Heartbreak

Many of you visit em's blog. If so you know about the break up. I don't have it in me to write about this experience all over so I'm going to copy the email I sent to my blogger friend Anne. She was someone I connected to in the blogging world. We've never met or even talked on the phone. I asked her a few months ago if she would be my sounding board so we've been writing back and forth. Here goes:

Hi Anne,

I know it's been awhile and I did not respond to your last email. Sorry. Things have been really off balance lately.

I just broke up with Em this morning and I am a wreck. I feel good about the way I did it. There have been a few more struggles since I was last writing. It would seem that we had things back on track the WHAM! something else would come up. I started thinking the universe was trying to tell me to get out!

If I would have broken it off right at these times I would have done so in Anger and it would have seemed like someones "fault." This would also have made it more possible that it would sever our friendship as well.

As it is, I had something come into focus for me that had eluded me before. I knew I was struggling being in a non-monagamous relationship and that most of the drama was coming from me not handling this well.

Then it hit me. The same way I tried to deny my attraction for women my whole adult life, used every effort to convince myself that wasn't me, that is exactly the way I was with this relationship. I am no more able to be completey heterosexual than I am to be OK in a poly relationship (non-monogamous) I found a big part of myself in my loving Em but I was trying to fit the square peg in the round hole with the three thing.

It's so hard breaking up with my best friend and the person that I love more than I ever thought it was possible to love. We're both heartbroken.

She'll be a hard act to follow. I'll still have them both in my life but the thought of us not being romantically intimate is breaking my heart. I guess I need to focus on me right now. Sigh.

Thanks for listening (reading) and being so helpful even with all the struggles you've been experiencing lately. I am really grateful to you.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to give you support right now and in the future.

Anabel

So there you have it. I'm having a hard time eating and sleeping. I really wish I had been emotionally equipt to be in this type of relationship. Anyone wanting to send prayers or peaceful thoughts our way would be greatly welcome. I'm concerned for the kids as well.

Back in the Groove

I started back to my usual class schedule today after a month of not teaching. It was a hard month. I seemed to be swirling emotionally on a fairly regular basis. I chalked it up to the stress of trying to make all the planned changes to the place. That was partly it.

I realized today that a lot of this instability was due to not doing my usual thing at my usual time. As soon as the first class started, I was feeling like my old self. I enjoyed being with my people, in my spot, at my time. I had enough energy left over at 8 o'clock tonight that I met eduardo for a set of tennis. I had a great time! He beat me 6-4, but it wasn't due to a lack of energy. I just kept hitting the damn ball too far. Too much energy? No, not enough top spin. I was serving well most of the time though.

Anyway. It's interesting to discover what a creature of habit I am. I'm feeling hopeful about the studio, whatever comes my way.

DOUBT

I hate living in doubt. It seems to be my place right now. It gnaws at my insides. I try to rationalize it away, pray it away, read something positive or ignore it. Nothing seems to work for very long. It seems like a pretty unhealthy way to be in existence. Distraction seems to be my best ally right now. Quiet time is anything but.

I want to find a stable balanced place to operate from. Any thought of doing something different from what I'm doing now, that might move me away from these doubts, brings up more doubt. I feel stuck.

Every once in a while I feel hopeful. It's a really great feeling. It's like you're ready to take on the world. I want to spend most of my time there. I could handle moments of doubt but I am not liking having doubt be my baseline.

Guess there must be something for me to learn here but I'm also tired of the FGO's. Fucking growth opportunities. Once I get past these difficult times, I do often feel like I've gained valuable life experience. I guess I spent so much of my life hiding from myself and doing and being what was expected of me that now it's scary to be true to who I am. I'm only now just getting to know myself but sometimes I want to quietly crawl back into my cocoon.

Just writing this seems to have softened up the rock in my stomach that I woke with this morning. I'm off to the studio to do some work. Son is going to his girlfriend's house this afternoon for the rest of the day so daughter and I are going to spend some time together in the ocean later. I'm really looking forward to that.

Update: You know, I have some tools for this type of thing. I'll read something or listen to someone at my Al-anon meetings who has valuable ways of looking at situations/feelings. The only thing in my control is my own reactions. Em had sent me an email with a link to a personal development guy, Steve Pavlina, about "The Joy of Sadness." The article is kind of long so she also sent a excerpt. I went back and read the entire thing a while a go. It's very powerful and fits my situation today very nicely. I recommend him highly.

The Ocean was great. Now daughter and I are off to a dinner date!

The Work Of August

Well here it is September 1st and of course the hot weather is here. I don't know why I always expect the heat to come in August.

I worked my ass off at my studio. I changed the name, got a new logo, ordered new shirts, banners, promo materials etc. With big time help from em, eduardo and a bunch of our homeschool friends and students we re-habbed the place. New paint, floor, ceiling tiles, mirror, reception desk etc. The place looks great!

Then I finally hear from a manager of the property; one I can understand well because he doesn't have a thick Asian accent. He starts telling me about the big improvements the new owners of the building are planning. He says that I can expect a rent increase but can't tell me even a ballpark figure what it might be. He says I'm lucky and that he doesn't think that they have anyone at this point ready to take my space. He asked whether I have been looking into other spaces. He's asking what I'd be comfortable with in the way of rent increase. He says if I have to leave they would find me another space.

I only answered a few of his questions and only with info he could get if he looked at our website or class schedule. As far as looking for another place, I told him that I had let the new owners know by email (the only form of communication they recommended besides fax) that I wanted to know what their plans were because I was planing to make some improvements to the place and when I didn't hear from them after repeated tries and when the hard to understand manager was asked anything his only answer was "I don't know" I decided to go ahead and put in the time, effort and expense of the changes. So of course I hadn't looked into other spaces! This school has been at this location for nearly 12 years!

Anyway, this has taken the wind out of my sails. I'm cleaning up the mess of the improvements and trying to organize everything into the new shelving that I purchased but it's hard to continue with the same enthusiasm when things are so up in the air as to how large a price increase or even if I'll have the option to stay at all.

I took some time in the last couple of days looking at some possible other locations. I guess I'll leave this to the universe a bit. I might find a better location with some other shops that might draw some possible students my way. One place is next to a Baskin Robbins and movie theater and another is a brand new complex near a huge aerospace company and has a Subway and Starbucks going in soon.

The manager guy promised to get back to me on Tuesday to give me some more information. I'm not holding my breath though. This new company has already proven to be pretty unresponsive.