[Treasur]

“I took an action someone else took and made it entirely about me. She didn't think of me at all. But this change does emphasize how thoroughly unraveled "we" are. “

I think most of us reach a point of seeing the No We. And it’s a bit of a punch in the guts, isn’t it? Perhaps for a little while post BD, for both LBS and MLCer, there is some residual We that lingers. In our expectations and grief. In their blame and anger. But I think what you said here becomes increasingly true with the action of time and events.

Again jmo but this is about the essence of attachment. It takes a while for most inherently healthy people to sever important attachments. That’s normal. And as others have said elsewhere, it often leaves a gap, a kind of phantom missing limb feeling. That sucks, but it is normal too imho.
And for that reason, I wouldn’t congratulate her. Bc it’s not your business anymore or your role to do so. If you have contact and she mentions it, some version of cool, bummer or wow will suffice. Just as you would say to a random stranger on a train. And tbh I’d step back from whatever route brought the info to you. Her successes or failures are now like a stranger on a train ….as are yours vice versa tbh. For most LBS, that’s a sad thing. But it’s a real thing that comes with the demolition of a long We.

[zartheit]

Hello all! It has been awhile.

I am feeling great right now. I just got back from a weeks long trip to Bhutan where I went hiking and mushroom foraging. I don't know what I want to say here but I know I want to say it, so please forgive the rambling (or maybe I can reframe it as please enjoy the scenery).

I'm not "over" my ex-wife. And, truthfully, I don't think I ever will be. But what does "over her" mean? I'm beginning to see more and more that it doesn't really mean anything. It's actually occluding something. When these anxious thoughts pop up, they tend to be reactions to a range of emotions. The logic goes: "oh no, I'm feeling something BAD! I shouldn't feel this way! If I were 'over her' then I wouldn't feel this. I must not be over her. Oh how I long to be over her and thus free from these evil emotions."

But why shouldn't I feel any way in particular? Why shouldn't I feel sorrow and longing and loneliness? Why shouldn't I feel hurt and fear? More directly, what is so wrong with those? How are they "bad"? These emotions are messengers, intimate aspects of "me", signals brought forth from the universe itself. By rejecting the reality of these feelings I'm simultaneously rejecting myself--abandoning myself--and living in a deluded fantasy. Some small part of me is making a judgement on some other small part of me. Some process is fabricating a hypothesized ideal trajectory and kicking and screaming when it senses any deviations. But why would an aspect be able to contain the whole? How can a snake eat itself? Why would a prediction supersede a lived experience? Why would I believe the map over the territory? When your model mispredicts reality it is THE MODEL that is inaccurate. It is at these times that I simply sit and feel as deeply as I'm able. I sit with the tumult, the confusion, the pain, the loss. I comfort all of those raw and scared pieces as they struggle to stay afloat, realizing that these feelings aren't wrong or evil or unwelcome. They are how it is right now. I reach out with my arms open and listen as well as I'm able to what they're trying to say.

I want to be understood. I want to be seen and recognized. I want to share jokes and insights and observations. I want to complain and rant and criticize. I want to be comforted. I want to be accepted. I want to be cherished and valued. I want to feel safe and secure. And what is so wrong with any of that?

Life is as it is. Any judgements on it are irrelevant, but also myopic. Of course, given some specific focal point any aberrations are mistakes, errors, tragedies. But life is so much wider, so much larger. It is up to us to expand instead of implode. That isn't to dismiss the anger and hurt and sorrow. I only mean that we can find joy and gratitude as well. There is no contradiction. The future is made right here, one brick at a time. Do I want to build a cathedral or a prison?

My ex-wife is my ex-wife. I doubt I will ever interact with her ever again. It isn't what I want but that is how it is. I don't hate her. In fact, I love her. I want the best for her. I want her to find peace and joy and happiness. But crucially, I want that for me too. I want to love and to be loved. And that isn't about her at all. It isn't diminished or impacted by her at all. My love is boundless. I don't need to ration it. This life is finite, temporary, fleeting and impermanent. I would rather gaze at the sunset than run from the night.

