Learning to love; the way that I always knew how...

I love the poem by Roy Croft...my favorite actually, I have been able to recite it for over 25 years...

Love

I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;

I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find 

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple.

Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good.
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.

You have done it
By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,

After all.

by Roy Croft 

I tenaciously held onto this description of love, one that I thought was "more ideal than real" for many, many years. I didn't believe my own heart to accept this as being REALLY true UNTIL I contacted my Love, G again. Over the years, I clung onto this poem, the truth that "real love" existed and even more, that I "had had" real love with G. I longed for it. I ached for it. Only when I saw that I had the right to reach out for it again, did I turn to my muse and recite the poem that I had hid in my heart many years ago. G was "my Love". He had loved me as the poem stated and I had loved him in this way; it was real to me now. Even without seeing him, after 25 years, I knew that I still loved him.  

They say that "art imitates life" and in this reality; art has expressed the most wonderful element of life; the life sustaining power of Love. I am a grateful recipient and participant in the most wonderful love story ever.

***It feels good to write...

I have kept SO much inside me; hidden away from the world and myself for the most part for SO many years that I thought that I might feel overwhelmed at first when it would start "pouring out of me". The funny thing is that I don't feel overwhelmed but I feel that I am reliving parts of my past, the best parts of my life in ways, again, and it feels good.It is a joy to be writing about a man whom I have loved for so long. It is invigorating to think of "how young" we were and the life and love that we shared. It is empowering and affirming to be with him again. It is to "truly live" to be with him in reality after so many years of the "dark ages" where only my dreams beheld his face, my arms encircled him and my lips kissed his. This story will also illumine the years that he also dreamt of me and how he gave up on having me in his life as well, until death brought us back together.

I am really trying to get my bearings on the organization of this book : 
"Back to OUR Future" a true 1980's love story rekindled 25 years later". I am in the process of outlining a ROUGH draft but where does one really start to write about the last 30 yrs of their "not yet 50" year life? I was just a teenager and G, 2 yrs, 3 months and 13 days YOUNGER than me, was only 16 when we met and fell in love. Yes, I realized shortly afterword that this set of "first loves" included an adult and a minor...WHO could have guessed. Over 6 feet tall, weighing about 180 lbs or more with LOTS of muscle, deep baritone voice, dark, course facial hair and his "savoir faire" manner in how he instinctively appeared more mature and FAR older than his near 17 years should have legally allowed. I smile when I think about how young we were. We were just kids. We fell in love for the first time, with each other. We feel in love for the ONLY time with each other even though both of us lived through marriages to two other spouses and now, we have fallen in love again for the last time at our reunion. We have come "full circle" and all is right with the world again.

Forging a new path for my life

I am a writer. Not a writer "wanna be" but a writer of an awesome TRUE story. I am currently writing our love story, a "Back to OUR Future" love story of the 80's rekindled and reunited in 2011. Do you remember the "Back to the Future" movie? Well, it was made a little more personal for me when I met and fell in love with my G. He and his family had a few of these cars I had the opportunity to ride in several of them. It was "funny" to see them on a screen in a movie about "going BACK to the future"...little did I know that BACK to the future is exactly what we would be doing almost 30 years in the future of that time.

My life started out in college with falling in love with G. We were known as "G. and D." everywhere we went. We went to classes together until he transferred to another college which offered his educational preference of Veterinary medicine. He was always so insightful and sensitive and caring to animals, as well as people and stated that he "preferred animals over people" for the most part. We were still nearly inseparable with talking on the "land phone" (prior to "cells" and internet) and I would take the Greyhound to see him on weekends. Our lives had changed. Our paths had diverged and we were missing each other. Life seemed to "get in the way" and family and obligations seemed to "squelch out" time that we wanted to spend together. I was very close to graduating from college with my degree and was ready to "stop going to college" and enter the "real world" when tragedy occurred. We broke up. The dreams for a life together seemed to die. We went on different paths; each trying to convince ourselves that we could and would live without each other. "Life is suppose to suck anyways", G had said. Two marriages and divorces for each of us; no children for him; one child and one stillbirth for me and over 25 years later, I went off the path that my life had taken and wanted to merge paths with my Love.

I was working in healthcare since college and sitting at my desk one day; after over a year separation and several month decision to divorce my then current husband and call an attorney for counsel when we had a tragedy occur. A coworkeer died suddenly. Carol was a fun loving person, had a great family and everyone liked her. She enjoyed her work and I had just talked to her one day and find out that it was the last time that I saw her alive. She had died over the weekend and they were preparing for her funeral. Tragedy. It turned my mind to the loss that I had experienced in my life and G. I missed him so much. How have I "lived" over 25 years without him and would I be willing to live the rest of my life without him without even trying to reach him. My answer was a resounding NO. I could "see the trees for the forest" of tragedy in my life; beginning with G's and my tragedy of a lost love. It think of Robert Frost's poem, "The road not taken".

