I know I have said this before...
But things with the guy and I are over. It was a hard morning Sunday, a long time coming, for sure, but it all started and I guess ended with elephants.
Our relationship began with a lot of things neither one of us was willing to talk about...and it ended the same way. And as usual in a break up, we had two very large differences of opinion: he saw no elephants and elephants are all I saw. I saw and see them everywhere. All the small and large ways this relationship, though the love was deep and real and ever blossoming, was never going to go the distance.
We both need work. We both have some issues to confront and deal with. And his are not my concern. And I see now, that at least partially, I have remained with him as long as I have because I like to hide mired in his stuff. It is way easier to be swamped and adrift in him than it is to deal with me. And I can see that I have been doing that forever.
So Sunday when I finally found some willingness to discuss the multiple, very large elephants in the room with us, it resulted in the ending of us. And I was and still am a mess. I know this is the right thing for many reasons but it is horrifically painful which is why I have avoided mentioning the elephants all this time.
I am not sure why elephants are so hard to talk about. Most likely, at least in this case, the elephants are covering over all the things that each person is too afraid to say. And once they are no longer being avoided, there are some very large truths that must be reconciled. And that is the whole reason you allow this burgeoning and ever growing elephant to remain, because you know on some level that any address of it, harkens the ending or at the very least throws things into complete chaos.
And who wants that? Not me. Not ever.
But we got through things Sunday. For me with a lot of tears and sobbing and spontaneous crying binges. It is hard to let go. It is hard to say goodbye. It is hard to allow something that can’t ever be what you want it to be to finally just be over.
I wish I was mad at him. I wish I could point fingers and rail about his inadequacies. But there aren’t any. He is a wonderful man that needs time to get his life going again. And I am the kind of woman who must insist that I not interfere with that. Turns out, I have my own growth to attend to and I can’t and will not do that, if I am forever at his side, attending to his.
Last week I started an 8 week intensive outpatient program for codependency. I didn’t WANT to do this. But I needed to. All the 12 step stuff I have learned in three different programs was not cutting it. Individual therapy weekly wasn’t getting me there either. I needed to do something else and going away for some sort of inpatient treatment was not in the budget or the timing. So this was the next best thing.
The first week was a mixed bag. I will delve into that in another blog at a later time...but mostly I am grateful for a place where I can name, come to understand and perhaps release all my own elephants I have refused to acknowledge or deal with. My codependency with people who do not treat me very well matched up with that causing me to double down and commit more and harder and longer, makes my own engagement with my life harder, more painful and very isolated.
So I guess now begins a time when I learn to not allow the elephants to take up residence in the middle of the room and then plot courses around them. I see them, they are every fucking where. Some are mine completely, others belong to well others, and then there are those to whom I am still barely aware exist.
I am not worrying about the ones I cannot see just yet. They will materialize, I am sure of it. And as it stands, there are plenty of ones I can see that I need to address currently. So like everything else in my life I have learned thus far, I am just going to start with what is right in front of me and then move on from there.
I slept well Sunday night despite my heightened emotional state. I was tired yesterday but I got up and checked off the boxes. And I know that even today as I write this and feel so distraught and heavy hearted that this too shall come to pass away with time. And healing will happen, is happening. My job is to attend to all the elephants who are currently residing in my home. I guess I just enrolled in some sort of elephant relocation program...but first, I have to come to know each elephant well so that I may find a suitable placement for it...
A tiny California bungalow is no place for elephants...any one can tell you that. I am not sure why I thought differently, but now I see how much space they take up whether I am willing to talk about them or not. Now I know.
Again...still.
Fuck.
Commenti