Title: My Story
Category: lonely
Blog Entry: You're probably wondering what makes me so qualified to be a relationship expert....how wonderful must my relationships be to instill upon others the goodness of what I have in my life. The truth is, I haven't had a relationship last longer than a year and a half. Which makes you wonder why you should listen to me at all. If I can't even keep one, what gives me the right to tell the world what they should do. Because it's in failing that we succeed. It's in mistakes that we learn, and it's in love that we fall. It's not in the sweet victory that I know what I know, it's in the bitter defeat. Here's my story.Summer brings with it the dreams that reality relies on in New England. Winter is the farthest thought from our minds as we pack the coolers for a day at the beach and watch children play in sprinklers. After having been in love a dozen or so times in high school I was ready for the big leagues. I'd had a steady boyfriend throughout my senior year of high school that I moved in with and got engaged to when I started college. Realizing that I was in love with the idea of love itself and not with the boy that while had always come to rescue to my rescue but was not the man of my dreams, we broke it off. It went through its ups and downs seeing how we'd been best friends for so long first, and I couldn't imagine not having in my life, I just didn't love him in the way that he deserved from somebody he wanted to spend his life with. As good fortune would have it I met a string of insignificant boys to date that summer of 2005 finally leading me to one, and since all the other boys had paled in comparison to this punk rock guitar playing god (as my nineteen year old mind saw him), we became the official boyfriend and girlfriend. I fell in love with his guitar, he fell in love with my voice.It brought with it all the romance I'd dreamed of. Staying up all night talking, slow dancing with sweet words whispered in my ear, and the night sky full of stars that for every one there was something he loved about me or a reason he loved me. It was bittersweet and we were inseparable, working together during the day, carpooling in my car since I was the one with wheels, and finding some place to sleep at night where we didn't have to leave each other's side. Once we both moved in with my mom and enrolled in college together, he started to see that he'd lost freedom somewhere along the way. The freedom of not answering to somebody else and making his own choices without someone else's opinion or say. Freedom from responsibility of taking care of himself, when his own mom had always taken care of him, and seeing how easily he would be welcomed into his own life and home once again, he left. I remember trying to change his mind, and when I could just see he wouldn't, asking for one last kiss. Somehow hoping that in one more kiss he would realize what he was leaving. He didn't, and I drove away with the unsettling knowledge that it was something bigger than us that would bring us back together.Two weeks later what I already knew was confirmed, I was pregnant. It was the magic answer, he could leave me but he couldn't run from his child. It was easier for him to separate himself from the thought of a child than I had imagined, and after getting back together he broke if off four days later with the harsh words that he could do better than me and deserved better than who I was. I went through sleepless nights and days that I couldn't leave bed because of the emotional pain that made it so I couldn't stop crying. I wrote letters to my unborn child and prayed everyday that her father would return to me. I left school and once Thanksgiving hit was so sick I couldn't hold down a job or even drive regularly. My health insurance was dropped because I was no longer a student, and I had no income. In rides my rescuer, the faithful best friend who couldn't bear to see me go through such pain. After roadtripping with my mom to his basic training graduation and knowing that I did love him, I always had, we got back together. In some desparate need for security and comfort in my suffering I'd taken advantage of the very reason I'd left him in high school.Then the news comes that my child's father has enlisted active duty Army instead of the Reserves that would allow him to be around. Giving up the job that my father had gotten him he left in the dead of winter, and I gave up on him and married the person I knew would never leave me. Passion and true love had gotten me into the mess I was in, and I was convinced loyalty and friendship would get me out. In my too old for my years head I assumed what made marriages work was the friendship that was left when feelings had died away. I never thought twice and stood by my choice, knowing if I tried hard enough it could and would work. And even knowing I wasn't in love with him he was willing to try too. He was more than I could have asked for. When my child's father wasn't there when she was born, she had her stepfather who flew in from Texas for three days to be there for us. When her father wouldn't attend her baby dedication when I'd set up for him to play a song he used to play me, her stepfather dedicated his life to teach her God's way. When I was so exhausted I couldn't see straight, he sent me to bed and slept on the couch with her head resting on his chest.He was an amazing person and I would never change him, but having moved away from my family I was at a loss. I was hurting inside, hurting for my self and hurting for my daughter. Love heals pain, but the love I felt for my husband wasn't the kind that healed the pain of loss. It muted it to have someone care for me and someone I could rely on, but it started to not be enough. Weighing my options I left for home to surprise my sister for her birthday and once there realized I couldn't leave. My husband knew I wasn't going back somehow, and with the patience of a saint stuck with me as my best friend. I enrolled in cosmetology school two months later having moved back in with my mom and