Genuine

Welp I should definitely be sleeping already, I have to get up early to do work stuff I should have done this weekend and just didn't... I honestly thought I'd have a chance to work for a few hours tonight but I got completely sidetracked by my family. My youngest brother just tested positive. I haven't had any direct experience with COVID, just distant stories of people that someone I kinda know, knows.  My dad visited with him and my other brother on Wednesday and I saw my dad for the first time since February on Friday with my sister. At the moment, my brother thinks he was exposed after his visit with my dad, but it's hard to know, so now I'm in this weird headspace of did he give it to my dad, and have I possibly caught from my dad?? I had to come to PA for a bunch of obligations and my twin is freaking out. I've been secluded to the spare room and the basement. Based on when others have been able to make appointments, I should know rather definitively if I've been exposed by Thursday. It's definitely nerve wracking all around, wondering about how serious do I need to be about isolating and how sick will my brother get.

I think I'm here because my brain is going a mile a minute and I know I need to just get some of it out if I have any hope of getting to sleep soon. I know there's really not much I can actually do to change the situation but that acknowledgement doesn't seem to help me relax about it. Additionally I have my second session with my new counselor after work tomorrow. She's not a licensed therapist, but has other certificates and I just have a good vibe about her and the first session went well so I'm leaning into it. Our focus is healing the trauma and the pain from the off again on again mess with the man. It had been a long time since I had told the whole story especially the beginning, and how it had felt to fall for him. Most of the time now that I ever acknowledge it is in a super truncated way with romantic prospects when I explain part of why I've been single for six years. Since the first session I've been doing a lot of thinking about what is my goal, what do I want for myself in more concrete terms than just the vague "I want to be healed". I don't write in the blog dedicated to the things I wish I could say to him nearly as much as I once did and the urge has most definitely decreased in a significant way. I know that's progress for sure but in the last entry which was a little over a week ago I said that I just don't want to feel the sadness anymore and I think I need to expand on that idea more and what that means. Like if I were to ever see him again, what would be the ideal outcome of that interaction? What kind of a woman do I want to be?  I will never be able to control or anticipate his choices and actions, but I can 100% control my own. So maybe if I think about how I would like that to go down, I can more accurately identify the place I want to reach, to be able to handle that interaction the way I want to. 

There definitely have been times where I've thought of that chance, and there are moments where I want to treat him like he's nothing, the nothing he makes me feel like... others I just want him to regret his choice.  Mostly though, the idea that he could possibly interact with me like we are friends would piss me off, and I envision myself rebuking and saying something like, we are not friends, please don't put on a show like we are, which most likely would cause a little bit of a scene because the only time we'd ever run into each other again would be at a social networking type deal for my profession amongst other former colleagues. I think that reaction is very much tied into the anger I still have that he chose to no longer acknowledge my existence and the idea he would be so casual feels insulting. But that reaction would just reinforce this idea that I cause drama and I make his life harder and I'm so fucking done with that narrative especially because in all actuality that man is the one who has repeatedly chosen to re-enter my life when his life was chaos and brought his drama into mine knowing full well I loved him too much to say no. Instead I want the interaction to reflect my truth, and no matter all the pain and the hurt and my bruised ego, all of me knows my truth is that I love this man, more than I've ever loved anyone and I wanted to share my life with him more than I have ever wanted anything. I never got to a place where I believed him not to be the kind of partner that I have been holding out for, and even though he never fully chose me back in subsequent rounds, I never forgot how it felt in the beginning, and was so convinced that once he put the work in to reclaim his life, we could have that level of connection back. I would catch glimpses of it across the years, in these moments where it seemed he got out of his head enough and all the things he felt were what was expected of him, and was just there with me. It just continued to fuel my hope and belief that we were perfect for each other and it was so worth muddling through the mayhem of the circumstances. By the end of the 4th round my belief about what we could have together hadn't changed at all, but I no longer felt the we of it, I felt so fucking alone, more alone than just being on my own, and it felt clear that whatever he had to go through, I couldn't be a part of it. I want a life partner and he wasn't even open to the idea of us ever trying again and I just couldn't continue breaking my own heart. 

I think what I want is to be able to act in a way the aligns with my true feelings which are I love him, and I always will, and I just want him to be happy, even if I'm not a part of it. You don't have to be with someone or have a future with them to feel that and want that. When he thinks about me, I want him to just always know that's a person that loves me and wants what is best for me. So if that's what I want, I need to get to a place where if I ever see him again I can warmly greet him the same way I greet all the people in my life that I love but still respect the boundary that he is married. There's definitely a lot of hurt to let go of, but I really do think I could get there and I mean genuinely be in that place. I don't want to fake being nice and cordial, I want to be genuinely happy to see the face of someone I love and care about and authentically wish them well on their life endeavors. 

Cataclysmic

For a short time, this day was my wedding anniversary, now it is lovingly dubbed Liz Independence Day thanks to my sister. Typically she and I will make a weekend out of it, but it's a Monday this year and I have a board meeting tonight... I'd say I celebrated my independence by taking myself out on a date this Saturday. Was up relatively early for a weekend, I've been doing that lately, going to bed closer to my weekday bedtime has been a good move. Headed down to Canton and checked out the waterfront park and read for a bit, then got myself some ice cream from Coldstone for the first time in forever, hit up the grocery store so I could make some homemade pesto and made myself a little pizza and watched the latest episode of The Boys. That show is super enjoyable, so gloriously graphic and irreverent. 

