A New Beginning that Wasn’t

Last night I woke up at about 3am with the normal heaviness and sadness on my chest. I looked to my phone to see if he had called or texted and he hadn’t. And I wondered why that feeling was there. I had done the thing I thought the Holy Spirit was asking me to do. I had called the prior night and apologized to David. We had a long talk and it went well for the most part. I took his criticism as he repeated things he’s said to me in the past. “I just don’t understand why you don’t let yourself be happy. It’s like you get happy and then you feel like you don’t deserve to be happy and go back to the dark.” He says I choose to be in a state that’s not good and I should cut and burn away my past. There is truth to this. I know it’s been hard for me to let go of the past and I probably have carried a layer of guilt because my ex hasn’t done very well after the divorce as his healing never progressed after the accident. He then said some things that sound a lot like my frame of my mind when we first met. He talked about how life is very short and we don’t know how many days we have. He said we shouldn’t care about what people think or anything that brings us negativity. I remembered when I met him I was so excited to have a new chapter of joy and I felt freedom to be leaving a time when I was unhealthy, sick and imprisoned. I was also coming out of deep reflection and even today I often think about my own words in my published book where I speak about what I would do differently if I could go back in time. I said that if I could go back to the 17 year old version of me I’d be still and enjoy every moment of young love. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to run through life and I’d cherish every moment.

I’m aware that God granted me that wish. I do believe that I did my best to cherish the moments I had with David and the time we spent together. But I also began to realize that there is a cloud that comes over standing still. Repetition isn’t good. Each time I saw him I was hoping for something new in the name of progress. For years I had prayed that he would find the courage to tell me he loves me. He never did. He never said he missed me or expressed anything with his mouth to show that he had any gratitude for me entering his life. I told myself it’s just how he is. I told myself I should know by his actions that he’s grateful for me and that he loves me and that I am important to him. But in time that began to fade also.

David’s work has always been on a pedestal far above anywhere I’ve ever stood. And I’ve even seen behavior that would put the “me” of David in a category that was never pierced by my arrival as well. He seemed to always draw back and make a point that HE had chosen to live his life single and not be in a relationship. This long talk the other night ended and the energy changed when he brought that dialogue back into the discussion. “I’m living for ME” he said. He followed by saying, “When YOU do this it makes me draw back and not want to talk so I stop messaging you.” He says he has come to the conclusion for himself that he has to put himself first and not allow anything to derail him and therefore when we argue he makes the decision to just go away. He stressed that he doesn’t want that in his life.

David doesn’t seem to connect the dots or maybe he just doesn’t want to. But I’m not a fighter or aggressor, I am a reactionary person. When he meets me with silence, I go to work trying to figure out why. I wonder what I did wrong. I wonder if he met someone new. I wonder if he’s going through something hard or difficult in his life and needs to be alone or I wonder if he’s just not interested in me anymore and has decided to fade away in the distance. The lack of explanation is violent. I’ve never desired to control, corner or force him to do anything and if he doesn’t want me in his life I’m the first person that will say “OK” and accept it and leave to never look back again. I’m good at this. I’ve learned throughout my life how to let people go as that was a lesson that began surfacing for me as a very small child. And I don’t believe my assessments are invalid at all. When a person chooses to not reach out, not share their day with you or not engage it’s because they don’t want to. And it doesn’t matter the reason why – the point that overcomes all theories is in the fact that this person once was crazy about you. I remember when we met how beautiful it was – I woke up to a text from David everyday and we shared funny stories, memes and flirtatious chatters until we went to bed late at night. We were connected without forcing anything. We just enjoyed interacting. David made me laugh and feel alive and he made me feel wanted without having to say a word. So when the anxiety kicked in, there was a reason. I didn’t just wake up one day scared something was wrong. The silence is the indicator that indeed something has changed. It’s natural and normal for a woman to notice that the text messages aren’t there anymore when she wakes up – that days and even weeks pass without a single word from the other person. This isn’t a crazy person creating stories in her head, as he often says I do. This is a thoughtful person trying to understand what has been taken away and wanting to fix it by whatever means are necessary.

