Journal

06-29-10 5:23PM

My ex-fiance has come up once again and considering this having been Pride Weekend, I have been confronted with stories and questions about him too much and I need to unload my thoughts on this and get it straightened out the best I can.

I love him and hate him. Most people feel one way or the other about him I have discovered. We brought out the worst, abusive, manipulative qualities in one another. It could be really, really bad. Yet, we could also bring out sweet, romantic, loving qualities too. The sad thing is, I don’t know if one of us was to blame more in this, but we used one another for sex and other things after we broke up even, and for a much longer time than one would think humanity would allow.

I find myself wanting to trash talk and hate him because it would be easier, but then I find myself being overwrought with intense guilt. The complications of what went on between us is sickening and I despise it. I want to tell him I am sorry, I want us to be able to forgive and in some ways totally forget one another. The pain a pettiness that can occur between us is disgusting and heartbreaking. I have to try and let it go the best I can.

My brother spotted him at pride with another guy and I actually hid. I don’t know when my life became a childish game, but it did as far as he is concerned. I wished that we had been more mature when we dated, that we could have dealt with things more appropriately, but we couldn’t. Now the shame of that has become overwhelming and keeps me from making the right decisions as far as he is concerned. It makes me sick just thinking about it.

So, you may never read this or know about it, but I am sorry. I can’t take back the bruises or hateful words that occurred between us. The holes in the walls and broken picture frames. Time and money lost.

The thing that I don’t understand is usually you have a hard time remembering the bad things and an easier time remembering the good. That’s what makes it so hard to avoid falling in that sand trap of an old relationship, but when it comes to us, I have a hard time remembering the good. Our first date, you getting down on your knee in the bathroom after that fight, and me returning the favor a year later in the rain… Those were nice. Nice, but they apparently weren’t enough.

Did we love each other even, or did we love to hate each other?

Then, way back, before I was even a legal drinking…there was You. The opposite, the guy that I knew was 100% my screw up. The greatest guy I ever knew and maybe the only one I ever loved. I messed things up on purpose. I was weak and the drugs meant more to me than my life at times. I wanted to save You from that, only later did I realize that if I had been smarter, You may have been able to save me if I wasn’t so blind. I am so happy for You having the life You do with such a beautiful, successful man. Seeing You in a better place actually brings me peace. Although the memories of the good times sting.

I’ve let a man tear me up emotionally because I wanted to be dedicated for once. Only I chose to be stubborn and stick it out in a bad situation, I ignored my instincts. I ended up having to get tested after that one. Dodged a bullet there.

I have NEVER been in sync with dating and I have never been good at being honest with someone. I never want them to see who I really am. I am so fearful that it will not be enough, that I am somehow inferior and unworthy of love and adoration.

This brings me to another thing that came up at pride. I accidentally made a side joke about not being able to pay a friend back if he took a look at my car since I couldn’t turn a trick for him since I cared too much for his boyfriend. I meant it to be funny and maybe if we weren’t drunk it would have gone over better. He took offense though and gave me this lecture about it being ok for someone to do something nice for me without having to pay them. I don’t know if he was mad because of how I saw myself or because he thought I saw him a certain way or both. I do know that it didn’t help that when I said something to his boyfriend about it and he talked to him that he cornered me in a way that, in my drunken state, I basically came back with and old habits comment. Then he went from made to a righteous intensity that was scary and sweet at the same time. I was cornered and I had to tell him the truth about my past. I mean details. It came out. It wouldn’t have if my judgments hadn’t been impaired I am sure, but it did. I’ve joked about it nonchalantly with some people. However, there are only three people who had ever seen how deep the pain was or heard any details and they had been there so to speak. Well, with that, I asked him to keep a secret and he said he would but not from his boyfriend. I can understand that, so I only had one choice and that was to tell this friend of years what was a part of me that nobody else was allowed to see. Either way, after a few tears, he was great about it.

So what am I saying here? To be so utilitarian about sex, so cavalier about relationships and to seem like I have such a big mouth without ever telling anyone the raw truth has left me isolated. I see it more and more everyday. I so badly want people to be close and yet I fear it so. When and why did this happen? Should I have cried and reconciled my moments of childhood sexual abuse more? Should I have recounted my tales of the physical trespasses that occurred against me in my teen years more? Maybe it was the drugs, or was it too late then and they were a tool for my separation?

How do you move forward without looking back when the past is licking at your heels?

That is the million dollar question.