You and I have a love/hate relationship, and I truly think it is time to settle some stuff. As far back as I can remember, holidays have been a shuffle. Our immediate family, each “side” of the extended family, and every so often shlepping out to my dad’s house too. Now, I’ll be honest and say that when I was growing up, it was what I knew, so I never thought anything was wrong with that aspect. As my son grows, this will be what he knows, and I hate that with every fiber of my being. Am I being a hypocrite?

I cannot think of a major holiday where something hasn’t gone awry and made me reconsider why I bother. The flipside of that is that I absolutely love the entertaining and the family/friends aspects of holidays. This holiday has been the antithesis of every holiday I have ever known. On the one hand, I’m not going to kvetch because I have awesome people in my life who love me every day, and this day is not truly special. On the other hand, I’ve become accustomed to a huge “family” gathering, and this year was just tiny. No major cooking required, no staying up all night the night before, or standing in the kitchen all day. No little man to play with or to help cook. The worst part of this whole shitastical nightmare has finally come to pass.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m used to spending time without my son now. I’ve gotten past feeling like my soul was being ripped in two every single time he was away for the weekend. But when he finally came home and I swooped him up in my arms, hugged him, and said, “Happy Thanksgiving!” he said, “But it was already Thanksgiving, Mama.” That stung. I missed him while he was gone, and while I had an awesome day, a few things really hit home for me. One is that I have some serious shit to work on. Through some very candid conversations I’ve realized that I’ve compromised myself in ways I would never allow someone I care about to, and I’m ready to change some things in my life. Another is that I have come to the point where I don’t care how I got here, who did what to form what pattern, all I know is that it is up to ME to do the work and change. I am ready. Three came the other night, and I have a feeling that will get it’s own letter.

Now…the venting. The time when I worked for hours setting up the veggie trays just so and then Nanny and Papa came, got in a fight with my (S)Dad, turned around and left…never even seeing the work I’d put in to the food…that was not my fault. When I told the school and the police got called, that was not my fault. When I chose to go to my (B)Dad’s house because I missed him and really, really wanted the chance to be with him and my sister on the holiday, I didn’t ruin the holiday, I was a child, and it was not my fault. It wasn’t my fault her mom got sick and my son was sick at the same time and we couldn’t have Christmas together either. All of these events were out of my control…each and every one. And yet, over the years I have internalized them ALL. Every single moment has nicked off a piece of me, you’re not good enough, why can’t you just do better, how come you ruin things. Those thoughts float through my head and on days like today, when I spent some time alone and felt the magnitude of my alone-ness, it was hard to push them out.

My dearest Holidays, I cannot control you. I cannot even try anymore. The funny thing about it is that I have hated Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember. Having Native American blood running through my veins and imagining the horrors committed against that piece of my ancestry is just…atrocious. I don’t need a “holiday” to tell anyone I am grateful for them…I work my ass off to make sure that the people in my life know how I feel about them all the time, not one, two, or even three Hallmark days per year. I am grateful. Every morning I thank G-d for all of the blessings in my life, even the ones that come disguised as heartaches or struggles. I don’t always succeed, but I try to stay in gratitude as much as I can, and candy hearts, bunny rabbits, turkeys, dreidels, and trees don’t have any effect on that. So it is officially time for me to hang up my hang ups around the holidays. Somehow. And as I go down this path of self-reflection and healing, I will gather the tools I need to leave them hung up for good.

The only person I can truly control is myself, and while it may take me a long time to get the right tools to do so, I can’t focus on that. Right now, today, I am thankful for the really raw conversation had around my kitchen table this morning, fueled by Bustelo and love. I am thankful for friends who run out to the store and buy pumpkin and run back out to get the forgotten condensed milk too. I am thankful for friends who fly across the country on an INSANE traveling day. I am thankful for the little boy sleeping in his bed across the room right now, snuggled in his Batman blanket. I am thankful for G-d, for feeling His love, even when I cannot muster the strength to feel love for myself. Every day I am thankful…so every day should be a holiday I guess. Hahaha…wouldn’t that just be nice?

I’m pretty sure that I fell in love with you the first time I saw you and that I fall in love with you over and over, every time I see you again. There is something magical in your eyes, and a safety in your arms that is unparalleled. There isn’t a burning-out-of-control fire, but a smoldering flame that I cannot seem to put out.

