healing

This is when I don't know whether to post or not, because this doesn't include just me. But I think it's mostly self-centered, so we'll go with it :)

Hey mister,

So, I'm a slow processor. Almost a week after we talk, I have something to say. I think it took me about a forth of the time to come to conclusions and the rest to gather courage to say them :)

My greatest hope in this is that I don't reopen any wounds. I felt such peace hearing about your healing, and that's what I want most. For both of us. So please know that first.

Our conversation threw me for a loop in many ways and I learned two huge things about myself from it:
1) I don't trust people to love me;
2) When you push people away, it hurts them.

Yes, I was emotionally dumb enough not to know the second one already.

I had to take some time to try and reconnect with the emotions that January. I'll spare the details (unless they are somehow useful to hear) and say that I didn't trust you to love me. That's nothing personal. It's a repeated pattern I can see so clearly looking back over my life. There are elements that can add to/ trigger it, but the roots are set waaaay back in time. Dealing with that now. That's, I think, why I wanted you to fight me. I wanted you to prove it to me. I wanted you to help me fight my demons. Maybe that’s not possible- maybe we only fight our own. But I wasn't aware enough of myself to ask for it explicitly. And I guess I had been asking that for a long time, or trying to, but not getting response, I started to shut down and push away.

Pushing away, or running away, for me has always been a source of power. That sounds backassward but it's so true. Fight or flight, I'm a flier. And I didn't realize that other people could pick up on it? And/or I didn't understand how hurtful it is. In running, I deny the other person all input whatsoever, and in pushing, well, yeah- it makes people feel unwanted. All the work I try to do for empathy, and I completely missed this huge elephant in the room.

So I want to apologize, for being a littler girl who didn't know these things and thus acted in hurtful ways. I had no idea the breakup was hard for you. I think that email I never returned came around the time I started responding to A hanging around (I will admit, it was just a few days afterwards. I was a monkey barer looking for pain relievers. I'm sorry for that.) And I had completely fled by that time.

I guess that's the big stuff. Huge revelations, honestly, and counseling this week went way over time with massive paradigm adjustments. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For that. For talking to me openly and honestly- you are a talented communicator and I learn a lot from you. And for letting me back into your life. I have been experiencing myself as I did in our relationship these last few days. Willful, free, observant, a bit argumentative, and in some ways, fearless. For all the ways I have opened lately, it’s so nice to touch back to that. I hope we can build a good friendship again. I'm looking forward to continuing to know you.

Happy weekend! Bring in the spring :)

Margaret

PS Jeez, I just reread that and it was, um, a bit (completely) self-centered.

I think I assume you know the other half. That I did love you very much and had (have) great respect for you. You are a unique blend of confidence and self awareness and I was always blown over by your inner strength, took shelter in it almost, I think. Our time together was so precious and there's not a thing in the world I would've traded it for. Especially the laughter :)

You are right- you have softened in some ways- but you are stronger now that I've ever known you. And flowering out with your dreams, never distracted from what you know lights you up. This, wow, is rare and beautiful and inspiring.

Just want to make sure you know.