What I Learned From My Affair With a Married Man

Present...

I Learned About Myself:

1.) I learned what I am NOT here for. I am NOT here to do anything blazingly successful or visible in the world. I am not here to make my parents or anyone else proud. I am not here to meet external standards of any kind of success. I am not here to be the next J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins. 

2.) I am NOT here to attach myself to another person, wrapping myself around and living through their problems, trying to "save" somebody ill. I am not here to be them, I'm here to be me. I am not here to use this escape route to avoid Number Four. I am not here to use saving someone as a shortcut to self-worth or happiness. I am not here to trade saving someone for something I'm supposed to provide for myself, that I'm afraid I'm not good enough to be able to.

3.) Each person is responsible for saving themselves. I can't reach into Chi's head, or my mother's head, no matter how their pain moves me, how sorry I feel for them, how much I wish their lives could be different, what I read, what I know, what worked for me, or how much I think they should do whatever worked for me. Their salvation is their own learning, takes place in their own head, and therefore they are the ones who have to reach it. I am NOT God, and I can make no one else do ANYTHING.

4.) I am here for self-development. All I'm supposed to do on this planet is become self-supporting, self-sufficient, and self-responsible. That means that money, health, happiness, and meaning in my life come from me, all me, and only me. I'm supposed to develop my own talents and my own self-belief and self-worth, nobody else's. I'm supposed to heal myself and no one else. I'm not here to take care of other people. I am here to evolve to taking the best care of myself, and to become perfectly okay all in myself, and all by myself. I'm here to believe in myself and to learn to joyfully do what I do best. It will be whatever it is, and that's good enough. Period. 

5.) I do not need anybody else's anything. Ever. 

6.) I may never have anyone else in my life ever again. If not, then that's the way it's supposed to be. I'm primarily meant to be alone in this life, because of Number Four.

I Learned About Affairs:

7.) Attractions between people already involved in relationships and people not a part of the existing relationship are there to show us something. Therefore, simplistic moral answers, although they may be reflective of the learning that's meant to take place, aren't the answers themselves. If we concentrate only on strict moral rules, and on how bad we are for wanting to be with a "forbidden" person, instead of looking for our own answers, we might miss something important. What we should concentrate on is the spirit of why the rules are there, not their literal syntax, or the threat of spiritual punishment. 

8.) Every affair situation is different.

9.) All three people bear responsibility.

10.) An affair is always symbolic of what needs to be developed in our lives. When we look for that, we're on the right track.

11.) Psychology and astrology can be helpful shortcuts to some answers we need. Both are worth a look if you're struggling.

12.) Affairs start in childhood. All adult relationship problems do. Therefore, if you are struggling with affair-related issues, GO BACK TO YOUR CHILDHOOD. You could probably use professional assistance to do this.

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda...

September 26, 2017

PAST...
(written BEFORE the update on 10/22, scheduled, and left here because there are some other good insights in it.)

Chi and another good friend of mine are both atheists. Neither one of them believes in any, and I do mean ANY, underlying spiritual purpose in life that can’t be scientifically proven.

I used to be that way, too. So many horrible disappointments occurred in my life that I concluded there simply was no benevolent force in the Universe. (People want to call this God, but I do not believe it is some angry punitive Superbeing who watches us and demands that we believe this, think that, do this and don’t do that, while worshiping reverently on our knees. It has a lot more to do with US, and what WE chose to come here to experience in order to evolve. And WE chose that, NOT Someone Else.)

Some of this IS scientifically provable. Look at what psychologists know and have been able to prove about the genesis and resolution of problems in human relationship.

It’s when it starts to intersect with the astrology and the two agree and reinforce each other that things start to get a little scary. When I started to see the gifts in self-understanding that the worst things in my life have had to offer me—Simon and Chi leaving, the afteraffects of a childhood with a mentally ill mother—and the healing pattern there is in them, should we choose to take that path, that’s when I realized there really is something more after all, and we aren’t just the victims of a cruel, evil, and random universe.

