![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just when you think you might be getting over the emotional hump of the grief cycle where you can start looking forward to recovery... you realize there is a SHIT TON of work left to do and now all this means is you're finally strong enough to even think about DOING it now.
The ex called me from prison yesterday. He burst into tears at the sound of my voice. I couldn't cry until later, when I was driving down the freeway and it all hit me like a brick again.
Technically he's still my husband, have not yet done the paperwork. Need to get on that, but he's a crying ball of remorse and I don't have the heart and furthermore, I don't have the money for filing. And also I haven't been approved for visitation yet at prison so I'm not really sure how to get the paperwork handled with mailing and signing logistics even if I did have the money to file. He won't contest it I know, but it's also going to probably be one of the worst days of his already considerably miserable life and I'm just... dying inside to think of it. My love, my heart, my soulmate, the man I longed for, cried for, bled for, waited for for years, tried so hard to build life with him, nursed him through cancer, carried him on my back, dragged him lifeless through the desert until my knees gave out and I fell on the burning sand, parched with thirst, dying myself... still I would have carried him... The one other human who... I could never imagine my life without, who I was sure I wouldn't survive without.
Now he is gone. Got himself sucked away. And it broke me inside but my body refused to die and my spirit is still trapped in it and I'm so fucking done I just.... wanna go home now, Done.
But Life's sadistic twist is that I'm still trapped here on this planet alive, unless I want to commit suicide (gee thanks, Life, fuck you too), and I still have to face a fucking sunrise every day without him but I can't be a terrible mean bitch to all the innocent people around me because it's not like it's their fault I'm a heartbroken zombie inside. I just have to fake a smile and keep my mask on tight and...smile and nod and... fucking goddammit I'm so weary of this.
And then just when I think maybe I'm doing a little better, maybe I'm starting to recover, maybe there's some shred of something left in me worth regenerating for another chance at this whole "Life" thing- unspeakably- w..i..t..h..out him-- *clamps hand over mouth*
Then. That is when I get the first phone call from him in 3 months. That is when the Universe decides to have him BOOM re-enter my life. And shake me to the core again, all my fragile new foundations rattled like an earthquake.
Weirdly, it is the crush on the new guy- which I thought would be made completely irrelevant in the face of truly remembering my Husband, that is a strangely pumping little vein of a lifeline, keeping me connected to the present, the future, what's happening now, and what could happen, and reasons to face forward, and not spend my life weeping about the past forever.
But I also feel that, at the same time, it tripped a switch in me that made me 'sober up' suddenly about my little euphoria bender these last couple of weeks: I am relying too much on this man to make me happy. I am starting to expect and count on the emotional lift of our brief encounters, our dynamic...a little too much, too soon. This poor guy, hasn't even decided how and when to make his move on filing divorce yet. And after that, he's going to have a long adjustment period of working through pain and grief and broken-life re-construction, same as me. He's at least a year out from where I am now, assuming we process things at a similar emotional rate. And because we have never actually discussed our direct attraction to each other, that's... admittedly, up in the air. He hasn't actually said he wants me at all. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe it's all my own fantasizing in my own mind and just because he's one of those rare individuals who is capable of peeling back some of my masks and layers, I suddenly felt wind on my face in the dark and got a little carried away. And/or Maybe our "thing" is a bit spiritually intense and after divorcing he's gonna want to go sow his oats like me and commitment to anyone is the LAST thing he might fucking want. And nobody understands that better than me.
So. I guess it made me get serious because I realized... this is not a game. This is not... "please feed my sucking black hole of emotional need" time. He is not in a position to give me ANYthing. I just can't ask that of him at all. I need to step the fuck back.
If anything is really going to happen between us, anything that isn't going to end in awkward pain or misery for both of us... We're gonna have to take it really slow and give each other a lot of time and space. Because I, obviously from yesterday's post-phone-call depressive funk that's carrying over into today, am CLEARLY not done healing yet. I've only just barely started to think about *maybe* moving on.
And as for him- his pending divorce will surely take all his time and emotional energy for a while and then I'd need to ascertain if companionship with me is something he even WANTS to pursue- I don't know that for sure, I just feel like he's hinted at it a lot. I am just... admittedly so inexperienced, really, that I may not be able to tell the difference between a man telling me things about himself as just a matter of course, or whether he's actually "flirting". I assume people are telling me the truth probably way more often than I should.
It's not so bad. Oddly one of the first comments he made that started a little fire in my belly for him was him mentioning something about the composer of a a piece of music we were listening to; appreciatively, he murmured, "This guy KNOWS about tension and release..."
