Roar

 I feel calmer. I think I understand better what is going on for me: I can see a truth of what he's doing that he can't or won't. So, when he talks to me, he talks to me from a place of dishonesty. It's a place he needs to be in for the world to make sense to him, but he has to gaslight me in process, "everything's fine, nothings changed, we just don't hold hands anymore, silly you...." 

But in fact, he has become selfish as part of his growth and survival, which is reasonable and likely necessary . Therefore, he is not a place that I can trust my heart with. Therefore I must stop putting my heart in his hands. Therefore, what we loved about each other is deconstructed. From this point on, he is not someone I can trust with my most intimate thoughts and most intimate self, which is the part of me that he values... as a friend. And this is the part he is lying to himself about. He's telling me I can still trust him, nothing has changed. And that is infuriating. 

But I trust that he doesn't know this. He doesn't know it about himself or us. And I don't trust that I want to hear the finality of his understanding this from his mouth, not right now. I'm grieving us. I don't need to pour salt on the wound. 

He's gone into checklist mode, and if he can't access his true love for me - which was the box I ticked for him - there's not a lot of other boxes I check off on his superficial checklist. He loved me despite the boxes I didn't tick. Without accessing that (non romantic, but deeply human) love, I don't believe he will find that we are the friends he thought we could be. I'm not sure he knows how to like me as I am. 

It's a very strange thing we are tethered by, I do not profess to understand it. All I know is that my body, my heart, feels it. And I don't like to fool myself. I prefer to honour it, for better or for worse. 

But I will continue to be his friend again eventually. In some fashion or another. I will be there for him. For some reason, I feel strongly about not abandoning him. I think there will come a time where he will need the piece of me that, for now, he must shut out. And in my heart of all things good, I've made a commitment to his honest spirit self, but when it is ready, true, and open. Not when it is in destruct mode. 

People need to go into these modes. It's part of life, but when they do, you step out of the way. 

The only part of this that bothers me is that I can't imagine, yet,  who I will be when that time comes and what I would need from him to be able to give him that piece of me again. Although, if I'm honest, I think I have a slight inkling of what it is I can't imagine him every getting there, or getting back there. 

These are things I cannot know. But what I have learned from all of this is that I don't know and/or trust my value. This is true in my relationship with him, at work, and with friends. If I am not being my most perfect self, I do not have value. For him, it's things like: 

• doesn't smoke (vape)
• doesn't drink
• has nice body and attractive face
• is feminine in nature only: sweet, cute, sexy, soft
• works out, is physical
• is smart, strong
• is clean within an inch of their life (no human smells)

I believe this is his checklist, and I only hit one of these: smart and strong. In our relationship, I allowed my knowledge of what I believe his checklist to be to wear down my smart and strong. I focused my doubts about all the other 99% of boxes I didn't tick. So, I spent unsustainable effort trying to edit myself to be someone he could love. As such, things that I wanted to do for me like: work out, be physical, has nice body, doesn't drink, doesn't vape turned into things that I wasn't doing for me but only for him so that he would love me.

And then when I asked him to move out, I swung some of these to the other side of the pendulum and tried to explore my less feminine self  by cutting off my hair and wearing less sexy clothes. I actually have no idea what I like right now or who I am, what I like about me and that whatever that is, it is enough and worthy of love. 

I do some of this at work to. I should wear this, I shouldn't wear that. I shouldn't speak up, I don't have the right answer, I'm too stupid, I don't know business, I'm too old, I look too tired. 

This is such a big hurdle for me. 

And then there's my sexuality. In the beginning, he awoke something in me that I didn't know was accessible. Unfortunately, once he unlocked it, his appetite for it was insatiable so I ended up rolling her back in.  And then there was the everybody dying thing, not to mention menopause,  and him seeing behind the curtain of my feminine warrior taking what she wants, which was me knitting on the couch for hours while sipping wine and vaping. And then I saw that through his eyes and couldn't access the sexy warrior part of me because the gig was up, he saw the other part of me. And he couldn't make love to the wino vaping knitter with a saggy neck. So then my value became the part I played in bed, sexy warrior princess queen. 

GOD DAMN IT.  We ruined everything. ugh. 

I started taking hormones after he moved out. I was beginning the process of taking care of myself. The depression was deep, I was struggling. And now, guess what, sexy warrior queen is knocking at the god damn door asking to come out and play. My mind revisits our adventures and she wants to fucking devour him piece by piece. She wants to make him whimper and delight in his undoing. But then, that's how we got into this mess, so I have to tell her no. She's a bit mad about that. 

He needs to stay far, far away from me. She's very cunning and I should learn how to harness her energy and put that strength into my career.