For Good
The other day while I was at work, I checked my phone and saw two missed calls.
Both were from my ex. He ended up calling me one time later in the evening. I sat fearful that he knew where I was; that he would know my address from having to send me my car title to me. I began imagine how I would react to seeing him again if he did show up at my doorstep. I could see that by not having ever thought of this, I had not healed fully. When I left my ex and he jumped immediately into another relationship, I thought I’d never hear from him again. He was effectively dead to me. Now all of a sudden, he’s calling me as though he thinks we still have something. Or worse, because he’s found out I didn’t keep it a secret that he’d hit me and choked me.
I sat up in bed wondering if I should just answer and have a conversation with him. Its my understanding that it is the adults who have conversations and children that avoid them. I also remember the relief in his voice the first time I answered when he called me from jail. I see now that I got a sense of meaning from that time when I was needed. When someone else was at their lowest and they needed me to pull them out. Ultimately, I know that isn’t true. If there is one thing that man can be proud of its that he pulled himself out of a really dark place. I know I provided a beacon of light but he had his sights set on something beyond me. It became power. With me, he knew he could have that back, or at least that’s what he thought. I finally came to the decision that nothing I would say could change the way I feel now.
I no longer have feelings for this man, I feel sorry for him. That is not the place from which a relationship should be conceived. I trained myself to think of him in child form to forgive him, but I cannot feel such pity that I take it upon myself to fix it. I blocked him. I blocked him for good. When I did, nothing happened. The world kept spinning. The sun was still out. A silence fell over the house, but that’s because no one else is here. In that moment, I felt alone. The anti-climactic selection of a bar of light across a glass screen did nothing for me. I felt numb.
Later the next day after chatting with a friend, I decided to a Kundalini Activation Light Integration Meditation. It started off as any normal breathwork exercise, as we laid supine on mats and began breathing to rhythmic music. I felt as though my right hand was cold or hot, I couldn’t tell but it was numb. I adjusted several times before finally placing it over my left on my heart. My friend, the breathwork facilitator, came by eventually and uncrossed my arms by placing the right one out to the side. It felt so far from me, but I adjusted to a new comfortable position, leaving my arm where it had been placed.
Over the course of the next few minute, I started to sense an uncomfortable feeling. The heat from my arm moved into my shoulder and was growing. This sensation grew so much that my head tilted to the left. It felt as though a boil was expanding to the size of the entire area between my neck and right shoulder. When it reached its biggest, most excruciating size, my body coiled away from my right side. And then all of a sudden it subsided. Later I felt my back like it was a newly greased hinged. I thrusted my hips back and forth to the music just slightly enough to experience the sensation of that now well lubricated pathway. One other significant moment was when “Tears in Heaven” began playing by Eric Clapton. I began sobbing. The song has a lot of meaning to me.
I went to bed that night feeling as though something had been released. I woke up and was still processing all that had happened. After a meeting, I decided to watch the movie Practical Magic. Its been a long time sense I’ve seen it but some of the themes were very prescient. Like the ‘talk of the town’ worries me here, for example. My dad has an established business, and my whole family lives in the city I now inhabit. There is something about that which makes me feel like there is a need to save face. To always operate in a way that they would want me to. The problem is, I don’t always know how they would like for me to be, all I have is my own self judgement, which can often times prevent me from doing the things that I love.
That was it. That was the control my ex had over me. That same power that the entire community once held, I allowed him to have that power over me. His attempted re-entry into my life brought up my self-judgement. The insults he would have ran through my mind like replaying messages on an old telephone answering machine. Now that he is blocked, I am no longer blocked. I can let go. He has no more access to me.
Originally written in Collective Journaling at The Stoa