I will readily admit to having been an absolute jackhole when we were younger. I was a ball of emotions that I could not control, and I had been really, really hurt by Mr. Extra Sensitive Roadie just before meeting you. I was basically raging out of control, and that affected “us”. At the same time, you were trying to figure out your own way, and we were screwing up big time. I will never forget driving beside you, listening to music…or being at the Incubus concert, with you holding me and singing in my ear.

I know that I hurt you, but I wish that I hadn’t. I know that my rage bubbled over and I treated you in ways that were wholly unacceptable. I know that instead of talking things out, I bolted…and that was so wrong. I didn’t even know how to tell you what I was feeling, and I was so afraid that you would hurt me the way that he had, that I ran before you could. I was emotionally stunted and immature. Oh how it stings to write that, but it is true. I was. I didn’t even know how to break it off because I didn’t want to, so instead I just stopped talking to you. And you moved, and I moved, and and and.

Years later, after I got married, we reconnected and I went bananas. I had always carried a place for you in my heart, and I really felt like it was a chance to see whether that was real or not. Well, it was awkward, and you were far away, and well…I was married. You moved back and I split up, and then there was that night. *sigh* I regret that night so much, but not for the reasons you might think. I was so afraid of seeing Mr. Extra Sensitive Roadie that night, that I started drinking before I even left the house, and then kept drinking at the club. After I talked to him, I was so damn flustered that I drank…more. And then you were there behind me, and we were rocking out, and it all felt so right. Instead of the wrong and the angst and the awkward, it felt right. It wasn’t the alcohol that made it right either, but it was the alcohol that pushed me to be honest.

Sadly, in my being honest, I was met with your desire to right the wrongs of the past. When you told me that you went home with me that night because you “felt you owed me one”, I was crushed. Despite understanding where you were coming from, that was a painful feeling. Especially since the way it all went down was so less-than-desirable. We sort of tried to date afterward and I was excited, but then you disappeared and I was beyond confused. A couple of months (almost to the day, which I found bizarre) later you started texting again, and this time it was very aggressive (for you).  I didn’t know what to make of it, but I rolled with it, and when we talked it through and you explained, I thought that it was definitely understandable. When we were sitting in my van and you told me that you had done a lot of thinking, and you’d realized that you knew what you wanted, and that what you wanted was me, it was all I could do to just sit there. I was pretty stoked. Instead of saying “YAY!!” I just chuckled and sort of sat there. Until we talked recently, I thought that was why you’d disappeared again. I thought you had interpreted that as disinterest.

I never meant to emasculate you. Truthfully, I thought I was doing something nice by paying for the fro-yo that day since you didn’t have a lot of money and it was only $6. I never thought that it was an indicator of anything more than me trying to be considerate. I may never understand why that bugged you so much, and I’ve accepted that. Your feelings are valid, and I get that it was a serious sticking point for you. This year, you did to me what I did to you so many years ago…twice…and now I get it. I understand the hole that it leaves and the way that it feels. I also get that for you, it was no real big deal, and that’s cool too. We’ve discussed it since. Before being able to commit myself to Mr. Too Early, I had a talk with you to be sure that we had no chance. I would have been horribly upset if I’d lost a chance with you, and you assured me such was not the case. You told me you felt like we were “forcing it”, and that you didn’t feel like that for me anymore.

At first, those words hurt really badly. Now, I so understand. We were forcing it. We were trying to be together as the people who had been together years ago. But we aren’t those people anymore. We are different people who have grown and changed, but in my heart, we are still people who are connected. Looking back at it, I wish I’d had the insight to say that I wanted to get to know who you are now instead of just carrying on like we’d never stopped. In a weird way, I also understand not feeling “like that” for you, because I do and I don’t. I will always love you. And I think you will always be my “one that could have been”. It is really hard to be your friend sometimes, because you are such an amazing guy. Your sense of humor is hysterical, and your intelligence is dead sexy. I was hoping that being happy with someone else would take away the feelings that I have for you, but it didn’t. If anything, I found myself wishing that I could combine you and Mr. Too Early. I don’t want a relationship with someone who can’t correct my spelling…and frankly I got tired of explaining my vocabulary to him.

I want to be able to appreciate your friendship. I want to get to know you. Not the you I knew, but the you you are now. And I want you to get to know me. Who I am now, not who I was. We’re both amazing people…and we really are good friends. Once I let go of this ridiculousness, it will be even better. I don’t know how to just let it go, I’m hoping that getting some of this out will help, and that as I get to know you now, we’ll be able to build a new friendship that doesn’t have the weirdness I bring to it. I’m sorry for hurting you then, I know how it feels now and well…I deserved all I got. I’m sorry I haven’t let go, I know it makes it awkward sometimes, and I really am trying. I know that the depth of our bond will see us through this, and that makes me happy. For now, we’ll just keep plugging along. And we’ll go to the movies.

