Limbo In the Midwest

I’m restless at the moment. With one paper, journals and one more exam between me and undergrad graduation. My parents will be in town shortly and then I’ll be road-tripping. All sound fun and all are stressing me out.

I’m looking into two manuscript submissions and I’m not sure what to turn into who. Which is stressful. Maybe I’ll get this last paper done tonight so I can put together two chapbooks I would be happy to send out.

I hate and love moving. I hate taking down my good feeling energy. I can already feel it. But I love the idea of change and moving onto a new life. Especially since I’ve lived in this same house for two years now. It’s time to move onto new things (I’m not going to say adventures because…stupid) So the idea of fresh places, a change of scenery sounds wonderful but I hate cleaning, packing, cleaning, hot weather and the never-ending of packing boxes and trying to lift heavy boxes. Which just turns into my ass in the air, loud sounds, cussing and getting no where. (Like bad sex)

Road trip should be fun. I just can’t wait to get over the planning and packing for that as well. Especially because I’m doing most of it. Everyone is so busy it’s hard to meet up with them to work out things and if I don’t get it done…it won’t get done.

So here I am.

But I’m excited because I’ll be in my favorite National Park for my birthday!

Zion!! AHHHHH

But I’m ready. Ready to get home and start making my next move.

I can only take two more weeks of limbo before I say, “fuck this!”

 

Forgiveness

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines forgiveness as:

transitive verb

1

a : to give up resentment of or claim to requital for –forgivean insult-

 b : to grant relief from payment of –forgive a debt-

 2

: to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) : pardon–forgive one’s enemies-

A Little over a year ago I had one of the worst experiences of my young adult life.

Standing in the middle of my boyfriend of the time bedroom, holding a beautiful silky pearl under shirt my whole world came crashing down around. Every red flags, every fight, every fear hit me like a bullet to the heart. I couldn’t breath, couldn’t stand, couldn’t believe that someone I had been dating for four years of my life could cheat on me. But these are the facts, these are the moments that will forever be a scar on my heart and these moments have become haunting,the worst of my nightmares since the beginning of last August. From finding letters, emails, finding out my car was taken to visit this other women, who was not only someone I had met before but a friend of my best friend.

Then two weeks ago I found out not only were they seeing each other over the summer I was home working my job but when i was heading back, both of them came to California, she met his family, friends and where he grew up, all the while with the understanding we were still together.

Last year has been nothing but a struggle for me. A struggle to date, to trust again, to love again and a struggle to forgive those who have broken my heart. Yes I did forgive Thrilla. We became close friends and I really had to convince my friends again that this person may have not been the best boyfriend at the end of our relationship but he was going to be a good friend, he was going to make it up to me. So there was forgiveness.

This has all come crashing down around me yet again as I bring up deep dark issues that haven’t been spoken about since last year. Not only has my ex not learned to accept what he did was not ok, was not right. He blames me for the loss of his job.

I have become the one to blame, the one that changed his life forever.

I want to make a few points clear:

My life has forever been changed. Not only has trusting men become near impossible but scares me half to death. Not only have been jumping in and out of bed with men that I have no feelings for, I have made one night stands my drug, my band-aid, my way to fill the huge gap in my heart, in hopes for brief moments I will forget the emails I read, forget the “I love you” they wrote back and forth to each other, and I hope having another man on top of me will help me forget that she sat inside my car as they kissed, held hands and fell in love.

I not only lost my boyfriend of four years, but my best friend and my co-worker.

So yes Thrilla, your life has forever been changed, you have lost so much. But YOU made that decision, I did not decide to kiss her, fuck her, to love her. That was you, those were your moments. Your life has changed because of you, her life has changed because of you and because of her own decisions. And my life has changed because of both of you.

A year ago I decided to forgive, to do something I have never heard anyone else do. I became friends with my cheating ex. I welcomed her into my house and I listened to how much you loved her with no resentment. This is the kind of person I am. I forgive; perhaps too much but this is who I am.

Today though, today has shown me that maybe forgiveness was a mistake, was a silly idea on my behalf. Not only did Thrilla discount what happened a year ago, he saw nothing wrong with his actions and then continue to point out he can’t keep saying sorry for something he did a year ago.

