a few years back, a relationship that i thought was The One (you know, that one where you have all the good things of every relationship you've ever been in but x10 and plus some other stuff that you didn't even know was possible) ended in anger hurt and distrust. and so it was over. taught me that you never really stop loving someone - you just bottle it up and put it on a back shelf to take out and examine from time to time, maybe pulling out the stopper to allow yourself a whiff of what was.
we probably unwisely tried to decant that bottle a bit at burning man this year. but he remains convinced that it wouldn't work, so therefore it
won't. he doesn't believe i'm worth trusting or that i've changed. and maybe he's right. and i've heard all the stuff about how if he's not making me feel good about myself then i need to cut him out of my mind if not out of my life. but what i wonder is now that i'm stuck with a bottle that won't close back up, a basket of newly minted memories and realizations about how futile it has been in the intervening years to try to settle into relationships that only have a few of those good things and some freshly opened scar tissue....well, now what do i do with all of that?
we probably unwisely tried to decant that bottle a bit at burning man this year. but he remains convinced that it wouldn't work, so therefore it
won't. he doesn't believe i'm worth trusting or that i've changed. and maybe he's right. and i've heard all the stuff about how if he's not making me feel good about myself then i need to cut him out of my mind if not out of my life. but what i wonder is now that i'm stuck with a bottle that won't close back up, a basket of newly minted memories and realizations about how futile it has been in the intervening years to try to settle into relationships that only have a few of those good things and some freshly opened scar tissue....well, now what do i do with all of that?
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Portland
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Re: advice or maybe just a hidden place to vent....
Sun, September 16, 2007 - 11:11 PMwhat do you do with all of that stuff ....
well, k8, if you are lucky and can find the strength within yourself you'll find a way to make use of all that stuff.
i don't say that at all lightly; i know too well what you described and 10+ years later very rarely but on occasion get a strong whif of what was :-)
it wasn't through force of will that i traversed this one; god knows i tried. that only made things worse.
and it wasn't through resisting my feelings or what i knew was in my heart; that also made matters worse.
mostly i just sat with it - felt it - acknowledged it - over and over and over again until i really came to know every nook and cranny of it in my heart. and that was really something to behold because while a lot of my time was spent thinking about and experiencing my love for this person that i thought was the one and still is in a sense - i did so from the context and map of my *own* heart. in doing so, i eventually felt a sense not so much of triumph but of ownership of my capacity to love. once i reached that place whether he loved me back in the same way or wanted to be with me didn't matter the way it did in the past.
this also opened up the possibility for me to love someone else without comparison or that nagging sense of 'not enough'.
a friend of mine once said - 'there's a million kind of loves' - and as much as i didn't want to hear that at the time because i'd found my *one* my friend was right.
i hope that helps .... i know it's not easy. i think in the end - we are all our own *one* and occasionally we bump into others as they are being their own *one* and that creates some truly magnificent stuff. but don't let that kill you - you have everything you need right there in your own heart!
lots of love-
stacia
xoxox
