Currently Chasing: Direct Pressure

It’s been a long time coming for sure, but it came. A relationship. It’s not a relationship with someone I met online. It’s not a secret relationship that I’m not allowed to talk about. It’s not a one-sided relationship, with me being the only person actually thinking it’s a relationship. But it can’t by any stretch be labeled  a new relationship.  It’s not. I’ve been ‘dating’ this man since 2006. We’ve been around the block together. We’ve definitely had our ups and downs, and most have been painfully and painstakingly documented throughout the lifespan of this blog, but we are on an up now and I couldn’t be happier.

Well, I could be happier, but that would involve a very extensive foot massage and Fettuccine Alfredo from Olive Garden, separate of each other of course. But as far as loving and being loved in return, well, it’s happening. So on the relationship front, I’m feeling full and satisfied. It’s a feeling I’ve had here and there in the past…both with him and with others. But never to the point where I felt fully safe. Even during what felt like the best of relationships I could always tell when I was a conversation away from a breakup or worse yet, a total heartbreak. And that feeling is awful. And it hurts.

Most of the time I would end up falling in love with people who were no good for me, or not geographically near me, or not even available, mostly because I knew the relationship wouldn’t last and there would be a clear excuse I could give for why it didn’t.

“We broke up because he was on drugs and that wasn’t going to work for me,” I would say.

“But you knew he did drugs before you met him!” my friend would say.

“That’s irrelevant,” I would shoot back.

Or

“We broke up because he lives in California and it just isn’t going to work out,” I would say.

“But you started dating him knowing he lived in California,” my friend would say.

“That’s beside the point,” I would say.

Or

“We broke up because he was married,” I would say.

“But you started dating him knowing he was married,” my friend would say.

“Fuck you,” would be my general response.

The point is, I always knew the relationship I was getting ready to enter was horribly bad for my health and self esteem, but it didn’t stop me from diving head first under the umbrella that I was ‘taking a chance on love!” And that’s all bullshit. I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to continually rip the scab off my heart and hand it over to someone with no bandaid.

And when I decided to give this on again off again relationship another shot after returning from Afghanistan, my first thought was … am I about to do it again? Am I about to dig my heart up only to have it buried again? I’ve cried over this guy already. Gone to therapy over him. Gone to that place where crazy girlfriends go. That place that makes them so desperate they become phone/email/computer checkers. Yes, I have been to that place with him, and here I was faced with the option … try it one more time, or head for the hills.

There are so many reasons to just jump ship. We’ve been down this road before right? People don’t actually change right? Eventually we will both get back to that place where we want something different and then we will break up right? Who knows, maybe that is right. Or just maybe we’ve done a lot of damage to each other and we are ready to heal those wounds for each other, instead of making other people pay for our mistakes. Maybe the direct pressure from someone who knows exactly where you’ve been and after it all is still willing to give it another go round is the only true way to stop the bleeding.

So I’m on board one more time. And this time I don’t already have an excuse for why it isn’t going to work. Which can only mean that maybe it will.