Look a year is nothing, a year is a blink of the eyes. 

It seems as if I have become a victim needing to get over my problems, my sadness and a woman who still clings on to events.

This is not the case, this is anything but the case. I have moved on, I am very happy and I have a much better life then I did during this relationship, but that does not mean scars still do not bleed or hurt once and awhile.

So no Thrilla, this does not give you the right to yell at me (especially when i was not yelling at you) does not give you the right to cuss me out, to kick me out of your house, to flip me off and then continue to text me afterwards. You have no right to ever raise your voice to, not only because I am a women but because I am a human being. I deserve respect, class and a man (friend or more than friend) who will never raise their voice at me.

I promised myself a year ago that you would hurt me again, this promise was broken today. You confirmed everything I ever feared. That you still get it, you don’t see the magnitude of what you have done.

Still I will forgive you, I will let go of the pain bit by bit each morning and I will move on from of this. Someday I will be in love with someone who will forever hold my heart in the right place and someone will love me for each wrinkle of my smile and each tear I shed for those who have done wrong to me.

I am not just a strong woman, but a good PERSON. I am compassionate, I am caring and I give all of myself to love.

I will move on, I will heal, I will forgive still.

I do not know if I can still say the same for you. I do not know if you can move on. Forgive me, for something I should never say sorry for.

I did nothing….I was the victim of a failing relationship that should have ended much sooner. I was a victim of a man who did not have the courage to treat me like an equal person and break it off with me.

Tonight I will forgive myself first, I will wash my salty face and I will sleep with good dreams in mind.

I know the rest will follow.

“True forgiveness is when you can say, “Thank you for that experience.”
― Oprah Winfrey

First time home since break-up (Written on the plane)

This will be the first time I’ve stepped foot into California since I found out Thrilla cheated on me.

I’m having serious anxiety over coming home. My chest feels heavy, I’m short of breath and my legs are beginning to shake.

My life is so different now. Yes, I understand we change every year, we are always changing, always developing but I’ve changed drastically in such a short amount of time. I don’t feel like the same girl that left California in August.

I feel older.

My views have shifted,

I understand why people causally date and why many rather not be in a serious relationship.

Because they haven’t found the one.

I know I’ve been saying a lot through my posts in my blog I want to be in a relationship but I’m not sure I feel this way anymore.

Or if I’m going to be in a relationship I wanna be all in and I want the same from them. I want an uncontrollable love. I want deep, out of control love that drives others away but draws us in closer. I don’t think I’ve found the man I want to fall in love with, or they haven’t gotten to that phase for me yet. They haven’t seen me yet, I haven’t seen them yet. Plus there are a few men in my life I would  try to date and feel them out but I’m not sure they’re that into me, or maybe they haven’t noticed me.

All I can say is, we shall see.

But geez I look at love so differently now. I use to be so gung-ho about being with someone, being in love, being content with what I have from someone. But now I see everything about love so differently, or maybe “different” isn’t the right word, maybe I should say I’m just more reality now. I see now when a guy is basically “just not that into me.”  I see the games being played out, the lies being feed to me.

Now maybe I saw this all years ago, maybe the difference now is believe these circumstances to be true, they are no longer myth, but fact.

I’ve been jumping back and forth so recently from desiring a relationship to not wanting anything to do with love, or dating. Not too sure where I’ll land at the end of this all. I guess I’m hoping I’ll meet the right guy who will bring me back to the ground. Until then it looks like my feet won’t be touching the ground anytime soon.

Well, I’ll be home soon, not sure what this winter break will bring and I’m not too sure if I’m ready for everything that’s about to change.

But I’m going to walk into the darkness regardless.

Trust

I’m not sure if I can trust again any time soon.

In the future can I trust?

Yes, in the future, but right now…I can’t.

I think I started to lose my trust in men was March of 2011. The first time Thrilla and I broke up. I found out he had been interested in a girl who was on a team with us, now whether or not this girl liked him in the same way I will never know, she said she didn’t but this could be debated I feel; especially after everything I’ve been through I think anything can be possible. So any ways, I found out a day after that Thrilla basically ended things because he wanted to be with her, now not in a romantic terms at all, but sexually. How do I know this? I read some texts he was sending my other friends, very graphic texts about what he wanted to do to her.

