my mother called me a "truly liberated woman" last night.
honey--who is now, for all intents and purposes, an ex--sent me a message asking if i still wanted to go away for memorial day weekend, adding that it didn't have to be "romantic" or anything.
*pause*
months ago, he mentioned that he had a free plane ticket from some work related travel or something, and months ago we were supposed to use it as part of a trip to go somewhere.
clearly, the moment has passed.
i calmly said something to the effect of no, i didn't think that was a good idea and that he should do something nice for himself.
when i told my mother, she said, "you're a truly liberated woman. i'd have said 'come on, let's go'." i'm sure she was at least 60% kidding, but still.
i'm tired.
he wants us to be "cool".
i told him that until i could look at him and NOT see all of the disappointment, loneliness, frustration, emotional fatigue and everything else that led to the end of this relationship, there was no way we could be "cool". i hope that one day we can be, but i'm far too angry for that now.
i think that i've mourned the relationship enough over the years that tears and heartbreak are the least of my worries.
it's the rage.
the sense that i've wasted prime childbearing years and creative energy and spark for something that tried for far too long to resemble a true, adult relationship. i fear becoming cynical, resentful, bitter. afraid of trying again when a true, beneficial opportunity presents itself because, well, they're not all dogs, but all of 'em MIGHT be messed up little boys searching for mothers, a proverbial teat to suck dry, or proud, card-carrying members of the kingdom of n*ggadom...
*end rant*
i'll always love him. i know that. he is, at heart, a good person. i want to like him again, maybe share a friendly dinner or cup of tea. we always got along, and we had fun together. all told, there was genuine love, affection, friendship and lesson-learning in it. i'm trying to stay mindful and grateful of that.
but my deep, gut-feeling womanness has been scorned. not only that, she's lost track of some vital bits and pieces of herself.
the reclamation is what's important now--not reaching out to someone who's already drained me dry repeatedly.
i gotta move on...
8 comments:
go ahead and FEEL your rage...don't worry about being mindful about ANY of his good qualities
for me that was the quickest and easiest way through...i know that this is more than a notion when you're a "nice girl" a "reasonable, well-behaved woman, who was raised right" etc. etc. etc.
the thing is...when you let yourself go through YOUR process...the rage and the disappointment and all of that...
when you come out of the other side of it...you'll be able to have tea with him...and maybe even a hot sammich...
AND...you'll be able to celebrate that relationship without feeling any kind of a way except full of gratitude for that experience.
so go on 'head and rage, girl...call him every 30 minutes and cuss him out about something brand new or something really old if you want to...since he wants to know how y'all can "be cool" tell him that ish is part of your process.
i wrote a letter...to every one of the men who i felt hurt or used me in some kind of a way...and i got every single thing off my chest...and i was snide and bitchy and i let it all hang out...
i cried while i wrote them...and do i STILL love each one of 'em? HELL YEAH!...but i FEEL better about it all now...and really that's the whole point
for YOU to feel better...it's a process...and i find that it's like an onion...when you love someone that relationship goes straight through to the marrow...and i'll heal one level of it...and as i grow...peeling off layers...sometimes i discover a NEW hurt that that old love brought me as i work on healing myself...
and you know what? if you want to...you can call them up 3 years later and say i'm MAD as HELL atchu because when you did the so and so that HURT MY FEELINGS!
i WILL say tho...that usually by then...Osun will have sent you such a fly assed upgrade that you'll be like eh...psssssh it's whateva...i'mma work on my healing and caress on this ole fly man that i got right HERE...
LOL. WORD.
i'm feelin you on all that...please believe that i've written the unsent letters, done the "delayed reaction" cuss outs and all of that.
in truth, i can see now that process you described is what healed my relationship with my soulmate and allowed me to come back around to being loving and intimate and sweet with him. i was able to go above and beyond all that and see that we are two people who love each other, no matter what. the labels don't matter anymore.
as for this thing, i truly have mourned so many little deaths that this final one is just icing. all i did was take it off life support; it was probably brain dead months ago.
under the rage, i feel liberated and celebratory. disappointed, but ready to start over again and renew myself.
I agree with the sister above you. I've been reading this blog a while on and off and I am usually too shy to comment. But today, this hit me because my ex and I have recently patched things up over a long period of bitterness and my own anger.
But while I agree with the sister, what I always remembered my mother telling me through my sobs and tears was that you forgive yourself primarily, the person who you feel angriest at and that you don't pretend as if you didn't have anything to do with the destruction. We all have egos and hearts and we want to protect them first and foremost. My ex wasn't always at fault and I had to make him look bad (to my friends and family anyway) to make myself feel free of the connection to him. Sometimes, I talked so much mess about him behind his back and I look back and think that I should've been woman enough to tell him where I was instead of hoping he'd notice it/me and repair the rifts.
It was mostly unfair to shut him out the few months I did. I dated old flames, slept with some, went out on useless play dates and all the usual things brokenhearts do. I even found the nerve to email/call him once in a while to wish him a happy b-day. He kept saying he wanted to tie the bow on the bag and let it go but I kind of liked the feeling of being mad at him and justifying my actions in light of the loss of us. We finally let the baggage go this year and he's happy and so am I.