More pragmatically, things are going well. My job is going well. My boss respects me and values my projects. I am trying to coordinate getting coffee with some friends, old and new. I'm booked for lunch tomorrow. I'm sketching out loose plans for the next few months (shows, hiking, etc). I'm reading some interesting books (novels, philosophy, short-stories). I'm considering taking some classes. I've got some projects going (strangely enough, mostly different types of clocks) that I think of like gardening in the sense that I just work on them from time to time without fixating on any specific end goal. I finished training for volunteering at a hospice. I'm now waiting for the director to give me an assignment. Before my trip, I went hiking and saw like 7 waterfalls from which I stole some water and brewed tea out of it. I'm still working out 3 times a week. I am writing regularly. I'm meditating twice a day. My family is all in good health. The sun is shining. I'm listening to music. I just finished a tea drunk from a new cup. What more can one ask for?

https://cygnusat.bandcamp.com/track/journey-outwards

[forthetrees]

I would like to hear about the mushroom part of the trip- please do tell.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,

You are doing very well considering the crisis you just endured.

I'm not "over" my ex-wife. And, truthfully, I don't think I ever will be. But what does "over her" mean? I'm beginning to see more and more that it doesn't really mean anything. It's actually occluding something. When these anxious thoughts pop up, they tend to be reactions to a range of emotions. The logic goes: "oh no, I'm feeling something BAD! I shouldn't feel this way! If I were 'over her' then I wouldn't feel this. I must not be over her. Oh how I long to be over her and thus free from these evil emotions."

I don't know if anyone is every truly "over" anything in life. I mean, I will be just doing my thing and a memory or thought from long ago interrupts the regular programing with " remember this?" Some good, some not so good. Often unresolved conflict lingers and come back as random thoughts or dreams.

I don't know and never spoke to your ex, but from reading your posts and getting a feel for you as a person, you come across as a rather intelligent, thoughtful, and creative person. You have your interests and you enjoy reading and writing as well as hiking and working out. Your trip to Bhutan seems so surreal as it is not a very populous country and as a country, they focus more on happiness than gross national product. Please feel free to post more on your adventure.

Because you shared a large part of your life with this person, there will always be a range of emotions as you have memories and moments. Especially, when you don't even understand the why and must accept that you probably will never know. That creates a different set of emotions and responses all on its own.

Some small part of me is making a judgement on some other small part of me.

Oh yes, the would've. could've, should've thoughts that somehow we just chose wrong. Sad thoughts of how we could have altered the script. Unfortunately, we never had the solution. Just like the scam can you pick the right cup with the ball in it, now matter what cup you pick, you lose. Mourn the loss of the relationship, mourn the loss of the person that you thought you knew, but don't contemplate the choices you made during the crisis. I still have my moments, but I push those thoughts away because it is a fruitless endeavor. Too many other things to clutter my thoughts.

I want to be understood. I want to be seen and recognized. I want to share jokes and insights and observations. I want to complain and rant and criticize. I want to be comforted. I want to be accepted. I want to be cherished and valued. I want to feel safe and secure. And what is so wrong with any of that?

That's what makes a relationship tick when all of this happens. When it begins to break down, then all of that leaves us naked, rejected, insecure, lonely and unsure of our world. Nothing wrong with that at all my friend.

So as you go along your path, feel free to embrace of of your emotions and calibrate how those emotions push your rational thoughts. Continue to be the kind, observational, and spiritual person that still sees the world. From my perspective, you are building a castle and I don't see any plans for the prison now-or in the future.

Have an incredible day and know that your post really intrigued me,

(((Ready)))

[Arcticfox]

Hi zartheit,

I hadn´t read your journal but as I read it from the beginning to the end, I was impressed by your emotional skills and the eloquent way of writing. I cried many times reading this but it felt good and right to cry. I wanted to say that I´m with you on being ”over” things. Like, how do you get over the death of someone important? They’re not coming back are they? In my mind it is appropriate to acknowledge that this is sad, and that you miss them. Of course it will get better as time passes, but if they were truly important, why should the sorrow ever be completely gone? Same with the ending of a meaningful relationship.

 I for myself am not only shocked for the loss of the person in my life (H moved out 4 days ago), but the loss of the future I thought we would have together. I am devastated at the moment but the best choice is to let the feelings come and go, trusting that things will get better with time. And this does not mean I am not taking active little steps to try and move forward, both emotionally and in a concrete sense - doing little repairs now around the cottage, things that H would have done, which while accomplishing the actual repair also gives me confidence that I can make it on my own.

