Wholeness...

I used to think that I would only be whole when I met him.  I realized some time ago I can no longer afford that particular delusion.  Wholeness is something I have in and of myself, no one else is required, needed or vital.  This is not to say I don’t need, value, appreciate and love other people, it is just they are not central to the idea of me being whole and complete.  I got that wrong for a very long time.

I think I liked the story of us.  I wanted the story of us.  Instead, though, I got the story of me and ______.  Which always detracted from the story of me.  I didn’t see it that way, of course.  I outsourced my life and my happiness to whomever showed up to fill the role I seemed to always be auditioning to fill.  I got so caught up in my process, I failed to see how misguided it was and how it never failed to disappoint me, repeatedly.

I have grown more in the past 2 + years than I have in a decade.  It has been painful as fuck.  I have felt more crazy, broken, lost and found all at once...and repeatedly.  But this past two years was critical in me learning, assimilating and coming to understand that this whole living thing is always an inside job.  And, for the most part, all of my unhappiness in relationships came from me refusing to accept this simple, but hard fact.

I am as whole right now as I have ever been.  I still want that special someone, despite all my repeated failures and disappointments, that desire to connect with someone, enjoy life with someone else, is still ever present and alive.  I just now know that my ability to find that person, and my willingness to sacrifice the things I used to are luxuries I can no longer afford.  So I don’t.

The last go round left me broken and bleeding.  A few rounds with a Narcissist will do that to a person.  Being lied to and manipulated every single day, always having your reality manipulated and altered, well, it fucks you up.  But I had a feeling this was the case the entire time.  My intuition was right all along.  It was RIGHT!  I just refused to listen to it.  Deciding instead to allow his lies and bullshit to supplant that which I knew in my core was true.

And I guess I had to do that.  I had to break that far down in order to heal this most rapacious wound.  The healing hasn’t been easy but I know that I will never let someone like that into my life again.  I have worked hard to heal this woman and I am never going to allow her to be in harm’s way again.  What I have with myself, what I have learned in walking through this particular fire is how much it burns.  And how much it hurts.  And I guess I didn’t know that before.  I guess I wasn’t capable of investing so much of myself.  I was not ready to give up my delusional thinking because it was still working for me on some level.  Loving him absolutely taught me in new and excruciating ways exactly where I was broken and why.  And I had a choice - to go on forever like that or change.  Well, it wasn’t even a hard decision. Healing was the only path, because I was and remain absolutely clear that I never want to love anyone like that again.

I am still not ready to engage.  All the very many parts of me are still healing and unfucking and untangling.  It is hard when you date a liar and a cheat.   Your reality is so altered that it takes some time to unravel all the past in order to sort out what is yours and what will always be his.  And it isn’t all that much fun.  And it kind of takes a lot out of you.  While I have put myself on a schedule, I know that dating right now would be bad for me, impede my recovery and also would be bad for the other person.  While I am well on my way, I am not to a place where I am ready to be vulnerable in that way just yet.

But when I am done with my 6 month mansbatical, my six months I took for me, for all the work and adjustments I made in order to come to a place where I am whole and complete just as I am.  I hope to find some weirdo to spend time with.  To enjoy life with.  To laugh with.  To adventure with.  I like being alone and if that is what the fates decided for me, so be it.  But I would rather, I would rather have some other human to run around the world with laughing, growing, funning, and living in an ever evolving intimacy.

I no longer need another to be whole and complete.  I figured out how to do that on my own.  And if I remain alone and single for the rest of my days that takes away nothing from my wholeness.  I hope I get to share it with someone else though.  I hope I get to benefit someone else’s life with all the work I have done.  I hope I get to bring healing and happiness to someone else.  But if I don’t, it was still worth all my effort.

It is a long journey towards wholeness.  It is hard and painful.  But the payoff?  Fuck that is next level.  And that is what I have learned about wholeness, it is an ever increasing leveling up which requires a hard and honest look at who you are and how you are showing up for life and living and loving.  And I will be the first one to tell you, it fucking sucks...but in the way going to the gym sucks at first.  You are all sore and destroyed.  But then one day you are able to physically do things that you weren’t before.  You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and you see the progress from the effort expended.  And you know that having your own back has paid off again, still.

One whole person + another whole person is a sight to behold.  And the love exchanged and expressed and lived is truly next level.  So I hope I find that weirdo, but if I don’t I am totally fine just being a weirdo all on my own.  I have learned how to go on adventures on my own, to dance on my own, to laugh all by myself, usually at myself.  I don’t kiss myself suddenly for no reason, that is what all the cats are for...

My soul evolution has been my undoing and my becoming on my journey towards wholeness.  I am never going to be complete, or finished or done.  But I can claim today that I am the best me I have ever been...while also accepting that I will always be a work in progress.  And if I do find that weirdo, they will hopefully be a work in progress too.  Someone comfortable enough in who they are and what they are, to risk it all by coming for me and doing the hard work that is relating and loving while also dearly holding onto who and what you truly are. Knowing that there is no person on earth that is more important to you than you...

And when you no longer are willing to outsource any part of you to the delusion that you need anyone else to become the best version of you possible, that is a magical fucking day. And a lovely resting place on this journey of life and love and living.

It is a great day indeed when you become the hero in your own life.