Danger. Do Not Enter... or How My Ex Ruined My Day

Yesterday, it happened.  I reentered the world of relationships.  I was a girlfriend all over again.  It was not good.  It reminded me of why I left The Land of Make Believe in the first place.  Normally, I do not write about past relationships.  As I have said, this blog is about me. It's about the things I am going through.  Well, right now, I am going through some things with my ex.  So, I am changing my tune.  I will write about my past relationship and the way it keeps coming into my life, much like I imagine a herpes outbreak might.  Okay, that was harsh.  But, also much like herpes, this relationship was my doing and the aftermath is mine to deal with.  I have to take the precautions to heal and to make sure that I keep the symptoms as minimal as possible to reduce all burning and redness.

I will save the details of the relationship.  Just know, it was good when it was good and when it was bad, it was poison.  Here goes.  Like all of my other posts, this entry isn't about the man that takes the momentary lead role.  It's about me and the way I react in situations.  It's about me being a human.  I am not a maneater or a heartless dater.  I have feelings.  I fall in love. And, once upon a time, I was in a relationship.  This will be the first and the last blog entry on that relationship.  It's all you need to know.

Back Story:  It ended badly.  Then it started back up.  Then it ended badly, again.  Then it started back up.  Now, I am trying to reconcile the fact that I am, in fact, nursing a broken heart.

We were together for a long time and we slept together even longer.  Note - It is never a good idea to keep sleeping with an ex.  There are plenty of people out there to sleep with.  We dragged out the pain for much longer than we should have.  We actually only stopped sleeping together about a month ago, but our last kiss and 'talk of love' was about a week ago.  The end was less than mutual.  He started hinting that he wanted to get back together and I started slowly backing away.  We still engage in unhealthy behavior and I am every bit as guilty of it as he is. But, it is time to move on.

Yesterday, we went back in time and traveled a very familiar road.  We laughed, we cried and we talked on the phone for close to 3 hours.  I am not a fan of talking on the phone, especially when halfway through the conversation I realize I am laying in my front yard with tears welling up in my eyes.

The short story is he is in a new relationship and while trying to figure out what love is and if he is still in love with me, he ended up giving me the same laundry list of reasons it wouldn't work between us.  It felt like he was trying to convince himself more than convince me, but it still hurt my pride.  Even though I know why it won't work, I found myself defending what we had.  I found myself back in the same place.  My emotions were swelling and I was angry.  This is the kind of anger I only felt in relationships.  It's a combination of jealousy and hurt.  It's not a good look.  The truth is, we were an excellent pairing on paper, but then life happened.

Things always happen.  None of those things are the issue right now.  He's not the issue right now.  I am.  While thinking about this hard and wiping the last of my tears, I realized what the problem was.  I didn't want to lose.  He is in a relationship with a woman he started talking to while we were still together.  And, I am on the losing end.  This is never a good place to be.  You start confusing a relationship with winning.  Not the case.  I equate my current position with losing, when the truth is, the relationship itself was what lost.  I got wrapped up in old emotion and I started to forget what I really wanted in life.  I started to forget what it is that makes ME happy.

In all of the chaos of old emotion, he made the statement that they (he and his new girlfriend) are both private people.   He then made the request that I stop writing the blog.  He is embarrassed that his business is out there and she has read the blog. Cue music... I had to remind him that I am not his business.  This is my business.  And, it's out there, but maybe not as much as it should be.  I have painted myself as me, minus one big part of me...

I have been keeping this side of myself from you guys.  I was in love.  I might still be in love.  I don't know. The pain is too fresh to be able to distinguish between love and pride.  The one thing I do know is that I am not ready for a relationship again.  My ex jumped into a new relationship and I have plenty of opinions on that.  But, that is his path and this is mine.  We battle with wondering if we are still in love, because the wounds that a relationship leaves on two people are still fresh with us.  Personally, I will take my time.  After my last relationship, I need time.  It was intense and it was powerful, but we were trying to do something that wasn't right for us.  I should have bailed out a long time before it ended.  I let myself be played with and I played along in the game of make believe.  We played house and we talked about marriage and I can't do that with anyone again this soon.  Where I stand now, I don't want to do it ever again.

I am open and casual with sex, but I am not open or casual with love or relationships.  I do not think love comes easy.  I don't think it is a half-assed mix of good qualities that you settle for.  I don't really know what I think of love at this point.  I have some ideas of relationships though.  Maybe, it can't work if it's intense.  If you get the high highs when you are with someone, maybe you need to leave that person alone, because the low lows are just down the road.  Go with the person that is less exciting.  Maybe that is the way a relationship works.  Maybe you don't have the passion and the fire.  Maybe it works better if it is just more ... dull.  Or maybe there is a middle ground, a Promised Land of relationships.  We were intense, but things happened.  I guess, in the end, I would rather be the one he might still love, than the one that loves him with one foot out the door.  I played that part for too many years.  That's the trouble with relationships.  You are always settling and compromising when, in the end, it might not have been worth your time.  At any time, a person can say "this isn't right for me" and it's over.  No one has to apologize.  No one is wrong.  Things just change.  For this reason, I think relationships almost require a certain level of dishonesty.

As of now, I am not interested in that.  I am not interested in the ups and downs of a relationship, or the mundane day to day that comes along with settling down.  If I find someone that sweeps me off my feet or hits me like a ton of bricks, I might change my tune.  But, for now, I will be the girl that is open to sex, open to love and turned off by relationships.  I respect people that have them and I respect a successful one, but I don't think I need one.  I think entering into one at this point in my life would be the wrong decision for me.  I have to remember this next time I am tempted to take that trip down Revolutionary Road again.  Having a relationship isn't what defines me.  I define me and my dealings with other people (aka relationships) should only compliment the greatness I have built (aka my life).  That is what this blog is about; the good relationships I build and what they bring to my life, however fleeting or brief.

Note - Last night, I found myself laying on the couch crying.  A cute boy that I like a lot called me and I talked about my ex.  Bad move.  I might have decided I will write about my past... I will not talk to cute boys about it.  Not a good look.  If you find yourself laying on a couch crying, that's okay.  It happens, but you can't do it long.  You need to get up and move on sooner rather than later.