Probably a quick post cuz I just got in from Louisville - flew out this morning and back this evening. The good-bye with Kaveh lasted just under two hours - we talked and talked. Reminisced, he making me laugh when he described our first meeting. For him it was like meeting the family CEO who wasted no time in telling him exactly how he should treat the daughter. Bossy and pushy were his exact words! We ended with me saying, "Kaveh, I'm OK now." His response - "You're more than OK." And I am. What an accomplishment these four (or is it five - lost count) years have been. There was a time I remember vividly when I sobbed every day - cathartically as if I had to cry out all the sludge I had bottled up for a lifetime. We hugged - that was wonderful. There was a time when I begged him for a hug but to no avail. And today I remembered a period when all I craved was to sleep, head in his lap or just curled up beside him while he kept guard to keep the evil of the world away from me - as if I had waited a lifetime to feel safe. Anyway it's over - the whole therapy thing. Wonderful. Worth all the tears and the money. Feeling at peace with it. I didn't even cry today.
I almost cancelled on him because, three days ago, the knee which had been doing so well, melted down on me. It was as if I jinxed it. One minute I was congratulating myself on how pain-free and mobile I was and no less than five minutes later, something happened - shooting pain and it buckled under me. Have been hobbling since - time to go back to Dr. Fox! There is absolutely no way I could walk the distances in the airport so I swallowed my pride and did the whole wheelchair thing. People were nice - I was whisked around, boarded the flights first, had personnel waiting for me on the other end to whisk me again. It was kind of terrific in a weird kind of way. And ex, Steve drove me to and fro the airport - we hadn't seen each other in over a year so it was good to catch up with him and talk about the kids.
Want to talk about dragons cuz in talking with Nigel the other day, I used a powerful dragon analogy. Later I wrote a daily affirmation in which I declared I don't need a Prince Charming - I can slay my own dragons, and then today, Kaveh and I talked about slaying dragons and what my dragon is/has been.
Nigel describes a fixation on the woman Christina who he loves still - she lives in Rome alone. They almost had a relationship - she spurned him after a time. Every day, he tracks her movements through Twitter, Facebook, Google searches, etc. And every day tears come to him and his chest tightens as he does these stalking things. I told him the dragon must die - the dragon being his love for this woman who loves him not. He keeps the dragon alive - just barely, by feeding it crumbs and poking it every day. It wants to slumber - it needs to die in its sleep. Thinking I'm an expert at ignoring the expiration date on a defunct romance - next month, eighteen months and counting since my knight got back on his steed and left this damsel - leaving me with a rumbling dragon whose care and feeding I fuss over. I too keep my dragon alive with crumbs and pokes.
And the idea that some guy can slay my dragons any better than I can is ridiculous. I'm seriously going to wring my hands at life waiting for someone big and strong to come along and kiss me into consciousness and take care of me? It's an idiotic concept and yet one all of us grown up little girls cling to - the whole Prince Charming thing. Kaveh says it's time to put that to bed - to slay the dragon with three heads (my three fathers). The work is done. There was one father who loved me on his death bed and another who liked me once in a while. There was Kaveh who back filled the need - loving me like a father, fretting over me, scolding me when I put myself in danger, and laughing with adoration when I cracked him up. I am precious to him. Thinking we take our fathering where we find it. What I got wasn't much but it was enough.
Tomorrow up bright and early for an all day "Getting Things Done" seminar. Challenge today is thinking about your own life and whether there are dragons in your basement you're keeping alive with crumbs. Is there something or someone who haunts you, who occupies your thoughts, a source of pain and anguish that you are perversely attached to? And it doesn't have to be a love interest. You could be nurturing a feud with your sister - picking the scab, checking up on her, gossiping about her because you just can't let it go - the feud becoming part of who you are, a raison d'etre. Today Steve, who has been AA sober for two years, described how he still looks in the windows of bars with longing - coming that close to going in but pulling himself back at the last moment. Now THAT'S definitely poking the dragon!
Thinking we keep dragons alive despite the singed eyebrows because pain is better than an empty cave. At least, when we're getting scorched, we feel alive.
Peace,
Sarah
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