Interesting Thoughts

[curlygirl47]

Since I am trying hard to distract myself and get through the initial stages of NC, which are unbearable, I am going back to my handy book The Art & Practice of Loving. I hope this helps somebody else today who is hurting.

 

"Loving is not a judgment you pass on the qualities of something, either now or once and for all. Loving is a way you choose to experience something, right now. You can marvel at the beauty and skill of a rattlesnake even as you evade its strike, even as you may feel obliged to kill it."

 

"You can delight in someone or demand that someone conform to your pictures, but not both. By holding on to the pictures you will feel you are right, and people may agree about how right you are. That way you may be able to manipulate people, change them, fight them, gossip about them, make them wrong, and create all kinds of melodramas involving them. But you will not be able to love them, because there is nothing left but the gap between what you demand and how they show up."

 

What I take from these passages are that I can remember what I love about my ex while realizing that he may be a danger to me emotionally even if he doesn't mean to --- even if it is just in his nature to "strike" when he is "threatened" (maybe just by too much intimacy or crowding of his territory).

 

And:

 

That I can't hold on to pictures of how I want my ex to be with me --- and alll the negative activities listed above won't help the situation any, either. I can "delight" in him and yet work on not making that my only source of delight.

[Mstyiyd]

I liked your post and the passage. I was fine yesterday, for myself, and overall I think I was doing better the past couple wks. W/o my ex knowing, I kind of reinitiated NC when this month started bec. I just dont think a friendship could work, as I predicted all along, I still have feelings for her though I havent discussed that w/her, although Im sure she can sense that, and she pretty much just calls when its convenient for her or she needs/wants smthg. I dont want to be the back burner g/f or friend to anyone. I had posted @ a mass text msg she sent me yesterday that i found to be weird but I havent responded to it.

 

Today, though.....I haven't been as upbeat. I know she's found a new or another "bar crowd" or crowd to hang/party with, and she goes out a majority of the nights during the week after work. When I'm done work, if I don't have errands or smthg to do I go home, like most ppl. She still lives w/a relative so I think she likes to stay out bec. she has no home of her own currently to go to, and she has such a big ego Im sure she doesnt want ppl to think she has no life. But it bothers me, how she can just move on to other ppl, or chase other women, or whatever bar ppl do. Here I am at home but I feel like the loser tonite. And I absolutely should not.

This was a person who is not an evil person, but a selfish, self centered one who like curlysue/curlygirl??? (LOL) is not good for me emotionally, either. I really dont think the ppl she hangs with are of much substance; she's in her 40s and likes to hang w/the younger set, to make herself seem hip or cool or whatever.

 

Sorry to ramble. Just liked the passage from above. Feeling a bit down tonite, I hope it passes. And I hope I meet someone cool soon.

[curlygirl47]

on Calgary's thread about Valentine contact, if you want to. I won't go into it again here, but for the record I broke NC within 2 hours of initiating it yesterday. Now, it's a new day, and here we go again, right? I'm glad you like the post. Here are a few more things to think about, from the same book (The Art and Practice of Loving):

 

"You may learn what it is you fear, and find that it is not as bad as you thought to have someone experience you as a human being --- fallible and scared and wanting to love."

 

"When you experience the heartwarmings of love, tell someone about it. Saying it ratifies it for you, keeps you from losing it, warms the lives of those you tell, and makes a world in which love is more valued and supported, and thus more commonly experienced. It takes determination to put messages of love out into a world that is caught up in how bad things are. But you can do it, and over time you are likely to be appreciated for doing it. After all, most people believe in loving; they just want the other fellow to begin first."

 

These are just little pats on the back for wayward me, this morning, who basically shouted my love to the rooftops last night to the ex, but hey I am fallible and scared and wanting to love. So what the hell?