The Road not taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


In verse three; we see our poet "had kept the first for another day" and "doubted" if he "should ever come back" to this path. This is how I felt with G and my relationship. It haunted me yet I felt that our love was not dead but longingly sought me until I would "come back to the path".

In the last verse, "I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference" is the path that I am now forging. A new path. Not the same path that we were on together in ways and yet in some ways, it is the same path as then; only a different place in the woods.

To be able to see the "forest for the trees" was what needed to be done to see the love lost as being "the road not taken" as one that I had to return to. I needed for forge a new path for my life and a familiar old one, 25 years old or more, has "made all the difference".

With GOD ALL things are possible!

I call myself "newsong" because ever since I became a believer in Christ Jesus; June 28,1985, I have been "singing a new song".

I have made a FULL CIRCLE of my life in the past 30 years. I started college and fell in love with G; my love of over 4 years and we broke up and both married two others before reuniting this past February. We saw each other for the first time in almost 26 years on Feb. 15th; the day after Valentine's Day when he sent a dozen red roses to my workplace. My Love. We have made it a "full circle" to come back together. Something that neither of us ever thought would be possible. But I had been praying for years that he and I would both be "single" and able to "get back together" during the "Dark Ages" while the years between us passed. We realize that we were both single and available from Oct. 1996- Jan. 1999. A short span but both of us were legally single yet we did not look for one another then. We had resigned to the fact that "life was suppose to suck" and after one failed marriage each; while still pining for each other, we "fell into" abusive relationships that really made us "long for each other" even more.

When I said that I was "praying for the day" that both G and I would be single; I wasn't kidding. I looked online in Jan. 2011 and found that he was NOT married. His mother had passed and it appeared to be a recent passing (it was actually 2007; a month after I delivered my still birth son at 5 months gestation) so I had it confirmed that HE was single since no wife's name was next to his on her obituary notice. I JUMPED for JOY; not at his "being single and alone" but more for his "being single again and available". I had ONLY wanted him to be happy and if not with me, with another very lucky woman. He had two and neither of them were what and WHO he really wanted. They were both jealous of me just as my two husbands knew of and were jealous of G's place in my heart and life.

I was separated from my second husband at this time and realized months before that it was time to contact a lawyer for divorce proceeding. We had a terrible tragedy happen that an employee that I worked with had died suddenly near this time and it spurned me to contact G even more; through my hot tears I swore to myself that death would NOT separate us and that I would contact him and see him again...soon.

Letting it go...

I am sure that title says alot to a lot of people. Mainly it says that "we have no control over it; let it go" and that is a clear message that I hope to convey in this post. We have areas of our lives that "we cannot control"; the most devastating, I will propose, is having to accept the fact that you have married an abusive person. I did that. I know that I did not think that he was abusive or even capable of the abuse that I now KNOW that he has intentionally done to not as much hurt me, but to control me and to "puff himself up" with a sense of false pride and power. He is really a VERY SAD LITTLE man who HAD a wonderful woman that he "did not deserve". Well, that is how I see it and since it is my blog "It is so"...

It is "not so funny" to realize that you have been "right all along" when you really did not want to be right while suspecting that the person that you loved the most in the world; to the exclusion of family and friends, would even consider betraying your confidence and stabbing you in the back emotionally. I feel stupid. I trusted him. I shouldn't have. I am so sorry that I did. BUT I am free from him and with my first love who is most loving, respectful and so fun to be with; we can be "free to be" ourselves with each other; a very unique love for sure.

But back to the abusive husband. There is probably LESS few crazymaking things in the whole world than trying to love and live with a mentally ill person. Personality disorders are not "assigned" or "labeled" at birth and those who have them may never become aware that "they are the ones who are crazy". Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder is one that is MOST INSIDIOUS; so much so that the person with OCPD does not think that "there is anything wrong with them"...Just imagine that for a moment; that "you are perfect"...let that sink in. Crazy, isn't it? I mean, who is perfect in the world??? No one of course but don't try to tell that to an OCPD; they ARE perfect and they are NEVER wrong; about anything. They have NO recollection of ever telling a lie or bearing false witness or will EVER admit to verbal abuse or controlling behavior; they "just can't think of themselves as the monsters that we see them as"...lol...that's funny. I have had to find my sense of humor in all of this to the point of saying, with a THICK Italian accent "I SHAKA MY HEAD IN UNABELIEF" at my PD husband; soon to be EX by the way.