I called him last night before bed and we talked while he drove home from work. It was a nice conversation – distant however. We made small talk about traffic and he shared his work schedule this month. He talked about the baseball team income ending soon and about how he’d wished he had paid off some debt with the extra money that came in over the summer. He then made jokes about the beauty of living paycheck to paycheck and not needing anything more. I could sense the void in between his words. For a person to wish to live for today and experience something amazing in the idea of how fleeting life is and then on the other hand outwardly admit that the very point of his own existence is to simply work to have running water and food to eat is a sad dichotomy of one’s desires and reality.

Perhaps this is the pill that we all struggle to swallow. We want change and adventure. We want to live each day to the fullest. And yet we stay where we are at and pass the days by in a routine that robs of us of that want. I will never forget the conversation we had years ago where he shared with me reaching a point in his life where he began to ask, “Is this it?” He was making very good money and had achieved all of the dreams he set out to from a very early age in childhood. He had his big time radio job in the biggest market in the country. He had lived many exciting experiences, visited many exotic places, had many relationships, held many valuable material things and with all the accolades and successes he felt empty inside – looking out at this world asking for a greater calling. To ask God (and I do believe when the soul begins asking these questions we are calling to God), “Is this it?”, we are taking on the persona of King Soloman in the Bible. He had built his kingdom and experienced all that this life had to offer. He had women, riches, success and material things and then woke up to the reality that none of it had fulfilled his soul.

In the Christian religion we learn that the void inside of us can only be filled by God and the hole in our heart that seeks more can only be soothed by Jesus. I experienced this phenomenon in 2017 when I encountered Jesus on a deep level and walked with Jesus daily. I felt peace, release and the outside world slipping away as my inner world was full of God’s love in my relationship with Jesus. I no longer needed the perfect life, perfect marriage or even the perfect path forward for my kids and myself. Nothing mattered in the exterior world that could hold a candle to the presence of Jesus in my waking moments, in my dreams and visions and in the beautiful cord that had been granted me that reconnected me to the heavens. Two years after when I was told that I might be dying before another year ticked over there was a part of me that was excited about this news. I was at last going to be with Jesus – face to face in Heaven. That’s where my heart wanted to go and I accepted that my life here on earth was shortly coming to an end. But God then dismantled my marriage, my career and everything that kept me in the reality where I stood and then he brought in David.

As I’m writing this now I see the crossover between what happened with us and the story of Soloman. Even the fact that the queen of the south was called “dark” by King Soloman and David often refers to me as such – and of course I came to him from the south. Like the Queen I was intrigued by his knowledge. This man had lived a very different life than I had and I was quite curious of the intricate workings of a man who had settled in Hollywood, surrounded by fame, beautiful women and a sun set in a blue sky every day. He was living the life most people dream of. His wisdom seemed to mirror that of King Soloman as I got to know him and could see that the underlying man wasn’t quite as happy and put together as he pretended to be on the stage of what he projected to the world. He was lonely even though he never admitted this outloud to me and maybe even to himself. He carried deep insecurities and he was constantly beating up the man in the mirror to achieve the perfect skin, to remain young and relevant and to please the slave masters that employ “talent” in the land of influencers of the planet.

In conclusion I feel sad. I do believe that God gave us both a gift. God hit the reset button on both of our lives and opened up a new doorway when we met. God showed us a love that surpassed any experience we’d ever had before. It was Heaven sent and I knew it the first night I ever spent with David. It’s like the world outside stopped spinning and for the first time in my entire life I didn’t have a single thought in my mind that reached out to be somewhere else or to do something else. I was fully present, fully satisfied and fully whole. Locked in his arms, I had found something I never knew I was missing. I was home in a place that I’ve never felt I could belong to. Earth no longer mattered. It was just us and the geographical location of our entanglement was irrllevant.

The very thing he accuses me of doing; “not allowing myself to be happy” is the behavior he has demonstrated over the last seven years. Everytime we meet, no matter how beautiful it is, he quickly runs away and throws himself back into his old world with every fiber of his being. The man who asked God, “is this it” was given a gift of something more and he refused to accept it. Yes, I find it very sad. But at the end of the day that was his choice and he has made it.