When you’re an atheist, and all you believe is hard science, you can miss that. Last night, my other atheist friend brought a section into writer’s group, of the memoir she has been writing. In it, she’s writing of a time much earlier in her life when her marriage was in trouble, and she embarked on an affair with a colleague in graduate school. Here she is, marveling all these years later at the strength of her attraction to this person, and still not able to comprehend it into her seventies. At the time, she chalked it up to pheromones, and the memoir chapter devolved into a trip to the morgue where she tried to convince the M.E. to do a search for a human vomeronasal organ.

 

Good, fucking, grief.

Here I’d been rereading these blogs and telling myself, I’m crazy. Nobody reading this will ever believe me, and for good reason. I’m clearly a crazy, desperate, horribly lonely and empty person who needs to close the computer up for good, unless it’s to search for someone new on Match.com. (And that person had better look out.)

But last night, I saw that I can see why Chi and I happened, and everything the two of us, and Rory, were supposed to get from it. I see what the blocks were in my life, and what I’m really supposed to be here working on and growing in, and how Chi showed that to me. And I see what he was really supposed to have worked on and grown in these past two years, and how I showed that to him. And how both of us have shown that to Rory, and she to us. It’s in the psychology. It’s in the astrology.

And because I have the ability to know and suss out these things, and see WHY things happen, life doesn’t look like senseless pain, the way it does to Chi and my other atheist friend. It’s painful, all right, especially this week—more on that to come—but it’s no longer SENSELESS pain. And I worry about it a whole lot less. I mean, the concept that I am SUPPOSED to be alone at this point in my life—without that, I’d still be the miserable wreck I was when I started therapy two and a half years ago.

So, this shit may sound a little woo-woo, but it is FAR from useless.

It means I won’t still be sitting around a writing table at age seventy-two, sadly wondering why my life was so senselessly painful, and unable to make any meaning or peace out of it. I won’t be like elderly relatives I have known, still crying about why they were treated so badly by their parents, into their own NINETIES.

In fact, if I knew a little more about the marriage in question, and had the charts of each person, I could probably tell my friend a good deal about why it happened. The person in question even once said to her that they were old souls who knew each other in another life and planned to come together in this one—which her ultra-scientific mind immediately pooh-poohed.

You’re going to reach seeing the meaning in your life experiences really fucking slow that way. But, it’s each person’s own choice.

And right when I was feeling really stupid and silly over the whole fucking thing, that happened. Amazing. 

Painful though many events have been over the last four years, at least I don’t have to live like Chi and my other atheist friend. And I have a feeling that is turning out to be a very good thing.

By the 24^th of September, I had heard no more from Chi. Looking more closely at the relevant transit, I guess that’s to be expected. All it really says is, I’m trying to guess what’s going on with the trends in my life, and highly likely to be wrong.

The first time I saw it, I jumped to conclusions and assumed I'd be trying to figure out what was going on because I’d heard from him.

(Um, actually, when you think about it, that is exactly what happened. I did hear from him. In a very sneaky way, with lots of plausible deniability. And then I started trying to guess why!)

If there’s any more, I thought it would be this week. The reason I believe that is: The transits that talk about an ongoing resumption of a relationship start in the middle of October and go through November and on into next spring and summer. If he waits too much longer, he’s going to miss them, and effectively break our date.

But the fact is, these transits go on a long time. All I can really tell is, if it's getting on into late spring/early summer and he hasn't spoken to me, he isn't going to. But I'm not able to pinpoint when any closer than that. I had guessed mid-September, and I did hear something, but that was it.

What I need to think about is how to just build a life all alone, because either way, I will still be alone a long, long time. Maybe for the rest of my life. If the astrology is correct, I have to throw Chi a gauntlet: We both have to get well, and become emotionally well people. And emotionally well people don't try to pursue two relationships at once if they have to lie and deceive to do that.


If he lets that gauntlet lie there, I'm alone. If he never shows up again, I'm alone. When you have so many problems being alone, alone is where you NEED to be, not in a relationship. When you're perfectly happy and perfectly fine all by yourself and you don't need a relationship, that's when you can be in one. Not before.


Except, quite interestingly, for Chi. In order to accomplish some of my life objectives, so the astrology goes, I don't have to have a relationship. In fact, I will probably accomplish them more readily without any close people at all.