Maybe some day I will also make a trip to Bhutan 

[zartheit]

forthetrees

(Forgive the quality. The image host seems to have drained all the color out in its efforts to compress it.)
I was loosely sketching a trip to the Himalayas, focusing on Nepal, when I stumbled across a guy organizing tours to Bhutan. I'm lazy and so pivoted plans by letting someone else take care of the logistics. I heard about this tour as the organizer is a mycologist at the local mycological society, where I sometimes attend meetings. We basically went on various hikes, mostly to monasteries, and looked for mushrooms. At the end, we'd collect our findings and he would give a lecture on the various finds.

readytofixmyselffirst
Thank you! Your compliments feel good to read. I value your perspective and appreciate you sharing it.

Arcticfox
I hope the tears brought some relief. I like your "little" steps plan. I believe it is like compound interest, or a snowball which will become an avalanche. Not only does it all start with the little things, but the big things themselves are nothing but a bag of little things.


I didn't mean to bait everyone with the Bhutan feint! I flew from the US to Korea to Thailand to Bhutan. My first flight was canceled which destroyed my Bangkok connection. I only found out a few hours before my flight. I was a bit annoyed at this point! After rotating through customer service people, I got a new flight and new connection and headed off to the airport.

My first impression of Bhutan was staring out the window on the approach to Paro and seeing mountains so close it felt like I might get smacked with pine needles. We have genuinely one of the smoothest landings I can remember and I'm stepping off the plane into a valley. I've never seen something like this. The tarmac and the airplane seem out of place against the panoramic mountains we're encased in. I make my way to the gate, which feels surreal as it is a traditional building with ornate and intricate carvings and paintings covering seemingly every surface. Inside, the baggage claim winds through a diorama of a small village. The ceilings have dropped circles with hypnotic mandalas painted on them. I pick up my bag and pass through customs which consists of maybe 3 agents. I don't even know if they had computers. I hand them my printed visa and passport. They read, apparently, whatever they were looking for, stamp my passport and write something in it. I grab my documents and exit to the parking lot whereby I was greeted by a smiling man in traditional dress.

I went to the south and hiked through a jungle before noticing a leech on my left foot. I go to flick it off but it instead rudely dissipates as it is absorbed by my sock. I lose my cool and kick off my shoe, rip off my sock and jitteringly swipe at it. Eventually it is dislodged and is flung off into the ambient vegetation to await its next victim. I calm down. I then notice another leech on my other foot.

I went up north and walked along roads that made me feel like I was in the 14th century. Beyond the dirt paths were stunning flat valleys (essentially the only wide expanses of flat I remember seeing) dominated by jagged mountains on all sides. We're so high up that fog and clouds are indistinguishable. I remember watching a cloud form before my eyes, shift as if on a conveyor belt, and dissolve back into the sky.

I hiked to taktsang (tiger's nest). Halfway there is, of course, a small park with a giant prayer wheel. I watch some people spin it before continuing on past the cafe. I take a wrong turn and end up going to a few OTHER monasteries along the ridge. I found hidden shrines off the path stuffed with clay stupas, prayer flags, and statues. Eventually the path coalesces into the direct route, but from the other side. I get stunning views of taktsang as I descend. When I finally arrive, there are no other visitors due to how early it is. I visit as many temples as are available to non-monks. There's even a cave, which I climb into. I sat facing the inner cliff face, illuminated by a flickering butter lamp and vaguely backlit from scattered sun, for a around 30 minutes.

Some misc other aspects were visiting a town that had never seen tourists, so the governor and a lama greeted us. Eating meals at some of the locals' homes. Meeting a local on a hike who insisted on dressing me up in his own personal traditional dress so I could walk around the monastery at the summit. Taking pictures of all of the Pen!$es painted on buildings which, depending on characteristics, signal fertility, a friendly welcoming, and some other meanings I can't remember. Lots of the food reminded me of my hometown, which was intensely fascinating to me.

