So goodbye...

That's the funny thing about relationships when they end, you know, sometimes they just end.  I think most people agree that when someone is important enough to be in your life, when they are no longer in your life, you'd like some closure about it.  You want an inner peace that only comes when both sides have had their say, agree on the outcome, and move on knowing it's for the best.  The only problem with that formula is that it's improbable.  Unlikely.  Theoretical at best.  

I didn't get any closure with the last one.  Granted...one might argue it wasn't serious enough or long enough or deep enough or real enough to warrant one of those really nice wrap up talks where you cry it out and then hug it out and then go your separate ways knowing you'll be happier...someday...not anytime soon...but someday.

Nope.  It ended how most things in my life go.  Dramatically.  On the one hand, I'd like to believe I have the ability, free will even, to be a rational human being...but most often I get lost in my emotions and end up sitting back and watching events unfold.  It's only later, when I look back, that I realize maybe I could've handled a situation better.  I say "maybe" because truth be told...I believe I will always live a dramatic life.  Otherwise it'd be predictable and boring.  

It's been weeks now and I still think about it.  I think about him.  I wonder if he thinks about me.  I have moved past the hope that he'll reach out, apologize, say he misses me...say anything.  Part of me wishes he's reading this right now.  Part of me wishes he'd call.  The rest of me is thankful that he hasn't.  Even out-of-site, he's not out-of-mind.  

I know...I KNOW...that it is for the best.  

He kept telling me that he didn't think it was him I was having these feelings about.  That it was the idea of him, the idea of us, that had me so attached.  I didn't understand.  It was him I was sleeping next to, sleeping with, dreaming about when I slept alone.  It wasn't just an idea I looked forward to seeing.  I didn't make up how wonderful he was in the beginning.  He did text me all the time.  He did drive to my house after work.  He did tell me that he doesn't date casually.  

I thought those women in his past were crazy.  How could such a wonderful man...who told me he was addicted to me and needed to see me every couple days otherwise he'd get grumpy...be bad?  Why would you give that up?  I just kept asking, what's the catch?  He made me feel special.  He said the nicest things about me.  He called me amazing.  He said he was lucky to be the guy I chose to date because he knew what a big decision it was for me.

These things I did not make up.  He said them.  He did them.  And yet did he mean it?  

When I told him I wanted to date him it was like a switch flipped in his brain.  Suddenly he was too busy to answer my texts.  I'd say good morning and he wouldn't respond until 2pm.  I'd ask to see him, thinking he might drop by after work like he had done before...and suddenly it was "I'm not free until after 9" knowing full well I go to bed then.  All I wanted to do was talk to him and see him and suddenly he didn't have time for me.  The guy who couldn't go 2 days without seeing me, in a matter of weeks, told me I had to wait five days to see him before he had free time for me.

He told me "I'm not going anywhere."  And then he left.  First it was a little bit at a time.  But then it was all at once.  The little things I used to say that were so endearing to him, suddenly turned in to me being shallow and living a pointless life.  All the things I had told him about myself went from making me "amazing" to just plain "crazy."  Is that my fault?  Or his?  Or no one's?  

I never got to ask these questions.  Every time I was around him all my emotions welled up behind my eyes.  My throat closed up at the idea I may never talk to him again.  My brain went from functioning to clouded with fear of saying the wrong thing.  I wanted so much to be with him that in the end I hung on to the idea of what I wanted.  

He was kind of right, in the end.  It was the idea I had built up--but I didn't build it alone.  He helped me build it.  I saw what we could be and I wanted that.  I wanted those amazing weeks we had in the beginning to go on and on and on.  And when they ended, I fought for them.  I fought hard.  I didn't make it up.  I know that now.  I will never know why things changed for him.  We didn't have that talk.  I don't know if we were capable of having that talk because he wouldn't tell me and I wouldn't listen.

Now I can only speculate.  I know I pushed hard and fast.  But he got really deep with me right away too.  I learned things about him, about his past.  He opened up to me within the first couple of weeks and I thought...this is it, I've found someone I can be myself with and open up to who feels comfortable doing the same.  I can trust him with my heart.  I want him to have it.  I accepted him as he was and I thought he accepted me in the same way.  

It's been weeks now.  Maybe even a month already.  I have to say good bye forever to what will never be.  This is my way of taking everything I've been ruminating about these past weeks, putting them metaphorically down on paper, and then moving on.  I see now what happened.  After all these weeks I know what it was I was doing.  

I was trying to turn a great sexual relationship in to a committed and intimate one.  When I opened up to him, he rejected me.  When I talked about my fears, he made me feel silly for having them.  When I asked him to commit, he ran away.  You need all three to be successful.  I only had one.  

But oh what a great one it was!

It's no secret that I've slept with a lot of people.  In fact, my number is so high that even my best of friends bite back judgement when they hear it.  A shrink may say I've been trying desperately to fill a void in my life and perhaps using sex as a tool.  I'd like to think I'm just having fun.  But you don't get to my number because you're making smart choices.  You don't get here because you've had loving relationships.  It's also no secret that getting a number as high as mine means a lot of sex with people you don't necessarily like...or even necessarily know.  

