Seeing...

Do you see people?  I mean really see them?  I don’t, all too frequently.  I am caught by the obsessive thoughts of my own mind.  Working shit out that happened 30 minutes ago or 50 years.  My preoccupation with my own internal dialogue takes me away from really being present and being able to see people.

My own agendas, ideas, thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants sometimes obscures what is right in front of me.  My last relationship happened because I saw what I wanted to see, not because the person before me was a good person, or a loving person, or was even interested in me at all.  Had I been paying closer attention I would have seen that he saw me as an option, not a love interest.  I was a bridge for him from one stage of his life to another.  It was never, ever about me.  It was absolutely, totally about him.

He could not see me, mostly because he didn’t want to.  In his world, people are pawns to manipulate and control.  All the good things about me were desired by him so that he could get his needs met.  And that was the only purpose I served.  And he would say whatever he needed to to get those needs met.  And as soon as he had a level of comfort and enough funds in his bank account, off he went.  Because options are only good for being exercised and once they are, you have no use for them anymore.

It has taken me the better part of this last year to get over myself.  Not him.  I was over him long before I left.  All the broken promises, the countless lies that I was only able to unpack and find truth after I left him.  It wasn’t until I was all the way out (and I wasn’t all the way out because for a month after I left him I still was taking his calls - because I could not/would not see him even then for who he was).  I was so caught up in seeing him as I wanted him to be which is what got me into that fucking mess to begin with.  It was my desire to see him as better, weller, truer and kinder that allowed me to put aside my principles and allow him into my world.

It has been one year today.  One year since I cut off all communication.  My last words to him were, “I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again...” And I meant It. Then I hung up the phone and blocked him.  I did this after a very hard phone call from the woman he had been dating for the last four months.  And that is three months of overlap in case you didn’t want to do the math.

And I have stayed true to myself in this last year.  I have worked hard at healing and changing and moving on.  And I would like to claim more progress than I probably have actually made.  But regardless of the entire progress, I have been 100% successful in keeping him and all his toxic bullshit out of my life.

He has tried to lure me back in.  Just a week ago, he called my daughter.  Word around town is that he is drunk again and in need of funds.  Pathetic that he would use my daughter to get to me.  Or maybe he has sunk so low that he was going to hit up my 18 year old for cash.  There really is no end to his narcissism.

I texted the other woman I knew nothing about until this day one year ago.  A woman that I long suspected existed, but could never prove.  And then one year ago, there she was in my DMs.  I texted her today to say Happy Anniversary because each of us finds it celebratory that through his ruinous behavior we got each other.

She became my confidant.  My fact checker.  She was able to piece together for me so many loose ends and out right lies.  She was able to help me sort through all the bullshit and find some clarity.  And I hope that I was able to do the same for her.

It is pretty miraculous ya know?  Most women hate the other woman and side with the cheating, back stabbing dick they are dating or married to...but not in our case.  She asked me for the truth and she believed me when I told it to her.  And vice versa.

I saw her.  She saw me.  And because of that, both of our lives changed for the better.  Each of us extricating ourselves from him finally.  Why could I see her so clearly?  And so mis-see him so completely?

It has been a long year.  It feels like 10.  As much as I hate to admit it, I loved him.  I showed up for him. I supported him.  I sacrificed for him.  And I kept on coming back for more abuse because every once in awhile he would make me feel like I was the most important person in the world.  Now, a year later, what I am left with is a gross mistrust of anyone who comes on too strong.  A year later and I still don’t believe what a man tells me.  I can’t help it.  I just am constantly looking for the lie beneath the perceived truth...

I know now we were on different frequencies, spirit remains foreign to him.  And his punishment is drinking himself into oblivion. Everyone who ever loved him, doubts every word he utters and most of the people who were in his life have vanished. Some still take his calls, but they do it out of a sense of service and salvation, not because there is anything on the other end of the phone that they believe or trust.

