*I wrote this ages ago, and the circumstances have utterly and completely changed, but my feelings haven’t. So it goes. Gosh we had fun, though. Totally worth it, and yes, he did transform and, in a way, save my life. That’s an awful lot, isn’t it? #Grateful #Acceptance
I am 56 and this summer I will be 57. I am once again in a relationship (2 years so far) that compromises my integrity and my sense of self, except when I concentrate on gratitude and acceptance, and letting go of expectations. This I must do minute by minute it is such a struggle, many days; he is not like other men, I tell myself, and this is true for he is kind and compassionate and thoughtful. I am not being used, I tell myself; he loves me, and tells me so, yet we have spoken of how we are using one another, in a sense, but that we love one another and will see where this goes, keep our minds open. He has a girlfriend, and while at least she’s not a wife, still, I feel like I’m stuck in the land of nevers, again, doomed to repeat the same old song over and over again until finally I decide not to sing along anymore, not to play.
If things don’t change, if we continue as we are, I am once again never gonna go out on Friday night with the man I love, never gonna spend the night with him, never gonna have a relationship with his kids, never gonna hold his granddaughter close, never gonna be able to introduce him to my brother, or my friends, and never gonna know what it’s like, not having to hide out, to be proudly, openly in love. Does this matter? Does it matter that the last time I had a boyfriend (who was cheating on me as there is always, always another woman, no matter what the details look like from the outside) publicly was in 19–? Oh okay there was that one other guy almost decade ago, but he was cheating on me with the entire phone book, and I was okay/not okay with it – by then committed to accepting compromise, living back in the rural town I’d grown up in and escaped, trying to survive the painful last decade of my parents’ lives. God if you are out there, please let me escape again. Or better yet, perhaps you can help me simply not care anymore. I know that is not an option, and so I struggle, struggle on.
I love this man. His compassion freed me to have compassion for myself for the first time in my life and it transformed me and my life, even, perhaps, saved it; should I now move on, having received that gift? Hey, thanks for saving me, love you, moving on, dude! Struggling today. It’s a choice, right? So hard to love and let go and trust the universe. I know it’s all about the way I think and see it. Our minds making heaven or hell of whatever we are given. I love him and so I chose to see heaven in what we have. God help me, I chose to see heaven.