radrluv72 Posted March 28, 2011 Posted March 28, 2011 So here I am, about 12 1/2 weeks into NC with my ex...the 3 month mark. Although I didn't do it to "congratulate" myself, I ventured into Barnes & Noble last Saturday to pick up on my reading habits again. A few glossy fashion mags to help me on my way to feel fabulous again, and a hardbound copy of Patti Smith's "Just Kids", telling the tale of her life with her first love Robert Mapplethorpe when she first moved to New York and up to his death from AIDS in the late 80's. It was such a good read, I plowed through it in 2 days. As I was reading, the first thought that occurred to me was that this book was something my ex probably would have liked to read. Not because of the fact that at heart, Smith was a poet and an artist, but because of her brushes with late 60's fame...Joplin, Hendrix, her love for Dylan & Morrison, ect. My ex was a music enthusiast & had a lot of love for those idols of the 60's, and was a literary geek as well. I kept thinking of how well he could probably relate to Smith on that level, and how much I could relate to the devotion & love she felt for Mapplethorpe. As I kept on reading, her passages of how interwoven her life was with Mapplethorpe's, even when they were with other people, moved me. Even at the end of his life, she was able to tell him what he had meant to her. I had started then, thinking, about all the things that I felt about my ex that I never got to tell him, and probably never will. Despite how we parted, I could never hate him. I felt sad for him. I don't think that he ever thought of himself as I saw him...all those wonderful, beautiful layers under a boyish face, with so much left that I still wanted to uncover. And then I started to feel sad for myself. I started wishing--painfully--that I could somehow reconnect with my ex and tell him everything that I felt about him. Just for one more chance to talk. Just...something. As I neared the end of the book in the late afternoon, I could feel something in myself drawing near a head. Althought I was trying to block it out with the text in front of me, I realized that reading about this love story was only adding fuel to the fire. Then, in reading of the last time Mapplethorpe took Smith's picture with her daughter, a line I read broke the camel's back: Paths that cross will cross again. I started crying uncontrollably. Here I was, trying to get back into an old hobby of mine to feel fufilled again, and I was overwhelmed with emotion, feeling as strongly as I did the day that my ex let me go. I was overtaken my a strong impulse to pull him up on Facebook, and send him a lengthy message telling him everything that was spilling over from my heart. My newfound indifference was suddenly gone, replaced by my old pain. It was no longer about why he did what he did, so suddenly and without reason. It was just the fact that I lost him...this wonderful, beautiful person who ran from me out of fear. Once I'd washed my face, I immeaditely put myself in front of my computer, and pulled up my ex's FB page. As I sat there and looked a the "Message" icon on the upper right-hand corner, something immeadiately stopped me. It suddenly didn't feel right. I was so emotional, I knew that if I acted on my impulse, everything would come out wrong. I sat there and stared at it for a few minutes, then closed the page and walked away. I took something to help me sleep and went to bed. When I woke up this morning, I felt myself in this dark, sad gloom that it took me all day to shake off. I had resisted the urge, and for the most part, not broken the silence that I worked so hard for the last 3 months to build. I suppose I should be proud of myself, but now there's a melancholy there. My ex has become this ghost, following me everywhere, whether I want to feel his presence or not. It used to be that each relationship I'd ever had, there was something for me to learn. But this one? Nothing. The only thing I could take from it was how deeply I could love someone, and how it truly feels to be...broken. I'm not one to wallow & feel sorry for myself...but when you've done everything you can do to heal yourself, give yourself pep talks, try to move on but you always wind up in the same place...what does that mean? Normally, I'm not superstitious, but I'm not a big believer in coincidence, either. Usually when I get home from work, I play around a bit & look at my horoscope, just for fun. I usually like to look a day ahead & spoil the laughable "surprise". Well..per Yahoo!, this what apparently is in store for me tomorrow: "Someone who once wronged you is coming back -- try to keep an open mind about them." My ex is due back from overseas next month...probably within in the next 2 weeks. Everything is subject to perspective, but given how strong my weakness was last night, I find this to be somewhat eerie. No more reading love stories for me, at least not for a while. I need to stick to Lewis Black & Bill Maher.
IM5150 Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 Wow, after 3 months of NC and then this happens. I'm sorry to hear this. I went almost 2 weeks of NC with my girlfriend and I broke down and emailed her. Now I feel like I have to start all over again. I know it's hard. It's the hardest thing Iv'e ever had to do in my life. Hang in there.
lolo1234 Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 Wow I cried as I read your post. It's easier when we can vilify our exes and call them out on their faults. But it's so hard to deny the intensity of the love we felt. I'm only 2 weeks in NC and although I'm doing alot better, I had similar thoughts. After all the pain we caused each other, when all our bad habit and defaults are stripped away we're just left with love. And I know I didn't imagine it, and I know he must still think of me too. Amd as hard as I try not to, I can still remember the sweetness and tenderness.
