For the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a growing sense of unease. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I read a friend’s comments on my last entry. I realized that this disconcerting feeling is that of being misunderstood. No one’s fault but my own, I suppose… the last time this happened I ended up posting every hour until I got it all out :) I’m hoping I can get it out in a few less posts this time.
Funny that it’s almost exactly a year ago when things all begin to change. Happy Canadian thanksgiving yet again.
I don’t know why it is that I have trouble with this sometimes. I envy girls like Sunny who make you feel as though their life story is your own, everything makes sense and you feel like a part of her world. I realized how disjointed I must seem at times when everything makes sense in my own head but I expect the rest of the world to be psychic and just understand it all.
About a year and a half ago, my now ex (Steve) and I decided to get engaged. The world wouldn’t know it for another couple of months, but heck, we’d been together for seven years and we always said that it seemed like it would be the right thing to do as I was approaching graduation. We made plans and were engaged by the end of the summer. At the time I remember feeling like I was on auto-pilot. There was finally a use for the backlog of wedding-related links I’d been bookmarking all these years, finally an outlet for the fantasy wedding dreams. Looking back, it’s funny how the marriage itself never seemed all that important.
As you may or may not know, Steve and I had an open relationship. As in, we were also involved with other people. This had always been a challenge, but it was around that summer that it finally all clicked for me. I let go of the hang-ups I had about him and other people (one in particular). I felt freer than I ever had. I felt like I’d finally found the space I was meant to be in. I knew we could be together and love each other and others and I didn’t feel that my love for him was at all tied to either of our involvements with other people. I enthusiastically shared this revelation with him, and, well, it didn’t work so well on the other side.
I had been seeing Chris (we first met in person in the spring) and while we’d been close friends online for years with nothing romantic happening, meeting in person kicked things up a notch. I saw things in him that I’d been seeking all my life. I frantically attempted to create a space for him in my world with Steve and found out that it would not be possible. I finally realized that I had kept growing and evolving and changing and I had pushed things with Steve as far as they could go. He had found his happiness in life, in many ways. He was not interested in rocking the boat, so to speak, and I felt like my rocking was just beginning. And quite frankly, would never end. I realized that I would always be struggling for more, and making both of us miserable in the attempt.
I could not deny my heart. So my entire existence as I knew it fell apart. The next couple of months were a blur. Trying to finish up my last year of university, move out and to a new city, living on my own, being an emotional wreck and trying to maintain the site, a new apartment, and my sanity. Heh I have what Chris calls my “sergeant” mode, which somehow involves shutting off all emotions. I’ve always been this way. My first reaction to a crisis is of practical concerns, not emotional ones. It is what enabled me to somehow get through that semester and exams.
I started opening up again in the winter. Chris and I had a very strange ground on which to start from. We certainly weren’t working with a clean slate. I had so many things to go through. Mourning to experience. It was months before I wasn’t crying at the drop of a hat. But I am impatient. I wasn’t willing to put anything on hold just so I could “get through” some indefinite period of time. But simultaneously experiencing the most painful and most joyous things of your life is not something I would generally recommend. I believe my strange ability to compartmentalize to the extreme is what saved me here.
We met again in the winter. It was a whirlwind. I was so terrified of hurting Steve any more that things were kept pretty quiet for a while. I knew he was still reading the site and hearing things from mutual friends. I knew I had hurt him so much but at the same time, what choice did I have? The hardest thing has always been that we did still get along, we did still love each other, laugh at each other’s jokes, know each other more intimately than anyone ever had until that point… you can’t just turn that off and the fact that we didn’t feel like there was something horribly unappealing about each other just made it harder for me. We just weren’t meant to be partners for the rest of our lives…
So at what felt like a snail’s pace to me at the time, but probably seemed like a freight train to anyone looking in from the outside, Chris and I began to explore a life together. We flew back and forth between Toronto and Madison on whatever weekends we could. We knew we were meant to be together and began to wonder how on earth we’d make that happen. All I could do was take one step at a time. With graduation coming up, I thought I’d take the one chance I knew I had right in front of me to spend some time in Madison. So off I went for about six weeks. If there were any lingering doubts (there weren’t, but hey, it’s a nice cliché), this stretch of time together obliterated them. Spending extended time with his sons and becoming a part of everyday life together. Realizing that this is the person I am destined to create another life with someday. Feeling the joy at working on projects together in a way I’d never before imagined. Finding real understanding and support in places I didn’t even know I needed. It was everything that the little voice inside my head had always been saying I needed to find.
As for California, I had no idea it would turn out the way it has, but that seems to be par for the course when you wrap logic to fit intuition rather than the other way around. Things ended up falling into place at a blazing rate, and now we are here, together… the last place on earth I thought I’d be a year ago! Months ago it felt like we were solving a puzzle we didn’t have all the pieces for. We are still finding pieces but the picture is steadily coming into focus, and my life and purpose on this planet becomes clearer with every passing day.
who cares what's his name
Every time I read the mention of *Steve* I want to just throw up. He had his chance and he blew it. If I had to listen to my partner bring up her ex and their prior relationship every now and then, I think that would annoy me. Although, it might make me feel good that as her new partner this was reassurance that she was with and where she wanted to be (at least for now). I'm sorry that I think like a guy but I do the best I can with what I have. Bottom line is on the surface things look great for you and Chris and if you never mention *what's his name again* I don't think anyone will ever care.