It was a rough summer.
Well, to be fair, it had its ups and downs. I made a few new friends that I’m very
appreciative of, learned a lot of good things about some old ones and a lot of
not so good things about myself. As my
therapist would say, it was a “growing experience”. I’ll say this about growing experiences…..they
Suck, with a capital S.
After spending the last year working very hard to stop
making bad decisions, I slipped up.
Big. I’ll liken it to an alcoholic
walking into a bar and taking a sip.
Just one little sip won’t hurt, right?
WRONG! It was almost like an out
of body experience, like I was watching a movie I had no control over. I knew this was a bad choice every step of
the way. I knew I shouldn’t be doing it
but I just couldn’t stop myself.
I remember clearly saying to a friend “This is the same guy”. This is the SAME GUY. I always chose this guy. And it always ends up the same way. Except this time it didn’t. It was way, way worse.
I’m purposely being vague because 1. The details are really
just ridiculous 2. I’m a little afraid “he”
will somehow find this entry and I’ll have to move to another country. One of my favorite things to say is “You can’t
have a rational argument with an irrational person” or, in more simple terms, “You
can’t win an argument with a crazy person” and boy did that theory get proven.
Although this situation has been over for a couple of months
it’s still affecting my life, my choices, and my plans and how I interact with
my friends. Which is unfortunate, but a
consequence I have to take responsibility for.
Another unfortunate side effect of my bad decision making is how my
friends got dragged along on this trip through Crazy Town with me. I do regret that.
Addiction, and the consequences associated with it comes in
all shapes and sizes. My drug of choice happens
to be assholes.
BUT! After darkness
comes the light, right? Or whatever….
Toward the end of the summer, as this saga worked into its
final crescendo of crazy, I thought of someone.
Someone I met about 5 years ago, out one night with my friends at the
beach. My good friend and I decided to
take action and send a group of men drinks.
Never did it before, never did it again after. Turns out they were there just that weekend. I got to talking to one of the guys and we hit
it off. When people talk about “just
knowing” it has to be like this was. Fun
and comfortable and right – I still remember it very vividly, like it was
yesterday. The “but”….he was leaving the
continent for a long term work assignment soon after.
So we had fun, he left, we kept in touch via text here and
there but he lived on another continent so, that was that.
Back to present. We
reconnected about a year ago on Facebook (one example of drunk texting gone
right) and I thought a lot about him the last couple of weeks of the summer . When I knew I was going to spend the month of
September at the beach also, I thought to myself “I should reach out to him and
see how he’s doing; I know he visits here in September”.
But I talked myself out of it. He’s probably married or at the very least
dating someone and why ruin a good memory by making it real and, possibly, disappointing. A couple of days after I settled this internal
argument I got a Facebook message from HIM.
He was visiting the beach that weekend and wondering if I would be there
too. Now, I’ve gotten over the part of
my life where everything was a sign or had a deep meaningful meaning but this
might have changed my mind, a little.
Turns out I had plans that weekend and could not make it to
the beach so we met up in the city instead.
And it was FUNNNN!! So fun, more fun than any other date I’ve been on
in, well, ever, really.
I was trying to describe to someone why it was so great and
what I came up with was, he hears me.
And vice-versa. Lots of people
talk, I talk to a lot of people and I love and appreciate all the people and
points of view I’m lucky enough to have in my life but, with him, I don’t have
to elaborate. He just gets it. I can let my guard down and be me. He doesn’t think I’m weird, he doesn’t care I
don’t like to talk on the phone, he doesn’t think it’s odd that I need a lot of
space. I guess it’s not a very romantic
reaction but what I feel, in return, is relief.
I’m not alone.
Who knows what happens now.
I’ve seen him again since then but, because I can never take the simple
way, he lives in another state. Not
impossible but not easy. He’s working on
a project close by for the next couple of months so I will see him more, just
not sure what the possibilities are at this point.
But it gives me hope and a new perspective…..I guess you
could call it a “growing experience”...