After being there for a bit looking around I looked up and realized I was reading in front of Pier 16, one of my favorite numbers, and it just felt like a little nod from the universe that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. It was genuinely such a nice day in the sun and exciting to wear my jean jacket for the first time in a while.

I got some new sunglasses. I had attempted for them to be my first ever prescription sunglasses but Lenscrafters called to inform me that I'm so fucking blind that the lens were too fat to fit in these Ray Bans. I liked them too much not to still buy them, but their computer system was down and the lady felt bad for me and said she was going to work some magic and said I didn't have to pay for them! I'm pretty she sure made a mistake with that because I picked out other frames for the prescription sunglasses but as of now I got killer shades for free. 

Almost finished reading Ibram X. Kendi's book about how to be an Antiracist that I've been in a book club with some board members. It's been eye opening for sure and I'm really glad we were all willing to read it with such intentionality and discuss its impact and our lived experiences with each other.

Ya'll oreo cookies mashed in their creamy mint is *chef's kiss*

The first flowers I bought in MD stayed in my office, these I bought on impulse at the grocery store because it was all my favorite fall colors!

Homemade pesto with onions, peppers, and mushrooms.

The lighting in my bathroom made the purple REALLY stand out. I'm thoroughly enjoying it, but I definitely have a bit of a mullet going on. I can't wait to shave off the one side and the underneath.

Lady says cheers!

I'm genuinely really happy with my life, but it's definitely wild to acknowledge that had I chosen to stay, I would be celebrating 8 years of marriage and most definitely would be a mother by now. When there's so much of me that genuinely wants to have a life partner and to be a mom, I thought I'd be more bummed today but I'm not at all, it's just another day. I got back on that dating horse and reactivated my profiles and the first week there was a lot of matches, a handful of people I've chatted with, had three dates set up and everyone bailed for one reason or another. I'm not putting a whole lot of effort into it, there's one person that seems promising but I'm really trying to be conscious this time about not allowing myself to get attached to the potential I see versus staying grounded in the reality of the current circumstances. 

Apricot called me Saturday and we talked for an hour while I was putting groceries away and then making myself dinner. It was really nice to catch up, we have had these catch up chats like every 6 months or so since I left Pittsburgh. I'm really happy that we're in that similar place I've reached with my first love, where it's known that we're rooting for each other's happiness and that contact is welcomed and will be warmly received. It's been a very long time since I've felt loved and appreciated in a romantic context so his kind words about my positive impact on his life and the lessons he learned was genuinely very uplifting to hear. He was telling me about the woman he had been seeing for much of the last year and how similar some of their trajectory was to ours, again he has found himself involved with someone who isn't actually emotionally available, but it seems there's a higher chance that they could eventually make something work.

It prompted me to acknowledge that I too seem to have this tendency to attract people who can't actually choose me back and that in these situations we tell ourselves if I love them enough, if I'm patient enough, understanding enough, they will see this and be grateful and love me back. However the fatal flaw with that line of thought is believing that love has to be earned, when in reality love is deserved in all of our variations and if you're in something where it feels like you have to earn their love, you gotta nope the fuck out. After I said it to him, I knew I was saying something that I also needed to hear and be reminded of... it was definitely a very therapeutic conversation, especially to hear a voice so familiar and that I associate with being cared for. 

This past week was not great for Buddah though, and I honestly am not sure about the future of her current relationship and I realized I could not really offer unbiased advice, the situation is too much like my marriage. I ended up telling her to reach out to the man, that he'd be able to give the perspective of deciding to stay and work through things when they're really bad. She acknowledged that she hadn't even thought of that but agreed it was probably worth doing. I'm so curious though now to know what his advice would be, I think perhaps there are still parts of me looking for confirmation he's truly happy and hasn't just settled. Hard to know the truth, so  I'm just trying to focus more on the fact that his life is none of my business and no matter the past and all our history, now is all that counts, and right now, we're strangers. 

I still have the desire to know him though and I'm really not sure if that feeling will ever really go away, but as it stands now, there is no longer a part of me that wants to reach out. There's nothing left to say at this point, honestly a weird fucking feeling for me, but it's true. The only thing I can do now is to love from afar and respect that he has chosen a life without me. I have to stop reinforcing my internal narrative that he is the love of my life, and acknowledge he was a cataclysmic love that changed me to my core and opened my eyes to what unconditional love really means. I have been so afraid that I was doomed to feel a little bit empty for the rest of my days because no one else would ever be him completely ignoring the fact that I am still me. I acknowledged it once before, that this loving heart of mine that knows how to love that deeply still knows how to do that, but I think so much of me was still convinced I would never feel as understood as I always did by him. A phrase that I've used before is to feel understood is to not feel so alone and in repairing my relationship with my twin, and focusing on the relationship I have with myself, I don't feel the same kind of loneliness I once did. I have a sense that a partner is still a while off for me and while I absolutely miss companionship, I think being too eager for it is what led to the recent heartbreak from this summer and being triggered back to all the times I lost the man. 

I'm officially open to the idea of meeting someone, but finally it no longer feels like my primary focus and that feels like a really great fucking headspace to be in.