Interlude 2

Interlude 2

 I don’t care what anyone thinks, she thought, Vegas is fucked up. And with that she laid down her straight, won the $500 pot in the middle of the table, and stood up. She haughtily gathered her chips, allowing her cleavage to be displayed to every loser at the table. She had a thin facade of beauty and she was holding it up quite nicely. She was good at winning and good at looking hot while she did it.

The reality of the situation was so different. Outside of the game, in life, she never had a straight… everything was one big bluff.

I need a drink, an 8 ball and I need a man to fuck that isn’t my husband. That’s what I need.

She had been in Vegas for a week now and didn’t particularly give two shits and a fuck about who or what she had to climb over to get the attention, affection and drugs she needed to make herself feel better. They could go fuck themselves for all she cared. She’d had a hard life and she deserved to have what she wanted, when she wanted it, all the time. Anyone who thought differently was easily swept up in the tornado that her drug use and spending had become and they were effortlessly spit out-

She walked over to her new favorite bar inside the shopping mall of the Aladdin Casino and sat down. She plopped her Guess purse on the bar and her large 24-karat hoops dangled from her ears. She had all the things that made her look good and she pretended that she was good. Sometimes even she believed that she was good. She had a hard time telling the difference between reality and the lies inside her head. She’d feel better soon. She didn’t know why she needed to feel better. She didn’t feel anyway. The feeling had stopped months ago and, though she often wished she were dead, the dull throb of nothingness was better than the onslaught of crazy she felt whenever she stopped using for a few days.

Mark, the owner and bartender, walked over and placed her favorite beer on the counter without even asking. She’d only been there a week and he already knew her name and her beer. Just the way I like it, she thought.

After exchanging a few words about where her husband might be she changed the subject to other services that she needed. He turned, picked up the phone and dialed. He said a few words and smiled while looking her direction. He hung up, nodded at her and then helped another customer who at the bar. She smiled to herself; her husband’s money got her everything she needed. She would keep the winnings from the poker game to herself… just in case he cut the purse strings again. A visible smirk appeared on her face and she took a long drink. She pulled a cigarette out of her handbag and lit it with her over priced lighter.

She took a drag and took a drink and took a drag and took a drink. The alcohol began to sink in and she swayed to some nameless song playing overhead as she waited. She didn’t have to wait long. A man walked up to the bar and sat next to her.

He was attractive and something about him just lured her in. They exchanged words and, had one blinked they would have missed the switch. While exchanging flirtatious small talk, he moved his hand to hers, which was resting on the bar, and as if to hold it. Instead of holding her hand, he slipped three, quarter-sized baggies under it. Simultaneously, she slipped $160 into the back pocket of his jeans, all the while flipping her hair and slipping her leg softly between his. The touch was nothing but sexual and necessary. She needed touch in the worst way.

They discussed meeting up later if she was on her own. He pulled away gently and sauntered off as if he’d never been there. She laughed as she felt herself getting wet. Damn, I’ve got this shit handled. She was surprised how horny deals like that with men like those still made her. She finished off her beer, smiled at Mark and slipped the baggies into her purse discreetly. She needed to find a private restroom as soon as possible.

“Save my seat Mark, I’ll be back in a minute”

Mark nodded and watched her from behind the bar as she walked off to snort her score. He shook his head; he couldn’t help but feel sorry for a girl like that.

Chapter 2: Felicity

Chapter 2

Felicity

Once in a while you meet a woman that challenges you to be something better than you thought you could ever be. She is the friend that is closer than you ever thought you could be to a person. She is the friend who holds you and cares for you and is crazy in her own right. She is a whirlwind and a force to be reckoned with. She is not the woman that stays in your life forever. Friends like these are amazing and are here for merely a season. Just as you thought you had learned to ride the insane winds and reign in her amazing love you get slashed by it and you run. You run because you are human. You run because the thought of having her back and losing her again is just too painful. Regardless, the whirlwind of Felicity changed my life. She had this way of making me feel entirely and completely loved.