It made my breath catch in my throat when he said it- just behind my shoulder, sort of close to my ear because we were watching the same youtube video for the song... his words, "tension and release" ping ponged around in my brain; they're so ...sexual, but not overtly... he was only talking about the music in that moment, I know, but... his reverent appreciation of the concept, though... made my root chakra do little flip-flops, I'm not gonna lie. I suddenly understood that this man might potentially be an amazing lover.
Between that, and the fact that he asked me respectfully if he could call me by my given true name, instead of the nickname that (he doesn't know) my husband originally gave me over a decade ago, and pretty much everyone I know in daily life has called me for years... I told him yes, I basically gave him permission to... speak to the core of me, the part of me unaffected by the world, the name that is older than my last relationship- as old as my life, representing the more innocent parts of my psyche, my real name allows someone to address....my hidden wholeness. That might sound weird but. I hate giving out my real name for that reason. It does give people power over you. I use nicknames for psychological protection and distance. In essence, what he was asking, really, was, "can I have permission to hold you to the truth of yourself, to meet you on equal ground and know you more fully?" I got the feeling when he asked me that, that at somehow subconsciously, that was his understanding/intent.
So it's like... he could already hold me captive with those two simple things:
Calling me by my true name, and applying his... understanding of tension and release to my psyche... and uhm, my body... God, I would just... he could have me hanging by a thread, and all I could do at that point would be to breathe quietly in his grip and wait for him to... take me wherever he wanted, or release me to fly, like a captured bird... I don't think he knows that. And I can't even explain it. *sigh* After all this time bound up, held back, my springs are wound so tight, I'm under so much tension, and all he would have to do to release me... would be to just... turn his key in my lock a little bit... god this tower is so... confining and I've been stuck here for years. YEARS. Immured in stone. Waiting for someone, anyone to let me out. my god. I just...
Ugh. It's not fair of me to ask him to save me. He didn't come here on a rescue mission. He came here for solace of his own.
And I've waited this long, so *shrug* what is waiting a little longer going to hurt?
It's not like I'll be bored in the meantime. My to-do list for rebuilding my own shattered world is long enough already. I should look to myself for a while and let him do the same.
And as for my ex-husband... God. I don't even know. Everytime I think about him I feel crushed. Legally and financially there is nothing I can do for him. Socially and romantically - well, you diddled an underage girl, how the fuck can I cover that with my grace? I can't. Even assuming I said "fuck you world, I'll love a child-molesting criminal if I want to", the very thought of him kissing me, or touching me, or being "mine" anymore is just... slightly repulsive. God I loved him so much and it kills me to say it but goddammit, how can I ever let a man like that touch me as a woman ever again? I just... can't. I can't. So we're done. And I have to move on somehow. I have to- the small amount of disgust for his actions that lies in my greater overall compassion for HIS pain and HIS depression and HIS sexual frustration and all the things I am in a position to intimately know about him that allow me to give him more "slack" than society ever could or will- the small amount of revulsion for his bad choices, his stupid actions- that anger is something I actually need to hold on to, because it's my survival fire. It's the thing that makes it okay for me to face forward without him, and not romantically feel obligated to commit seppuku and die of dishonor by his side. The fact that HE made the choice, HE made the mess, and I was fucking blindsided by it all- I never had a choice or a voice or... anything I could have done, to affect his decision. He took himself out from under my protection. He landed his own ass in prison. He ended "us" once and for all. And now he regrets it so deeply, so mournfully. But it's beyond my power to fix, now. And the Good Lord hasn't seen fit to let me die of this heartbreak, so... I have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and moving on. And eventually that is going to take me on a path away from him, our vectors no longer convergent. And the only way I can think to accept that fate, is to keep a door in my heart open to love, so I don't become a walking ball of bitterness and hate. And in keeping a door open for the possibility of love- things like, Mr. Current Crush are allowed to happen when they happen, as painful and awkward and weird and bittersweet as they are.
Maybe I'll go through several rounds of this "crushing" on different people before I actually allow any of them to manifest further than a daydream. But I have to somehow teach myself to accept feelings of goodness and mercy and love and kindness and connection, I have to find it in myself to resist the brittleness I feel and the bitter, deep wounds that slow me down and make me feel like responding to people with biting sarcasm and cutting remarks. I have to... allow healing to come, if and when it comes. Or I really *will* be committing suicide on my Ex's behalf, and that's just not right or fair. He made those choices, I did not. I'm just left here dealing with the aftermath somehow.