Most of the time, I was drunk.  Most of the men on my list are guys I barely know.  Some of them I cared about...sure.  Some I grew up with and trusted.  Others I met just that night.  Some may have even liked me back at some point.  A few of them I dated.  One I thought I loved.  But mostly my life has been riddled with men who mean nothing to me.  Not really anyway.  They were there.  To fill a void when I needed it.  Literally.

So when I met this one.  And he didn't drink.  And he spilled all these kind words at my feet.  He charmed me from the second he showed up to our first date wearing a tie and apologizing for "almost" being late.  He paid for my meal.  He walked me to my car.  He gave me a rose.  He asked if he could kiss me good night.  And then on our second date we made out like kids by my car.  On our third date he came over after work and we made out again.

On our fourth date he grabbed my hand and walked me to his bedroom.  And by the time it finally happened, I was hooked.  I liked him.  I liked him sober.  He liked me back.  He was incredibly good looking.  He was charming.  He was nice.  He was thoughtful.  He texted me all day long just to talk about nothing.  He wanted to know everything about me.  He asked me to spend the night.  He gave me a tooth brush.  And then he showed me what it is like to be with someone who wanted me.  All of me.  

I may be jaded, but I'm also a woman.  I'm a woman who has been used and who has used.  I have slept with men and never seen them again.  I have slept with men who told me they didn't want to date me, but would keep sleeping with me as long as we were both available at 2 am.  I have slept with men who see me as nothing more than a sex object.  They text me dirty pics and say nasty things to me.  But always, they make it very clear that the only interest they have in me at all...is sex.

But not him.  Not this guy.  And it took me a while to get here...and many conversations with many different people...but I realize why I fought so hard to stay with a man I had, really, nothing in common with.  It is because he made me feel special.  He made me feel like I was more than just some chick to bang for a night.  He made me feel worthy of more than just sex.  More then just someone to spend an hour with late at night.    

He wanted my body, sure, but he also wanted my mind.  And that's the sexiest thing I have ever found in a man.  While I do enjoy the act itself, it's the connection you get when you look in to the eyes of someone who cares about you.  When he says sweet things to you and about you instead of just nasty bedroom talk.  When he holds you in his arms all night long.  When you roll over and he rolls closer.  

And then when you wake up and you see his face and the first thing he does is smiles and kisses your forehead.  When he takes a shower and gets ready for work and then jumps back in to bed to be with you another 20 minutes before he has to leave.  When he pulls you on top of him and looks you right in the face and says to love him and be a good girlfriend.  

All those things.  

I have never had that.  I'm 32 years old and that was the first time any man has ever made me feel that way.  So yeah...maybe I jumped the gun a bit.  But when you've had the past I've had...dealt with the things I've dealt with...missed out on all the wonderful moments that others have been enjoying for years--you find it and you hold on to it and you don't let it go.  

That's why it hurt so much to say good bye.  That's why one month later I'm still not back where I was before I met him.  I will never be that person again because I know there is a such thing and that I am worthy of having it.  But man oh man...does it suck to find it in someone I can't even communicate with.  Why was it with someone who wasn't ready to commit?  Why was it with someone so busy with work, and moving, and spending time with his kid, and dealing with family things?  Why did we have to meet when we were in such different places in our lives?  

He is clearly not ready to be serious and that is all I long for right now.  And damn if I'm not so pissed off with how this whole thing went down.  And how I never got any closure.  And how now I have to start at square one and hope to find someone else to be that guy for me again.

I went out a couple weekends ago determined to sleep with someone else.  Just to get the memory of him out of my mind.  And I did.  Some college student who believed I was also an undergrad.  Met him at the bar.  Went back to his hotel.  Had some meaningless sex.  Went home.  It didn't work.  Only cemented the fact that A. I still got it...and B. it's not what I want anymore.  I tried telling this last guy I was done being that girl--and that's why I wanted him.  And when I went out to be "that girl" just to spite the memory of him...it only made me feel worse.

So here I am.  Finally getting at least my half of the closure I didn't get before.  I'm putting this all down in words so that I can acknowledge it and then move on from it.  I have embraced the roller coaster of emotions and can now step away from them for awhile.  This may just be a blog that no one reads, but that isn't the point.  The point is that I've said it.  I've admitted my weaknesses.  I've finally realized why things went the way they did.  And have learned a little bit more about myself.  

I can only hope that one day I will look back at these blogs and they will remind me of how far I've come and the one man who made it all worth it.  And if I never meet this man...I hope to at least live a life where I allow myself to have these feelings, admit them, and move on from them.  I don't want to dwell.  I don't want to remain sad or upset.  I just want to learn from it and go on to be happy and fulfilled in other ways.  

For me, there is always hope.  And I hope that never ends.