I didn't take as many photos these past two weeks, I honestly was really sad this last week. An old co-worker told me that he and his wife were done, she moved out yesterday, and so we've been talking a lot this past week and it has lead to me thinking about the beginnings of my own divorce and of course the man and how that all started. I shared with my friend that even though it is still the hardest decision of my life, and it was really fucking sad, and it literally is the end of your life as you know it, there was such a relief. This weight of having to pretend like everything was ok, and that my life was what I wanted was gone, and I was so excited for what was next. I had no idea that just a month later a married man I worked with was going to send me "Wicked Game" a song I'd never heard before and tell me no song had ever spoken to him before the way that one had when he heard it the night before. At this point only an acknowledgment of a mutual crush had been admitted to and a very forward statement by me of what I wished could happen. A week after that my dog would die and two days later the man would drive me down the shore and he would kiss me for the first time that night nearing midnight while standing in a life guard boat with the moon bright and looming.
It has been wild to acknowledge this past year that I am the age he was when we began. Here I am, in a similar situation, friend/co-worker is just in the beginning of getting divorced and the idea of even entertaining a romantic interaction with them is the furthest thing from my mind. When I was finally honest with my mother about my transgressions and the mess I had gotten myself into, I remember her saying that the man had taken advantage of me and how vulnerable I was and at the time that felt so far off base because I wholeheartedly believed we both had fallen in love unexpectedly. Perhaps if things had truly ended back then, I would have continued to believe that, but now I sit here and I think about the history of us and it gets harder to believe this man ever had my best intentions at heart. Instead of being able to celebrate my new freedom and redefine my life after getting out of an emotionally abusive marriage with an alcoholic, I was devastated over losing the man and could barely find the will to go to work. Somehow I managed to get my shit together enough to take the GRE and apply to grad school all while finalizing my divorce. There was communication every now and then, only once or twice was him warning me about not going to something he'd be at, or not playing softball, it usually was when I would reach out because I couldn't let go... I couldn't stop the deep down feeling that what we had was rare and was supposed to happen. Back then he did his best to respond but would keep it short and curt, but still in a way where I always still felt like I mattered to him, that my well being was important to him. Eventually school started and I got immersed in my new life and it helped, but then came the summer and I was back in the office full time, and it was hard for me, and I asked to just clear the air, but then somehow that turned into having three hour chats on the work communicator once a month until that October where it finally dawned on me that no matter how much I wished to have the friendship back, it would never be just that to me. That the best way to love him was to let him have a life uncomplicated by me, and that it was also my best shot at letting someone new in.
Jump five months later, the longest we've ever gone without communication since it all happened and I'm two months away from graduation and have just agreed to move out to Pittsburgh for work so that I don't have to experience being back at the office full time and I've been genuinely dating people since that October, and not just sleeping with people. I was pumped for the next phase of my life and to be leaving all the pain behind me. Of course the man decides it's time to pop back into my life because low and behold he had just found out his wife had been cheating on him for months. A smarter me would not have responded, a smarter me would have stayed in the life I had just managed to rebuild for myself. Instead I allowed myself to engage with him more and more regularly over those next weeks and on the night I was meant to celebrate graduating with my friends he tells me they are trying some weird ass open marriage type of arrangement. I cried hard in my car on my way to meet up with my friends and was barely present the whole night. I should have ran then, and yet I didn't, too long I'd been hoping for more time with him and so I kept trying to keep him in my life but that just resulted in more moments of my life that should have been happy ones to be tainted by the emotional rollercoaster the next two years would become...The day of my birthday that year I had taken myself on an adventure of Philly and went to the zoo and the mutter museum and a 360 view of the city and knew I was going to see him before I headed back to Pittsburgh, it felt like it was going to be a perfect day, and instead it ended with him telling me he was no longer going to come visit me out there and I could sense that things were going to end, and they did four days later with his last words being "Our someday will always be out there, whether or not we ever get to it is what remains to be seen."