I will still keep him in my earnest prayers. I just... don't know what else to do.
The ex called me from prison yesterday. He burst into tears at the sound of my voice. I couldn't cry until later, when I was driving down the freeway and it all hit me like a brick again.
Technically he's still my husband, have not yet done the paperwork. Need to get on that, but he's a crying ball of remorse and I don't have the heart and furthermore, I don't have the money for filing. And also I haven't been approved for visitation yet at prison so I'm not really sure how to get the paperwork handled with mailing and signing logistics even if I did have the money to file. He won't contest it I know, but it's also going to probably be one of the worst days of his already considerably miserable life and I'm just... dying inside to think of it. My love, my heart, my soulmate, the man I longed for, cried for, bled for, waited for for years, tried so hard to build life with him, nursed him through cancer, carried him on my back, dragged him lifeless through the desert until my knees gave out and I fell on the burning sand, parched with thirst, dying myself... still I would have carried him... The one other human who... I could never imagine my life without, who I was sure I wouldn't survive without.
Now he is gone. Got himself sucked away. And it broke me inside but my body refused to die and my spirit is still trapped in it and I'm so fucking done I just.... wanna go home now, Done.
But Life's sadistic twist is that I'm still trapped here on this planet alive, unless I want to commit suicide (gee thanks, Life, fuck you too), and I still have to face a fucking sunrise every day without him but I can't be a terrible mean bitch to all the innocent people around me because it's not like it's their fault I'm a heartbroken zombie inside. I just have to fake a smile and keep my mask on tight and...smile and nod and... fucking goddammit I'm so weary of this.
And then just when I think maybe I'm doing a little better, maybe I'm starting to recover, maybe there's some shred of something left in me worth regenerating for another chance at this whole "Life" thing- unspeakably- w..i..t..h..out him-- *clamps hand over mouth*
Then. That is when I get the first phone call from him in 3 months. That is when the Universe decides to have him BOOM re-enter my life. And shake me to the core again, all my fragile new foundations rattled like an earthquake.
Weirdly, it is the crush on the new guy- which I thought would be made completely irrelevant in the face of truly remembering my Husband, that is a strangely pumping little vein of a lifeline, keeping me connected to the present, the future, what's happening now, and what could happen, and reasons to face forward, and not spend my life weeping about the past forever.
But I also feel that, at the same time, it tripped a switch in me that made me 'sober up' suddenly about my little euphoria bender these last couple of weeks: I am relying too much on this man to make me happy. I am starting to expect and count on the emotional lift of our brief encounters, our dynamic...a little too much, too soon. This poor guy, hasn't even decided how and when to make his move on filing divorce yet. And after that, he's going to have a long adjustment period of working through pain and grief and broken-life re-construction, same as me. He's at least a year out from where I am now, assuming we process things at a similar emotional rate. And because we have never actually discussed our direct attraction to each other, that's... admittedly, up in the air. He hasn't actually said he wants me at all. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe it's all my own fantasizing in my own mind and just because he's one of those rare individuals who is capable of peeling back some of my masks and layers, I suddenly felt wind on my face in the dark and got a little carried away. And/or Maybe our "thing" is a bit spiritually intense and after divorcing he's gonna want to go sow his oats like me and commitment to anyone is the LAST thing he might fucking want. And nobody understands that better than me.
So. I guess it made me get serious because I realized... this is not a game. This is not... "please feed my sucking black hole of emotional need" time. He is not in a position to give me ANYthing. I just can't ask that of him at all. I need to step the fuck back.
If anything is really going to happen between us, anything that isn't going to end in awkward pain or misery for both of us... We're gonna have to take it really slow and give each other a lot of time and space. Because I, obviously from yesterday's post-phone-call depressive funk that's carrying over into today, am CLEARLY not done healing yet. I've only just barely started to think about *maybe* moving on.
And as for him- his pending divorce will surely take all his time and emotional energy for a while and then I'd need to ascertain if companionship with me is something he even WANTS to pursue- I don't know that for sure, I just feel like he's hinted at it a lot. I am just... admittedly so inexperienced, really, that I may not be able to tell the difference between a man telling me things about himself as just a matter of course, or whether he's actually "flirting". I assume people are telling me the truth probably way more often than I should.
It's not so bad. Oddly one of the first comments he made that started a little fire in my belly for him was him mentioning something about the composer of a a piece of music we were listening to; appreciatively, he murmured, "This guy KNOWS about tension and release..."