The moment I saw you I knew you were different. Our eyes met and I was instantly calm. When we talked, I felt a connection that I couldn’t explain. I was comfortable with you, but not “old sweatpants” comfortable…there was electricity too. Now I’ll admit that the Bible verse scared me, but it was also so appropriate that I couldn’t shake it off. And try as I might, I kept “looking” for you in others. I wanted the more that I had felt with you. I took the chance once and sent you a text, which you responded to by basically inviting yourself to my house. I felt like that was too much and politely declined. Another month went by and I was still thinking about you, so I sent you another text. This time we ended up hanging out, and it was awesome. There was obviously the religious stuff, but we had such amazing chemistry and our conversation was so easy, I thought that we could date and see where this could go.

Every date we spoke more, and in between we sent texts. On our third date you told me you could see serious potential in our relationship, that I had “substance” and that you wanted to pursue more with me. I was a smitten kitten. When you said you’d be somewhere, you’d show up. If you said you’d call, you called. We went to the beach all the time, did lots of fun things, and generally had a great time together. Per your religious beliefs, we took things slow, and at first that was a real challenge for me, but as we got to know each other I felt better and better about it. I introduced you to my friends, and showed you the “real” me…who I am in my life, in context to the world, not just isolated with you. Honestly, I wish you would have done the same thing. I feel like that would have shown us both more about our compatibility in the real world.

As our relationship wound up, I pushed past some very telling things. I saw so much good in you and I kept wanting to see more of it. In the end, I realized I was doing the same thing to you that you were doing to me. You were waiting for me to change, and I was waiting for you to too. I desperately wanted you to open your eyes, and you wanted me to accept Adventist doctrines. So we were at an impasse. I didn’t want to be at an impasse…but the night we broke up, I had to stand up for me. I had to stand up for myself, and for my son.

The hard part wasn’t that night, we both knew what had to be done. The hardest part is now. I know that the chemistry we had was real, and that the you who isn’t bogged down in the SDA doctrines is still young, and still has stuff to work through, but is amazing. Unfortunately, Shelly was right, and this isn’t as much not meant to be as it is a timing issue. You are far too early for where I’d need you to be, and I am far too late for anything you’d want me to subscribe to blindly. We are compatibly incompatible. Or maybe incompatibly compatible? This is killing me. The twinge of missing you. I miss your smell, the electricity between us, and more than anything I miss the feeling of being the only one. I’d never, ever felt like that. I’ve been in love, I’ve been loved, and even in all of that I’ve never felt the fiery purity that I felt with you. It was hard to break. It is hard to break.

I miss your calls. Your texts. Your hugs. Your kisses. The softest, strongest hugs. I do not miss how you would cut me off mid-sentence. Or how, for no reason, you would shut down and stop talking. Sometimes for days at a time. I don’t miss your inflexibility, or how you passive-aggressively pushed your agenda on me, by using my own fears/doubts. I genuinely pray that you grow, and that as you grow you learn to think for yourself. Whether that ever leads you away from the SDAs is inconsequential really. I just want you to grow in to the man I see in you someday. If you could get away from the -isms and get past your fears, to truly, TRULY live in love…I can’t even imagine how amazing you’d be then. I hope that who ever she is, the woman you do end up marrying, that she can see the man who I saw. I also hope you stop calling. I hate saying that. I really, really do. I want to hear your voice, but honestly it’s like a weird band-aid that doesn’t actually work. I can keep myself from you…I only struggle when you come to me. But in time, I’ll get stronger.

I wish you hadn’t been a chameleon. I wish you would have been honest. I can exist with someone and have a different belief system as them. I can agree to disagree, and can be open-minded and have an open heart. Right now, you cannot. And when you tried to be, you found yourself in a f*cked up spot. You aren’t a bad person, but you have bad habits, and a very limiting belief system. Don’t get me wrong, I honor your path, I just wish I hadn’t stumbled down it with you, because this f*cking hurts. I fell in love with someone who both exists and doesn’t exist all at once. And now my heart hurts, and I’m quite sure yours does too. The next woman…be honest with yourself and be honest with her. You deserve it, and she deserves not to be hurt. Be honest. Be yourself. You really, really are worth someone loving you. All the love you have to give, all the love you want to share, you are worth having it too…but only once you realize it. The mistakes you made here, mistaking my kindness for weakness and not loving yourself so no one can ever truly love you, those are fixable in time…if you put in the work. And I’ll fix my sh!t too. I’ll stop making excuses for people, and stand up for myself. All the time. I will be the me you saw, and you will grow in to the you that I saw. Sadly, that will never make for an us, but we’ll both be better off for it.