Now 19 months after separating from him; the last 4 months having moved out of the same city and now have my son with me, I can REALLY see my stbxNPD/OCPDbigamist (that is soon to be ex Narcissist PD/Obsessive Compulsive PD bigamist) for what he REALLY is...just that. He is "not the man I married" and the "man I divorce" is pretty much a perfect stranger/terrorist and will remain so in my mind. I have had to find my sense of humor in all of this to the point of saying, with a THICK Italian accent "I SHAKA MY HEAD IN UNABELIEF" at my PD husband; soon to be EX by the way. He went and married another woman. He was so "distraught" that I was leaving town and "he was losing me" (really? yawn, like DUH!!! that he sat at his kitchen table CRYING CROCODILE tears telling me "he needed someone") and for the first time in my life I can say that I was VERY glad that I did not feel compelled to 'get in line'. lol.

I may not have been so smart in marrying him but I did not have a reasonable person trying to save me from a personality disordered bigamist contact me and then call her (me that is) "mentally ill" for telling the truth. Oh well, I guess that is just another thing that I "need to let go of". I have worked A LOT on identifying and addressing DENIAL; the biggest killer of our dreams and joy in life; I am convinced of it. I spent years on online forums for abuse survivors and verbally abused partners and even a depression forum to help me work through DENIAL...the moral of this story is "LET THE CRAZY STUFF GO", you don't need it and God doesn't want it in your life. I am sure of it.

Taking "one step at a time"

Patience has not always been my strongest characteristic or personality trait BUT I have learned over the years that being patient, taking things slowly and deliberately, circumspectly (being wise that is) and taking "one step at a time" is the most careful and sure way to "walk out life".

For example, having been in an abusive household at birth; my dad was a Narcissist/alcholic-gambler but a hard working "family man" who really just lived his life as he wanted and support his wife and 3 kids with the physical needs in life. Never went to Disneyland or camping. Was promised to be taken to "Kiddie Land" park and I remember the rude awakening of having promises broken, time and time again by my father. So far, trusting men was not going to be easy. I also had some issues with my brother, whom I love, but in the "growing up" period there was "inappropriate" behavior that I had to learn to deal with all my life. 2-0. I had boyfriends in school; nice boys. I dated a little in college and stop dating all together when I met the Love of my life. The ONLY man whom I could ever really trust up to that time and currently. We had a tragic break up; I fell into my first husband's arms on the rebound and was with him for 7 years; divorced and was single again. Met husband #2 and the number 2 describes him wonderfully; he was full of crap. He claimed to be a christian but to make a LONG story short; he was NOT anything that was honoring to any god; let alone the one that he made up to worhip, mainly himself. He was a "self-proclaimed" prophet with "insider information" on the End of Time. Hot air.

Getting my life back after this has been ONE step at a time; in the right direction. We all have the right to LIVE and breath and have our being in TRUTH and not depend upon others who are not trustworthy. Growth requires patience. Taking one step at a time has helped me to "take hold" of the person and woman whom I am becoming more and more every day.

Can a NEW YEAR bring new life?

You have heard people say that there was a "turning point" in their lives. I have had many. The most recent being when I realized that my second marriage had long since ended and that it was time to put it to rest and move on with my life. It was on New Year's Eve; 2010 when my son lying asleep on our couch and me, watching PBS and my favorite pianist Lang Lang. I turned it to one of the "New Year's Eve" countdown shows and watched and prayed and when the clock struck MIDNIGHT and the NEW YEAR began I prophesied that "this would be MY year!!!". Little did I know what TRUTH that I was declaring and decreeing into my life. There was no fanfare or pomp; just a DEEP NEED and KNOWING that "this year would be MY year". It has started off by realizing definitely that my marriage to an abusive and controlling "christian" man had ended and when he said "I have NEVER verbally abused you" I got up from his kitchen table and walked toward the door. He mumbled some sorry apology and excuse about "making me upset", I told him that I was not upset or that what he said "made me mad" and it did not make me mad but I could honestly reply that "I realize that there is NO HOPE for any relationship with you" and I meant it. From the bottom of my heart; he had controlled, lied, manipulated, betrayed confidence and defiled trust to the point of "no return".

It was just a few short weeks into the NEW YEAR that the workplace that I had been employed in for the past 10 years suffered an horrendous and tragic loss of an employee. A freak accident occurred where she fell, went into a coma and was taken off life support within a week. I realized with this tragedy that I HAD CONTROL over some part of my life even though I was still married to an abusive man and had to leave his home with our son to get away from him. As I mourned for our employee, her family and my workplace my heart was turned to my First Love. He had been on my heart and mind for over 25 years after a passionate and loving betrothal. We were not married at that time; but separated until I decided; that whether I was "still married" or not, I HAD to contact him. My heart ached to know how he was.

Apart from this; I am STILL singing a NEW song. A bit of a different song that I have sung; an old familiar song in many ways, a song of lost love and missed opportunities and HOPE that I have not felt for over 25 years.

CAN a New Year bring new life??? It can if we are willing to let go of the old one first.