It made my breath catch in my throat when he said it- just behind my shoulder, sort of close to my ear because we were watching the same youtube video for the song... his words, "tension and release" ping ponged around in my brain; they're so ...sexual, but not overtly... he was only talking about the music in that moment, I know, but... his reverent appreciation of the concept, though... made my root chakra do little flip-flops, I'm not gonna lie. I suddenly understood that this man might potentially be an amazing lover.
Between that, and the fact that he asked me respectfully if he could call me by my given true name, instead of the nickname that (he doesn't know) my husband originally gave me over a decade ago, and pretty much everyone I know in daily life has called me for years... I told him yes, I basically gave him permission to... speak to the core of me, the part of me unaffected by the world, the name that is older than my last relationship- as old as my life, representing the more innocent parts of my psyche, my real name allows someone to address....my hidden wholeness. That might sound weird but. I hate giving out my real name for that reason. It does give people power over you. I use nicknames for psychological protection and distance. In essence, what he was asking, really, was, "can I have permission to hold you to the truth of yourself, to meet you on equal ground and know you more fully?" I got the feeling when he asked me that, that at somehow subconsciously, that was his understanding/intent.
So it's like... he could already hold me captive with those two simple things:
Calling me by my true name, and applying his... understanding of tension and release to my psyche... and uhm, my body... God, I would just... he could have me hanging by a thread, and all I could do at that point would be to breathe quietly in his grip and wait for him to... take me wherever he wanted, or release me to fly, like a captured bird... I don't think he knows that. And I can't even explain it. *sigh* After all this time bound up, held back, my springs are wound so tight, I'm under so much tension, and all he would have to do to release me... would be to just... turn his key in my lock a little bit... god this tower is so... confining and I've been stuck here for years. YEARS. Immured in stone. Waiting for someone, anyone to let me out. my god. I just...
Ugh. It's not fair of me to ask him to save me. He didn't come here on a rescue mission. He came here for solace of his own.
And I've waited this long, so *shrug* what is waiting a little longer going to hurt?
It's not like I'll be bored in the meantime. My to-do list for rebuilding my own shattered world is long enough already. I should look to myself for a while and let him do the same.
And as for my ex-husband... God. I don't even know. Everytime I think about him I feel crushed. Legally and financially there is nothing I can do for him. Socially and romantically - well, you diddled an underage girl, how the fuck can I cover that with my grace? I can't. Even assuming I said "fuck you world, I'll love a child-molesting criminal if I want to", the very thought of him kissing me, or touching me, or being "mine" anymore is just... slightly repulsive. God I loved him so much and it kills me to say it but goddammit, how can I ever let a man like that touch me as a woman ever again? I just... can't. I can't. So we're done. And I have to move on somehow. I have to- the small amount of disgust for his actions that lies in my greater overall compassion for HIS pain and HIS depression and HIS sexual frustration and all the things I am in a position to intimately know about him that allow me to give him more "slack" than society ever could or will- the small amount of revulsion for his bad choices, his stupid actions- that anger is something I actually need to hold on to, because it's my survival fire. It's the thing that makes it okay for me to face forward without him, and not romantically feel obligated to commit seppuku and die of dishonor by his side. The fact that HE made the choice, HE made the mess, and I was fucking blindsided by it all- I never had a choice or a voice or... anything I could have done, to affect his decision. He took himself out from under my protection. He landed his own ass in prison. He ended "us" once and for all. And now he regrets it so deeply, so mournfully. But it's beyond my power to fix, now. And the Good Lord hasn't seen fit to let me die of this heartbreak, so... I have to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and moving on. And eventually that is going to take me on a path away from him, our vectors no longer convergent. And the only way I can think to accept that fate, is to keep a door in my heart open to love, so I don't become a walking ball of bitterness and hate. And in keeping a door open for the possibility of love- things like, Mr. Current Crush are allowed to happen when they happen, as painful and awkward and weird and bittersweet as they are.
Maybe I'll go through several rounds of this "crushing" on different people before I actually allow any of them to manifest further than a daydream. But I have to somehow teach myself to accept feelings of goodness and mercy and love and kindness and connection, I have to find it in myself to resist the brittleness I feel and the bitter, deep wounds that slow me down and make me feel like responding to people with biting sarcasm and cutting remarks. I have to... allow healing to come, if and when it comes. Or I really *will* be committing suicide on my Ex's behalf, and that's just not right or fair. He made those choices, I did not. I'm just left here dealing with the aftermath somehow.
I will still keep him in my earnest prayers. I just... don't know what else to do.