Why I ended up back with him 5 months later, I’ll never understand…no I do understand, I was weak, I was lonely, I didn’t think I could be on my own, I thought I needed him.

So I saw these texts and they hurt me for some reason, I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it had to do with the fact that during the actually break up he lied to me, instead of just telling me, “Hey look I wanna sleep around,” it became a circus of reasons. Reasons involving me; me in the terms of not dressing up enough, doing enough, me having problems, it became my fault. But in this moment of finding, understanding he lied to me, this was the moment that lead to me losing all the trust I had in men. It’s in moments like these where I lose apart of myself, a part that I was born with, a piece of a puzzle I thought you needed in order to survive. (Years later I will realize these puzzle pieces needed to break off)

Another hit to the puzzle piece: A fight, he didn’t like me talking to my old ex’s/guys I’ve slept with. I told him I would stop speaking with them, but he needed to the same in return, this was not something he could do.

A third hit in the chest: Catching him emailing the other women he cheated with on me, emails, harmless at the time, but flirting was deeply rooted in each question, and each connection they claimed to be making as friends. I asked him to stop speaking to her, this was out of the question, this become a fight, where in the end with him claiming he was ending it, this too was lie (they continued to talk)

The puzzle piece finally and completely fell off in August of 2012. Funny thing is this trust must have fallen off in April, when their relationship began and mine ended without my knowledge. When you are cheated on for 5 months everything in your world swifts so suddenly, your knees weaken and you’re not sure who you are anymore.

It’s funny because all summer I would be randomly sitting alone in my room and cry, and I wasn’t sure at the time what I was crying about. Sometimes the body catches on quicker then the mind can. Sometimes the body already knows whats going on and the mind is not ready to face it, it’s not denial, I think its are natural animal  instincts deeply rooted inside of us, when we know something is about to kill us, destroy us and are bodies move out of the way before are mind can fully understand what is going on. My body was already going through the break up. My mind just needed time to catch up.

My ex had a lot of excuses to why he did it. My favorite? When he told me he thought we had broken up already. Yeah, he said that to me, I guess he thought when I was saying goodbye to him at the airport he thought that was are break up, even though we were still together on Facebook and I called him, told him I missed him.

I have these moments, I’m sitting down and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he did this to me. He was not only seeing, sleeping with another women, but they were basically together, he was basically in another relationship.

This is why I have lost all trust in men.

I don’t know when I can or will trust again. And I know this will be a different kind of trust altogether. A packaged up trust, with a red stamp on the front that reads, “People do will hurt others in order to be happy, I understand this.”

I will be more cautious, I will no longer fall in love so quickly and I will put myself first until I believe someone has the best intentions for me and what I have to offer, “Offer.” Look at me making myself sound like some sort of special cellphone service, like you don’t get any specials deals until you prove to me you won’t just switch to another phone company so fast. Maybe I should have been thinking like that sooner in my life.

But until then, I going to just trust a little less. I guess this is called growing up, becoming who i’m going to be for the rest of my life. I like who I’m going to be for the rest of my life, I like this woman I’m becoming more and more each day, she’s a lot stronger.

Or maybe I’ve always been this strong…I just didn’t believe in myself.

I didn’t believe in myself.

If I could there would be one more thing I would say to my ex. I would say to him, “One day you will go through what I have gone through and finally understand my pain, because right now; you don’t understand my pain. Then I would tell you, “I hope one day you can be happy without hurting someone else.”

Sometimes I still get so mad at him, at what he did to me, at what he’s doing now, and I get so mad at myself. Mad for not speaking up sooner, for not telling him off, for still talking to him when we pass by.

But most days I feel nothing towards him, well thats not true…I feel pity for him. Because I love where my life is now, and even though I no longer trust men       I’m still happy, still looking for love and I know now what I want in life and where I’m going…well most of the time.

So if you ask me, what has changed in love?

I stopped falling in love with boys. I now want to fall in love with a man.