I met Felicity just a few days after I returned from my second trip to Thailand and shortly after my new commitment to stay away from men had begun. I needed a friend to fill the void that not hanging out with men had created and she seemed to fit it very nicely. Felicity was British and she knew how to laugh and often snorted when a good loud laugh came out. She had this shocking sense of humor that made me feel comfortable—all of a sudden, the pain of my past could become humorous fodder for my present. “Quitting men” for a year was probably the hardest thing I had done clean—the thing that gave me validation and made me feel pretty was gone. But it didn’t matter. I had Felicity.

Felicity did things for me on an emotional level that no one had ever done for me. We prayed together, and this was something I loved more than anything. We believed in different Gods, or maybe it was the same God but we had different concepts of that God. Either way, I often prayed to the Heavenly Father and she routinely prayed to the Divine Mother. We communed with God together in the most random of places: we prayed in her car, in her apartment, in my dorm room, over the phone and in various public places. God was ours and, when we prayed together, it was as if God became tangible. God was tangible. I had never experienced that with another person before. She showed me new forms of worship. (At this point in my life, worship and church were my jam and I felt like I had found everything that I needed in order to connect with God.)

But, on Felicity’s birthday, we went to Kirtan. Kirtan is hard for me to describe but this particular one was an Americanized Hindu worship service that focused on meditation through musical chanting. For me, it was life changing. I’m not and never have been particularly good at harmonizing. I can pick out a melody and sing it well but the harmony? Never. Sitting in that service next to Felicity meditating and singing was the first time I felt the harmony in the music. I didn’t hear it, I felt it and it moved me and then I sang it. I grew with it. In those moments, the people around me felt a million miles away and a part of me at the same time. Felicity being there only increased the intensity. I was not afraid of what she thought of me… I already knew.

We sang together outside of kirtan as well. Felicity had this soulful voice that was deep and tenor and matched my soprano-alto perfectly. We would sing along to songs in the car and work on harmonies. Once, we even sang for the chapel service at my college. I had no fear of bringing her into my inner circle of people there—she swayed them over with her hilarious way and eased them with the calm assertion that the Divine Mother was present. You could feel Her presence when Felicity sang and it filled my spirit on more than one occasion.

With all of these new experiences, I realized I’d been looking for that connection for a lifetime. The connection was simple. It was emotional intimacy. I’d never experienced to this level before. And I had been looking for it in a man all that time—the moment I stopped looking, I found it in a woman instead.

She even showed me physical affection. For me, this was new. Physical affection always equaled some sort of sexual interaction that I neither wanted nor needed. But with Felicity, as always, it was different. I was in desperate need of someone to hold me, who didn’t want more than to love the little girl within. Felicity did that. After many late nights in Philadelphia, we’d go to Felicity’s apartment and she would hold me and we’d fall asleep together. There was nothing sexual about it. There was nothing about it that caused turmoil or stress or fear. I was loved, prayed for, taken care of and I laughed more in that six months than I have laughed in my entire life. If Felicity was there everything, would be alright and I knew she felt the same. The world could fuck itself—we could take on the world.

And then something began to change. I realized that I often stated things as “we” and all the things I thought I wanted in a man I had found in her. For the first time (off drugs and sober) I was attracted to a woman. I was attracted to her. I kept it to myself for a long time. I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t want to ruin it all. But there it was. I loved her and started becoming sexually attracted to her. At 26 years old, it was a very strange sensation. What was I supposed to do with it? I could barely accept that it was there and I was too afraid to act on it or say anything. I told a few friends but mostly as a joke… like it wasn’t real or I was just being my crazy self. It was very real though. So what do I do when something real hits me and I don’t know how to handle the emotion? I run, but we’ll get to that.

Felicity, at some point, had told me that she had had feelings for me of that nature as well. But, instead of telling her that I had them too, I told her it was ok and it was no big deal and we let it go. I just couldn’t tell her. I wasn’t ready and I began to question who I was. What I gay? Bisexual? Or was I just a human open to the beauty of a person regardless of gender? I was rarely turned on by a woman and men turned me on all the time so why Felicity? Why then? Was I mistaking loving action and comfort and distorting it into something twisted and broken?

I didn’t know and I just couldn’t tell her. And there were a thousand times that I wanted too. There were a thousand times I wanted to snuggle and turn around and just kiss her and love her the way I ached too. But, be it my conservative upbringing or fear of what my parents would think or fear… I couldn’t bring myself to be honest about my own emotions. I feared what would be and what I would think of myself. I let fear win.

