Tuesday, May 2, 2017

that's the thing.

the saddest three words to tumble around my brain:

he.  chose.  her.

---

some days (again, fewer and farther between) i obsess over this thought.  the last guy i dated chose the other woman in the moments that he was about to lose her, while simultaneously denying our relationship existed.  and while i'm glad for it, because it forced me to choose myself, it still pricks at my pride a bit.  especially because he came back (as they always do).  i think they are still together (which is part of why i finally told him to leave me alone), but that didn't keep him from coming back.  when i asked why he said that he liked talking to me, that i understood things on a level most other people didn't, and he could talk to me about things that he couldn't talk to other people about.  now, i know he's a narcissist, but a part of me almost believes that it's true.

i know i'm better without him in my life, and i will never let him back in (this is my promise to myself, with y'all as witness), but i just wish i understood why this happens.  because he wasn't the only person to leave and try to come back.  my ex-husband did it too.

now the last guy i dated, he wasted my time for three-ish years.  the more time that passes, i don't believe he loved me, but i think he may have coveted me.  he loved the idea of a girl as smart and driven as i am, someone who could talk to people on so many levels, whose book smarts complimented his street smarts.  but he never loved me in that "can't-take-my-eyes-off-of-you" way my heart craves.

my ex-husband, he just loved me.  not passionately, more like a best friend, but it was love all the same.  but we grew apart and we were too different to keep it together anymore.  and he, too, thought he wanted something else, then realized how much he cared about me and wanted to come back.  we're better off apart, better off this way, better off for the way things happened between us.

that doesn't mean that it doesn't mess with my head, though.  left to wonder why i put so much time and effort into a relationship with someone who made so many empty promises, boys who ended up checking to see if the grass was greener elsewhere.  "blessings" (do we not have like, a non-religious word for this phenomena? if you know it, please do tell, because i swear i trip over this word all the time as an atheist.) in disguise that play on my pride.  the inference that i am not enough echoes through my mind like a broken record in the grand canyon.  and yet, i know i am.

---

i am waiting.  and all i'm waiting for is someone who chooses me.  someone who can't wait to hear my voice at the end of a long day.  someone who rushes to share their thoughts, experiences, fears, as they occur throughout the day.  someone who reaches out for me at the beginning of each day.  someone who chooses me every single day, even their hard ones, because those are the days that i will choose him.

and i hope they are ready to do the heavy lifting because i can't.  i cannot let go until they show up, day after day, and night after night, choosing me.  i don't have the strength for it.  every time i have tried, i have fallen flat on my face, and i am tired of picking myself up again and again.  i have given too much of myself to boys who didn't know what to do with me.

and i will doubt every inconsistent minute.  if i have to second guess, i'll run.  i'll protect my pride and dignity and ever-so-fragile heart, and i will about-face, and put about a million miles between us.  which is probably why i have refused the advances of all but one person in the last few months, why i have refused to consider online dating (ughhhhhh no, not for me), why i would rather wait.  and wait.  and wait.  for consistency.

because consistent choice, that's the thing.  the thing i've been missing.

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