ch. 3 70's survival

[sanmagic7]

thanks for that wonderful hug, d.r.  when i see those i feel like i'm being brought in.  good feeling.

just have to put this down.  last night the curtain of illusion fell, all the illusion i kept as part of my story, my experiences (especially with men), and that i've used to get me from day to day for so long.  strong, purposeful tears fell as well. 

i was watching 'the bodyguard', and whitney houston singing the final song struck me in the heart.  'i will always love you'.  bittersweet memories are all i have, but no one true love to hold forever.  i've told myself so many stories about these great loves i've had in order to keep my head above water thru the years.  being loved like that was my lifeboat.

i see now, saw it last night, that most of my life has been an illusion.  i've had no inner critic, cuz i couldn't allow that and live, so i made up reasons for mistakes, flaws, and foibles that were acceptable enough to support what i see now as a very fragile self-esteem. 

i wasn't a perfectionist, but i was perfect, in my mind, could logically find the answer for anything/everything, and any flaws i acknowledged were perfect flaws, there to keep me from being boring (true perfection i saw as boring, predictable).  therefore, i saw myself as perfectly flawed, so there was nothing to criticize.

all this coincides with not having emotions/feelings.  i never felt self-hatred - nothing to hate.  didn't feel shame, rarely felt guilty about anything i did (a few exceptions here).  didn't feel happy, either, didn't feel loved, didn't feel humble, (all those accomplishments were expected of me, so i just did them, accepted that i did them, the accolades were nice but i didn't feel them as gifts, just as what was due me).

and on and on.  very little sense of reality about sums it up.  i made up my own reality, one that i needed, one i could live with, just passed it off as real.  i believed it with everything in me, tho, and spoke of it to others as if it were completely true.  i'd search for and find little clues in situations that i could spin to make what i wanted it to be a reality for me.   i can feel my mind spinning right now, attempting to hold onto what i'd believed.

my illusions, i guess, were my reality.  as that curtain went down last night, just fell to the floor from its rod, i found myself in truth.  we have an uneasy alliance at the moment.  i will inspect some of these elements more closely in the future, but i think i've come thru a doorway that had been closed and locked before last night.  for all the heartbreaks, all the losses of people in my life, whitney unlocked it when she sang 'i'm not what you need'. 

i'd always believed i was.  the reality is that i was just another person passing thru their lives, as they passed thru mine.  uneasy alliance, indeed.

[Three Roses]

I'm lighting a candle for you today, dear San. A physical symbol of the gratitude I feel for having "met" you. I have genuine affection for you, just as I know you have for all of us here. Let your earth mother spirit embraces hold yourself today, tightly and in high regard.

[sanmagic7]

you hit me in the heart with your response, 3roses, and it felt like a gift of the utmost magnitude.  tears poured down my face still are, and the pain of this feeling of being loved - yeah, i'm feeling it, you unlocked another door here, you beautiful thing - is overwhelming and exhausting me.  i can't stop crying.

o my heart, the pain of accepting this is both terrible and wonderful at the same time.  like agony and ecstasy.  i want to stuff food in my face to dull this but i'm sitting here, typing instead, until it gets to a bearable level. 

i'm having the hardest time with this, accepting this, being with it, just allowing it.  i can feel it spreading throughout my body, out to my limbs, thru my veins, into my cells.  my heart just grew. 

earlier today, i was thinking about what i wrote, and one man came to mind.  he and i shouldn't have been for several reasons, but it was one of those things we didn't look or ask for, it happened simultaneously to both of us within 2 weeks.  he's the only man who ever made me feel beautiful, even as i was getting sick and puffing up.

he came over one day, i still had no makeup on, and when he came inside my apt. he looked at me and asked 'how do you do it?'  i was completely puzzled, i know it showed on my face, and asked back 'what?'  he said, so serious and so real 'how do you manage to be more beautiful every time i see you?'   that was someone who appreciated and 'saw' me, and i'm forever grateful to him for that.

