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I corrected the commenting issue. I can now accept comments. Oops. Sorry!

What would you do?

If all of a sudden one day you woke up in the morning and…

you didn’t have kids.

you didn’t have a husband or a boyfriend. 

you didn’t have a dog, a cat.

you didn’t have a house, a home.

you didn’t have a job.

you didn’t have school.

What would you do?  To earn money?  To pay the bills?  For fun?  For love?  Where would you live?  Who would you choose to spend your time with?    

If you suddenly had no more routines, no rituals.  Your life was a blank page.  And you were just picking up the pen to start over.  Regrouping.  Reorganizing.  Recreating your life.  

What would you do?  Seriously.  Tell me how you would choose to spend your time.  And I will soon tell you how I have been spending mine.

I was attached; hopelessly and agonizingly entangled with him and his behaviors and his life, his life outside of me.  I was excessively worried about and preoccupied with him and his behaviors…emotionally dependent on him.  I focused all my energy on him and his/our problems that I had nothing left for living my own life.  

Worrying is wasted energy - it does not help him or me or solve any problem.  By becoming so attached to him, I became detached from myself - I lost control.  My obsession with him and our relationship controlled me.  I felt so much anxiety in worrying that I physically became sick. Anxiety paralyzed me.  Constantly worrying about and reacting to him.  I held on so tightly to him that I was afraid to loosen the rope.  He felt the rope getting tighter and tighter; he willingly cut it before it broke apart.  

I need to disengage myself from unhealthy entanglements with another person’s life and responsibilities, and from problems that I cannot solve.  I am responsible for myself; I cannot solve problems that aren’t mine and worrying does not help.  Everyone is responsible for themselves alone and we cannot solve problems that aren’t ours to solve.  Allow people to be who they are - to have the freedom to be responsible and grow.  Focus on what is good in my life and feel grateful for that.  Live in the here and now.  Allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it.  Make the most of each day with no fears about the future.  Accept reality - learn to enjoy life in spite of any unsolved problems.  

Detach in love or detach in anger.  Don’t react to other people’s feelings, behaviors, problems, and thoughts and to what people might be doing, thinking, or feeling.  Do not react with fear and anxiety.  Don’t take things so seriously - lighten up.  Give myself and others room to move, to talk, to be who they are - to be human.  Give life a chance to happen.  Give myself an opportunity to enjoy it.  

Each person is responsible for his or her own behavior.  Even if the most important person in my world rejects me, I am still real, I am still okay.  Don’t give so much power to other people’s rejection of me.  Don’t take things so personally.  When people do what they are compelled to do, they are not saying they don’t love me, they are saying they don’t love themselves.  If someone doesn’t want to be with me or act healthy, it is not a reflection of my own self-worth.  It reflects on their present circumstances.  

Instead of reacting, I will not lose my peace and serenity, I will not waste my moments.  I am not responsible for making other people “see the light” and I do not need to “get them straight”.  I am only responsible for helping myself see the light and for setting myself straight.  Clutching tightly to a person or forcing my will on someone, blocks other people’s ability to grow, stops events from happening naturally, and it prevents me from enjoying people or events.  We cannot change people; they will change only when they are ready to change.  People will either resist our efforts or double their efforts to prove we can’t control them.  People will punish us for making them do something they don’t want to do; or be something they do not want to be.  The only person I can ever change, and it is my business to control is myself.  

On giving, loving, caring and helping - It’s good to give some away, but I don’t have to give it all away.  It’s okay to keep some for myself.  

I shouldn’t do things for others that they ought to and are capable of doing for themselves.  Learning when not to give, when not to give in, and when not to do things for and with people are essential parts of a healthy living and healthy relationships.

Needing people too much can cause problems.  Other people become the key to our happiness.  I need to learn to meet my healthy, natural need for people and love, yet not become overly or harmfully dependent on them.  Too much dependency on a person can kill love.  Relationships based on emotional insecurity and need , rather than on love, can become self-destructive.  They don’t work.  Too much need drives people away and smoothers love.  

Stop looking for happiness in other people.  My source of happiness and well-being is not inside others; it’s inside myself.   

Self care is learning to live my life responsibly; allowing others to live their lives as they choose, as long as they don’t interfere with my decisions to live as I choose.  Self care - giving ourselves what we need.  What do I need to do to take care of myself?  Doing what’s necessary to live responsibly, not excessively responsible or an irresponsible existence.

Forgive myself when I make mistakes and congratulate myself when I do well.  Get comfortable doing some things poorly and some things with mediocrity.  Learn to laugh at myself and my humanity, but don’t laugh when I need to cry.  Take myself seriously, but not too seriously.  

I do not make plans.  I set goals.  Goals without limits.  Things happen when the time is right, when I am ready and when the world is ready.  Be patient.  