But Chi. He has Venus on his North Node. Relationships and learning to navigate properly within them are a major reason he's here. He can't accomplish his objectives in this life without one. So if it isn't Rory, and it isn't me, it's going to be someone else.

Yep. Astrology really is real.

September 16, 2017

I forgot the dates of the relevant transit that lit up like a light bulb when I found it, and told me, “This is when he shows up again. THIS RIGHT HERE.”

I thought it started on the 24^th and went til October. Nope. It started on the 14^th and goes til the 24^th.  

My heart plummeted. I thought, Nine more days! There’s no way, no fucking WAY this person will speak to me within nine more days. But, as previously reported, I did get a browse from some anonymous individual on LinkedIn right about the time Chi and I last saw one another two years ago. Which, incidentally, was right before his anniversary. The same way someone browses me on Valentine's Day...around the holidays...all significant dates for me and Chi.

I think back a lot to the last time I remember seeing him. All the time that we were speaking, he never let me--or anyone else--see him look at me when we were around other people. But that last time, I remember him making eye contact with me, and those big blue eyes following me around. I knew there had to be something significant about that, because he had told me he was very deliberate about not being seen to look at me or watch me in any way.

What I didn't know was what was significant about it. What the fuck did he want? And how the hell did he expect me to divine this, exactly? I remember making eye contact with him, and then turning my gaze away. He was married and he had expressly told me it was over, and not to speak to him again. In the absence of any discernible instructions to the contrary, I was left with no other choice but to do as I was told. (Before the affair: Catch him outside in the parking lot, say, "How are you doing?" After the affair: Catch him outside in the parking lot, say, "How are you doing?" and then possibly get barked at for speaking to him, even though he'd let me see him staring at me all night? No, clearly this interlude should never happen.)

So I'd turned my eyes away, thinking, Sorry, but if you want to tell me something, you're going to actually have to TELL me. I have no idea what your looking at me means, and you told me to stay away from you. So, I am.

And he didn't speak to me, and that was the last I saw of him. When he missed two meetings, that was when I knew: He'd moved back home, and he'd told her, which was why he'd never come back. If he did, she'd know where he was. And he disappeared right before their anniversary, so I could only presume they'd agreed in marriage counseling, after about four months of therapy, that they'd give their marriage another try, and their anniversary was going to be his move-back-in date.

Of course, I don't have to tell you how devastated I was. That was horrible. Horrible.

Having gotten another LinkedIn visit on such an anniversary date, sort of felt the same way. But I had resolved, if he ever hit me up again, I would browse him back--as myself, this time, and not under the cowardice of private mode.

I told myself it probably wasn't even him, and that if I did that, he wouldn't browse me back. Very sad, I went back to Linked In to check anyway.

Once upon a time, I was told I had some kind of occult gift. I basically blinked and went, “Huh? Uh, no. Not that I know of!” Well, I must, because that’s three big predictions in a row. One was when Simon would die. I was exactly one week off, and if I had’ve remembered the date of his first wife’s death, I would have amended that and been right on the money. The second was Rory and her “promotion.” 

The third happened last night. My anonymous browser has hit me up yet again. Please note, all of the above predictions involved a LOT of educated guesses. (Maybe that’s my gift.)

It HAS to be Chi. 

Not that this means he will actually get brave enough to drop the private mode and SPEAK to me. 

And, if he doesn’t, I can’t help that. Running after him and trying to grab him by the collar and drag him back into my life would be codependent. If he doesn’t speak to me, there will be nothing I can do, and that will be the end of it. If he won’t speak to me, there is nothing more I can offer him.

Doesn’t mean I can’t offer it elsewhere, though. Because, and I don't know why these should have occurred coincidentally, but I also had this thought about my writing:

About this What’s the use? attitude. What do I want to do all this writing and work for? I fucking HATE self-promotion, and I don't want to learn to do that shit. No one will see what I do, or care, anyhow.

Whatever I do will reach the people it’s supposed to.

Maybe that won’t be many, and that has to be okay with me. It may be that it isn't supposed to reach anybody. Maybe the important thing about it is that I achieve the self-development in the doing of the work. (We can’t all be Suzanne Collins.) But it will go where it’s supposed to, and reach the people it’s supposed to, and that’s ONE reason to do all that work.

