“I am not overly enamored with being lumped in with your exes.”
Well, then you haven’t been paying attention.
I have this woman on the periphery of my life who is literally everything I am not.
She’s fucking awesome.
She’s also a domme so when she pays attention to me, I squirm a little in submissive wiggly-ness in spite of myself.
It’s really cool to have someone in my life who is my polar opposite yet compatible and accessible.
She posed a question the other day
What would your exes say to or about you?
Tons of feedback. Some negative, some positive.
It’s a good exercise I think, to look back at past reflections of what you were to other people.
It’s grounding and can show you what you need to work on or even just how far you have come.
T’was a wee wake up call for me.
I’ve been feeling unlovable.
I am currently a mess and not my most awesome lovable self.
I remember having conversations with my step-daughter in her teenage years and trying to solve any one of her problems with a straight line.
Somehow, she could take needing new shoes and twist it into the plight of sharks in the wild.
Amazing, yet maddening.
I am doing this thing. I can hear it. I am actually annoyed with myself like I used to be with her and I can’t stop it.
I am in a situation beyond my control and over a month away and I keep throwing around words like ‘mutilation’.
There is no solution. I just have to get to that point in my future and looping unpleasant life altering outcomes in the meantime is not doing me a tiny bit of good.
But, when Bara asked the question above, it gave me pause.
I do not have to wonder what my exes say about me. They tell me. Recently and frequently.
“Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Not all obviously. I am not a saint.
Ex hubby and Potato hate my guts.
Both still blame me for shit in their lives years after I left them.
6 months later, sure, be mad all you want. 7 years? 10 years?
Come on, grow up.
But, both of them blamed other women in their life for the shit that came before me and that isn’t my cycle to break. Their inability to take responsibility for their own lives is beyond my control.
And ex hubby only revised his hatred of me when I didn’t go running back to him at the beginning of this year. Ew no. So there was love there, twisted fucked up love, but his version of it.
I had joked many, many years ago about getting some of the good ones together to make me a resume.
But I already wrote the handbook for handling me.
This blog.
Lists and lists of what went right and what went wrong.
What I need help with and where I shine.
I know I am exhausting, intense, not a lot of fun to be around sometimes. I get it. I never say “I’m fine” when I am not, and I know that is what people are supposed to do.
But I also never say “I’m fine” and expect anyone to read my mind either, nor do I torture them when they can’t because let’s face it, not a lot of mind readers out there.
I don’t lie, even when it would be more convenient to do so.
I have no filter.
All double-edged swords to be sure, but hey, I come with my own swords, so that’s a good thing.
And an instruction manual. Complete with clearly labeled warnings and contingency plans and a full list of consequences faced by the others so they can be avoided. What not to do, a retrospective.
(It’s the fucking fire swamp.)
When I was 14 or 15, I ripped the first page out of a book.
It just says, “do you love”.
I still have it, in a little frame in my attic.
Been asking myself that for 32 years, and the answer is always the same.
I do.
Quite thoroughly really.
Exceptionally unconditionally as of late.
I added to Bara’s query by saying that I do not subscribe to the normal “I have you” or “I hate you” that usually begets the bitterness between exes.
If I had love for you once, I probably still do.
There are some I cannot speak to, but if you asked them about me, they would say I was a good woman, little bit crazy, but I treated them well.
But those are cans of worms I do not wish to open; I am all out of crows.
Sometimes, due to circumstances beyond my control I can only love the version of who they were when we were together, that happens sometimes and when I am confronted with the ugly truth of what they have become, that love turns to nostalgia and hope that they find their way wrapped up with a bow of indifference. I know I see the potential of who people could be. I don’t even get disappointed anymore, just stand back and watch to see what they do, waving pom poms till my arms get tired or I am excused from the playing field.
Even then, I am never really gone.
They come back for council or comfort, and if I can I give it.
Usually by the second or third swoop back into my life I am a little more arm’s length with my affection.
The strength that comes with surviving their absence.
They pushed me away and I stay there. Away.
I have learned the difference between those who value me in my new place in their life and those who just message to see if I will message back.
Their egos get hungry and they remember me feeding them well.
I’ve stopped answering them.
In turn for my support, when my light goes out and that Stella Polaris in my chest goes dim, sometimes, some of them rally.
Like now.
So many ‘I love you’s’ and while I appreciate it, I truly do.
They aren’t coming from the right mouth.
And it is a bit insulting really to hear things like ‘I wish we could have made it work’ when I have vivid memories of showing up and doing the work.
I am not the one who leaves, except with ex hubby and the Potato.
Maybe that is why they hate me. The only two clean breaks on record.
There is one sure fire way to avoid getting lumped in with my exes, good or bad.
Don’t fucking leave.
This is timely…… In the past 6 months I’ve had numerous previous lovers (relationships, not one night stands – and not the assfuck that abused me) reach out to me and its been such an amazing experience to see how they grew up and created their lives. And all of them are proud of whom I’ve grown into, and I am of them. One even said I was the one that got away, but I had to laugh because I was a puppy and so was he at the time. I’ve been happily married for 20 years. These guys are all from 25-30 plus years ago. One is still a best friend that I would walk through hell for.
It is a good karma marker.
Someone who knew you intimately checking in on you.
I used to collect them all, like trading cards, I had a full set, but some of them I had to let go. They were using me.
The rest are good dudes and they do check in to check in, not for some gain or ego stroke but out of valid friendship.