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Location: toronto, ontario, Canada

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

shine

.
so, since i wrote that letter on monday/yesterday (started monday, finished tuesday... what? some of us DO sleep you know) i've been thinking about how i ended it.

'love always'

and i realised later how true it was. just not in the way you might expect.

i look back at all of my previous men whether i ever dated them or not and i still have a soft spot in my heart for all of them. some spots are softer than others of course.

i certainly can't think of too many of them that i would want back in my life although there are a few. some even as lovers. no, i'm not telling you who falls into what category but i will tell you it isn't so much category as... shine.

like i look at this little row of crystal bubbles with pictures inside them and some of them are all shiny and bright and others are tarnished around the edges and some of them are pretty dark and dim and a couple of them are smoking holes where crystals once sat [although even they still own a soft landing] but all of them are somehow treasured in my memory.

now that i think about it? i don't think there are any smoking holes left. i think they've all healed.

i wouldn't be me without them after all ... and maybe they wouldn't be them.

and the shine isn't determined by length of relationship or style of breakup or anything. there are men with shine that i dated for a long time and men that i knew for a day [ahhh PL]. but all of them touched me in a positive way and left me a better person or at least more myself.

there are men with lots of tarnish and men with very little. again that isn't really determined by a timeline but it is somewhat coloured by their treatment of me. the men that i wrote about yesterday are so full of tarnish and dirt that i can hardly see them through it but they're there too.

maybe i needed k to come along and be all inexplicable because that made letting go of someone else just a little easier. or maybe i needed to fall for someone else to help me find out what i do and do not need. and interestingly k's tarnish has faded... but he has no shine really.

maybe i needed my ex husband just so i could remember that someone once wanted to marry me. actually three people but only two of them asked. the third and i did the biggest number on each other of all... but since i had dinner with him his shine is back. he was the biggest smoking crater but still? still the crystal grew back up.

maybe a little more realistic than before and with some rough edges but it's there. it's actually prettier now. probably because it's closer to reality than the original. it makes one wonder what it would be like to have dinner with all of one's exes.

i wonder how many of them i would have nothing to say to at all.

this post is taking a long time to write because i keep getting lost in reveries. i've thought about the way i met my ex husband (yes, we met 'cute') and the day tr implied that we would get married and the way k looked that magical night and the way my ex fiance showed me my first shooting star.

i've thought about re that i dated twice when i was a teenager and dumped badly both times. and bg to whom i did that as well. both men i cared for so much i couldn't hurt them so i ran away from them. funny how that works. i called bg once a few years later and his mother asked me not to find him.

what's funny is that she asked with the utmost respect and with utter liking of me in her voice.

"he loves you like the movies sass but he's living with someone and i think they're happy." and i *miss* my friend bruins but she was right.

*sigh* she was right. i hurt him enough. (wow, who knew this post would bring stinging eyes)

the thing is? i'm someone else's brooding guy in the corner with the cheekbones. but i was much younger then and not nearly so wise. hrm, i don't consider myself wise at all... and yet i'm clearly wiser than i was then although i know less.

i thought about pg and how much i want to see him [pause to google *sigh* still nothing] and about g's cocaine habit and about how g is the one that showed me what it is to wait for sex while sharing intimacy.

thanks g.

and i thought about Ke and the crush i had on him in uni and about P and the crush i had on him in high school and about rc and the crush i had on him a couple of years ago and b who showed me the difference between having sex and making love...

i love all of them. even the ones that hurt me. even the ones i never dated. all of them.

there are some, like tr, who could call me up and say "hey sass i need aftercare from surgery, can you help?" and i would. i would have BEFORE we had dinner. i think that he would have too. some people are in your heart forever no matter what happened with them.

some people, even if you never speak to them again, have still earned that kind of place in your heart ... and some haven't. there are people i know who would never see their exes again, not even to spit on their graves.

it's just so strange to realise that i wouldn't refuse to see any of them. that i actually care deeply about them all. i don't need to see them but i would like to know that they're okay.

inexplicably by setting myself free from that guy i wrote about yesterday i freed myself to realise that i will have a slowly shrinking soft spot for him forever.

and that that's okay.

because it is. i loved him. he wasn't my friend. these statements are true but SEPERATE. and maybe i had to realise that i could love someone that deeply that didn't care about me. me who always said 'i don't think you can love people who don't love you back, i don't think it's possible.'

