ask myself, what’s the point?  I want to connect with others and build relationships.  But people lie and pretend.  I would love to be in a romantic relationship that might actually last because we’re both committed, but I’m afraid.  If there are so many people like my ex who seemed so completely into it and so committed and then just turn heartless overnight, how can I know it’s really worth it?  I don’t ever want to be hurt like this again.  I don’t know that I can stand to be hurt like this again.

Another thing that’s stumped me lately is my feelings about contact and proximity to others.  I’m a pretty physical person, and I was spoiled by the fact that my ex seemed to like hugs, too.  If I needed a hug, or to just be held a while, he was always there.  The adjustment from that to almost nothing kinda sucks.  I enjoy hugs from friends and family, but there’s something about being held by your partner that just can’t be replaced.  I miss it.  And lately I find myself freaked shitless about even being close to people.  I haven’t been physically abused, though I’ve been used.  I find myself panicking lately in completely normal social situations.  I recently found myself sandwiched between some people who apparently don’t have the same reservations I do and I just wanted to escape.  It set the tone for the rest of the day.  I never used to be like this.  I hate it.  So again, something I find myself wanting (closeness – physical or emotional – the platonic kind) freaks me out.  Honestly, I want the “relationship” kind, too, but given the state I’m in I’d probably end up in another mess.  And I should probably learn to be alone.

I don’t understand what’s happened to me.  Given these current reactions to things, and how jumpy I was over normal shit when this all first happened (animals unexpectedly crossing my path, loud noises) a couple people have suggested I have some form of PTSD.  That sounds ridiculous to me, though I suppose I’ve experienced a ridiculous amount of emotional trauma in very short order in just a few months, and a series of other shitty situations since that could also explain some of this.  I don’t know.  I don’t really give a shit what you call it, I just want to figure it out so I can work beyond it.  It’s good to be guarded and have boundaries.  I’m just trying to figure out how not to be an island…after everything, that feels like the safest route right now.

So there are some reflections of shit on my mind lately and some contradictions I’m working through.  This is really not as in-depth as it could be, but that’s alright.  If someone I know actually reads this, please know I’m not trying to be avoidant.  Believe it or not, I want just the opposite.  I’m just a bit afraid to reach out right now.  I’m fried.  I’m afraid.  I’m afraid of trusting the wrong person again.  I’m afraid of what people are capable of doing to other people they claim to care about.  I’m afraid I’ll just come off as a burden, as some kind of fucked up, confused, complicated mess.  I’m afraid people may think I have too much baggage or I’m just not worth the effort.  I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot anymore than I already may have just by being awkward or whatever.  And hell, now that I have all this (and so much more) vulnerable information out there, you never know.  Because people who claim to care use that against you, too.  I’ve experienced that recently…people using your pain to pretend to be empathetic, and bam.  They just wanted something so they played the game.  People can be pretty evil.  So how does one get beyond this?  I don’t know.

For the hell of it I’ll add some tags to this post.  Maybe somebody else will find this and not feel so alone.  Or maybe someone can share their thoughts and try to help it make sense.  I want things to make sense, and maybe that’s part of my problem.  So many things don’t make sense anymore, but I don’t know if it’s possible to find sense in any of it.

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