Another anniversary

Exactly a year ago today, my (now almost ex-)husband told me he wasn't sure if he wanted to be here in America with me anymore, out of nowhere, after being back with me for exactly 6 days having been gone for the 11 months prior.

Exactly a year ago tomorrow, he discarded me first thing in the morning, telling me that we had no future and nothing in common, and informed me that he was leaving me and would be getting on a flight later that day to return to his country.

Exactly a year ago on Wednesday, I walked into my brand-new job, because I didn't know what else do to with myself.  My life had been shattered the day before, and I'd only had this job for 3 weeks and didn't want to skip out before my first month was up. My boss casually asked me how my weekend was, and I started to uncontrollably sob.

"I guess maybe I shouldn't have asked that?" he said.
"I've had better weekends," I replied, not sure how much I should tell my brand new manager, but also not wanting to come off as if he'd hired an utter crazy person. "I'm sorry, it's just that my husband left me yesterday."
"Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine. If you need to not be here, or take off early, or come in late, just let me know."
"Thank you."

It's kind of remarkable how much has changed in a year.

I'm in a great, healthy relationship now with a truly kind, empathetic, caring, remarkable man. I no longer cry daily, sometimes I go many weeks at a time without crying. The weight I lost because I was physically unable to eat for the better part of 2015 has begun to come back, and my appetite is fully back. The unmanageable cystic acne that exploded all over my face, chest and back because of the stress, beginning in late 2014, is now just scars--it's sort of symbolic how now all that remains of all of it is just scars, that only time can heal. I just got promoted at work. My boss and I have a wonderful working relationship, I think partly because I had to divulge so much about my life so early on. He asks me for regular updates on how things are going in my life, and genuinely cares that I'm healing. Everybody comments on my strength and how my entire aura has changed since my toxic husband left my life. I'm happy and calm. Life is peaceful. I laugh again. I smile. My sense of humor is back. My divorce is sitting with the courts--after months of worrying about the fact that he wasn't signing the papers and was threatening to sue me for "psychological damages" and demanding that I not speak to friends, family, or the press in his country. His time to contest ran out, he didn't do anything, and now it defaults in my favor. The best part is, his greencard I paid for and did all of the work for expires next week. I doubt that he realizes this.

I haven't spoken to him since August 2014, though his friends and the other woman have reached out to me to tell me "how much he loves me" and how he "deserves a second chance." I told them that I gave him NUMEROUS chances, and he blew them all by lying and gaslighting me. The other woman tried calling me 13 times in a row about a month ago, across 4 different mediums. I'm finally at a point where I really, genuinely don't care what she had to say or why she was calling. My boyfriend picked up the phone, told her he'd just gotten this number, and he had no idea who the woman was that she was asking for. She hasn't called since.

He texted me in December to say he wanted to talk, but he wanted it to be on his terms. I delayed in responding, and said I had nothing to say but I would listen to whatever he wanted to say. Finally weeks later, I said I would talk. He never responded. I've made peace with the fact that I will never get an apology or even an acknowledgement of what he did, from him, and even if I did, he wouldn't mean what he said anyway. He only wanted "to talk" to get a response out of me. Once he did, his need to control me was fulfilled, and he didn't respond. Just one more game. But I'm done with the games, and fully done with ever trying to speak to him. There is just no point.

It's been a stressful, emotional year, but I could have never imagined that I would be in the place I am now a year ago. Life seemed like it was over. I could barely get out of bed, and often cried as soon as the alarm went off in the morning. I thought I had lost my chance at love and at ever having a relationship or a family. I thought I was too old to start over and didn't want to. Now the future seems brighter than ever, and my outlook on life is hopeful again.

It gets better, and in a way, I think I had to be totally knocked down to rebuild and figure out what I needed and focus on myself, because I'd spent so much time and money and energy focused on him.

There is love and life after a sociopath destroys your life, friends.

I'm somewhat more ok... (or, Updates Part I)

It's been awhile since I've written. That was partly a conscious choice. I needed a break from processing and sitting and wallowing in my thoughts and emotions. I purposefully made a choice to stop devoting so much of my time and energy to thinking about him. And that actually worked, for awhile. I've healed more in the last two months than I had expected to. But lately, stuff has been bubbling up again a bit, so I guess it's time that I sit down and deal with it.

