I didn't even know......

I had an interesting experience tonight

I was running late and for some reason was very intent on getting to a particular meeting tonight. I knew I would be late and I went anyway........

I was feeling pretty good.......

Ex was at the meeting, it was a very large meeting too, I arrived an hour late and was asked to share anyway......so I did, just about how I was feeling today, which has been pretty peaceful and just happy to be me......and grateful, grateful to be in a place inside myself where I know I have everything I need

After the meeting ex came up to me and asked me if I was seeing someone.......he wanted to know, he said, because he hadn't let go of me yet and if I was seeing someone he would be able to do that.....

I looked at him for a minute........contemplating asking him why that would only happen if I was seeing someone else and wondering what to say.....ultimately, I just had to tell him the truth, which is that while I am not in a relationship with anyone, I am not open to being back in a relationship with him. That I have seen other men, that he needs to move on, because there is no going back......

I hurt him with that truth, but what do you do? My truth 8 months ago and all through the year before that was that he was not here for me when I most needed him to be, my truth is that I don't love him anymore......my truth is also that I had, on some level, been holding onto him and that needed to stop.

When I told him that he needs to move on I felt a connection break, I didn't even realise it was still there........

My codependency stuff has become glaringly obvious to me and I am so grateful for that. I now feel like I can make decisions around men with awareness of where I am coming from and that I can move forward into somewhere where I can differentiate between what I want and what I need, and also that I can pull myself up when I head into neediness.....

I was talking to Lisa the other day about this stuff and it was nice to become aware that it is intimacy I am missing in my life, the intimacy you only really find in a relationship with another person. It isn't about sex, it is about sharing your actual self with someone.....well, it is for me anyway.

I also realise that it has been a very long time since I have felt comfortable in my own skin. My last relationship, conducted, for want of a better word, in sobriety, was a challenge in that respect. I never ever felt quite comfortable with it, never felt good enough, slim enough, sexy enough......all that stuff. I have also realised that I was with a man who always, subtly, pointed out the imperfections in me, I suppose because that gave him some sort of sense of power. Because I was never able to rid myself of my inhibitions without the use of a substance, I gave him that power.

I didn't realise until this past week how much of my opinion of myself was centered around how men see me......how I had forgotten that I am pretty damn good, just the way I am....I am a little gob smacked but that's okay...

My daughter will read this post and I hope she reads it with an open mind and takes me out of this picture, as her mother, and just puts a woman in here, a woman who never learned differently and is now just starting to see. That it is okay for me to go out with, or to want to go out with men, a man, but it is NOT okay for me to think that I am not complete with out it......

This stuff may be glaringly obvious to you, but you know, it hasn't been to me.....that is the nature of my disease. Sometimes I cannot see for looking.........

I feel comfortable in my skin today, which is really nice,

and I feel strangely free......