By the end of that summer he would come back again, apologize for the mess of the spring, that he was living with Burdman and eventually we began to legit date. Little by little he told his family he was getting divorced, and I even met his two best friends and he met mine. Little by little I began to believe I was finally having that chance I'd genuinely begged for, that chance to see what we could be, a chance at our someday. I had no idea that right before I moved back from Pittsburgh he would move back in with his wife. I had no idea that within two months of being home it would be over. Eventually things began to shift back to the way they were when we were dead to one another but this time was different, this time I couldn't write it off to the circumstances, this time it just felt like he didn't choose me, that I wasn't enough. Where before I still felt like I mattered, this time he couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye to me when I eventually got a new job and left. Around this time is when I began to write in the blog I reserved just for the things I wish I could say to him. I used to write in it a lot, like multiple times a week and eventually in a moment of desperation shared it with him. For about three months he read what I wrote but never said anything until the very end of the summer. This time I tried harder not to let him back into my life but it was impossible to pretend that just talking to him hadn't made me happier than I'd been since it had all ended. Even though I had started a brand new job, in a brand new apartment, with a brand new cat, and genuinely loved my life, I hadn't felt that kind of deep loneliness since right before I ended my marriage. Maybe I just wanted more time, maybe I just didn't care that I knew it meant inviting more hurt, maybe part of me still had hope for our someday and that if he could just remember, he would choose me.
Things turned into a FWB kind of situation but I was never built to handle something like that and I was foolish to pretend otherwise. I have memories across those months that I am grateful to have and know I will remember fondly for the rest of my days, but I still struggle with accepting the way it ended. With accepting the way it felt like he turned a switch and all of a sudden I was nothing. How not even two months after I asked for space because I knew I couldn't continue on with what we'd been doing, he re-entered his marriage. Again like all the times before, I struggled to let go, to leave him alone, but apparently this time I was no longer worth even acknowledging. It has been eating me up that I can't reach out to someone I love during a time like this, and while the past is a big reason why I feel like I can't, I'm sure the biggest is because I honestly have no idea if he would respond and I'm not sure my heart could handle more silence.
Thinking about all of this though made me lose my fucking mind with Shiloh this weekend. Tuesday was his birthday and I made him oatmeal raisin cookies and joined him and his family for dinner and spent the night. It was a lovely night and we woke up in each others arms and just stayed like that for a while not wanting the moment to end and start the work day. As I drove home recognizing how happy I felt, all of a sudden I kept hearing this voice in my head shouting, "How is this different?! How have you not learned a god damn thing!?". The circumstances are different, there are not years of hurt wrapped up in it, but the bottom line is still the same. Shiloh is not emotionally available just like the man never was, and in the end the situation just makes me feel like I am not enough. Those thoughts continued to bounce around my head all week long and Friday night I told him I was so tired of meaningless and he responded "What makes you think this is meaningless?" to which I responded by reminding him he had said things weren't mutual. He said "I told you I didn't feel as strongly as you because I can't even think about that yet there's just too much going on" and he then rolled over and promptly fell asleep and I just stared at the ceiling biting my lip so hard I bled while trying not to cry. I wanted to leave but it was late and I was tired and figured I would leave first thing and tell him not to bother coming to mine for dinner that night. I was ready to just bail on it completely, just run away from it. In the morning I was curt, rebuked his offers for food, told him not to bother with coming over and started to pack up my things. He immediately apologized for not being more available for a conversation the night before and asked me what was wrong and I could barely get the words out, I had to look down at my hands and began to cry as I said them "I am struggling to convince myself that I am not setting myself up for the same kind of hurt I'm still in the process of healing from". At this point I had made my way back onto the bed and was sitting in front of him feeling my face flush with my embarrassment and heartache. He looked at me and said "You love so hard and so quickly, most people are guarded, it takes times, it takes me time even when I'm not still messed up from something else". I started to really cry by this point, turned away from him and curled up into a little ball and barely croaked out "What I am is naive and stupid and never seem to fucking learn, I know you're not Him, but this is no different, you're not available and I'm still not enough". Shiloh then engulfed me in a hug and told me that I wasn't stupid and naive, that I was lucky that I allowed myself to feel and that the situation with the man had been a losing battle from the start, that there were so many things working against the ending that I wanted and that what happened had so very little to do with me, just like right now has so very little to do with me and that I am enough, I am more than enough and just begged me to be patient. I cried in his arms for a little while longer and then he asked me to stay, to spend the day with him and swayed me with the promise of smores made with reese's cups by the fireplace later on.
