Epiphanies And Indescretions

Well… Where should I start?

I’m a week out from the dates of last weekend. I blew Jim off, haven’t spoken to him since… I’m kind of sad about it – I feel like maybe he had some potential, but there was just some ridiculous behaviour that I couldn’t overlook… I actually spent some more time with Andrew last night, but it was literally enough time to ascertain that I’m not really interested in seeing him again… We did get hot and heavy last night for a bit, but, (and I’ll wait for the applause…) I did NOT sleep with him. There was a moment when I was moderately tempted to, but then I was able to actually catch my breath for a second, and I realized that I would probably regret it immensely. LOL

(I make it sound like I have a hard time keeping it in my pants- I’m truly not THAT much of a whore…)

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, I took some time to really reflect on my life… the men and boys who have tromped through, breaking my heart, taking a piece of my soul and leaving their cum stains on my bed sheets… I thought about how I got to where I am… I can see how bad my behaviour was 15 years ago; how it escalated, how it tore me down… How I didn’t take the time to actually see how my behaviour was chipping away at my self esteem… My heart breaks for the 24 year old Erika who was so lonely and broken, and felt like she needed a man to define herself. And how better to catch a man than to fuck him right? Yeah – my logic was most certainly skewed. I’ll admit, most of it was fun in the moment, but I can see it now with 20/20 vision… and we all know how that goes.

So where did it all come undone? Well, I’m glad you asked.

I blame Neal.
Ok, so I don’t BLAME him, but, he was my downfall. I loved him with everything that I had. It was probably the first time that I had ever loved someone completely  unabashedly. No holds barred, untainted, unselfish, pure and unadulterated LOVE. He was the axis of my world; I held him on the highest pedestal, and loved him endlessly in every cheesy sense of the word…. Have I articulated that enough? He was my everything. He taught me about my body – showed me things I’d never known, made me feel things I’d never felt… He made me laugh and made me feel as though I was the most beautiful woman in the room… For myself, who had been largely invisible my entire life, his attention was like a drug. He was my crack.
And then, one day, he was done.
I don’t even remember the day. I mean, I remember how it went down; how I fell apart and lost my shit. I think it was March. I can’t even remember if it was snowy or not. I’ve literally blocked the extenuating circumstances from my head- I think it was probably the most traumatic moment of my life.

And then I spent the next 4 years trying to recover from him. Trying to suss my way through crappy relationships that were clearly unhealthy and weak attempts at filling the gaping wound. Less than a year after Neal and I split, I was pregnant with Brookelyn. She was a blessing in my self destructive hurricane. For the 20 months I was with her father, I tried to hold our fragile relationship together, like a circus act balancing china teacups and plates while trying to stay on the ball… I tried for Brookelyn, not for myself, and finally walked away from that train wreck of a relationship when she was about 10 months old. After that relationship fell apart, there was a literal queue of men, ‘boyfriends’, lousy one night stands… And then Neal called me.

Like my past came out of nowhere and bitch slapped me.

We talked, reminisced, romanticized our relationship… At this point, we were living 3 hours apart; he in Simcoe, I in Wasaga Beach. He had left his wife and was living with some weirdo in Simcoe, I was raising a three year old and in school full time again… through long distance calls and shitty MSN messenger web chats, we decided to take another shot at love together. My dreams had come true… I had him back. My one. My only. My Lobster.

Unfortunately, like most romanticized things, the reality wasn’t so rosy. He was in a shitty place in his life- depressed, between careers, temporarily, (after my intervention,) living in the basement of my best friend and her husband… I, on the other hand, had my hands full with Brooke, working towards a career in a field I was moderately interested in, getting my act together after years of spiraling out of control… And truthfully, the scar material from our previous relationship hindered me from truly opening back up to him…  I wonder now, looking back, if I had been able to love him with the same abandon I had previously, if MAYBE we could have been the next great love story… There’s a song by Blue Rodeo called “Bad Timing”… it’s literally the anthem to the Neal and Erika saga. I think we lasted 3 months before I pulled the plug. I just was not able to offer our relationship the same kind of blind faith as I had previously.

Anyhow. He claims that the second time around, I broke his heart. I guess we’re even, though that really wasn’t something that crossed my mind.  Brookelyn was in kindergarten before he spoke to me again. Called me to tell me that one of our mutual friends (and an ex-boyfriend of mine) had passed away. We talked a bit, had a couple of long conversations… I was dating a guy named Ryan when Roger passed away, and I remember sneaking out of my apartment after Ryan had fallen asleep, driving in the rain to the pier in Collingwood and sitting on the phone with Neal for hours…

No one will ever get me like he does. I still get butterflies when we talk on the phone and he answers “Hey Girl”. ( He says he still feels the same when I call him “Sunshine”.) We do that like a secret code now… I called him a few weeks ago for some assistance with my iphone, and his deep (admittedly still sexy) voice boomed “Hey Girl” over the phone line, and my knees went weak… I have had dozens of first kisses; most are a blur, where I have no definitive memories of them, but my first kiss with him, 18 years later is still crystal clear in my memory. I can still remember his mouth, his breath, his scent… I had a first kiss with Andrew last night, and it was completely unremarkable. I’ve already forgotten the details.

Anyhow, Neal is married again now. I guess he and Christie got married about 5 years ago or so. He’s doing well – doing good things… got involved in his church, is raising her kids, working full time and in school… I’m happy for him, and I wish him all the best… but if he and Christie ever fall apart… well… Never say never right?

And there it is. I’m not sure why I felt the need to spew all of this today… I guess the truth is, this whole dating thing, while I’m enjoying it, makes me a little nostalgic for my past… I’m ready for a great love, not a mediocre one. I’ve spent the last 10 years in a mediocre relationship… And I’m a little afraid that the ‘great love’ I had with Neal, as intense and short lived as it was, was my shooting star, and I’ll never have another chance at it. I guess I’ll just pray it out, and be thankful that OD has come back so that I can document a fresh round of dating disasters.  Just Bad Timing eh OD?

All right. I’ve spewed all the spewings… there’s a little insight I suppose. Welcome to my gong show.

Love,
Erika