It was shortly after this realization that I started looking to date again. I had decided that six months was long enough (as opposed to the year I had intended) to go without a relationship. In hindsight, I realize now that I was looking to find something to take away those feelings but, in that present, I just felt lonely and that six months was a long time. Because of my suppressed feelings for Felicity I was aching for someone to just sweep me off my feet that was socially acceptable in all my circles. Despite the fact that I was a liberal and was all about equality, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that I might be the gay or bisexual person that I had so adamantly stood up for at times. It was the first time in my entire life that I realized who I was and could be on a very deeply emotionally intimate level with myself. And yet, even now I can no more define myself than I could in that moment.

Several weeks later, I met this guy named Jimmy. Jimmy was, in short, an asshole who had a lot of confidence and was hot. The ultimate trifecta of things I was attracted to.

Jimmy and I had a whirlwind romance (though I never had sex with him… which is something I’m still super proud of myself for) and within a few weeks I began feeling like I loved him on many levels. I doubt the realness of that “love” but it was real to me in those moments—I wanted someone besides Felicity to love me. I wanted someone, anyone, to love me or to feel loved like I did with Felicity so that those feelings could be displaced. I didn’t realize any of this at the time but that was my process. In short, my swift feelings scared the hell out of Jimmy. He bolted.

My world, when he bolted, fell apart. The feelings I had for Jimmy were real to me, no matter how forced; after not being touched by a man in six months, having him all wrapped up in my psyche meant that when he bolted, I fell apart. He was my hope that I wasn’t “turning gay” or whatever you want to call it. I just wanted him to love me long enough to have something, ANYTHING, with a man again. But he didn’t. Thank God he ran. But like any man who runs too quickly he ran back (for about two seconds) and in that moment when he came back I considered going back to him and maybe trying again.

So what does a woman do when she isn’t sure what to do? She calls her best friend to talk it out.

I called Felicity, who had been completely aware and involved with this whole dating process to begin with and knew that while I was dating I was staying away from sex and was working on my balance during relationships. What she didn’t know is that balance was completely skewed because of my inability to be honest with her about my feelings. Regardless, I told her I was thinking about taking Jimmy back because he was a boy and dumb and boys get scared and I wanted him to love me. I desperately wanted him to love me. And in the moment that I said those words to her, she said something in reply that would alter our friendship and the way we would interact from that point forward. She said:

    “If you go back you will have lost everything you worked for and you will be back to where you started six months ago and I will be so disappointed in you.”

Part of my heart died. Felicity had loved me when others had run. Felicity had handled my crazy and my tears and my need to sing and dance and snuggle and cook and be anxious and scared and always afraid. Felicity loved me like NO one had loved me and she accepted every part of me the way I came. My love for Felicity was founded in that, and now the woman I really actually loved told me that if I did something she thought was wrong, I would be back to where I had been before. She told me she would be disappointed in me. In one moment, I felt like I couldn’t be enough for her approval. I could never be enough for anybody. The depth of my codependency struck me then.

I was, all of a sudden, a little girl.

I was scared and alone and felt like no one understood and neither Jimmy nor

Felicity loved me how I was. When I sense disappointment from those I love most, I shut down. And its what I did. I couldn’t bear that a man I desperately needed to love me didn’t care enough to express his real feelings and emotions to me. And At the same time,

I couldn’t bear the woman that I secretly loved would be disappointed in me for doing what I thought was best—regardless of what that decision was. Within 24 hours, I shut down both relationships and cut off contact completely and utterly with both people.

What followed was the most obsessive and painful 5 months of my clean and sober life.

Keeping in mind that, retrospectively, I realize that neither of them did anything “wrong.” They simply responded to how I was acting. And while I felt wronged, I was playing the victim.

After shutting down and losing both relationships, I was alone. The people I felt knew me best had, in my mind, abandoned me. I obsessively looked at their Facebook pages but avoided running into them. I felt like I couldn’t handle real interaction with either of them but I couldn’t bear not knowing what was going on their lives.

Felicity, at one point, messaged me on Facebook and I was so inept at handling the emotional onslaught that it caused I nearly shit myself. Literally. I was emotionally incapable of facing the fear that she might not love me the way I was that I could not handle interacting with her.

