I’ve tried beginning this week’s post at least four or five times and I keep stopping.
Nothing feels right as a way to start off admitting that as hard as I tried and as much as I’ve worked on myself that it wasn’t enough for me to get what I wanted.
I’m referring to my ex. See several past posts if you need a reference, most recently the one where I asked the question, can we really be friends??
Turns out the answer is no. At least not right now.
Because there is still too much love there. Too much attraction. Because it feels easy and in some ways like nothing has changed.
Which totally messes with my head by the way. Once this love and attraction was such an amazing contribution and now it is the demise of something that still feels so precious.
I thought I had figured it out. I was so confident.
Like fuck those (get ready for what may be a lot of swear words this week, it’s my catharsis) social norms that tell us we can’t still have love and attraction for someone and be friends with them.
My MO was my awareness. Sure I had these feelings towards this person but I also had the knowing that I didn’t want to date him again. I simply wanted him in my life.
And because I’m used to just being with and embracing emotions most tend to avoid, like say jealousy, I believed that this would be no different.
And let me just say I still believe this is possible.
I was actually feeling great about it. I could feel the feelings but didn’t have the desire to act on them. I trusted that the more I formed this new neural pathway the easier it would become until poof! we’re friends.
And I think it’s actually an awesome method to shift lots of stuff.
The problem in this case is both people need to be on the same page.
While I was in my own little bubble of relating, like in my head and in my heart it felt great. It even felt great when we were together.
But the moment he combusted into confusion and emotion I slipped right into that quicksand so fast you could barely see my the top of my head.
It was fast, it was intense and it was all consuming.
I resisted the pull of the drama that can only came from a relationship as tumultuous as ours but eventually it gobbled me up.
As I’ve said before, for me it all comes down to attachment systems. I’m anxious preoccupied. Ex boo is avoidant.
The dance is real my friends. It’s smooth and alluring and so very intoxicating.
The leaning in. The pulling away. The grasping. The pushing.
The moment I knew I was fucked was when despite the fact of being so very hurt by his actions I also simultaneously felt so turned on. I just wanted him. Bad.
Wow. The dysfunction is also real.
I could see the source of it all. The words and actions that caused the needy woman inside of myself to come raging out of me, clawing her way up with each slither of her body.
I just sat there and watched it. I watched myself feel this way. I felt myself desiring my desires. It was shocking and compelling all at the same time.
Then came the shame. Even though I didn’t act on these feelings it was still there with the force that knocked me off my feet.
I felt like all the work I had done over the past several months, work I was just commenting on only days before because I was so proud of it, had dissolved up against the heat of a passion that is twisted and beautiful and oh so complicated.
But in that moment I finally FINALLY admitted that indeed there is a component to our relationship that is volatile.
He actually used that word. I felt myself wanting to deny it but I realized I couldn’t. Because it’s true.
But that doesn’t make us horrible, shitty people. It doesn’t even make our relationship bad. It just is.
It’s a part of our relating that is challenging and perhaps in time it can change. And perhaps it never will. Only time will tell if we ever decide to try for the friendship thing again.
Or maybe we just need to let go.
I don’t know the answer. But I’m ok with being in the question for as long as I need to be.
What I do know is that we all have moments where we show up in ways that cause us to feel shame or guilt. We all have moments where we may slip back into a way of being we thought we were complete with. And in those moments we MUST simultaneously love, trust and forgive ourselves.
Because this is life and we are all perfectly imperfect. We are all here to bump into each other and to use our relationships as a platform to learn, to grow and and to heal.
And of course, to love.
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