Been lost in thought, like all week. Over-analysing every detail of this thing called life.

Pft, well, maybe it was due. Untangling stuff so knotted up with lies and betrayals that I just wasn’t seeing clearly.

I think blue.eyed.man fogged up my rose-coloured glasses.

I’ve been seeing things that weren’t there, mirages, mists that shrouded my spirit.

And, Mom, know that I haven’t told you everything. There are details from the hours I spent with him that way too closely mirrored Tim; as he wallowed there upon his ravine of loss of false ‘true love‘.

There were still some left over remnants that haunted, seared, smoked, raged inside. Waves of anger that are fogged under in a haze of fake highs. Years left abandoned in the inner corridor of lost love. Soul. Spirit.

For both of us.

Hunting for something OUTSIDE, that could really only be found INSIDE.

I guess this was an existential vacation. Finding my lost will, spirit, self. I determine my state of being, not some belief that I need to be part of a couple to find my happiness.

And last night, Crossroads and I shared our journey’s, as we pledged our allegiance to our friendship, sans sex. As I was relating to him my post yesterday on True Love, telling him the whole story of blue.eyed.man… about who he was, how he made me feel, and why. As all that was being examined, as I shared that story of his belief that he lost his ‘true love’…I realised some things, Mom.

Stories that I’d told myself that just were not true. Stories to hide the pain. Stories to hide the loss. Stories that had become smothered by heartache.

And things I forgot.

Tim did really love me, and I him. I shared both a desire for him, and a deeper, more spiritual sort of connection. Even with his addictive, aching, soul. Even though I never really found out why. Even though his methods were questionable, his lies, his narcissism at times, he saw me as few others have. He saw my soul, he gave me back my gardening, my photography. He took me out into the wilds of Grey, and he rejoiced in my happiness. He tried to cocoon me within his lies, in the end, and in his own uniquely messed up way, sought to keep me with him.

In the end, I guess only death could untangle me from him.

And I took off those rose-coloured glasses, for awhile, and looked back beyond Tim, to my marriage, and the deep wounds it left me with.

And that friend of Crossroads I told you about? Sue. Well, she and I have shared our horror stories this week. And as I listened to her, I was knocked flat by what they reflected.

It was at times difficult, you know? To soooo clearly, hear yourself mirrored back. To know that with every word she spoke, with every failed relationship, with every crushed heart, and every betrayal, lie, and wounded and wounding man she related… I saw myself.

And it was then that I realised some more hard truths. Realities, assaults, things taken from me without my consent.

And it’s all ok.

It is.

Or, it can be.

Because? Because it’s just part of being.

And you know how I like those back country gravel roads. I loved every dip and the winding path those old hollow ways provided. You know? Past abandoned houses and old boundary walls. Past fence walls, and always that sense of wonder at what may lay just around that bend.

I guess too, that talking to Sue has helped me to see something clearer; that my first ‘true love’ needs to be to self. That…

when we feed and support our own happiness, we are nourishing our ability to love. That’s why to love means to learn the art of nourishing our happiness’.

[ How to Love: Legendary Zen Buddhist Teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on Mastering the Art of “Interbeing” ]

But all those hours on my stoop, under that big ol’Black Walnut Tree, have not been for nought as I made a new friend. This existential, University Educated Artist that lives around the corner.

He walks with a cane, and came through my hedgerow whilst looking for one of my neighbours in the building. His friend wasn’t home, but instead, we sat and chatted about The Coves, Theatre, Art. About the beauties in nature that make our eyes tear with pleasure. About taking new roads, finding new ways. About the now, and the essence. About being. About writing poetry.

He told me that back in April, in the ambulance that took him to the hospital to repair his wounded liver, that he actually died for 7 minutes.

These wounded birds do seem to find me, though, eh? I should put out a shingle at the hedgerow, though “to all those who may enter, to all those who are seeking, those looking for happiness and soul, and friendship…be welcome. All others, keep walking“.

This new friend wants to take me to a play at the Arts Project Theatre (or some such). I like that. I need more friends.

So that’s where I am. And thus a pilgrimage back to The Mount was in order.

I took my Rambling Rose and cycled down the paths that line the river. I felt like I was gliding, soaring, past the “Rock The Park” tents that lined Harris Park last night. Across Blackfriars Bridge, and gliding, swaying in the breeze down the hill towards Gibbons Park. And being waylaid by the detour, I swung back, turning left, turning right, past all those gigantic Old North London mansions.

But I finally found my way.

Through the labyrinth, again, of course, I got lost. Wouldn’t be a journey without some detours, eh Mom?

And when I got there, I got off Rose and made my way towards the Grotto.

As soon as I entered the grounds this peace comes upon me. And, no tears were shed this time.

This time, I lay down upon the grass and looking up into the giant Old Oak…

And all I could say…was thank you.

I don’t know what I want anymore, and I’m fine with that. I want to be in the NOW, anyhow.

No more giving myself away to half-baked maybes and drunken blue-eyed.men who don’t know what they want.

Geesh. I gave him though what I could. I tried to show him what could be. I tried to show him his suffering was all a state of mind, but he is too blind still to see.

And that’s fine. What more could I do?

No more seeking a cure for loneliness. I choose, instead, to surround my soul with happiness, joy, and all the things that make me feel those little twinkles inside, like fairies dancing in my veins.

And as I made my way towards The Mount, I found, with every cycle of the tires on the asphalt path, with the breeze blowing away all the humidity of the days behind me, I felt again those fairies dancing inside, once again.

There is no then.
No could have been.
No more tears shed
upon my stoop
for someone not ready.

And I’ll have to remember how to forget him again.

So as I danced with Rose down familiar pathways on my way back home, I found my answer.

My truth.

My happiness, on my own, by myself.

Well, with a little reflecting.

Love,