I went from speaking to Felicity every day and hanging out a few times a week to nothing at all. Nothing. I ran away and it caused the destruction of the most wonderful, intimate, and connected relationship I’ve ever had in my life. Period.

Over time, I tried to reconnect with Felicity, to talk or just have conversation but each time I was turned down. By the time I had gained the emotional ability to deal with my self, she was gone… and dating a woman no less. And there I was and there she was and we weren’t a part of each other’s lives anymore.

Perhaps the reason that Felicity’s incredible love only lasted a season was because I wasn’t able to be honest with myself about the level that love had reached in my life. Keeping such things secret will eventually kill them and, because I didn’t nurture it, because I ran from it, I was unable to deal with the consequences that came out of it rotting and spoiling in the dark of my closeted heart. I suppose I will always wonder what would have happened if I had been real with myself in those moments. I also know that I was as real with myself as I possibly could have been during that stage in my life. But it didn’t make it okay.

I saw her occasionally from time to time. We ran in the same circles and she was on the periphery of my life for a long time: the occasional Facebook update or status update, the passing at a restaurant or meeting place and the acknowledgement of knowing that we knew each other once… but no more. We moved on and changed and grew and became something different than what we had been to each other in those six months.

Yet, those six months have forever changed my life. They remind me that I am capable of loving on so many different levels and that all of God’s creatures are beautiful and wonderful and they can be apart of me if I let them. I have not laughed as hard or as often as I did during that time. I will remember that laughter and the prayer most of all. They are the things I cherish of Felicity; they are the things that allowed me and pushed me to grow.

Interlude I

Interlude I

She woke up. Her eyes were crusty, her mouth was dry, and her nose hurt from all the blow. She looked over to her left and breathed a thankful sigh of relief because he was still asleep. A few hours of peace, she thought. When he woke, she would deal with the chaos as it came, but for now, she could take care of herself.

    I hate him, she thought as she lay next to him. She wondered why she was still with him but, in her heart, she knew why. After all, the drugs were free and there was a roof over her head. He helped her survive. But, she knew surviving wasn’t living anymore...it was just trying not to die. She pushed the thoughts away as she rolled out of bed, trying to figure out what time it was. The clock read 9:30 PM but was it on Sunday or Monday night? Who knows, she thought, who fucking cares?

    Her bare feet padded against the marble floor of the bathroom. She looked around at the array of empty baggies in front of her, hoping there was some left. She picked one up and realized she’d licked it clean last night in her desperation to stay high...or was it the night before? She began to panic. There’s none left! There’s none left. oh God oh god oh god. None left. Sobs of fear rose up in her throat and she quickly stifled them down. He would hear her crying and wake up for sure.The entirety of what she’d become was governed by fear. The fear of him waking up, the fear of him not waking up, fear of leaving, fear of staying. She was governed by all of it. She knew the fear would follow her no matter what. How could it not? She was trapped here by it. She was governed by her fear of change or progress or leaving and what she knew was comfortable. The pain and fear had become comfortable.

    She composed herself and walked past him into the living room of her penthouse in Raleigh, one of the most expensive in the city. Her window overlooked the skyline and she was surrounded by its beauty and yet, surrounded by the beauty of that place, she felt like nothing. She felt like less than nothing. She felt alone, very suddenly, and the panic of her isolation bean to set in again. She wanted to feel nothing at all. She moved to the huge window again and looked out, letting her head rest on the cool glass. Just seeing life outside helped her. She breathed and breather and stood still. She didn’t know how she’d gotten here.

    Something her dad said years ago came to her, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” How easy the road looked when she chose her way of escape. Funny how those words came to her then; funny how quickly they left. She stood for a long time until the rumbling in her stomach interrupted her peaceful, panicked moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate.

    There was no food in the kitchen so she picked up the phone, wondering who she would call. It raced through her head, Who can I call who can I call who can I call who can I call?  She wanted out. The panic began to rise again. She wanted anything besides this. Her mother and father were begging for her to call and a few friends had made failed attempts to check up on her. In many ways, she loved the chaos and how comfortable it had become. But her mind screamed and sobbed for help while her outer shell stayed stoic as she dialed the phone and waited for it to ring.