The SECOND reason is—and this is the other epiphany I had—if I’m sitting there planning and writing a novel and trying to start a writing business, THAT IS MY CHILDHOOD RECOVERY WORK. Living alone, taking care of myself all alone and all by myself, self-starting something I want to do, believing in it, and following through and learning to make it work all on my own IS THE REST OF MY CHILDHOOD RECOVERY WORK, the same as codependency recovery is Chi’s. 

I know that tragedy will befall him if he doesn’t finally get his done, but tragedy will befall me if I don’t get mine done, too.

If we somehow ended up together, and it just so happened that we didn't get our childhood recovery work done, that time would end very, very sadly. My whole issue is lack of confidence and lack of will to focus on myself, me, my work, my worth, and to do it all myself. 

If I’m writing and trying to publish, I’m doing that; if I’m not, and I decide to try to live a sick codependent’s life for him instead, Hell and Damnation await. A veritable Hurricane Irma of mutual emotional dysfunction. Which is why our Davison is saying, Affairs don’t happen unless I am unable to complete this task. Me and my writing are the centerpiece of MY life, not Chi and his low self-esteem and codependency.

So I need to stop procrastinating on pulling writing out and going to work on it, or doing any of the support things like housework that enable me to do that, saying, What do I want to do THAT for? There’s no point. It’s the childhood recovery work I am supposed to be doing, and I avoid it at my peril, just as Chi avoids his at his peril. 

DO OUR GODDAMNED WORK, and we could enjoy a beautiful life together. (Or Chi and Rory can, if THEY do their goddamned work.)

Ohhh, but if anyone DOES NOT…

                  

    

SO: Does He Speak? Tune in next…

Leaning Toward NOT-Gold Medal Behavior.

PRESENT...

So, this is me:

They look happy in that photo. And he ”loved” it on Facebook. But he browsed me. But they look happy in that photo. And he “loved” it on Facebook. But he browsed me. Two years later…

You know the drill.

Today I remembered something: Chi always looks like he’s doing better than he is. Even when he was with me.

As a general rule of thumb, you can pretty much count on that one.

 

The last time he browsed me on Linked In: sometime around Valentine’s Day. (It took me a couple of weeks to discover it, so I can’t be sure exactly when.) I browsed him back…but I chickened out and did it in private mode. I was afraid to interfere. He could tell someone browsed him, but he couldn’t be any more sure it was me than I could be sure my anonymous browser was him.

 

I promised myself, if he ever did it again, I’d browse him back, and I wouldn’t cloak. I’d let him know it was me.

 

So, I did that.

 

In case he doesn’t “get it” (he won’t—LOW self-esteem), I put status messages up on my Facebook accounts, not directed at anyone by name, simply saying, I have marching orders not to speak to someone, and if you don’t talk to me, I can’t talk to you.

 

He may never browse me on Facebook. That’s his choice. (If it was even him on Linked In.)

 

Of course, I’ve had to revisit the romance because of the damn novel. Which my Sunday morning writer’s group likes, and bugs me to bring in more of. (Is it any coincidence that I’m finally at this point in the story right about now?)

 

I remember that I love him. I remember that I miss him. I remember just how delightful he can be. And now I just long to be with him again.

 

And here I am, scheming and manipulating.

Not that I would have done more than that. (She said.) Whether to ever speak to me again is, as the tarot cards reported, his choice.

 

But here I am again, So Sure Of What Someone Else Should Do.

 

Just like Rory. And his daughter, and everyone else in his life.

 

Once again, I am slipping into a pernicious control mindset. Because, just like Rory, I neeeeeed him to do something for me. I neeeeeed him to come back and be with me, because I’m sure I can’t be happy without him.

 

Haven’t we already been over this? Don’t we already know this is bad? Don’t we know WHY it’s bad??

You see, that feeling of internal unrest because you want a person and they’re not there—that’s half of Moon opp Neptune. That’s my half of what will kill the relationship—or ANY relationship. That feeling of being so unhappy you’ll do anything. Because whatever is in the rest of your life, it’s just not good enough without the drug of this person.