so it's okay to hold a little space beside all the other little spaces and fill it with the happy moments while letting the tarnish heal itself. and that doesn't mean i've got him on the back burner or that i'm hoping he'll come back somehow or anything.

in fact it means just the opposite.

the crystal bubbles in that lineup all have one key thing in common. they're complete. i've done with them. sure some of them are slowly letting the tarnish heal itself but they're things that i've done with.

over now.

even if i got back with one of them there would be a new crystal not a revisit to the old one.

and don't think that wasn't a huge realisation too.

kathi
asked me in my comments yesterday what i wanted from that letter (okay that's not exactly what she said but whatev) and since i couldn't sleep i let my mind play the free association game and it went from never seeing him again... which it was okay with.

to running into him somewhere and being utterly indifferent

to consciously choosing to hang with him at a party or dim sum or whatever

to having him show up at my door and declare his undying love and adoration for me and i realised that there was one thing all this had in common. i didn't care.

and i don't. i don't care what happens with him... at all. in fact? i was *in* all of those scenarios except the one where he shows up at my door, in that one i was a spectator. i was not *in* it.

it worked y'all. i'm free.

19 Comments:

Blogger Matt Vella said...

Yay for free. :)

What's interesting to me is that - unlike you - lots of people DO NOT LEARN from their past relationships. They continue down the same path, assuming that it's just fine. Whistling in the dark, if you will.

Embrace the experiences, good and bad (which you do) and you will benefit from them greatly.

Being single at this age is definitely a two edged blade, with freedom on one side and a bit of loneliness on the other.

I think that people often forsake the freedom in favor of blunting that edge of lonely.

I know, I've been in a relationship forever. I got lucky. Really.

Just...enjoy that freedom and make sure that you take your time and give yourself ALL the credit you deserve when starting things out with someone new.

6/21/2006 06:32:00 PM  
Blogger kathi said...

Well, first I love any post that mentions me, so cool.

Secondly, I do this all the time. I think about someone from my past, wonder what it would be like to just see them again, even look up where they are. But, I never call or make contact. Probably, because there isn't anything good that I can see coming from it. Then I get real thankful for what I've got.

Another great post babe.

6/21/2006 07:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

yeah yeah, it's the old onion. peel, cry, peel, cry. :)

i've just had some onion soup. organic. Pacific brand. with toasted 100% rye strips and shredded kickass battery acid Italian cheese. yum.

nothing like making onion soup when you've got a big honking onion.

:)

6/21/2006 08:55:00 PM  
Blogger KJ said...

Be proud that you have been able to learn from past relationships.....each relationship is part of who you are today

6/21/2006 09:17:00 PM  
Blogger sassinak said...

matt: yeah dude it feels awesome. it was like this big piece that was stuck in my sternum just lifted away around 2:30 in the morning and then i zipped closed behind it.

i feel narrower. in fact my teacher looked at me funny today *g*

i guess that i learn from past relationships, i must because it's never the same thing that breaks us up. but i can't learn too much because i'm still single with no one making my heart flutter and staring 35 in the face.

and there are things that i consistently do that i haven't learned to let go of. one of my clients has a counsellor that i love the sounds of, when i have some cash i'm going to see about seeing her. (right now i can only afford ONE sixty five dollar appointment a week and that goes to my teacher)

i have benefitted from every moment of my life, the horrible ones most of all. i do have some flinch memories don't get me wrong but the flinching is just an eye twitch now :)

yeah that's exactly it. i'm free to do anything i want, live the life i want, make my choices for me... but no one gives a shit what i do.

it's not worth being in a relationship for the sake of not being single. DM *deserved* a woman who was as into him as he was to her and i just wasn't. it was tempting to put up with it for companionship but i'm just not made that way.

you really did get lucky. luckier still that you know it. as for me? i've decided to let go. the universe wills, i do not control... i am learning to be open but not expectant.

TRYING!


kathi: heh, i meant to link that... hrm *pauses to fix* [that's better] :)

i'm glad i'm not the only one with the little three am fantasy life. and you all shush, i don't mean sex fantasies i mean can't sleep reveries.

if i found pg i would look him up. in a heartbeat. he was my best friend and then my roommate and then eep we slept together and then we didn't talk about it.

silly us. i think we were in love and didn't notice. i miss him, i want to know he's okay and i can't find him.

anyway, other than that i don't really need to see any of them, but it would be nice to hear that they're okay. through the grapevine you know?

thanks!

