The New Year

I was unsure if I would ever revisit this blog again. The intention behind the blog was to communicate with someone I loved when we were not communicating. When we were no contact. To maintain the integrity of the boundaries that had been requested. Now, I honestly need to get some thoughts out and I don’t know where else to put these thoughts. My therapist is on vacation and I have realized over the last few weeks how very little in the way of support I have. Something I intend to work on.

I was never a writer. I have never been the journaler, the morning pages kind of gal. I guess I never had to be before. I spent so much of my life avoiding myself and my demons that I didn’t recognize how very much I needed to explore all avenues leading to my happiness. Now, perhaps I will resume writing but not to communicate with her but to communicate with myself. I deserve to love myself, to treat myself with tenderness, and with lots of compassion.

I feel very lonely lately. The last four weeks have been so challenging with my family. My parents nearly killed themselves with Covid. Both on their death bed, and neither have learned humility. I feel so very detached from them. I can accept that they did the best that they could when I was a child and because of their own refusal to face their own maladaptive patterns nothing could move. They almost died and they have not learned a thing. Still entitled, living above their means, and focused on the optics rather than the fact that they are still breathing. I learned a valuable lesson these last four weeks. Optics mean nothing when you aren’t happy. When your happiness centers around how you look to others, how can you actually be happy.

I am not happy right now, in fact, I am the saddest I have been in a long time. The last two weeks have been emotionally destructive and the more and more that I think about them the more I realize how dug in I was to not accept what was happening around me. I had this plan, this plan to move my life forward with the person I loved. I had committed to myself that I wouldn’t go into another holiday longing for my love when my love was right there. My lack of communication and transparency landed me in the opposite outcome. The outcome catastrophic, and the result complete heart break.

There was no gesture, no email, no apology that could change what happened the last two weeks. The facts were that I had waited too long to commit. I waited until there was nothing left. She was indifferent to me. It’s always interesting to me how when you replay things in your mind after the fact that you start to see the details you were so blind to see. Everything I needed was in our last conversation. An over three-hour conversation that ended with the unlikely question of “Do you hate me?” I had no idea what that meant in the moment. None at all. I was so caught up in my own emotions, my own need that I didn’t hear what was actually being shared with those four words. It was over. It had been over, she moved on. I just didn’t want to accept that.

I didn’t hear it and so I proceeded forward, with my own agenda. I planned for a birthday that I would never be a part of. I selected things I thought she would like, regardless of what she had said because I believed that she should be celebrated at all costs. She deserves to know how much she is loved. Was that really all reduced for my need? A violation of her boundary? Either way, the result was opposite of what I had hoped. Her birthday came and went, emails left unresponded too, calls unanswered, two years’ worth of Christmas presents unopened, and even then, I didn’t get it. I get it now. It took Christmas Day for it to click. The false hope, this idea of a Christmas miracle was over. And on December 26th, 2021, I knew that it was done and that I needed to stop behaving as if I was going to be invited to a birthday or that she would come have a meal with me on Christmas Day to open gifts she didn’t ask for, in fact that resulted in a direct violation of her boundary. My love is no longer my love and hasn’t been for a long time, I didn’t want to hear that. She had been telling me for so long and I didn’t want to hear her. I thought that NOW that I was ready that it should all fall into place. Does that make me entitled, by definition yes, yes it does. The fact of the matter is that she spent two years waiting for me and I showed up too late. That’s on me, not her. It’s been on me this entire time.

I was wrong about us. I had been thinking about our future as if it was one single decision. She chose me and I chose her. There was a lot of pressure put on the outcome. I was so wrong. Our relationship wasn’t about one huge decision it was about 100 little ones. Going into life together isn’t about jumping off a cliff, it’s about climbing up one. It’s about having faith that your partner is going to choose you every one of those little times. I wanted her to keep having faith in me. It took me so long to acknowledge that I worried that I only operate in crisis mode. I wanted it to stop and for it to be uncomplicated with her. All I did was complicate it further. Love is collaborative, it’s two people working together to make their relationship work.

I used to be like most of the U.S. population believing that the new year marked the beginning of something. That you could set a resolution and that somehow that would change anything that happened prior to January 1st. My stress and my sadness today will be no different when I wake up tomorrow. My dad will be no stronger, my parents will still be entitled assholes and I will have lost another relationship. The new year is a strong reminder that this year will be very different than what I had imagined it to be. Maybe that is how it should be.

I still have so much work to do before I conquer love. I thought that I had figured it out or at least was on the way towards it. I now know, I was nowhere near it. I learned that love is about actions and very little to do with words you may utter to someone who you feel love for. That goes both ways though.

I will be sending this upcoming year reading, focusing on my career, spending time with my kids and exploring the world. I want to check out local book shops, mom and pop coffee shops, and learn a new skill. I want to experience life. I have been surviving my entire life and while right now I feel like I am fighting for my life, when this pain subsides, it will all be ok. Life is a series of events and memories. The memories are what keep me going. They are also what makes this so painful. The days of this blog and I are likely over. If I resume my writing it will be to chronicle my adventures so until then, happy New Year.