I didn't end up leaving until earlier this afternoon. The rest of the weekend was lovely and we spent some time outside today and working on some random projects around his parents' house. Shiloh remarked Saturday evening that he wished he could turn around his mood like I could, or that he could get excited about anything the way I do about everything. A comment that struck me since the man had said the same thing to me once before. I told him that I definitely prefer to be happy, to focus on the good and to relish in the little things. That I may be an over-thinker but I've never been a pessimist. I have felt legit crazy the last two days with how sad and distraught I felt Friday night into Saturday morning, to how carefree and happy I was the rest of Saturday and today. Somehow though it feels like life keeps reiterating that your emotions are meant to be felt and acknowledged, and if you do, they will pass through you and then it's done. Again Shiloh has responded so differently to the difficult conversations, he doesn't shut down on me, he shares where he's at and reinforces that I matter. I still don't know what happens when I move to Maryland but I just keep telling myself I deserve all this happiness his presence in my life is bringing no matter how long or short a time-frame it ends up being. And now some photos from the last two weeks:
Some pasta with red sauce, I had some vodka sauce in the fridge, so I sauteed some mushrooms, onions, and green peppers, then poured what was left of the sauce into the pan and eventually added the linguine and made some garlic bread. It was super satisfying.
Managed to snag a pretty decent shot of the full moon.
One day during work hours I was in the middle of taking notes for a project and Lady decided I was done with that nonsense and jumped up and just laid down on my notebook.
Homemade quesadilla, just some cheese, green peppers, onions, and mushrooms with a bunch of cheddar warmed in a frying pan.
I decided to sign up for a wine service after a friend sent a coupon for Winc. Haven't tried the white or Rose yet, but that Pinot Noir was BOMB.
Watched a livestream of the tallest man on earth and that was SO enjoyable, what a pure human.
Homemade vegetable fried rice. Carrots, broccoli, and red onions.
Had been on a conference call and someone said your cat is judging us.
LOL.
I suck at breakfast... I hate getting up in general, but this particular morning I put some peanut butter on a honey oat rice cake, sliced up half a banana, two hard boiled eggs and two clementines with a cup of coffee. It was actually a great start to a very productive day.
Lady looking all regal up on my desk over the weekend.
I ended up going for a nice long run along the Cynwyd Heritage Trail and it was awesome. Will definitely be going back there and wish I had snagged more photos of it.
After my run, Shiloh borrowed a family friend's old school car and I'm not a car person and remember zero details but it was a lot of fun just driving around with the windows down.
And this is literally the only photo I took this past week. Look at how beautiful she is, I'm obsessed.
Welp the last call of the day came and went and I finally wrapped up this entry. Definitely not ready for the next week to begin but definitely ending this day feeling grateful that my current woes are as meaningless as they are... One of the video chats was with my college roommates and one girl's husband just lost his mother this morning and his grandma died last week. What a fucking nightmare to be dealing with that during this craziness. She only gets three days of bereavement for each of those events and his family is from the East Coast and they live in San Fran. So for now until they finalize the funeral details, she is stuck alone out there, mourning the loss of people that had become her family, and feeling that pull of guilt that she can't be with her husband when he needs her. We tried not to talk too much about it all, to give her the much needed distraction, but it definitely sucks knowing that even if I wanted to try and see her while she's on the same coast, it wouldn't be allowed. Same thing with my buddy going through his divorce, or Burdman's sick cat, or random shit with my twin, or stuff with my mom, so many random moments where in normal life I would have hopped in my car and I would have been there and instead I'm not and struggling to figure out how to best support the people I care about, while keeping all of us safe. I think my 30th year already had a theme of gratefulness to it and this is just strengthening that feeling.
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