Ah…the bitter irony…

Before we met, I’d really taken a lot of time to get to know myself. To know what I wanted from a partner, and what I was able to give. The night we met you were pretty drunk, and pretty pushy, but thankfully (I guess?) you were also pretty charming. Our relationship had it’s bumps in the beginning, but we worked it out. Who am I kidding, our relationship had some bumps throughout.

When I fell in love with you, I did so very innocently, and completely. When we’d fight, you’d curl up under blankets and I’d scream at you. Even with me screaming, you’d fall asleep and I’d be left with my confusion and rage. I never understood that, and I still don’t to this day. I wanted so badly to be “right” for you. I wanted to help you, to do whatever I could to make your life easier. My love for you was so much stronger than my need to be my own person, after all, wasn’t that part of being in a “serious adult relationship”? I think I might have learned that from my ex, Mr. Extra-Sensitive Roadie. That to be really loved, to show that you were really in love, you should give of yourself until the lines between you and that person are so blurry that you can’t see where you end and the other person begins.

Sometimes things were amazing, and when it was good, it was beyond good. Other times, you could cut the tension with a knife and being at home was uncomfortable. We pressed on with our plans though, and kept in our pattern of the highest highs and the lowest lows. I guess what it boils down to now that it’s all over is that I’m still holding on to some of the stuff I’ve never said, and it still colors how I do things…so it’s time to let it out. I did love you. A piece of me will always love you because you are a really cool person. The problem is that I don’t actually like you very much. I feel absolutely terrible typing that, but it is the truth. I don’t like how you navigate the world, and while I appreciate the differences between us it’s time for me to admit that it is beyond “we’re different”, it really is that we don’t respect those differences. And when we realized that, we tried to keep something but there was nothing…which was our first of many mistakes. Where you are serious, I laugh…and when I am serious, you are laughing, it’s like trying to blend oil and water.

I still resent all of the times I asked you for more, and you told me that you were doing your best. That resentment borders on hatred for the times when you questioned whether or not I loved you unconditionally after those arguments. It has all but killed my self esteem that no matter what I did, you were never attracted to me sexually and claimed that you were “asexual” but that you and your new partner are just fine in that department. I still suffer with the fact that despite me loving you so much that I gave up myself for you (which I will readily admit, you never openly asked me to do), you never saw any of my efforts. Well, you never expressed that you did. I was never “enough” for you. Never girly enough, never emotional enough, never fun enough, never “gay” enough. You were my best friend, and even that wasn’t enough.

The fact that we aren’t together anymore is actually a blessing. Although it kills me what we’ve gone through to get here, I am really happy that we aren’t stuck in that nasty cycle anymore on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Sometimes I miss the comfort of our misery, but I never miss you or us. The fact that you’ve moved on and have the whole “insta-family” thing going on has really eaten at me though. More because the depth of what I went through to be all that she is for you seems…completely in vain. You told me that we could never have more than two kids, three at the very most. Between the two of you, you have five…and don’t think that has escaped me. That fact alone has made me cry more times than I’d like to admit. That really is okay though, because she’ll never know what kind of parent you are in the beginning. How afraid of babies you really are, and how you don’t wake up for anything. I still resent that we brought our son in to the world together, but that I did 99% of the work. I resent that no matter how far we’ve come, I am still your back up plan…although…I think I’d seriously die if I found out that someone else was, so I think I equally resent myself there.

I always though you’d grow up, and that we’d have the life we always said we wanted. I swear, we looked SO good on paper. I’m sad that I gave up so many years of my life, trying for something that deep down we both knew we couldn’t make work. I wish I could impress upon you how much I loved you. You have expressed that you don’t believe that…but it is true. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. You could never see it, but they could. And you took me for absolute granted. I’m over you, and over the drama and the ridiculousness. I’m not over how stupid I feel. I still resent you, and I want to get over that. I want to understand why I’ve ended up either not being able to connect to people I love, or connecting with people who claim to love me but are bat-shit crazy. I’ve never been as lost as I have in the last year. It has been such a journey. Through all of it, I can honestly say that I’m glad I met you. I’m glad I went through the heartaches because there was some amazing happiness in there too. And I can say that there isn’t anything that would ever make me take it back because I have Deylan, and he is worth any and all of it, a million times over. I’m learning who I am again. When I do find someone who appreciates it, and who is willing to put in the work and be an awesome partner, I’ll be whole. I can be the 100% to their 100%.