a few weeks later, when my belly just exploded from being sick (it just blew up - in 2 weeks, i went from a size 8 to a size 14), i said to him 'i look like i'm pregnant!'.  he immediately put his hands on my belly (altho he knew i could no longer become pregnant) and there was a look of rapture on his face, in his eyes and smile, and he shouted 'it's mine'.  it didn't matter to him, who had often boasted to his friends about how i looked, and showed me off to them, that my body was no longer what it had been.

this man did for me in that instant what neither father of my 2 daughters ever did, made me feel like they should have done.  and i thought of that today, and it felt so warm and gentle and soft, and i knew it was real.  those feelings were real, from his depths, and because of that i could feel them, too. 

so, i garnered his love and acceptance (he was the one man who allowed me to be angry and stayed gentle with me) today, and now this.  this is no illusion, that was no illusion.  these feelings i can feel all over.  i guess this is my day to finally know what it feels like to feel loved.  i'm in awe of it.  thank you.

if i had a printer, i'd print this out to send these vibes into my room 24/7.  as it is, i'll just reread this, something i don't normally do when i write here.  usually i write to get it out of me, and it's done, gone into the universe to be taken care of.  this time is a keeper.  i don't ever want to forget this, want to remind myself so i can feel this over and over.

not the agony part - that's subsiding as i keep typing.   but the warmth of this loving feeling that i haven't been able to capture before.  i've got it with me now.  this is no illusion, this is not something i'm making up.  this was so real it hurt, still does, but it's a pain of surgically removing a blockage.  o my heart and soul. 

time to put clothes away and shower off the vestiges of that curtain.  i'm sure i'll find more as i keep looking behind this door.  i've felt love from my hub and my d before, but i think this will help me be able to sustain it, know it.  he was the other man who, once when we were talking about what it would've been like if i'd been able to get pregnant, lit up, his eyes, his whole face glowed at the prospect of me carrying his baby. 

both those men are mexican.   both those men gave me rare gifts i hadn't gotten anywhere else.  and feeling this is part of you unlocking this door, 3roses.  thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

[DecimalRocket]

Hey, San, can't say much since I'm in a bad place. But I want you to know that you're an amazing person. 

[sanmagic7]

d.r., you don't even know how much you've just added to my day.  thank you so.

[Hope66]

That man who made you feel beautiful, SanMagic, that's because he recognised the beauty in you.  I agree with D.R. that you are an amazing person.   
Hope 

[sanmagic7]

hope, you're another one on my list who has made me feel.  such kindness.  i appreciate it so much.  thank you.

i'm pretty crashed today.  very low energy. 

[DecimalRocket]

 

[sanmagic7]

still mostly kicking back.  rough night, bathroom jaunts nearly every hour for several hours.  i like to think i was getting rid of toxins from the mind work i've been doing. 

but i've been rewriting my book, have been spending more time and energy on it lately, and that feels very good.  my d's an editor and publisher, has given me some tips that have been very difficult to implement because alexithymia doesn't allow for creativity except as a solution to a problem.  this is my first shot at a novel - i've written lots of stuff without problems.  this has brought a whole boatload of new challenges.

so, that's what i've been keeping myself busy with for now.  i'm still doing my therapeutic techniques to help resolve some issues, and i think they're helping.  i haven't felt so weepy in more than a week.  i was even able to get thru an emotional conversation w/ my d without just breaking down.  that shows progress - i wouldn't have been able to do that 3 mos. ago.

she keeps me at arm's distance - i can feel it, and it keeps me on edge.  it's like i'm afraid of intruding on her space and time if i call her, so if i have something to say, i usually just email her.  i told her about the intrusion bit, she asked where that came from cuz she's told me that i can call.  i said, but you never said 'mom, you're never an intrusion' and she kept quiet.  she couldn't/wouldn't say that.

so i told her that i've heard her talk about her friends that way at times, that they want to have more contact with her than she wants, and that i didn't want to be a mother who calls her d and the d rolls her eyes and says 'it's my mother - again.'  told her that i feel like i have to walk on eggshells around her with this.  then i told her that it was coming from her.