I guess I wasn’t supposed to see him for who he really was.  I had to see him for who I wanted him to be in order to learn this fucking lesson.  And man, I really wish it did not fuck up my life, heart and sense of wellbeing so much. It did puncture my over ripe pride and humble me to a state of singleness that I may never grow out of.  I really do not want HIM to be my last relationship.  But I also know that I am still healing from all the damage I allowed him to cause in my life.  And while I don’t give two fucks about him, I do about me and I realize now that I have been the most unsafe person in my own life.  A failed gatekeeper for men like him entering my life.  And perhaps, even after a whole year, I still doubt myself which is such a subtle violence to myself.  Fuck, I still have a lot of work to do!

I wish I had never seen him.  He is the only real regret I possess in this life.  All the ways I allowed his manipulations, gaslighting, bread crumbing and lies to overshadow and overwhelm my innate sense of self preservation.  He got to me because I let him and I let him because I could only see him for who I wanted him to be, not for who he truly was.  If I would have followed my gut, I would have stayed gone when I left after two weeks.

I talked about the special wound previously, and I can see now that my inability to heal and deal with that wound within myself is what made me vulnerable to a guy like him. I see it so very clearly now.  Wisdom born of pain is a special kind of lesson that is not easily set aside or pushed away.  I wish I didn’t  have to learn this lesson this way, but I suppose there is a part of me that knows that I was only going to really learn it by being completely decimated.  And hey, on that front, I fucking killed it!  Decimation 100% successful.

I am still digging myself out of the emotional, physical, spiritual, financial hole I dug for myself by allowing him into my bed, my home, the lives of my children and my life.  And I am not sure how I can ever make amends to my kids for allowing a psychopath into our lives.  I don’t know that I will ever get over that, the damage he did to them because I told them he was safe and then proceeded to find out in minute detail exactly how unsafe he fucking was/is.

But today, I am going to focus on what is in front of me.  To really see the life I have today.  The love of my family and friends.  I am grateful my children have also blocked him and want nothing to do with him.  And for the most part, have forgiven me my ignorance and idiocy in letting him into our lives in the first place.  Friendships that were badly damaged because of my repeated returns to this abusive, exploitive man are mended.  I thank my girlfriends who had to step back and in so doing allowed me to find a truth that I had been avoiding.  I am very grateful I didn’t lose you.

I am grateful today that I endeavor to see who someone is before I allow them to get too close. That I have an arm’s length distance I maintain until I am more sure of who they are and what their motives are.  I am grateful that my special wound was addressed in such a way that I could no longer pretend it wasn’t there.  And I have done a fuck ton of work to heal it so that I never fall prey to an asshole like him again.

I am mostly grateful that for the past year, I have not allowed him into my life to lie to me, cheat on me, or trick me into believing a complete and utter falsity.  I am grateful that I took the shreds of my life back and have done a great deal of heavy lifting to sort through what is mine and what is not.

I endeavor to see spirit today instead of personage.   If I would have practiced that three years ago I could have saved myself a great deal of trouble.  But I couldn’t, so I didn’t and I suppose at the end of it all, I am grateful for that too.  Today, the inner peace I feel and the simple, beautiful life I live is payment enough for the shit I endured and survived.  My ego hates admitting any of this...but perhaps, maybe the ego hit I took was needed too.

Today I celebrate more that I got Kaela in my life than getting rid of him.  He always made everything about him...and I will not follow suit.  Today is a celebration of her and I surviving our pasts that allowed us to believe that we were not worthy of more than someone like him.  And I am so grateful that God sent me her, a similarly broken soul that somehow brought to me great healing, laughter and truth.  I remain forever grateful to her, for her. It is because of her that I got free.  And I will never, ever forget that as long as I live.

She was the only one who could help me take off the blindfold and see him for who he really was and is.  And while the seeing was fucking painful, I remain forever in her debt...how do you ever repay someone who restores your sight?  I don’t know but I will spend the rest of my life trying...this I know for sure.