 

OK, I felt that way about Simon, too, but we were married. And it was a healthy relationship. Or at least, one that worked so well, I didn’t see all the ways I still wasn’t mature.

 

You can’t miss someone so much that the rest of your life is just dust and ashes without them.

Except, unfortunately, you can. And we do. It’s part of loving someone.

 

It certainly was part of loving Simon, and it’s part of loving Chi, too. Except with Simon, there was a real relationship to base that on. With Chi…Heh. Read on.

 

It finally dawned on me what he’s showing me, and what he’s been showing me all along.

 

He is not ready to change what he’s doing; he’s showing me that he wishes he were ready to change what he’s doing.

 

Codependency therapy is scary, and painful. Some of us are afraid that if we really look at some of the things our parents did to us, we’ll never be able to stop crying. Some of us are terrified that those things really were our fault, that we were just rotten little children and we’re still rotten people, and if we had been better little boys and girls and better people, our parents would have loved us and taken better care of us. Some of us are so scared of the tears on other people’s faces, their pain if we ever disappointed them, that it’s easier to just remain in pain ourselves our whole lives, because we know what pain feels like, and we don’t want to cause any to anyone else, ever.

 

Some of us haven’t learned that if another person truly loves us, there’s no way we can really disappoint them.

 

It’s SO much easier to run back into, “What must I do to please others?” (And then regret the consequences. For twenty MORE years.)

 

Pushing this person is harmful. Part of the problem is, he has too many people pushing him already. If I push, too, that just adds to the stress, it doesn’t relieve it.

 

I have spent some time these days studying Nodes of the Moon. The Moon’s Nodes tell you basically what you have already experienced, in childhood, or in a past life, if you believe in that—that’s your South Node—and what your soul incarnated to master in this life. That’s your North Node.

 

I already knew this, but I did stumble upon one astrologer’s unique way of looking at it. In this life, you long and long for your South Node—the best aspects of what you knew in the past. But, unless you master your North Node, you will never get that again in this life in any satisfying fashion. You have to get the good South Node stuff (and, in every childhood, there’s also some BAD South Node stuff—we don’t want that!), THROUGH your North Node “classroom.”

 

I mean, look at Chi. North Node first house, South in seven. Seven is the house of partnership and marriage, the Holy Grail of happy relationship.

 

Ah, but what’s in House One? THE SELF. He’s got to master healthy self-esteem and a healthy self image before the House of Marriage and Partnership is going to be in any way hospitable. (And look at the codependency and the early childhood family problems in the rest of that chart. Woooo.)

 

Look at mine. North Node: House eight, sign of Aries. I’ve been pretty codependent in the past and I’m supposed to become an individual, instead of picking sick people and martyring myself to their problems. I’m trying to master huge transformative experiences, often having to do with a death, some kind of rebirth, inheritance, sex: big, deep, risky experiences that shake humans to their core. Well, there certainly has been an actual death in my life—two big ones—and I have transformed a lot as a result of one of them. And I’ve been a participant in someone else’s big transformative experience. Aries rules a lot of the same issues as the first house: independence, learning to live alone, stand alone, and care for the self alone. Learning to be an individual, instead of submerging the self in relationships and what other people want one to be. And, if you look at all my bad transits to the purported end of my and Chi’s relationship somewhere around 2036, they reflect an abysmal failure in that area on both our parts.

 

MUCH to be avoided.

 

Now look at my South Node. House Two, the House of Worth. Most people think that’s just about money. It’s not. It’s anything of worth—including your SELF worth—and how you value what you are putting out in the world to others. If you do not value it, others won’t, either, and you can end up poor. Which is what I spent many years absolutely terrified of, because I had that low self worth and low self confidence that anything I could do in the world would be good enough for other people in the world of work and commerce. I still feel that way about my writing. (I mean, really. Two hundred thousand books are published every year, and maybe one percent of them sell more than a hundred copies. Who’s gonna give a shit? And why should they?) And look what I was trying to use Chi for two and a half years ago. Not good, huh?