she admitted she was like that, some of it was because of her nc sis who was continually calling and texting and wanting all her attention. but she didn't know or wouldn't say why she wouldn't just bring me into her fold.  it's rather an uneasy feeling for me, something i have no way of resolving.  so i stay out of her way as much as i can, when all i want is for us to be closer. 

i don't feel like i can depend on her, cuz i don't get a blanket statement.  she's extremely logical, prides herself on that, and one time when i was still in mex., going thru a rough patch, i asked her to never leave me.  she hemmed and hawed, said she couldn't promise that cuz she didn't know what the future would bring, stuff like that.  really, no emotionality behind it.

eventually she said it, but i think it was just to shut me up, stop me from crying - i was a wringing mess during that conversation.   this is why i still feel like i have to rely on myself always, even tho she's been there for me as much as she's been able to.  it just doesn't have a concrete feeling about it, like any minute she may change her mind, move with her roomies, and i'll be left here. 

their lease is up in may, and they don't like where they're living.  they all want to live closer to the water.  if they move, i don't know that i'll be included.  this is the first time i've mentioned this, allowed it to be tangible enough to write about it.  i'm worried and afraid, which is also new to me.  things like the future never bothered me before.  i always believed that whatever happened, i'd deal with it.

i know that's the reality but now that i'm older and sick, it feels very different.  my ll is as old as me and works her butt off, and i'm also worried that something's going to happen to her and this place will no longer be available to me, and i don't know what i'd do. 

well, i guess it was time for this to come out.  my chest hurts.  i'm scared, but i think i'm also mad at her for dangling me like this.  i never wanted to be a burden to either of my kids when i got old, but i guess i just took it for granted that one of them would step up if i needed them.  i think i goofed.

not to say she would leave me homeless, but, again, at a distance.  it's unnerving to me to feel like this.  i've not had the experience of feeling unsure about myself and my future before now.  i don't like it.  i'm too old for this kind of crapola.  well, this went in a direction i wasn't expecting. 
 

[camille13512]

San, just want to send you a hug here. It is a very hard feeling to deal with, knowing that we want something more than what others might be willing to give, all the intimacy and warmth, and a feeling of home. The feeling of "homelessness" may not necessarily mean that there is not a place to reside; it could also be that we don't have someone we believe that will never leave us in the middle of nowhere. It's difficult, all the fear about the unknown future, and that is natural, having nothing to do with age; we could end up anywhere, there's no guarantee where that is any point down the road. It's alright to feel that way. Send you a big warm hug.

[EliseB]

San, I wish there was some way to help more practically, but I still want to send you some hugs. I hope you get some answers soon, and good luck on your novel!

[sanmagic7]

camille, thanks for the 'permission' to feel this way.  yes, you're absolutely right, it's really just a matter of wanting different things.  i raised her to be independent, and she certainly is that.   i just never thought i'd be in this position, feeling this neediness.  i've never had it before, because i was so independent myself.  now, it just feels awful because i'm so sick, old, in pain (which drains my spirit) and have to rely on others for transportation (left my car in mex., and where i live now there's no public trans.) 

it just has added up,  i agree with your take on feeling 'homeless', too.  had to leave my home and some of my heart in mex. when i left.  3rd home i've left over the years.  it adds up and frightens me.  i've nowhere left to run.  maybe some of this move is still catching up to me, and overwhelms me every so often.  it's not even been 7 mos.   a big warm hug back atcha.

elise, those hugs were wonderful, as were your wishes.  they made me smile.  thank you very much, and hugs back to you.

[Elphanigh]

  :big hug:

Sorry that is all I have tonight. Hopefully I can respond better tomorrow. Lots of love dear

[DecimalRocket]

    

I'm in a similar situation with Elpha here. That's all I can muster with all the confusing feelings and stress I'm under right now.

Well, take care, San.

[sanmagic7]

el and d.r., those hugs were wonderful and important in their own right.  i appreciate the effort it took to respond with what you're all going thru right now.  thank you very much.  hugs back to you.