6/22/2006 12:38:00 AM  
Blogger sassinak said...

gabi: i laughed out loud when i read this and then read it to the friend i was sitting with. "peel, cry, peel, cry" *giggles*

and now i'm craving onion soup. yeesh.

pilates is a giant onion too :)


kj: i know, but that doesn't make it any easyer :)

6/22/2006 12:39:00 AM  
Blogger Hubris said...

Do you think that being free will eventually lead to less bitterness for us?

Cuz you still are.

I am too about Anne. I want it to go. I want to not think of her again or at least have a thought of her be benign in its entirety.

6/22/2006 11:17:00 AM  
Blogger Natalia said...

It is very useful to have conversations with exes once you get to the point that are no longer harboring hopes and that you are no longer angry and trying to see who is doing better. It's just that it takes people time to get to that place. But when you do, you can get a lot of information about what went wrong and how you are perceived and what you do when you are angry, etc.

Feeling freed from the burden of someone in the back burner or someone you are still dealing with mentally and with the heart is a great thing.

Ahhhhh too bad I will never get that conversation with some people.

-N

6/22/2006 01:59:00 PM  
Blogger sassinak said...

daywalker: done
:)


hubris: which us? i'm confused. cause if you mean me about the man i wrote a letter to? not really.

i can't explain why but writing that letter really set me free. sure there is some residual stuff but not really. or do you mean you and i?


nat: yeah it really is. the angry i'm superior crap is even less healthy than just not seeing them but so easy to do. i'm quite proud of tr and i for NOT doing that.

we aren't ready (tr and i) for that conversation but when we are i think it will be awesome. the i'm sorry conversation was hard enough :)

i can't believe how free i feel, it's so strange... there's like this big old empty space just sitting there... but it's smaller than expected because some of the canyon has closed up. the space that's left is healthy and not bleeding.

oh so hard toput into words.

there's a couple of people i'll not have that convo with either and it does sadden me.

hey GHANA is in the second round!!

6/22/2006 05:22:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Go Ghana. You beat the USA and they whined like sore losers just like they did in the Olympics. Mind you, they've been the victim of some pretty heinous ref-ing this World Cup, so I'm giving them a pass. This time. But still, go Ghana.

I'm all about Spain. Because they are hot and I am shallow. Plus I like their outfits.

I am such a girl and I couldn't care less.

6/22/2006 08:19:00 PM  
Blogger Madame X said...

Hey Sass!

I wish I had something of substance to add at the moment but...I am 3 cosmo-rita's into cocktail hour and I just wanted to say HEY!

6/22/2006 09:08:00 PM  
Blogger sassinak said...

PV: i only saw the usa vs italy and i will say that they got hosed by the officials in that game. frankly the officiating was so bad that a draw was the only fair outcome.

and go ghana :) (and italy of course)

i am shallow and they are hot. works for me.

go for girlyness!


madame: hey lush! *grin*

i love when people say hey, say hey again *g*

6/22/2006 11:56:00 PM  
Blogger Madame X said...

I really shouldn't drink and blog!

6/23/2006 10:15:00 AM  
Blogger sassinak said...

madame: yes you should yes you should!!!


RUS: hey long time...

i don't think so... they made it in at least right? that's the first step...

6/23/2006 08:21:00 PM  
Blogger terry said...

(catching up, because i've been a blog-neglecter this week.. is neglecter a word? neglector?)

anyway.

this is beautiful. and brought tears to my eyes.
but in a good way.

6/23/2006 08:52:00 PM  
Blogger terry said...

oh, and hubris? one day, most of what you feel will be indifference.

i didn't think it was possible, but that's what's there, mostly. (that, and it makes for a good story to tell in bars...)

until i start dredging up old stuff, and some of that still infuriates me. but i hardly ever do that.

6/23/2006 08:54:00 PM  
Blogger sassinak said...

terry: i hereby declare it a word... but i spell it neglector :)

thank you, it did that for me while i wrote it :)

she's right hubris, i barely remember my ex husband now and i once wanted to kill him.

well hey we all have shit we aren't over... and it's hard to let go. hell i have a slight from grade eight to let go of and it's not gone yet. but it's also not boy related, that tends to heal better :)

6/23/2006 10:00:00 PM  
Blogger terry said...

hey, i once wanted to kill my ex husband too!

heh.

6/24/2006 02:01:00 PM  
Blogger sassinak said...

i think it's a requirement of ex-dom i really do. i mean the married kind. and i think you always get over it :)

6/24/2006 04:03:00 PM  

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