Author radrluv72 Posted March 29, 2011 Author Posted March 29, 2011 Wow, after 3 months of NC and then this happens. I'm sorry to hear this. I went almost 2 weeks of NC with my girlfriend and I broke down and emailed her. Now I feel like I have to start all over again. I know it's hard. It's the hardest thing Iv'e ever had to do in my life. Hang in there. Thanks for the support...I know that I don't feel like last night was a failure since I didn't write him, but I was definitely on the verge. The part I left out of this post was that before I went to bed, when I knew I couldn't write to my ex but I still had to get everything out, I grabbed a notebook and just started writing till I couldn't write anymore. I didn't care if it was in a logical, readable order or not. It wasn't anything that anyone else was going to see but myself. Now that I go back & think about it, sometimes I wonder if my ex didn't actually implement NC on me as opposed to my implementing it on him. I guess in the long run it doesn't really matter unless one wants to get technical...after 3 weeks of trying get him to talk to me about what was really going on with him and he kept throwing up a wall, I ripped into him via FB, telling him not to contact me again unless he was ready to have an honest conversation about why he did what he did to me. His response was to de-friend me on FB. So I guess, we did it to eachother. But I think our reasons were different...I just couldn't deal anymore with this sudden stranger who had abruptly turned himself off to me emotionally. Knowing him the way that I did, I think he de-friended me because I told him not to contact me anymore. I have a hard time believing that he was angry over anything I said...he have to have known it was coming sooner or later. Stupid FB. I wish someone would crash that entire damn site to the point where it can't be revamped.
Author radrluv72 Posted March 29, 2011 Author Posted March 29, 2011 Wow I cried as I read your post. It's easier when we can vilify our exes and call them out on their faults. But it's so hard to deny the intensity of the love we felt. I'm only 2 weeks in NC and although I'm doing alot better, I had similar thoughts. After all the pain we caused each other, when all our bad habit and defaults are stripped away we're just left with love. And I know I didn't imagine it, and I know he must still think of me too. Amd as hard as I try not to, I can still remember the sweetness and tenderness. That's very touching of you to say...I'm actually surprised that I didn't start crying again my self as I made the post...but the day after, maybe I'm just tired of it. At least for a few days. This recent ex of mine, is probably the only one I can't villify. I've dated my fair share of cheaters, liars, bums, jerkoffs, egomaniacs...you name it, I've had it. I don't think that I've put him on a pedastal...this was probably the only relationship that I've had since I started dating where I felt like I was one such an even keel with someone else. He accepted me for who I was, and I could be myself with him. He adored me, treated me like a queen. He never cheated, never lied, never kept me as a secret. I loved everything about him, even some of the things that others might regard as being odd. I don't consider myself to be a person without confidence or someone who has a poor self-image of themselves, but when I was with him, that was the first time I knew what it felt like to be genuinely happy with someone special in their life. There was so much that I wanted to learn from him, and he would have been willing to teach me. I finally understood what other women would talk about when the person that they're with makes them feel beautiful & wanted...treasured. Like a real woman. Getting a taste of that for the first time makes the fact that he broke up with me so abruptly all the more painful. One minute I was lying in his arms in the darkness of his bedroom, content to spend on more night with him before he would leave for Afghanistan for 4 months...next thing I knew, he was telling me all the reasons (or rather, non-reasons) why I shouldn't wait for him. Yes, sometimes I wonder if he thinks of me too, or if he misses me at all. Maybe because of the fact that while he's been gone serving overseas, it's been easier for him to not deal with what he did. But sometimes I wonder when he comes home next month and learns to settle back in his routine, away from the terrible distraction of being in such a dangerous place, if the tune might start playing a bit differently for him then. Another part of me wonders if he's wanted to reach out as well, but maybe that he doesn't because he either feels awful & guilty for hurting me so deeply, or that I hate him. It was probably the latter part of that thought that was making me want to consider breaking NC, just to let him know that I didn't hate him. But when I sent his things back to him overseas, I sent a hand-written letter, telling him that I loved him. So maybe, it's just guilt that's holding him back instead. Or maybe I just need to quit guessing. Someone once told me that the story of me & my ex almost read like a Shakespearan tragic love story--minus everyone dying in the end. I just wish that after this long of feeling stuck in the same place, something would change for the better, because nothing I do to try to help it along seems to work. Call it a need for a twist of fate or divine intervention...but this girl should could use a little help.
florence of suburbia Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 (edited) Granted, this misses the sentiment of your post and makes me sound like an Asperger's case...but that line, "paths that cross will cross again"... I remember hearing Patti Smith quote it to Terry Gross on Fresh Air, and thinking at the time that it was a horrible metaphor. Coz, like, it's a geometrical theorem that two straight lines can only intersect at one point. Never mind. Carry on. Oh, I know, maybe the two people are going in circles......I know I often am. !!!! Edited March 29, 2011 by florence of suburbia
Author radrluv72 Posted March 29, 2011 Author Posted March 29, 2011 Granted, this misses the sentiment of your post and makes me sound like an Asperger's case...but that line, "paths that cross will cross again"... I remember hearing Patti Smith quote it to Terry Gross on Fresh Air, and thinking at the time that it was a horrible metaphor. Coz, like, it's a geometrical theorem that two straight lines can only intersect at one point. Never mind. Carry on. Oh, I know, maybe the two people are going in circles......I know I often am. !!!! Lol...levity is always appreciated. In reading Smith's book, one of the things I didn't know about her was she was incredibly spiritual. She prayed for Robert a lot during the time they knew eachother. In reference to where it came up in the book, she was talking about how since her path had crossed Mapplethorpe's by way of fate in 1967/68, that since he was on the verge of death, she knew their paths would cross on the "other side" of life, so to speak...regardless of it's interpretation, I thought it was such beautiful sentiment...and in a lot of cases, can be very true. I just hate so much that it made me cry.
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