For everything you’ve given me, the ups, the downs, the in-between, thank you. I want to let it go, all of it. I need to, but for whatever reason I haven’t gotten quite there yet. Maybe it is because I haven’t said all of this yet…and maybe now I can. I truly hope so.

I’m not going to start tonight, because I’ve committed to myself that I will get in bed early every night. I don’t know what the hell happened, but I have really let myself go in the last few weeks and part of that is that I haven’t been sleeping nearly as much as I should. Tonight, after Shelly and I cooked (po-meat-mush…HOLY SHIT those were good) I did the dishes and folded my laundry. I watched Glee and now I”m about to head to bed. I’ll start the series tomorrow. Oh goodie…yet another NaNoWriMo distraction. It’s the 10th tomorrow, I think it’s a good idea for me to quit that goal.

Who knows, I could always knock out 50K words in like…20 days. *hahahaha* Right.

Right now, I should be cleaning my house. I have the time, and it certainly needs it. But I’m sitting here blogging. I have found that getting this stuff out of my head has been helping immensely, so I’m going to keep doing it.

Yesterday, while I was driving to the grocery store, I drove past one of John’s “when I’m not actively working” hangouts. And there he was. Sitting in his truck. Four months I’ve driven past that spot and never once have I seen him. o.O

I went to the store, did my shopping, and on my way home I saw him again. But this time, instead of feeling pulled to go see him, I prayed. Instead of wanting to talk to him, I talked to G-d. And in that, I realized that getting right in my head would get me right in my heart. I don’t want G-d to put us back together. I want G-d to do what He has planned. I don’t want John to comfort me unless we’re “there”. So my prayer is this: G-d, if you intended for John and I to be together, then please intervene in our lives and our thoughts, and make the shifts we both need to see eye to eye. If you don’t, then may we both draw closer to you and find comfort in you and in our friends who love us and want the best for us. May we both feel loved and supported during this process, and go on to fulfill our lives.

Now, obviously, I would absolutely love it if some of his friends smacked him upside his head and told him he was effing up. But that is just me being human. I am blessed with amazing friends who have helped me through every step of this relationship. Every part of the process, from the very beginning when I met him and called Shelly. Down to right this very moment, where I know that I could call any of my friends to talk to if I needed. I have amazing friends. I really, really hope that he takes this time to come out of his “I can do it all alone” shell and lean on his friends. He will be better off for it, and I know that he’ll be happier when he can learn to be there with and for his friends without thinking he has to be the one who is “counselor” all the time.

John really is a great guy inside. He has a lot of qualities that will make him a great catch for the right woman. That woman should be prepared to be SDA. Or be SDA already. Ugh. He said once he wished we ‘d met 10 years ago. I said I wouldn’t have liked him 10 years ago. In the last three days I have thought deeply about that statement. I wish I had met him 10 years ago. Our lives could have been totally different. But we didn’t and they aren’t. I cannot change my life, nor would I want to. I am who I am, the woman he claimed to be in love with, the woman who has been through all of my experiences. I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t spent the last 8+ years with Jessica. He wouldn’t see the me he claims to love if I hadn’t been through my whole life.

I think that has been the hardest part of all of this. That he said he loves me, and yet he can’t possibly love all of me.

I feel so much better right now than I have in the past 48 hours. I haven’t cried at all today. Yet.

Now if I can just get through the rest of my day without seeing him. I don’t think that is humanly possible, but here’s to hoping!!

Afterward I got in my car and instantly burst in to tears. The good news? I figured out that those old feelings I’ve been harboring have more to do with feeling safe than being in love. That is awesome to know. The bad news? I realized that the in-love I feel with John is seven shades of amazing. The buzz of chemistry when we’re together is intense. The pain of that missing is worse than I thought. What kills me is that I can see inside him. I can feel the duality. It’s like there are two people, and it sucks. I am totally suffering here. I’m sure he is too. I keep crying and wanting this fixed. I want him back. I want him to get it, to see it. I want him to think I’m worth it. Worth looking at the deepest places of his beliefs and really sit with someone who is G-d centered, someone who is Christian who can give him counsel. If at the end of that, he still feels convicted, and still needs to stand behind the SDA doctrines, then okay. I just want him to see if he could possibly see things from an alternative view…but still a Christian view.

