Inner work: those words came to mind as I contemplated what the last four months have been about. Despite my doing my best daily, not many days have passed without the hurt of indifference in contrast to (the belief in) love. I wonder how many others are made to feel their odds don't warrant continued relations or compassion from those who they love? Plans that were precious...no longer on the table. The times I reach out - for I simply am cracking trying to understand with the compassion to accept - they are short-lived before I am pushed away again. It's pushing my spirituality as I seek to forgive & heal. Some days I can believe its not about me as I've been told by some, but it is. I face that my concern of being a fill-in was accurate...all the clues I caught & felt bad over were real. When a person has not put the time & effort into healing..to feel the pain of loss...& inserts another person in that void, the person fills-in the loss. He had not grieved the loss of his wife & though we talked well together & we took it very slow, I did not undestand the vulnerable place that put me.
I have since read that if a person was not happily married and /or if there is any guilt, the liklihood of being able to commit & fully love is lessened. I had asked him to go to counseling, was pleased he did, & trusted him he stopped at the right time. I was ready for a relationship, to partner up & to love fully. When we talked about what we each were looking for, I was honest. He wanted a woman who did not take head meds & who was well. At the time, I felt healthier than ever. I was riding my bike, taking off weight & feeling good. When two months later I discovered stage iv ovarian cancer, I told him I knew he had wanted a healthy woman & to cut his losses. While that is not what I wanted, I felt it was fair and appropriate. He said he wanted to stay. I know with certainty having the love in my life, the outings, him keeping me walking...all of what he gave made my life better. And it made me inspired to win.
I thought we had a pool of deep love...despite his lack of talking future with me. When we were together, things were generally very good. He liked & seemed to require to be at his house & it became evident he drank to drunk many of those nights. He rarely showed me that side and the few times he did, had me concerned. More often it was late evening drunk calls or texts that I eventually asked to stop.
I'm concerned for us both. Before he asked me on the trip to the desert, he stopped drinking for a month. During that period of time, he began to revalue me after not speaking much to me during the previos two months. All of the distancing & then getting close has, in retrospect, been very uneasy. And at this time, I am trying to shed the feeling of no longer being worthwhile. I create medical waste, am not working, am treating myself & often hate the feeling of being unable to fully do so in order to get well. There are no guarentees on how long I will live...or him...or you, for that matter.
When we parted ways in early March after our great time together for nearly a month, I did not question our love. But, love does not fail...and for someone to love you but then bat you aside like you simply don't matter & have no desire to ask how you're doing...at this point, that harshness, that contrast, feels more of a struggle to contend with than cancer. I think of others who find love and cherish it. I point out the obvious that I am not dead. I'm truly doing my very best to get the elongated chapter of ovarian cancer to end with me alive and healthy. And the flat fucking truth that makes me angry at times is he & I both know my life chances went down to lose his support & love, especially now. It is felt as cruel and selfish, though I also do not doubt his guilt & anguish, frequently dowsed with alcohol which brings out the cruel & selfish. When the nurses touch mattered as much as it did yesterday evening in the hospital (future post), it hit me very very hard for it is something predominantly absent. Can I somehow live long enough to be past the pain? Right now, it feels like it would like to kill me.
Hoping & praying that I can fast-track processing the sorrow.
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