Skewed Perspective

It's amazing what a little perspective can do.

I felt really foolish,
Thankful, relieved, reassured,
Humbled.

I saw a friend I hadn't seen in....a year?  Neither of us even knew the last time we saw each other, it had been that long.  Needless to say we had much to catch up on.
She had a little baby boy, not yet one, and she was raising him solo.
But she still had many interactions with the Father.
And hearing of him made my skin tighten in discomfort.

He was the kind of man who would use my friends food stamps.
He was the kind of man that would make her meet him to pay for baby formula because he was too cheap to pay for it himself.
He was the kind of man who wouldn't visit his son unless she let him sleep in her bed when he visited.
And then laying next to her he would play mind games of wanting her and rejecting her.
And on and on and on.
And my stomach was filled with nausea.

I'm writing this down, my friend said, reaching for a pen and pad.
I need help, he's like heroin.  I can't do this on my own.
And so we started brainstorming new tactics of things she was to do to gain some control in her life once again, to stop letting him walk all over her, to be free.
To learn that she was enough.

If he wants to visit his son then he will need to make accommodations other than your place, I started.
But if I won't let him stay with me he won't see his son.  He won't pay for a hotel, she countered.
Well, then I guess he won't see him, I said firmly.  Men do what they want to do.  You have to stop enabling him.  You have to stop thinking that what you do is going to make him be what you want.  You said he always makes you feel bad when he's around, right?
Right, she sighed.
Then maybe him visiting less will actually be a good thing?
You're right, she agreed.  What else?

And so she talked and I listened and I talked and she listened for hours. 
And it felt comforting knowing that all the wisdom I'd gained the hard way I was able to impart to her.
You will likely fail and fall back into old habits in some way at some point, I told her.  We're human, we err.  But you can't think, 'Well, since I messed this one thing up I might as well just give up entirely.'  You will find that as you make little steps of independence you'll feel proud of yourself.  And you'll want to do more.  You'll think, 'Hey, I did it!  What else can I do?' And you'll get to the point where you not only don't want to talk to him when he calls, you'll stop caring so much.  You'll learn what it feels like to let your heart be the center of your needs.

And as I drove home I felt this wave of reality wash over my heart.

My failed Princes may have been a lot of things, they may have been narcissistic, self serving, inconsistent juvenilles but they'd never treated me with the severity of heartless contempt that mongrel violently tossed upon my dear friend.

I really couldn't see any of them trying to use my food stamps instead of letting me use them for our baby.

That was some renewed perspective.

And I hoped in some knowing secrecy, they knew I valued all they were even in spite of everything they never would be.

Some things are best left alone.
And some things reminded me what a gift it was to have time alone.
To revel in being alone.
To choose to be alone.