having fulltime care for my daughter. Me and my husband were separated and at the end of that year would divorce, but he financially and as much as he could handle emotionally, supported me.In some stroke of miracles I got a call on Valentine's Day three months before my daughter would turn two. Her father wanted to know if there was any chance we'd be willing to drive to New York where he was then stationed for a family weekend that his command was hosting before his battalion's deployment. Overjoyed at the invitation I accepted, the first step to letting him back into my life. When he said he was also going to be driving home the following day and would I spend some time with him, I glady said yes. Even with the pain I'd gone through I'd always left a part of me open for the possibility of "us". And when he sang karaoke with me and then played that same old song on the guitar he stealthily brought in from the car, I opened myself up more than I should have been willing to. In the following weeks we would spend his weekends home together being the family I always dreamed we'd be. I would take a six hour drive in a relative's vehicle just to get on base and surprise him for the weekend having my daughter at home with his mother. He would drive home in a blizzard to that same night that my heart feared that he would leave me again, kneel in the piling snow without a ring and ask me to marry him. And we would marry that following week with just our daughter having not told anybody, because he was making the choice to be with me so what obligation did he have to tell the world his decision.I fell for it all. I fell for the words of "believe me", "trust me", "I won't let you down", "I'm sorry I did what I did", and "I'll make it up to you". The past hurt, but the thought of being a family and getting through my own grief would hurt less. I was asked to leave my father's house when he found out I got married, and we ended up with an apartment and furniture. I sold my car because he would be leaving for Iraq and I would be driving his. I drove him to New York the week he was leaving for fifteen months, and I opened up to him knowing the possibility of never seeing him again. I spent more time than I'd planned because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving his side while he was so close still. And at the end of one of what seemed like the shortest long week of my life, I drove away with the image of my husband in his uniform openly crying and waving. I held it in until I left the parking lot, knowing my strength would keep him strong. I pulled over on the side of the road and lost it, and cried for another two hours driving home.I did everything a wife would do in that situation. I handwrote him letters everyday, I got care packages ready to mail out, I set up online wishlists for him, and I always waited until I was off the phone with him to cry. I kept a candle burning every night for his safe return, I went to my in-laws for dinner a few times a week, and I slept alone in the living room because I couldn't sleep in the bed that only reminded me he was gone. The constant fear that he would eventually leave me was always in the back of my mind, but I'd married him and was willing to put aside my doubt to not hinder a successful marriage. I believed in the commitment I'd made even if I didn't completely believe in his ability to unconditionally love me. If anything our daughter had the life she deserved and I couldn't bear the thought that I was the reason her parents weren't together, so I put all of my fears in a box and put it away.He started calling less and less and I made all of the proper excuses. When he would be upset with me and not call on purpose, I became more independent and less relient on his disappearing dependability. I made the choice to take our daughter to a Butterfly farm with my ex-husband as we were closer than we'd ever been as friends since we were assured we'd never be more. As soon as my husband called I told him, and his response was that he didn't know if he could be with my anymore. I told him my friendship was important to me and my ex-husband had played a vital part in our daughter's life (she calls him pops), but I could understand his insecurity in being far from home and that I would refrain from spending time if it would become an issue. Two weeks later he told me he was leaving me and would start divorce paperwork in the fall on his leave.I have since graduated school and taken my state boards to receive my permanent cosmetology license. I'll be getting a roomate to stay in the apartment I live in now to not have to uproot my daughter's life yet again, it's hard enough not having her father around as it is. I have a job as a hair stylist in a great salon, and my daughter is my entire life. The longing to know if it could ever work between her father I has been fully satisfied, and I'm thankful that I'll never have any lingering questions. As difficult as it is to know that I married somebody who could give up on me so easily, atleast I know. I don't regret my choices because at each point in my life it was exactly what I wanted. Meanwhile, i'm healing. Some nights it hurts to even breathe and I wonder how I could have given him so much credit, and I'm fully aware that it will take time to believe in commitment again.Whether I like it or not, the future has been knocking on my door. Sometimes I think I'm too close to being swept off my feet for comfort in my own mind. When I meet someone sometimes my stomach starts doing this little dance that tells me I need to be careful. I still hurt sometimes, but the fact that I am capable of not hurting tells me something. It tells me that there is still hope, and there is still time. The right love will wait for me and let me take my time, and it will love me and my daughter unconditionally. I'm just happy to be back capable of even in some small part to give the unknown a chance. So here's to pain, heartache, heartbreak, and the opportunity to come out of it all on top.
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