Say what I mean and mean what I say.  Express my feelings and listen to others’, but do not fix.  My opinions can be different from others’ opinions.  I can be wrong.  

If something doesn’t make sense; it doesn’t make sense.  Don’t waste time and energy trying to make sense of it.  

Love is the greatest risk a person can take.  Learn to love without losing myself or giving up on boundaries.  Learning to love, and at the same time, living my own life - learning to love others without forfeiting love for myself.  

Make good decisions each day about what I need to do to take care of myself.  Find people I enjoy loving - people who enjoy loving me and challenge me to grow.   

I can live again.  I can love again.  And I can even have fun at the same time!  When Prince Charming does come along, I will not be down at the pond kissing frogs, I will be ready for him! 

Thanks to Melody Beattie for everything that I have learned in this post.  Thank you, Melody, for helping me to find my self.

It has been nearly six months.  He has moved on.  I am trying. 

It still hurts.  It hurts a lot.  

I have made some big changes in my life…my home, my job, my priorities.  I am trying to adjust.  He used to be my number one priority.  I have learned not to invest myself fully in another person, because the result of disappointment and of losing that person is just too much for me.  My number one priority now is myself.  Me.  Making myself happy.  No one else can but me.  And for as long as I am alive, I will always be here.  I am not going to leave me.  

We are born alone and we die alone.  That’s what they say.  It’s true.  I thought I had found the one I would grow old with, the one who would be there for me through everything…marriage, didelphic pregnancies, raising a family, building a home, vacations, retirement.  We had so much to look forward to.  But now in my future, I only see me.  And me alone.  My goals now involve only me.  I can’t count on another person.  I just can’t.

Why does it hurt so much?  So freakin’ much?  Still?

I wake up in the morning.  Alone.  Alone.  I miss him so flippin’ much I can’t believe it.

I have feelings.  I love.  I feel pain.  I feel love.  I feel.

I’m not sure that he does.  If he missed me as much as I’m missing him, he would call.  He would text.  He would email.  He would want me next to him.

But he doesn’t.

He wants to be alone.  He chooses to be alone.  To remove me from his life.

It hurts.  It still hurts.  So freakin’ much.

How big does his king-sized bed feel now?  How empty is his kitchen on Sunday mornings?  No homemade pancakes, no breakfasts at the table, no coffee together.  How empty is his life now?  I don’t know…

He doesn’t feel like I do.  I am pretty sure he forgot how to feel.  Emotion.  Love.  Happiness.  Sadness.  Longing.

I feel.  Damn it.  I fucking feel.

I am closing the cover on this book.

I am beginning a new chapter. A new blog.

I would love for you to join me.  Please email me for the address!

cowboybootlady@gmail.com

I am trying to figure out what that is.

Ask me in six months.

I saw a view from the other side. From a kayak. On the lake. Instead of standing on shore with the dog, as I had done in times past, I was looking at them. The men, the women, the couples, the children, the playful dogs.  A viewpoint I had never seen before. An omniscient view from afar.

They seemed trapped. Confined. To that tiny strip of shore…just 100 meters of freedom. Where their dogs can fetch a tennis ball then obediently return to shore. They have their fun, their freedom for fifteen to twenty mintues, then they hike back up the narrow path to their brand new SUVs. They continue onward to their suburban oversized homes, stopping along the way to stockpile toilet paper and baby’s diapers. They work overtime to pay their monthly mortgages, car payments, credit cards, student loans.

I sit in the middle of the lake, paddle in my hands. I am free. I can go wherever this kayak takes me. I can go wherever I take me. The whole lake…the whole world at my fingertips. Laid back, feet up, paddle in hand, ready to take it on. The lake. The world.  Whichever direction I choose.

Just weeks ago I was posting about how BF occupies his time and is consumed by his activities. Now I am doing the same. I am trying to mask the pain. I am busy. Every day. New people. New activities. Stuff. I try to schedule at least something in every spare moment. Morning, noon, and night. I can’t be alone with my thoughts…I think of what I did wrong. What he did wrong. And mostly I think of what we had right…99% of it was right. It’s just that 1% that prevailed, that became too much. I cover the pain with stuff. If I keep constantly on the move, I won’t have time to feel anything. To feel the absence. The anger. The sadness. Now I am the one who has been hurt. I am the one who suffers. I am the one who is trying to stay occupied to keep from realizing the pain. I think of what my life is supposed to be like, what it was like just one month ago…I had someone to hug in the morning before work, before bed. Someone to share with. Someone who loved me. We had a future. I had a home. How long will I be (pre)occupied? Will it ever go away? It is an unfortunate cycle of pain. And I hate it.

An expectation is a premeditated resentment.

I have the right to choose my own standards of conduct, but I do not have the right or the power to impose those standards on others.

Trying to change other people is futile, foolish, and certainly not loving.

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not to twist them to fit our own image.