 

I’ve been sort of ashamed of some of the money I’ve made and the things I’ve bought. Aren’t I getting a little out of control? Aren’t I dressing a little too nice these days? Don’t I maybe look a bit silly? Nobody else wears a diamond ring to work unless they’re married or engaged, and maybe not then. Haven’t I maybe bought too many clothes? Do I REALLY need another set of wonderful linen bedsheets? (Hmm: Answer to that one: YEP.) But the advice here is that I’m supposed to be doing this, and I’m supposed to take pleasure in being self-sufficient, and enjoy what I’ve been able to do for myself.

 

You know, if I can do that, my life can be about more than just a relationship that didn’t work out, and I don’t have to put all this harmful pressure on poor Chi.

 

I can see that any relationship is going to go much, much better when a person is capable of doing this. No matter who you’re with. Basically, what this is saying to each of us is, I can have the relationship—whoever it turns out to be with—once I’ve mastered self-sufficiency. (Chi has Aries and Libra, too, just the houses are different and the nodes are switched.) And Chi can have the relationship—whoever it turns out to be with—once he’s mastered codependency and self-esteem. And that’s why our worst transits are saying, from year to year to year, Here’s where you have the CHOICE to master this, here’s where you ELECTED NOT TO, and here are the consequences you will pay.

 

Those are bad. We MUST do our healing and recovery work, even though, even though, even though, even though, it’s the one thing we LEAST WANT TO DO. The one thing you look at and wail, “But I can’t do that!!”  That’s your North Node. That’s the thing we absolutely MUST DO, most of it apart, before we can ever succeed in a relationship, whoever it’s with.

 

But who am I to tell him what he’s READY to do?

 

All I’m trying to do is push him because I neeeeeed him. And there’s a healthy part of that: I know he wants that kind of relationship, and we really were wonderful to each other and got each other in a marvelous way, and every human being wants that! But the unhealthy part of that is, I still think I can’t survive without it, or feel happy in just the life I have. And that’s what will kill the relationship—any relationship. But especially Chi, who’s pretty much been Needed To Death his whole life.

I’m not even going to write down what Rory’s Nodes say. They’re hiLARious. North Node Six, South Twelve, North Sagittarius, South Gemini. You can look that one up. Basically, although the available interpretations of this axis are more nebulous (and some of the astrologers writing them are a little woo-woo), it’s everything Chi ever told me about her.

 

So today I’m watching myself plot and plot, long and long, and I see that I’m just, once again, trying to force someone to do something FOR ME.

 

And I realize two things: It’s absolutely VITAL that I learn to just be in this life, without thoughts of this person in my head all the time and of how much I miss him and want to be with him. Those are the seeds of a sick, enmeshed relationship, and I’m already running the ship aground long before it ever comes in.

And really: If I can just get my mind to relax out of those thoughts for a minute, see how much better that feels? What’s wrong with just going along, going to work every day, and writing and living my life? Nothing. I think that relationship would have been the best, and I feel sad because that reality isn’t my reality; but you know, I’ve read the codependency books and all Chi’s worst transits. There are very good ones, but there are also very BAD ones. It’s clear what kind of hell I could be in for.

 

A really, really sick unhealed codependent who isn’t getting better is NO PICNIC. (Chi knows that. Rory is one, too.)

 

And I know that. I spent thirty-eight years with my mother.

 

We should never assume the best possible outcome will be ours, or just blindly assume we can handle the worst. I never knew my aunt and cousin would be such a nightmare, and look what I did to myself there.

 

And in being so needy, I call forth the WORST, NOT the best.

And then it was almost as if a voice spoke to me, as I saw that one of my motivations here is a good one: I know this person wants a relationship with someone that’s like the best parts of the one we had (and I don’t know, with Rory, maybe he’s still wanting it!) And I do, too, and part of my motivation is a helpful motivation: that of helping us get there.

 

But if a person isn’t ready to do what it takes, a person isn’t ready to do what it takes. And neediness just results in pretending, acting, and lies on the part of that CODEPENDENT person who really isn’t ready, and who keeps shying away from doing his childhood recovery work.

