And sometimes piss you off too!
In that I’m enamoured at present with ‘tipping points’, those pivotal moments when you know your life is veering in a very new direction, and though you might NOT know the exact mapping of where you are going, you know the car has started and there is NO turning back, nor would you WANT to go back. I live for those moments, (though twist and turn like a banshee before their arrival…just ask the people who know me. I frankly unnerve myself on a regular basis, no doubt others as well. Humph)!
While picking out music last weekend to accompany me with some new goals, I was reflecting on my last ‘significant’ romantic relationship. (You may ask, ‘why for heaven’s sake’, well never mind why…I just needed to reflect). From start to finish, I spent almost a decade with this man. We learned a boatload of things being together though spent a LOT of time angst-ridden.
I have chosen to adopt a comic perspective on all things ‘life’, particularly myself. I’m an especially dramatic person, (degrees in theatre and all that…funny frankly that I thought I needed school to be dramatic), and somehow just need to live in living color and out loud…it’s just me. At the end of the day, I have a comic outlook on my life and life in general; I learned this from my mother. Survival techniques really, and I always prefer a good laugh, certainly after finding myself morosely occupied in my own pools of sublime and sometimes gray tinted thoughts. I never let the laugh cover the ick…I just always end up with the laugh. I believe that you MUST feel the pain and discomfort to go from ‘here’ to ‘there’; it’s growth juice. Without it, I feel you stay just where you are!
(Feel free, challenge me on this)!
Yes, pain is the great transporter, and you’ve certainly heard me rally against our numbed culture which is so enamoured and addicted to addictions. (Read my ‘With Love and Laughter?’ post). But, a ‘trees from the forest’ attitude of curiosity and bemusement has helped me through some otherwise perilous times and episodes in my life.
La de da on all that!
I was reflecting, however, on a few key moments in my decade with this love partner that honestly, in looking back, struck me as not so much sad, but in being where I am now, hysterical that I would not have said, ‘wow, THIS certainly isn’t a nurturing fit.’ (Well, there are other words I considered as well). Though, I feel everyone deserves ‘grace’, we all do things to hurt one another unintentionally or not in relationships and I’m certainly not perfect at any of this. Though, there is often a ‘breaking’ point, just as we have ‘tipping points’ in our life. I have an especially long tether before letting go in some areas of life.
Defining Moment #1 Huh???
I’d just started writing a step-parenting column in a local newspaper. I was happy to have the work published, it was fun, exciting, a new endeavor. I was submitting writing online and getting pieces published there as well. I was embarking on a new interest, working to build up confidence and steam. I had business cards written which read:BB Webb, Writer.
ME: ‘Honey, check out my new business cards.’
Him: ‘Just cause you put ‘writer’ on a card doesn’t mean you are one.’
If I’d had a certain male ‘member’ if would have gone entirely soft. Ouch! I’d now have responded a bit differently….Defining Moment #2 Ouch!!!
In the middle of one of our regular stuggle sessions and triggering of one another, (having seen my parent’s loveless relationship I just felt one needed to Struggle, (yep, with a capital ‘S’) to get to the GOOD stuff.) And I’m driven and tenacious, I don’t give up easily!Our regular arguments left me feeling….
‘If only YOU would change BB!!!! You’re too sensitive, you’re too emotional, you’re too impatient, you’re too dramatic’…yeah, yeah, yeah…fill in the blank.Finally feeling exasperated at the end of one emotional interchange where I felt ‘triggered’, unheard, wrong, frustrated as hell:
Me: ‘Ahhhhhh….I feel so FUN and FUNNY when I’m with my friends!’
Him: ‘You funny????’
Me: ‘YES, I’m HYSTERICAL!!!!!!’
For clearly I WAS. Great moment really!
Defining Moment #3 Yowlzer!
ME: ‘I just want to be the light in your life.’
HIM: ‘Well’…(pause, pause, pause)…’you’re not.’BB and 2Lu…laughing at some of the choices we’ve made in our lives.
My friend 2Lu and I quote this one regularly and follow it up, NOW, with great, ‘fall off the sofa’ laughter.
Defining Moment #4: Okay, got it!!! DONE!
I’d written a contributing chapter to a Jim Rohn and Jack Canfield book, a marketing vehicle really. I’d asked this love interest if he’d received the book I gave him, (I’d included a lovely little story about him in it).
Granted, this was after our relationship was officially over, paperwork in, finalization almost compete according to the law.
His response,
Him: ‘Yeah, I got it.’
(Pause, pause, pause). I could feel myself fishing for some validation. (Urgh I hate when I do that).
Me: ‘Ahhhh, did you read my chapter?’
‘Him:‘Yeah.’
I could feel my toes wiggling in my shoes. Walk away from this typical dialogue BB, waaaaalllllk awaaaaaay…. I couldn’t. A fishing I would go.
Me:‘Well, whadidya think?’
Him:‘Oh, same stuff you always say.’
Oh Gawwwwd, why did I GO there??? Why did I feel the need to have this man throw me a flippin bone, as that’s all it would be!
Co-dependent foolish behavior. It was only at THAT moment, that I became VERY clear why we were no longer together….baaaaad fit…..baaaaaaaaaaad fit!
And more importantly, I wasn’t good for me. The seeker and the sought. Yuuuuuuuck.
GOOD LESSONS ALL!
The truth can hurt AND it can also set you free…… if you’re listening.
I heard myself say, ‘I abdicate my throne as Queen of DeNil’. Now doesn’t THAT feel better! Indeed, indeed!
Suddenly I could feel the accelerator in my car revving as forward I moved, and frankly, at breakneck speed, off somewhere…somewhere better, somewhere frankly very, VERY good!
Here’s to attracting really GOOD things which nurture and feed your soul and having the patience for them to arrive in the proper timing….damn it!!
BB Webb
