heal my heart

I just deleted all the emails….10 years worth of conversation and love and arguments, gone. I have a file cabinet full of old letters and cards and printed emails, but I’m not up to going through those yet. I’ve deleted him from all friend lists, all address books. It’s the hardest thing I think I’ve ever done. I feel like something inside me is dying.

or five hours later and I’m not as good.

The ex and I have been trying to be friends, which may be ignorance on both our parts. We spent the day together yesterday and he spent the evening doing what he could to try and get me to kiss him or make some sort of move (I didn’t, but I guess in his mind if I make the move then he’s not guilty of anything in spite of the fact that he’s the one with the GF) He played with my hair, kept his arm around me, told me he loved me. It was nice. It was stupid.

Today he “warned” me that his GF will be coming up this week. I have no doubt whatsoever that he was hoping to sleep with me yesterday and that’s why he waited so long to tell me she’s coming. He also had said that he would come and help at the company picnic again this year (it’s kind of a tradition) and has now backed out because he “might” be visiting his brother that weekend. It hurt. And then I felt stupid for putting myself in a position to let him hurt me again.

This week is also the anniversary of some ugly stuff that I’ve not forgiven myself for. Nothing I want to talk about publicly, but it also had to do with this ex and it was and remains extremely painful. Another ex also chose this week to contact me and let me know that he has broken up with his gf. This ex is an alcoholic who is extremely bad for me.

Emotionally, I’m toast right now. Done. I just feel exhausted. How am I going to heal my heart if I keep stupidly walking into knives?

I’m going to spend tonight writing and grieving and trying to treat myself gently. Hopefully next week things will feel better.

I’m definitely feeling better. It’s taking time, but I’m getting there. Still writing a lot and doing other things to help myself process and to see things as they really are instead of how I’d hoped they would be. This is a trick most of us never really learn. It’s amazing how hard it is to look at things as they really are, while trying to be aware of our own prejudices, wants and needs. Our histories and our desires color how we see things. Being aware of that helps take some of the filters away. It’s not easy, but I’m working on it.

As always, I’m a work in progress.

I’ve found that I process things differently than a lot of people. When I’m going through something emotionally painful, I need to talk about it and write about it. I don’t need advice. I just need to let it all out. Through words, whether spoken or written, I get to the core of what I’m really feeling and what I want. Maybe this comes from growing up keeping completely silent. I never ever talked about my life or my emotions when I was a kid…hell even when I was in the first stages of adulthood. I was terrified people would learn about the ugly secret of my homelife. Once I started talking, I found it helped clear up the depression and the awful feelings. It was like airing out 21 years of rotting mess from my insides (a little vivid perhaps, but that’s how it felt). Now I make it a point to talk things out or write things out. It’s amazing how many people view this as completely strange. We’re fairly closed off as a society. We can watch the personal lives of total strangers unfold on reality TV but we can’t tell one another what we’re really feeling or what our fears are. Sad.

Anyway, I’m still talking and writing and it’s helping me to process everything. I still have a way to go, but I’m getting there.

This weekend, during the last half of our meditation session there was a reading on fear and touching one’s fear and embracing it. So I tried to dig deep and see what fears were lurking in my chest. I started to cry. Thankfully everyone had their eyes closed so it went unnoticed. I found that the fear that was right at the core of me, is one I thought I had banished a long time ago. It’s the horrible, secret fear that I am somehow defective and unlovable; that no one will ever truly love me. It’s a completely illogical fear, but most fears are. In any case, now that I know it’s still lurking I’ll have to find a way to deal with it. Sometimes when you try to heal your heart from a recent hurt, you find you’re really healing it from hurts left over from years and years before. Hopefully continued meditation will help.

Rather than sit around getting depressed and eating my way through ice cream and brownies until I thoroughly despise myself, I’ve decided I’m going to take a different route.

First, I have to sign up for a class within the next four weeks. I’ve been talking about it and promising myself I’d do it for the past three years. The time is now. It will either be dance, martial arts or rock climbing (which would be more of a membership than a class)

Second, I will consume only healthy and uplifting things until I feel better. Funny/happy/uplifting books, movies, music, podcasts, etc.

I will walk in my neighborhood at least 3 evenings a week. This helps in several ways: walking makes me feel better, getting out of the house makes me feel better, actually meeting my neighbors will probably make me feel better.

I will attend the free yoga class every Monday and will attend meditation at the dharma center every Sunday.

Take that, heartache.

P.S. recommendations for good books, movies, etc to consume are definitely welcome

I’m writing down all my dreams of things I imagined we’d do together and of the ways I thought things would work out. Writing them down is painful but it feels like drawing poison out of a wound. I’m folding each one up and placing it in a box. Come fall, when all the fire pits get going again, I’ll take them down and let them go.

My heart has been pretty well battered over the years. Part of this comes from my attraction to emotionally unavailable people and part of it comes from my blind and stupidly stubborn refusal to accept reality. I date someone who clearly is not what I need and cannot offer me what I need, but I convince myself that eventually he can/will. I convince myself that if I am somehow “enough” they, too, will strive to be “enough” for me, to be what I want and need them to be. It’s a sick and pointless cycle. Sometimes I realize I’m doing it even when I’m in the midst of it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to stop.

The next person I date is probably going to have a rough time of it, because I am going to have to take everything at exactly face value. You are what you appear, nothing more nothing less. You are not your words or your feelings, you are your actions. I told the last person I dated this over and over again but it never really seemed to sink in. Love is not just a word. Love is a verb. It’s a way of being. It’s what you do.

I’m not willing to settle for adjectives and adverbs any more. I want verbs. I want action.

Today I bought myself flowers. Sometimes we forget that we don’t have to wait for someone else to buy them for us. I’ve had a crappy month and having something bright and cheerful at home helps. It’s amazing how often we forget to be kind to ourselves. I’m working on it.

Whenever I sense heartache coming I seem to run right at it. Sometimes when it moves away I seem to chase it down. I wonder why that is. It must be the all or nothing thing again. I really need to learn to let go.

I’ve never been one to give up (or give in) easily. I’m a hopelessly romantic idealist trapped in the body of a cynical realist. You don’t want to hear the arguments in my head, trust me.

In any case, I’ve had an off again, on again relationship with someone for about a decade now. At a distance, through phone calls and letters he was a completely different person than he was in person. It has taken me this long to accept the fact that who he is in person is the real him. I always wanted to believe the other was the reality and that if I stuck it out long enough, hoped hard enough, that real him would come through. No such luck.

It wasn’t a pretty ending. A part of me would like to write a long diatribe to him about all the ways he let me down, but really there’s no point. When things are over, I guess it’s best to just let it go and move on.

One of these days I’ll meet someone who is my match in intellect, in spirit, and in body. Until then I’ll just be living life the best I can on my own.