Welllll....it's done, and it wasn't so bad.
After the last cuddly weekend, he popped by the next but the whole pattern changed (no calls, no contact for days) and I realized it was cementing (his withdrawal). It didn't feel like a phase, it felt like his real response to being loved. He gave me a sweet look and a HANDSHAKE the last time he left. Ow ow ow!
So I asked him to come over for a little bit last night. I am leaving for a week in California today and I didn't want to be out there tragically wandering, or worse, fantasizing that when I came home we'd leap into each others' arms. I really wanted clarity, as much as he could give, before I left. So I could get on fairly vigorously with letting go and grieving so I can move through it. And I got it.
I'm glad. I didn't try to persuade him to be different, I just expressed my huge gratitude for the joys he has given me, and told him I knew we'd be friends forever. He kept saying, I still like hanging out with you, I want to help you, you know, when you need something moved...he kept talking about how he could help me. (That's the role he plays in church too, he is a helper...always doing things for people. That's his comfort zone.) When I asked if he would ever let me help him back he said he didn't know, it was very hard for him to accept help from anyone.
I poured out a lot of appreciation and also cried my face purple. But it wasn't tragic, it just was honest. Big hugs goodbye, and now I have no anxiety about seeing him around church. I explained I'd be not doing church chit-chat with him for a while but that was only to move along in healing and he said he understood.
So we're okay. He gets to go on being Zorro, and I get to have a precious friend who couldn't sign up for the long-term benefits.
He's taking care of my dog while I'm gone. And the minister moves in downstairs in August. And I have a ton of work to do in the fight for the house.
I will find someone to love who will be glad of it, and love me back. And meanwhile, I'm not sorry. Taking that risk brough me alive again in many ways.
I"ll check in in a week...I'm off to San Francisco and then Pasadena for a family reunion with my Dad's cousins. Meeting my daughter out there. They will probably have heart attacks when they see her tattoos.
lots of love and heartfelt thanks for all the kindness, wisdom, comfort and support you've all given me.
Hops