September was a transformative month for me. My dog got well enough that I was able to take the trip to Sedona, AZ that I'd planned only a week or two ahead of time. My cousin came with me, and though it would have made more sense (and been much cheaper) for us to share a room, I told her that I needed my own room, because I fully expected to be crying essentially every moment I was there. But strangely, basically upon arrival, I felt a sense of calm and peace I hadn't felt in years. Granted, Sedona was (and still is) a Native American site of healing, and is well known in the metaphysical community for its vortexes. But even if a person doesn't believe in such woo-woo (or at least not as much as I do-do), it's not hard to understand why a place that looks like this could be restorative:

I went there with the intention of sitting quietly, allowing any thoughts and emotions I had to come up, and to try to meditate and fully let go of him and get back to myself. And I have to say, I was pretty successful. Even though I have a hard time meditating when I'm in  my apartment, or anywhere else, in general, I was able to go blank in Sedona. I literally sat on a rock, in the desert, and almost immediately my mind went white and I lost track of the fact that I was sitting on a rock in the desert (and really, really should have been wearing more sunscreen). I felt calm, peaceful and centered for the first time in years. 

Another big draw was the famous Sedona night sky. Sedona is a no-light zone, meaning that all streetlights and other man-made sources of light are legally required to be capped and pointed downward so that no light bleeds up into the atmosphere. What it produces is a night sky so dazzling that the milky way can be seen, clearly and brightly, with the naked eye. I've always been a huge fan of the night sky, and stargazing in general, so I was literally giddy with excitement when, on our first night there, I looked up to see this:

While I was there I discovered a new passion: night sky photography. Because, holy shit, when you have a sky like that, and the camera actually captures it--I couldn't sleep the first night because I was so excited that I'd actually been able to get the pictures I wanted. 

On our second day there, my cousin had arranged for us both to have a vortex tour and healing with a local Shaman. As into all things metaphysical as I am, I was skeptical, but I was so desperate to get myself back on track and heal and let go of my pain that I was willing to try anything. I was also skeptical because it was just the two of us, meeting this guy at his house in the middle of nowhere. As we pulled up to his (ok, gorgeous, so that was a good sign) house, I said to my cousin "Should we really be doing this?" She texted her husband to give him the name and address of  who we were meeting and where he lived, just in case this was a terrible mistake and we were about to be left for dead in the desert. I even backed out of the driveway and we drove around aimlessly for 10 minutes so that we could do a gut check to make sure that we weren't being two very silly little girls from the country. We decided that it was probably ok, and went back to his house. 

As it turned out, it was more than ok, and our tour guide/Shaman was the real deal. He was a kind, gentle spirit and he and I connected right away. He greeted us with a warm hug, and asked why we were there and what we wanted to get out of the day. I said that my heart had recently been shattered and I was going through a very tough divorce with the man who I thought was my twin flame, and I needed help in healing and letting go of him. The Shaman began to almost tear up and said he'd gone through something very similar a couple of years before, and that he thought he could help me. He gave me another hug, and I teared up, too.  

Before we got into his SUV, he had us each pick a rune (in this case, small stones with the rune symbols painted on them) out of a box, and whatever we picked would be the focus for our time together. He told us to keep our eyes closed and pick whichever one "felt" the best. I handed him my chosen rock, and as he looked at it and then showed me the corresponding chart, he announced that I'd chosen "Forgiveness." "SHUT UP! NO WAY!" I exclaimed, as I spun around and practically threw the stone back at him. I could tell it was going to be that kind of day. 

 Pictures from the rune explanation book.

I could go into so much detail about all of the things that happened that day, but suffice it to say that there was a lot of hiking, sage burning, singing bowls, crystals, and crying (on my part) involved. I hugged a sacred tree and literally felt its energy. I laid on a rock by a river as the Shaman put crystals on my chakras and chanted, and while he did that, I had a vivid vision of a rose, and within the rose, was a spiraling vortex, and behind the vortex and the rose was the starry night sky. I came home and immediately painted that vision:

It is of note that I hadn't painted prior to this in approximately 15 years. 

At the end of the 5 or 6 hours we spent together, my cousin and I were about to leave when the Shaman pulled me aside and asked if he could talk to me. I said "Sure."

"I don't know how to say this, but I got a message while we were at Bell Rock that I am supposed to ask you out. So...do you wanna go out with me?"