    It rang. And then it rang again.

    She waited.

    “Pizza Hut,” said the voice.

    She ordered quickly and hung up. Human contact beyond the house was beginning to bother her. She remembered being outgoing once. She remembered being alive. She cut off her emotions in an instant and accepted she was a junkie. No one cared. She didn’t care. She was in a hell in her own mind. She didn’t know a way out. What God would let this happen?

    She went to the freezer and pulled out the rum. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the apple juice. She mixed her drink, 50/50, and felt better in the ritual of it all. Hello, old friend, she thought as the smell of rum wafted to her nose. She was surprised she could smell today. She was glad she could. She smiled slightly as she walked over to the darkened large screen TV. She sat down on the overstuffed leather couch and crossed her legs indian style.

She laughed softly at the irony of it all. She had everything she could ever want and she felt miserably empty on every level imaginable.

    The dark TV stared back at her. Her smiled faded in her reflection and silent tears rolled down her cheeks. She took a long drink and, just before the buzz took over, she thought I wonder if I’ll die soon… at this rate, it can’t be long. She turned on the TV as the alcohol began to spread its numbing warmth.

    Huh, she thought, Law and Order is on.

Chapter 1: Rex

Chapter 1

Rex

And then, a man came into my life that changed it forever-- simply by making the choice to walk out of it again.  It seems so cliché and gross.  It seems too indecipherably implausible that a man I barely knew could alter my mid 20’s with one felt swoop.  But he did.  I am forever changed. 

It was just before Thanksgiving in 2009.  I was all caught up in just trying to feel better.  I was reeling from a past relationship, disconnected from God and unwilling to look anywhere but outside of myself to fill the void I so desperately hated feeling.  I took a trip down to DC to “see” my old friend, Daniel.  By “see” I mean have sex with. And we did and it was pretty good.  But then a few nights into said trip I went to play a game of poker with some friends in the area and Daniel and I went to play. During that game I sat next to a man named Rex. 

Rex was quiet, educated.  He seemed genuinely interested in the conversation over everything from recovery to poker terminology. He asked me questions and amazingly enough, he wanted to know the answers.  He didn’t stare at my tits or, if he did, I didn’t notice. He had this slight southern accent that reminded me of my past in a good way. He was attractive and exotic in a way I couldn’t describe and he waited until the end of the night when we were leaving before asking me out to dinner. 

I hesitated. I didn’t want to make my other friend upset. But we had cleared it out before hand… there was no emotional involvement… just sex. Now keep in mind that though we had said this, I knew he was emotionally involved anyway. I didn’t care.  Someone wanted me and I wanted him back. I said yes, gave him my number, and hoped to God that my hesitation didn’t keep him from calling.  He was a writer and could hold a conversation and I wanted that.  I was already in love with the feeling that he wanted me. 

I realize now that my “wanting that” was mostly because the feeling of being wanted was what I chased. It was my drug. It was what made feel whole, beautiful, and validated.  And the validation of one man wasn’t enough for me.  I needed more. There was never enough. The void grew bigger with each “wanting” which caused me to go after more.  “Look at me!” or “Want Me!” or “Love me, Please Love me!” my head would scream in the darkest reaches that few others knew.  It would scream it until it was fulfilled and it was never fulfilled; it always screamed. It was the same insanity I felt when I was using drugs but it tore me up.

One side of my head would feel appeased every time I fell into someone else’s arms and another side of my brain would be screaming “NO, I DON’T WANT THIS STOP!” and yet I’d see my body doing it anyway. This is where the depth of powerlessness lay for me. My conscious mind would be screaming no and my addicted mind screaming yes.  I was powerless over it, I didn’t know what to do different and I was at a point of complete failure.  So I stayed in the pattern of self-destruction. And then I had dinner with Rex.  It was a drama waiting to happen going and coming though.  My friend was annoyed that I was going and I pretended like it shouldn’t matter. And though I knew how hurt he was I went, the need for wanting someone who wasn’t him to want me was too strong.  But the moment I stepped into Rex’s car things began to change.  I didn’t want him to fuck me or want me on some animalistic level. We began talking and I was feeling.  And what I was feeling wasn’t gross. 

