Thank You for The Only Thing I Got From Him
THIS CUP:
WHAT I LEFT WITH HIM:
A twisted chunk of my self esteem
A hand carved rocking chair
A broken trust
Unanswered questions
Art
A pillow top bed
self doubt
a guitar stand
a perfect credit record
A naive subjection to Svengali characters
The word “insidious” written all over a picture I took of him while he posed like a Narcissist
WHAT I AM FILLING THIS CUP WITH:
Self confidence
Interdependence with trust worthy people
truth
Personal worth
Cran-Tangerine juice which is less expensive than his new leather coat
Lessons about what love is not
Attainable goals
Clarity
Really good coffee filled to the top and it might spill on the floor and mess up the rug as I carry it to the chair to be grateful that I left.
LEA KELLEY SAYING THANK YOU FOR... 
The cup must be full to the brim and overflowing because look how strong and brave you are now. Good for you!
powerful post…thanks for sharing …Zman sends
One of the better posts that I have read about the end of a relationship.
Just keep doing what you are doing: surviving and getting better and realizing that life now is better than life before.
Great header, by the way.
Dropping in from Condron.us
Poietes
I would like to add a big dose of my friendship to your cup. May it runneth over eternally.
One can be not free to try. Thieves, con men, judges, preachers, doctors, armies, states, enculturation, economies, beliefs, faiths, shibboleths, horsepucky & even family, friends & lovers can make one not free to try.
➤ Becoming free to try is largely a matter of luck, not self-determination. One must awaken from the deep sleep of a robot shaped by the forces named above to become free to try, & robots do not awaken on their own. You were lucky, Ms. Kelley, & circumstances cruel & kind gradually opened your eyes a little at a time to what is not just the detritus put in your brain by history, culture, other people & their institutions. You began to see what is not just in your head & what is beyond the programming embedded there by the combined constraints of childhood, customs & our common past. Your brain became a mind that no longer conflates its identity with functions as lonely & unselved as those of an automaton. Your mind is free to try.
➤ Your mind is not free to succeed. The material condition of the world exists absolutely between you & your goals. It must be taken into account & to whatever degree possible be employed as part of every plan, not ignored. Reality eventually kills us all, but while we live it is best regarded as the dearest companion of our minds, because doing so respects the fact that it is all that we really have with which to do anything – & we ourselves are made of real stuff that must be nourished.
➤ If one is not free to succeed, then taking joy in one’s efforts would seem as wise as temporarily giving oneself completely over to reveling following any possible victory. No one is ever going to know the whole universe, but Ah!, what pleasure to aim the camera of the mind at the moon.
➤ Being free to try raises the question, Try What? Isn’t that interesting! Isn’t that to happiness what butter is to bread?
It sounds to me like you got the better part of the bargain in the long run. I think you deserve to have your cup runneth over (but not the stains on the rug).
Your cup looks very familiar. I think I have something in the house with the same pattern and it’s bugging me so I’m going to take myself upstairs and look for it.
At first I wanted to write: “Wow. I hope that narcissistic asshole reads this…” And then i remembered that he’s a narcissistic asshole, and wouldn’t do any of the things we hope from the people who have wronged us; like learn anything, be self-reflective, try to understand what went wrong and their part in it, or even try to make themselves behave better in the future. And then I realized he’d just use it as a confirmation for his delusions that you were a crazy person that knows nothing of reality. He would probably also be glad that he never met your mean and immature best friend (me). Well, Lea Kell, good fucking riddance. Any man that is afraid to meet your best friend because he’s in the middle of an elaborate scheme to gas-light you, is just afraid someone might yell out that “the emperor” is not only wearing no clothes, but is wearing his mom’s négligée. fuck. that.
His loss.
Take good care of yourself Lea.
Powerful indeed! Amazing how much we leave them with and how much we actually take away from the whole thing… but then in the final analysis… we took away far more than a couple possessions.
{HUGS}!
“Lessons about what love is not”
That is the most valuable thing you took away. You have a wrenching, but strong way of expressing yourself. He’s the loser.
WHAT I LEFT WITH HIM:
The honor and gift of being with a woman as unique, incredible, and talented as you are Ms Lea.
If he was too stupid to know that? Screw him.