I stumbled for words. I realized the potentially questionable morality of the situation as soon as he started speaking, and all I could produce in response was a series of  embarassed "Uhhhhhs" and giggles while looking at my cousin, who was trying her hardest not to laugh at me. It also now made sense, and I knew I wasn't imagining that he had gently brushed my lips with his finger while he was waving sage over me at one point...once might have been an accident, but it happened, like, 3 times. 

Still, I am a person who will do many things if I think it will give me a good story to tell (which, when I think about it, was exactly my mindset and is precisely how I got myself into the pickle of marrying a psychopath, really,) yet I went with it. When a Shaman in Sedona asks one out, one has to see that story through. So I said "Um, I mean...I'd be happy to talk more with you, since we seem to have a similar situation in common...and if you have any advice, as a person who has been through it, I'd be happy to hear it." 

So we went to dinner the next night, at a sports bar. And he officially became my first date since I met my husband. Over buffalo chicken salad and margaritas, he told me that he just felt like I needed to get out and remember that there is still life in the world, and that I am a beautiful woman with value. He said that he wanted to talk more about my experiences with my husband, if I felt like sharing. And I shared, and cried (yes, in a sports bar), and he shared his experiences and what he's learned being on the other side of his discard, and it was a lovely conversation and connection, really. "You are going to meet someone around the end of this year who is going to want to be with you, and who would actually be great for you, but you're not going to be ready, and you're going to push him away. I did the same thing," he said. And I think he may be right...which I will go into detail with in my next post. 

At the end of dinner, we shared a long hug, he kissed me on the cheek, and we said that we would keep in touch. I texted him later to thank him for being a beautiful soul who reminded me that there are good men out there. He thanked me for my kind words, and said that he was really glad he didn't grab my ass on my way out, lest it ruin my opinion of him. Turns out that shamen (shamans?) are also human and have senses of humor. 

And that's the story of how the Shaman and Sedona, AZ gave me some of my mojo back. 

When I came home, I was sunburnt, but calmer than I'd been in a long time. I felt like I had really made progress in letting go of all of the pain and attachment I had to my husband. I started painting again (see above). I started playing piano and singing, just for fun. I ran, like, 4 weekends in a row (and if you know me, you'd know that traditionally I only run if I'm trying to catch a bus). I started feeling really, legitimately GOOD. 

And then in late September I started attempting to date...

Now what?

Lately everywhere I look, I've been seeing things that say "Let it go." I've always believed in signs, and I'm getting a pretty clear message that the next step in this is for me to let everything about my husband go. Today I dropped off a bag of his clothing he'd left behind for a clothing swap. I started putting my things into his empty dresser drawers. I moved my suitcase into his empty closet. Anything that was out and visible and reminded me of him has either been thrown away, or put away, out of my sight. I cleared his stuff off of my computer (at least as much as I was seeing on my desktop). I blocked him on all of social media. I took down all of the pictures.

But the thought of actually "letting go" is daunting. Despite the fact that my anger now eclipses any warm feelings I may have had for him, I did love him, deeply, and unfortunately more than I've ever loved anyone. He had my entire heart for more than three years. I've been cheated on before. I know that took me years to fully get over when it happened with a boyfriend in the past, and that was just a boyfriend, and it was just one incident. This, with my husband, was some NEXT LEVEL SHIT kind of cheating. Breakups are always hard for me, and generally take me at least a year to really get over the person. I've never been married before, so divorce adds a whole new level to it. Then there's the emotional, psychological and verbal abuse he inflicted. That's also new for me. To admit that I was abused is very difficult. It feels shameful and embarrassing. To move beyond it, and figure out what it was in me that allowed it to happen, and to never allow it again, feels daunting.

I have a lot of shame in general. Everyone warned me, and I didn't listen. I ignored red flags. I knew in my gut that things were off, and I didn't even listen to myself. I've always prided myself on being smart and intuitive and on making the right choices and doing the right thing...and in this case, I made the biggest mistake. What's worse, I was SO SURE about my choice at the time. I have to learn to trust myself again. Right now, I really don't know how that will ever happen. I don't know how I'll trust myself or any man, ever again. I just can't see it.

I know that I need to take all of the energy and thoughts I had been putting toward him and now put it toward myself. I have to figure out what I want to do with my life, outside of what I had wanted with him, or with anyone else. It just feels overwhelming.

Tonight I'm going to light a candle and say a prayer and try to reclaim my energy, cut all emotional and energetic ties to him, and release him. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. I need all the help I can get.