 

And that breaks down over the long run. Unfortunately, because Chi is so consummate an actor, shoulding himself into absolutely inhuman misery and smiling all the while (“We’re all fine, here. Thank you!”) the process is invisible, and reveals itself over way too many years to be workable at our ages. Twenty more years of avoiding our childhood recovery work, and we don’t get another chance at anything other than drooling into our laps in the nursing home.

 

And this voice inside said to me, “If and when this soul is ready to move forward, he will let you know.”

 

And if he doesn’t, that’s my answer.

 

You can’t MAKE anyone ready to move forward, ready to do their recovery work, ready to make any change in their life. (And I know this; I lived with my mother.) And if you try…DISASTER.

 

I have to relax and trust that this person just isn’t ready yet, and when or if he ever is, he will let me know.

 

And my job until then, or until some other wonderful man shows up, or until I die alone, is to become successful at living alone.

 

And you aren’t doing that when your mind is constantly occupied with wanting a thing that isn’t here.

Sometimes you simply have no control, and you have to accept your life the way it is. And that’s EXACTLY what this forthcoming transit, spanning a prospective relationship that also appears in Chi’s chart AND Rory’s, is telling me: STAY OUT OF THE NEED TO BULLY AND CONTROL THE OUTCOME, AND LET WHATEVER IS BE. And Chi’s and my Davison: the relationship only has a chance of doing well if I’m capable of standing alone.

 

There’s nothing BAD about this life, really. It’s just that Chi isn’t in it. And I’m afraid he may never be. I don’t want anyone else; just him.

 

Oh, well; oh FUCKING well.

 

It’s that soul’s sovereign choice whether it wants to evolve out of codependency and low self esteem in this lifetime or not, and who with—and the man is almost sixty. It’s quite possible his answer is, “This is too hard for me. No, thanks. Maybe next time.”

 

This can’t happen because I need it for me; it has to happen because he needs it for him.

 

NO ONE ELSE in this person’s life seems able to RESPECT HIS CHOICE. (And that’s partially because he isn’t able to, either.)

 

Fundamentally, this is my most important job, with respect to him.

 

With respect to me, my most important job is to become successful at living alone and taking care of myself.

Torturing myself does NOT fall in that job description. Neither does hanging onto someone who’s not ready to change, and trying to force him to. That just tortures all three people involved. If Rory’s going to lose her husband because she can’t wake up and treat him better, that’s going to be painful enough; she doesn’t need me making it worse, tugging Chi back and forth in an “I’m-ready-no-I’m-not” dance that lasts SEVEN YEARS.

 

That doesn’t mean I don’t love Chi, or that I wouldn’t take him back in a minute, with open arms, if he wanted to be here and showed me motivation and at least some aptitude at resolving the Twin Death Clowns of Codependency and Low Self Worth.

 

If I ever want to be capable of happiness and health with Chi, or with anyone else who might enter my life, I have to be capable of happiness even if no one ever shows up again and I die all alone. Achieving that capability DOES NOT MEAN I don’t love Chi dearly. It just means I’m not using his absence to trash my own life, or anyone else’s, and that I retain the ability to find happiness no matter what someone else does or does not do.

 

If everyone else in Chi’s life could give the person Chi really is, that same dignity, he might have done a lot better a lot sooner. Respecting someone else’s choices is perhaps the highest form of love there is. I can still give him that one, even if I never see him or hear from him again. How do I love thee? By respecting your choice to be where and as you are, no matter what I think of it, or what I would have wanted for you, me, or us. That you have from me, Chi, forever. I love you.

 

Like it or not, my life is going to go on without Chi in it, exactly the same as it is without Simon—who would have been seventy today.

 

I feel the loss of them both deeply, and the loss of all the things we might have been, all the things we might have done. I’m sorry those things will not happen in this lifetime, deeply, deeply sorry. They could have been great things, and they will not happen. I think that’s why I can’t let go; because I’m so sorry they will not. Because I’m sure that nothing, anywhere, could ever be or have been as good.

 

But grieving, raging, and manipulating won’t change what’s happened. All that does is replace the good outcomes that could have been left, with bad ones.

What I wanted, and maybe what Chi still wants, too, as of this writing, will not happen. But my life will continue anyway.

 

Happily or unhappily, is my job and my choice.

 

Everything has to be okay the way it is.