Ugh. I am being stupid. I am being such a chick. And I have no idea how to make it stop.

Really, I feel like someone took my heart and sliced it up. No, not just someone. Like John did. Well. Maybe more like the SDA doctrines did. I knew that this would be a problem. And I knew it from jump. And that is why the SDA doctrines say that they are supposed to only marry other SDAs. But of course, to make my life more fun and exciting, I had to fall in love with one. One who I have amazing chemistry with. One who wants to have children and thinks I’m amazing.

Oh yeah.

Want some wasabi with that?

I’ve been sitting here for hours. Listening to sad songs. Feeling a mix of feelings that I don’t really understand. I didn’t want this. I don’t want this. But it’s right. It’s want we have to do. I wanted him to think for himself. To realize that I was loving him respectfully. To see that I wasn’t choosing Jess over him. That I wasn’t choosing a sinful relationship, that I was choosing my son.

I’ve been sitting here all day wondering why he hasn’t snapped out of it and realized that I am worth it. I am worth it, right? I mean, I know I am. I don’t really know how to process what is coming up for me. I want someone who puts the same amount of effort in to me. And I thought I’d found that. I know this might sound terrible but I am sitting here genuinely confused why he hasn’t even said anything. Last night, he didn’t even try to. Like it was just so accepted that this was what it was. It is. But damn. I feel like I’m sinking in an odd sea. My marriage failed and while Jess did come after me it was very…”off”. After 2 false starts with someone I have cared about for years, I met John and finally was excited.

But no. Of course not.

No. Not for me. I couldn’t date a normal person. Nope. I had to date an Adventist. Not just any old Adventist. A newbie. Who found his faith at a time when his life was dark and he needed something to believe in because he didn’t believe in himself. Who vacillated between normal and brainwashed.  Who said he loved me. That he wanted the same things I did. That I was special and beautiful. Who could pick me up. But who also got weird and jealous. And wanted ALL my time. All of it. And he had no aspirations of helping to make my life easier, despite me going above and beyond to do so for him. And I just feel left empty and sad.

I don’t think that it would change anything, but I wish that he would call. I wish that he would say something. I wish he would chase me. But…to what end? None I guess. Last night he asked me to sleep at his house. I wanted more than anything to be curled up in his arms. I want more than anything for him to show up here right now and tell me this was a shitty dream. Why? Why do I want this? He doesn’t engage me mentally. He couldn’t correct my spelling if he tried, and I’m tired of having to explain things to him. I am worth it to me. And I will chase myself. I just need to get over this weirdness. Once I do, it’ll all be good.

I guess my ego is bruised. Stupid ass ego. I long to be worth it to someone else. But I’ll stay worth it to me. And someday, when I’ll find the person who thinks I’m worth it, they will be worth me.

No, I won’t. Frankly, I don’t even like rabbits all that much and the tango is a very difficult dance.

But what will I do next? How will I move on? What will shift? I’m guessing a lot will shift. I want it to.

I don’t even really know where to start, since John and I have been actively breaking up for a while now. Through the process I realized that I have been harboring feelings for someone else this whole time, which was something I sort of knew but didn’t really think mattered. I also realized just how much I am not willing to compromise. There are things I want in a relationship, and I can’t shift that again.

It’s really funny how you can lie to yourself. Fool yourself in to believing that things aren’t as bad as they are or that someone doesn’t really mean what they said. I also think it’s funny how you can be communicating in an honest, open, vulnerable way and that they other person can hear what you are saying completely different. When I said “I can’t have someone around my son who would ever teach him that homosexuality is immoral and wrong” he heard “Right now I’m resistant to your belief system, but if you push gently, I’ll eventually accept it and go on to adopt it as my own”. When I said, “I am not going to be an Adventist” he heard “I don’t know enough about your religion, teach me so I can make it mine too”. *sigh*