I think the last thing I needed to do was date or go backwards but I kept seeing a pattern in me and I sought to change it. Then I finally reached into my damaged little girl and rubbed her head to tell her it'd all be ok. She laughed and cried and cried some more and here she is now. My ex and I haven't patched things as to be a couple again, but we hang out and laugh so much and have a richer understanding.
I guess all I'm saying sister is that rage gets old quick. I hope when I come back you've had let all that go and free yourself. I love your blog so much and if you don't mind, I'm going to share this entry with my ex/friend. He would most likely love it too. Plus he accuses me of being a difficult to understand type of woman haha. Isn't that what they all say unless they've been trained?
God Bless,
Pat
hi pat...i'm glad you finally said hello! no need to be shy on this thing...*smile*.
i feel what you're saying. my rage isn't all-encompassing; it comes in fits and starts, but i recognize its presence. overall, though, i'm really more apathetic. when i ranted and raved at him, i knew i still cared. now, i don't even feel like explaining the simplest things.
one thing i can say for certain is that he wasn't in the dark. we've been having the same conversation(s) for the past couple of years, with either extremely slow or no results, so there was definitely no need for guessing or mind reading. it just...didn't work out.
in a lot of ways, i'm more angry at myself than at him. i could have just bounced when i found out once and for all just how jacked up he was (emotionally speaking), but i wanted to love him and work through it. so i tried until i couldn't try any more.
i do believe that, ultimately, we will come around to some level of friendship. one of the reasons we kept trying in the first place was because we liked each other so much. lol.
hope to hear from you again...
peace
Yeah you aint sayin nothin I don't know about. Todd (my ex/buddy/i dunno) is still a nerve plucker. He saw the blog and said "sound like both of them was dead wrong". He gonna side with a guy because as high as his IQ supposed to be, he swore I was speaking italian while I spoke plain english.
But I looked back and I did kind of expect him to get things on a level I knew he didn't go into much. He was deep but shallow, if you know what I mean. Good at seeing things but only if you say it in a way that makes sense to him. He didn't feel out things when we talk and most men seem to be like that.
Do you think you actually love this guy though? You sound so venomous. How's he taking it? Does he live in your town? I think by looking at it, and I'm an old 34 now, it sounds like me and Todd except I don't think I was spitting mad like this. Well, let me just advise to you that if you gonna be buddies with the guy, don't wait a long time. When you leave the "simple ones", they get petty. If you can salvage something, do it now before it gets hot outside.
I mean Todd and I did the best we could. He's my jerry/elaine with SOME benefits. I can't spoilt the boy. He's a touch too sprung as it is. Well thank you for this convo and I will keep looking you up. Good luck and be good!
Bye,
Pat.
when i wrote this i was, in part, reacting to an email he sent. i didn't think i sounded that venomous, but yes, i let my anger speak in that moment.
i simply refuse to have the same conversation with him AGAIN. he'll have to work that through someplace else. i made it clear long ago that i was not his therapist.
and yes, i love him.
what our "relationship" really wound up being was an elaborate friendship. even though we were together for several years, there was no real blending of lives or solid commitment made, despite repeated and varied attempts to let him know where i was with things, what i needed, and trying as much as possible to include him in my life and my plans.
in the end, i realize that he did what he knew how to do, what he was taught. it wasn't enough. sometimes that's how it goes...
if we are meant to be friends, we will be, but it's not essential. this could be the end of our line. and that'd be fine, too.
i feel you on "deep but shallow". similar thing going on here. but i think that we as women really need to start questioning the paradigms and structures that allow men to reach "adulthood" without understanding wtf is going on in their hearts and minds. it wreaks far too much havoc on themselves, us, and their children when they try to play house before they can allow themselves a good cry.
peace
I don't even know if I can even follow you on this one, but only because I took time to find a teeny bit of patience that was left in me, even with how mad I was. But to go from saying maybe to being friends to saying it's not essential is a flip flop and makes me think you may have a small bit of hope or just a level of being mad that won't die in you. Hey, I don't know you from Adam so I can't say what's up totally.
But I think, if I see it the way I know it, he probably was doing all hhe could and was just holding back becase like you kinda said....how many black men (I'm guessing he's black) have been given a chance to feel any emotion much less cry? They do not have the gifts we do and if they do, best believe they got some issues too. But I don't know, I think the whole whateva thing isn't healthy. I'm all about making that peace and having a little bit of a happy ending.
Todd said to me once that its not that I don't love you but it's tough to love someone when you don't know how to make them happy or what you do know how to do don't seem like enough. It defeats a man that loves you when he can't go into those places and save what he's losing. I bet this guy is miserable and sadly, you don't probably care because you've made up in your mind his worthlessness. I think all of yall will be cool tho.
I love this convo and it made me see it was worth being Todd's friend even in spite of my being so damned mad at him.
Be good,
Pat
it's all good...
if this sheds some light on your situation, i'm grateful. that's part of the reason i share thoughts/feelings here in the first place.
the light's been shed on mine.
there's patience, and there's knowing when something's over and it's time to move on.
and, of course, the whole story isn't (and won't be) played out on this blog. there were other situations and issues that are not posted here, so don't presume too much.
worthless? nah. you must have missed that 4th paragraph from the bottom. *smile*. again, he's a good person, and i'm sure that, ultimately, he'll be a wonderful partner for the right woman.
...but in this place & time? that woman ain't me.
peace
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