All in all, it was great. I enjoyed the whole dollop. I'm still not caught up on sleep but I have done laundry and grocery shopping. Thank you all for letting me share some postcards from the trip!

https://flux-tracks.bandcamp.com/track/huya-2

[zartheit]

I'm refinancing my house so I can remove my ex's name from the mortgage. She gave me a few years to accomplish this and while I do still have time, I want to cross this item off my todo list and forget about it. This process is churning a bunch of settled mud. I'm finding some jetsam washing ashore, but no letters in a bottle.

At times, I find myself the victim again. How could she do this to me? How could she inflict this on me? How dare she! The grief is as hard as it ever was but it isn't so totaling. I can recognize that the sun sits just beyond those rain clouds. At other times, I am simply annoyed at the paperwork, the tedium, the account archeology. It is overall pretty frustrating. The financial side is likewise uninspiring. I get to pay a large fee to obtain a worse interest rate and then give my ex a giant sack with a dollar sign on it. I guess I can consider it the last gift she'll receive from me.

Thankfully I am in a position to be able to actually do this. It's sad, disappointing, banal, and generally not how I imagined. The contrast between my understanding of our relationship and this is immense, but that difference isn't a surprise anymore. I am grateful that it no longer takes my breath away.

I can genuinely say that I wish the best for her. There's some nuance to that. At one point I was waiting in a line for customs somewhere. It was like 2am. No one wanted to be in this giant room. Someone must have been given "bad news" from an agent and they did NOT shrug it off. I watched this adult throw a tantrum in the middle of the floor for probably 10 minutes. He was making obscene faces, sticking his tongue out, and gesturing wildly. There was comedy in it, but he was obviously frustrated and distressed. I can imagine that feeling of the bottom falling out. I can imagine finally making it to the agent and then being told I made a trivial mistake and I'd have to restart everything. I felt for him and wished him the best. I then continued on and that was that. And I feel similarly about her.

Something has definitely shifted in me. I miss her. I even wish that we could be together. That being said, it doesn't "make sense" to me. There truly isn't even the fantasy of us reuniting. There isn't even a hypothetical path, a technical possibility. It is kind of like wanting Santa to bring you an item from your wishlist. It sure would be nice!

I also don't really "know" her. I think part of what contributed to my pain was that loss of the familiar. She was my comfort blanket. Her actions were so jarring that I didn't "believe" them. It wasn't her fault. She was ill, sick, out of her mind. She was anything so long as it is temporary, so long as it can be fixed or resolved. She is whatever I need her to be so that it will all go back to how it was, how it should be. But I no longer think it should be like that. I would quite like it to be like that, like it was, but the world keeps turning.

What was so meaningful, so impactful, so important... isn't. And what changed? Nothing, everything. There is no boundary, no line in the sand, no discrete step-wise clicking over. There is no before and after. There is no moment of transition, no here-today/gone-tomorrow. There is simply the constant shifting, the constant wilting, the constant melting, the constant dripping, the constant seeping, the constant twisting, the constant drifting. And now she is far away. Now she is distant. Now she is unreachable, unrecognizeable, un-. She is negated, absent, vacant, empty. She is a cardboard cut-out. She is a stand-in. She is a placeholder. She is a representation. She is an image, a thought, a shorthand, a daydream. She is the pointer to a concept that I don't believe in anymore. She is the container of childish things. The discarded toybox I outgrew. It's not that I don't want that feeling, it's that I don't BELIEVE that feeling. I can't play with action heroes anymore, not because it is wrong but because... why would I? It brings no enjoyment, there is no desire for it, the whole cycle is excised. There is no craving, no hope for payout, no loop. It's a complete graph that was snipped, now viewable only through binoculars, through the glass of a museum with a little placard saying "This work represents ...". It isn't visceral. It isn't present. It isn't manifest. It is merely noted, merely logged, merely recounted, merely recalled.

And here, at this evil and sacred place sits nothing new, nothing exotic, nothing unexpected. There is no catharsis, no freedom, no revelation. It's exactly what it always was. It's me. It's simply me. Some things added, somethings removed. It isn't the end of the world, it isn't the start of the world. It's my normal, regular ass life. She wasn't my antagonist. She wasn't my savior. She was my friend, now she isn't. She is a person I grew quite close to, quite fond of, and now don't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6mMOSPss4s