But when we talked about other stuff, like music, art, food…we didn’t have the stupid issues and that made it really blurry for me. I couldn’t seem to get my ish together about it. I knew he wasn’t who I wanted, but was there really such a thing as Mr. Right Now? Well, I learned the lesson on that one. For me, there is not. I am not the “dating around” kind of person, and I can’t sustain a relationship that I know has zero future. When I got there last night, he was steadfast in his position. I could see it all over him, and I’m glad, because it helped me to be steadfast in mine. He had been reading a book (Ministry of Healing, by Ellen G. White) and wanted to share some passages with me. As he was reading, he read a part where it said something about being unreasonable and blind. He looked at me and said, “I’m being unreasonable, and you are blind”…that hit me like a ton of bricks. He really thinks that I am blind. That he is here, in my life, to shine a light on where I am “wrong”. He went on to read about how marriage should be, how a wife should be and how a husband should be. I sat there. In that moment I just sat there. I couldn’t even speak because I realized in that moment that it wasn’t ever about me. He had put me in a box, on a pedestal, and the issue wasn’t that I was wrong, it was that I simply didn’t fit in the box he had me in.

So I sat, and looked at him, and told him that he is an awesome guy. He smiled and said, “Praise G-d!”. Then I said that I really hoped he was able to find the woman that he had been describing, because he deserves a woman like her, but that she is not me. And his face fell. We both cried. He said I was lying to him, and lying to myself. Apparently, when I said I wanted to have a closer relationship with G-d, what he heard was that I would do it in a way that worked for him. And when I said that I was so over my relationship with Jessica, he heard that I wouldn’t have her as a part of my life at all. Well. My walk with G-d is my own. I want to be more observant, more spiritual…but in my own way. I will not ever use Torah or the Bible to beat anyone up. I will not ever claim to know G-d in a way that others don’t, or in a way that makes me “right” and them “wrong”. I want to walk in the love of G-d. I want to be grateful and look at the miracles in the world and know that something more than science can explain it. I want the people around me to feel loved and accepted, not judged or “tolerated”. I aspire to be an awesome woman, an amazing mother, a fabulous partner.

I know that G-d loves me. John didn’t teach me that, show me the way to that, or “shine a light” on anything. He did teach me how to stand up though. I stood up for myself. I stood up for my son. I stood up for my beliefs. And now I stand alone. I’m good with that though. I’ll work through this, and keep trucking. And at some point, the right man will come along. He’ll want to be with me as is. He’ll be awesome and intelligent, and he’ll appreciate my awesomeness and my intelligence. He will treat me with respect. I will feel safe with him, and he will feel safe with me.

John said that I am “choosing” Jessica. I resent that, and it really irks me. I am not choosing her, I am choosing my son. I will do what is best for my son always and in all ways. I would sooner be single for the rest of my life and know that he is taken care of and happy than date someone like him. What is best for my son IS what is best for me. The right guy will not only “get” that, but will support it and agree that while yes, as adults we need to come first so that we can be whole for the people around us, when you become a parent you give up the choice to be selfish. Parenting should be a selfless act. I hope that someday, when John has children, he looks them in the eyes and flashes back to this. I pray that he finds happiness. In himself first, because if he keeps looking externally he will be miserable forever. And I pray that I keep standing up. Every day. For myself, and for my son. I haven’t come this far to go backwards. Being in another relationship where I am not me would be an awfully sad thing. How tragic to have gone through all of this pain, only to end up in the exact same (if not worse) spot. I will not. I am not. And so it is.

So, I met a man, he seemed wonderful, I fell in love, and we started to go about the business of being in a relationship. Sounds awesome, right? Not-so-much. Little things popped up here and there, and because he was “so wonderful”, I tended to classify them as orange flags instead of red. To me, that meant I was aware of them, but not calling it quits because of them. I’m not a grudge holder, but I am a record keeper. By that I mean that I’m not going to hate someone for wronging me, but I do tend to keep a loose account of how reciprocal any relationship in my life it. I’m not going tit for tat over who pays for each dinner or who got up to get the other person some water, but if I hit the point where I’ve noticed that the relationship seems a bit one-sided…Houston, we have a problem.

About a month ago I’d decided that since The Adventist (T.A.) and I were doing really well I’d let him in some more. Let him come around, get to know D (SLOWLY), and stop sitting on top of my walls. Since that decision, he has become a completely different person. Or maybe I’m just more aware and SEEING a different person, I’m not really sure. It started with the argument where he accused me of flirting with his uncle. At a family reunion. In front of him. REALLY? That was awful. But, while I acknowledged it, I let it go. Chalked it up to him being a little immature and not really knowing how to deal with certain situations.