I have to look forward now and I speak to the Heavens now in saying the lyrics of the song David sent to me as our first point of contact in the very beginning of this connection, “Now that I know what I’m without you can’t just leave me” – from the Evanescense song, Bring Me to Life. Unlike David, I don’t desire to go back to the world that I knew before I met him. I have tasted a higher love and I want that. I also believe that my time with Jesus led me to that – as a perfect order of things that set me free from the past and then brought in life more abundantly. God taught me to seek the kingdom first and then showed me there is always a higher level that follows that type of deep soul searching. So I say “yes” to more and I trust that the spirit of Love doesn’t depend on one person’s decision to step up or shrink back. I believe God can pour his love into any of us who seek to walk the path of love and merge with another. I believe God is answering the call of anyone who desires to find more love.

In conclusion, I ask for the one who will step up to the call. I ask for God to send a new vessel that will not be scared of change, that will not shrink back to his old life and one who will celebrate the gift of higher love and dive in without wavering. I know it takes courage to let go of the old and embrace the new. I know the unknown path is scary – I’ve walked it in its entirety when I left my old life behind and moved to California to experience all that a life with David might have in store for me. I was met with resistance and rejection. I ask that David’s choice not define my desire and cry to receive and that God now send me another who will not choose resistance and rejection, but instead will celebrate the day I’m sent into his path. I ask for the man who will taste of my essence and want more and keep wanting more until our time runs out here and we merge back into the light as Heavenly beings above.

For years I’ve tried to force myself to walk away from David. I’ve not had any success in doing so. And even now as I write this I feel the tug that struggles to let go completely. I have to ask God to help me as I’ve been doing since the beginning. I have to ask God to direct me and show me to the desires of my heart. I have to ask God to cause me to not look back anymore and to accept David’s decision and leave the memories of him in the past – and to know that God’s promises aren’t void just because of one man’s inability to accept my love.

So with a heavy heart and exhaustion flowing through my entire body in all that I have done to try to make this love survive, I pick myself up today and take myself to the gym and look for a new song to recalibrate me and send me into something new. I want to live. I now believe that God’s love and God’s glory can be found in the land of the living and that beauty can exist in a world where we are all travelers. I believe God can do it again – pick me up off of the ground and lift me into new realms of love’s expression. I want that. I want to experience the power of young love again and this time I want it to be with a partner who dares to dance with me in an upward spiral of more. I want a love that grows wild and free like a rosebush that never needs pruning. I want a love that never questions the beauty of what is given today and never clings onto a past of empty yesterdays. I want a love that KNOWS how blessed we are to find one another and walks into the new each day with joy and gratitude of what God has gifted to us both.

I let him go back to his life now. I wish him well and will never forget the love he awoke inside of me. I’m grateful for the seed of desire for love that lives on in me now. I know what I want now. I know it’s possible now. I know it’s beautiful and its worth the wait. And I believe God is faithful to bring it in his perfect timing.

May I never forget how hard it is to drag myself out of bed today and put on my gym shoes and go to Crunch Fitness clinging to a seed of hope that a new beginning will come to me again. When I have no one calling me, texting me, reaching out or stirring up a curiosity within me of a brighter day ahead, I have only my Faith in the character of God to deliver what I can’t yet see. So I allow him to close this door and I allow myself to exist in the in between void of endings and hope for a new beginning – again.

Dear Heavenly Father,

I wish to let him go God. I wish to let him fade away into my rear view mirror and to not look back anymore. I wish for you to gift me a new vision that faces forward and knows that your promises will soon arrive. I wish for Love to be sent my way again, better than it ever was in the past. I wish to live inside of the story of your goodness and to one day speak your word with a heart of joy, “the suffering of the past can not compare to the arrival of your Glory”. You will do it. You will not leave me here on empty. You will give me far more than I can even ask for. Not because I deserve it but because that is who you are.

In Jesus’ Name Amen.