Exposure

*Written May 11th, 2009


Last night was a night to never be forgotten in the history of my heart. A night I was presented with my fears coming true and the decisions to what was left…what was to be. It is a weight that I have had looming behind my thoughts-- sometimes striking the surface of consciousness to be resubmerged into denial before finally making itself apparent as a full truth to do its damage. I cannot say my heart is broken because that is not harsh enough of a word to describe what I am feeling. It is like a glass that has been crushed and refused back together several times, where some pieces are fully lost but what you are left with is a mangled glass you can barely call as glass. It still exists but it is no longer what it once was before, so different in this transformation it has become indescribable. Everything dwelling in my heart as what was familiar and what I thought of as being true is now all in question, even the person I have become in this relationship is being questioned. All the thoughts running through my head are suffocating and intoxicating in their own horrible sense, bringing me crashing down on my knees. The substance between all of these thoughts is, why?

In all my jumbled mess of thoughts and emotions I blame myself somewhere inside, somewhere that hits home. Maybe it is out of habit from my past, maybe it my lack of control and understanding on the situation but it sits there heavy and festers. My thoughts of anger and hurt mock my once sweet notions of love and I despise myself for how disgustingly I gave Ty my world and shared with him my joys. I gave those things, everything, open and honestly with the only intentions of making him happy and making him see he was loved. Yet, he still felt the need while I held up everything to him, for something more—someone more. I know no one can ever change what he has done, but how do I cope with knowing I wasn’t enough? Or cope with the fact I may have been the person pushing him to those extremes because I scared him with my talk of marriage and the future. How do I presume? What role do I play in this relationship? How do I act? How do I love…

I blame Ty mostly, something inside of me will not accept it is fully my fault if mine at all. It clashes with all my other thoughts and leaves me lost and trapped in my own head and heart. He planned and had time to think about what he was doing, he planned and carried out those plans more than once. He knew what he was doing meeting her and kissing her lips. He knew he would hurt me, why else would he have tried so hard to keep the truth from me? Was he selfish in his own needs and didn’t care? Did he ever once think that it was a bad idea? Did it ever hurt him to see what it was doing to me and our relationship? Did he ever think during the times I couldn’t sleep thinking it was me going crazy to be having these suspicions, crying my heart out… that he should tell me? Did he ever lose sleep over it? Did it ever make him sick to his stomach? Did it ever hurt to look into my eyes and kiss me knowing I wasn’t the only one? All these questions and no answers, and even if I had them how much more would those answers hurt? I know people make mistakes, people live in the moment, and people will go to the extremes out of fear. People fall into mistakes, me of all people know that, maybe every person takes and analyses their situations differently presenting different options and that’s why I cannot make sense of it. And maybe I have such a hard time believing it because it wasn’t my mistake but his. Because although I was scared to death with the talk of marriage, it still wasn’t my looming fear like I knew from day one it was his. Maybe no matter how hard I try to understand I cannot because I didn’t go through his past, through his marriage before me…that I have never been taken to those extremes in those contexts. All I can really know is that I was there to talk and maybe that’s not what he felt he needed… But why does it feel like I am making excuses for him? Maybe, to help my heart try and make sense of something that never will. It is just too hard to swallow, too hard to grasp and be understanding. It feels like a partial truth to me, like I don’t know how it all fits together no matter how much my frantic mind tries to force things together—I don’t think I want to know anymore. I cannot take anymore hurt; with how fragile I feel I am already so close to the point of no return.

Thinking about everything seems to do no good, I have tried to be strong and push forth. I am trying to understand and trust…trust when he says that he only wants a future with me and Kaylea. How many times before this incident has he said that? How many times did I blindly believe every word and hold it dear to my heart? It’s like a cruel joke that just will not stop repeating itself. Every thought is another attack to my crumbling barrier that I have made to protect me from being hurt. Does that wall ever become solid again or does it keep decaying until there is nothing left but a stranger to me crawling on blistered knees scared of my own shadow? And yet even though my wall is still weak, it still hasn’t broken down…something is still there holding key pieces together. There is hope, maybe that is the binder, but am I strong enough to put my trust and faith into it? I HOPE so, am trying harder than anyone could ever know…

I made a decision to stay in this relationship, I plan to give hope a chance. To give what hate muddled love I still have left for Ty to have a chance and thrive. Maybe I am fool, maybe I am doing more destruction to myself, and those are things left to be unseen. But, looking back I can say that I gave my first honest love everything even if it meant losing myself, because it feels right…it feels right to who I am. I am a lover and a dreamer trying to live with compassion in a world that may not deserve it; those are my essence…my roots of self discovery. I think to the brink of almost knowing Ty and I could be so much more than what we are/were, what we haven’t had a chance to be…maybe what he was not willing to let us be. But I have to try and I feel I deserve the chance to try and be happy again. I feel some day I can be as happy as I once was with Ty before…it was all sunshine, stomach butterflies, smiles and warmth with the faint smell of each other. Maybe, just maybe one day I will have it back…the true happiness I have looked for all my life and had finally found…had finally been able to except it was something I deserved. I have made my decision for my own reasons and will lie in the bed I have made regardless of the consequence.

But even though I have made my decision, no matter how bad the thoughts are something inside keeps telling me it is worth it. That through all the pain and suffering maybe I will get that chance at happiness. He held me last night after a long time and all I could think about was if this was how he held her, if the gentle kisses on my forehead, neck and back were mine anymore. All night I kept telling myself I did not want him to kiss me because I felt like it wasn’t just ours anymore that somehow it was hers as well. This morning, out of what I guess what might have been desperation to know we had a chance, that it wasn’t just all in hope—I kissed him over and over again until he was looking in my eyes trying?/making? love to me. The whole time I held back tears, because it was different…we had changed over the course of a day and night. That emotional connection was so faint I felt the need to stop him, to tell him I made a mistake, that it is wrong and degrading what left of me. But because there was something there, that feeling of being truly wanted and needed in more than a physical sense I never said anything but I am sure he saw it all play across my eyes. Although there was more repulsion in myself than actual pleasure I do not regret it now, I might later but for now it is still precious. It has changed and distorted from what I am familiar with but it was ours in those moments. Maybe our relationship has to change to make it all ours again maybe that old safe zone has to be reestablished through different experiences. Maybe in time we can be us again, maybe the kisses will stop hurting and be fully ours…maybe the laughter and confidence in what we are a part of will come back, is it too much to ask that maybe it will be stronger after this? In the end all I really have is a hope and a prayer from myself and a promise from Ty that his indecisions and fears are over—that they have been for months. I plan to make that enough…