Then came the long car rides home in silence due to unknown infractions. I never really knew what I did or said to make him upset, I just knew he was mad. And he wouldn’t tell me. When we did start talking again, it was usually angry at first then quickly back to “normal”. Then came the Sabbath observance. Do I keep Shabbos? As much as I can. Do I strive to be more observant? Absolutely. Am I interested in knowing AND doing G-d’s will for my life? Yup. Do I want to do it T.A.’s way? Nope. Am I even remotely interested in doing it the SDA way? Nope. Am I interested in getting to know Jesus? Yup. Especially the part about how he was a practicing Jew. And how that all relates. I am totally interesting in something I recently read called “Biblical Judaism”. For the first time in my life I’m not afraid of the Bible. Well, at least, I wasn’t. Until he started throwing random Bible quotes at me and getting angry when I wasn’t inspired by the same passage he was or I didn’t understand why the Bible “proved” something.

Most recently, I had an awful nightmare. I’d taken a nap during the day and just woken up when he got to my house. I was completely freaked out and sat on my bed crying and shaking for the better part of an hour. His response? To sit there and smile at me. And rub my leg. *sigh* Then he and John M. got in a discussion about religion at dinner that night, and of course T. A. could simply not just agree to disagree. Whatever, it wasn’t even my discussion. After dinner we tried to talk quickly and he brought up that things have changed. He thought someone had gotten in to my head about our relationship. He couldn’t be more wrong. It was me who realized our relationship was unbalanced. That I was keeping chocolate almond milk here for him and cooking him dinner many nights a week at my own expense, where he had nothing in his refrigerator for me when I was over there, and hadn’t ever cooked for us. I realized just how much I bring to the table, and began to question what he was bringing. I did that. All by myself. No one asked me to evaluate it or look at it. No one ever even mentioned it. But he is convinced that someone has gotten in my head.

Sunday he came by twice. It was awkward and I didn’t really know what to say. He said he had plans on Monday evening, so when my friend asked D and I over for dinner that night, I jumped at the chance. When I told him that we were going, he announced that he’d changed his plans and asked to come too. Considering that my friend’s husband was going to be out for the night and it was going to be “girl-time”, I said no, it would be awkward to ask. That prompted him to completely flip out. Apparently, going to a friend’s house for dinner qualifies as “having someone else in our relationship and not being a couple”. I was told that he wanted to do things as a couple, and that I wasn’t. He further went on to say that he had wanted D and I to go tow his truck with him (which is odd because I don’t remember him asking at all, but he said he did) and that it could have been an awesome experience. He then said he didn’t want to text anymore because he doesn’t like texting (it is too impersonal). Followed by three more texts about how ridiculous I was being. And a phone call. That voice mail was not awesome to listen to.

I stood my ground. I should get to have a dinner with a girl friend now and again. Let the kids play and just talk. That is normal. He claims he doesn’t need to talk about our relationship, that we shouldn’t. That it isn’t okay to. Well, I need to decompress with my friends. I need the sounding board that they are. Not want, not just like, but truly need. I need to get out of my own head. Apparently that was a bad decision. He tried to call me again (when he knows I’m putting D to bed, reading stories and what-not), and I didn’t answer. I didn’t feel right saying nothing, so I sent back a text saying I have nothing to say, but am not ignoring you. That prompted a barrage of texts about how I’m not truly committed and I’m not doing the right thing in this relationship. Oh, and my attitude apparently sucks. I refuse to get down on his level and fight. I want to say a lot of things, but the first thing I NEED to say is that we cannot see each other anymore because I deserve to be treated better. I’ve done my best, and honestly, I’m okay with the fact that my best wasn’t good enough. In the beginning I thought G-d had brought me just who I’d been asking for. Now I know that G-d brought me a chance to stand up for myself, to work on my boundaries, and prepare myself for what will really be awesome. When we first starting having issues, I was hopeful that maybe we could take some time to work on our stuff and get back to the awesome energy we had at the beginning. Now I know that I can’t go backwards. I can’t be with anyone who doesn’t absolutely respect me. And I will not be with anyone who is condescending to me, or who is waiting for me to change to be anyone other than who I am.

I know that I am an awesome, dynamic woman who brings so much to any relationship (platonic or romantic). I want to surround myself with people who recognize and reciprocate that. I choose to be with people who love me for who I am right now, not who they would like me to be. Do I want to keep learning and growing? Absolutely. Until the day that I die. But that is for me, not for anyone else. And I will never be a part of a religion or a community that uses scare tactics for social control. If that means I never set foot in another shul, church, hall, or anything else so long as I live, than so be it. G-d knows my heart, and I know He loves me. Unconditionally.