He was quirky. He had a thing with cheese; he played pool, had two cats and was readily honest with how his anxiety in recovery was only staved with the wonders of modern medication. This appeals to me because I am, in fact, weirdly quirky and it made me want to stay with him forever.  For the first time in as long as I can remember I realized I was thinking that I wasn’t good enough for this.  I didn’t deserve even a dinner with this guy.  He was older, educated, funny, sexy, charming and a gentleman.  I was a 25, a junior in college studying religion while trying to fill the void with sex and trying to forget the massive amount of debt I had at home.   

We left dinner; went to his house for a minute to see the cats (I adore cats), and as we were getting ready to leave he said “I just need to do something first” and then he reached for my hips and brought me close and kissed me.  It was the softest, gentlest, non-pushing kiss ever.  It was beautiful.  But let me stop here, because in this moment the only things I could think of was “I can’t have sex with two people in two days” and “don’t let me go” all at the same time.  And yet, part of me knew he would never push for sex, didn’t want that, he just wanted me to know he cared.  He connected.  But my sick mind at that point could only think of that.  I just had to be sure we didn’t have sex.  That would be bad. 

We left shortly after and went to play pool. Playing pool was fun but I quickly fell into the old skill of my past by laying out sexual innuendo, bending over the table, and generally distracting him with body. I didn’t really want to do that. I felt like I was coming off slutty but the reality is that I could no more stop acting that way than I could fly to the moon.  In that moment I knew I couldn’t be completely honest because I risked losing him so I acted out sexually instead.  It covered the frustration.  The frustration was that I was afraid if he didn’t want me physically he wouldn’t want me at all. If he knew me and what I had done with Daniel he would never love, like or accept me.

At one point in the evening my hesitation the night before when he asked me out was brought up.  I explained, my friend liked me in a certain way and I didn’t feel the same.  I suppose this is half true, the reality that screwing was involved held me back. I was afraid he’d be turned off if he knew. From the start I felt I wasn’t being honest and perhaps that I didn’t need to be.  I could fuck someone and be dating someone else right?  Isn’t that the American way?  Or at least that’s what my head was telling me.  I mean, at what point is honesty not needed on a first date with someone?  Because at that point I wanted to tell him everything and hope to God he could still like me.  I wanted him to KNOW me and still like me.  But I was afraid. I held back. If this was right or wrong I don’t know.  I linger in that even now sometimes.

He took me home.  I didn’t want to go in the house.  Knowing, that my friend would be inside and disappointed, frustrated and hurt.  I couldn’t handle his emotions.  I was cut off from them with a wall so as not to hurt too.  I told Rex I feared having to leave DC early if it was awkward with my friend and I didn’t know if I’d see him again.  But I wanted to.  I wanted to see him again very much.  He said the same and I got out of the car and he drove away.  To this day I cannot remember if he kissed me again or not.. I just knew I didn’t want to go inside and I didn’t want Rex to leave.  Rex was safe.

I’ve been looking for a man that made me feel safe forever.  For one night I had it and I hold onto that night’s memory like a warm blanket on really hard days.  Its loveliness may fade with time but I pray it doesn’t.  Safety is a funny thing—it can bring you in and hold you there and in a moment it can dissipate with a change of scenery.  That’s what happened that night.  I walked in the house and the safety seemed to dissipate in a heart’s beat.

The drama ensued inside like I knew it would.  I knew I would have to leave that night or early the next morning.  It was too awkward.  Rex had stirred something.  I didn’t want sex anymore.  I didn’t want to feel empty the next morning because of some empty physical act that was used to create some sense of safety and love for myself.  I disgusted myself.  I left the next morning.  Texted Rex good-bye and resigned that if he wanted it I would do everything in my power to start a relationship with him. 

We texted all the way home.  We texted all that day and the next.  We talked on the phone and I was completely falling for this man who made me feel safe.  This man who I knew would be inevitably hurt by me.  I needed to be wanted.  He was far away and could never sustainably fill the void that was my soul.  I was resigned though.  I would do everything in my power to keep myself as his.  I liked him and didn’t want to have sex with anyone else while I waited to see what happened.  I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t.

Thanksgiving night, not two days after I made a promise with myself to keep myself as his, I slept with someone else.  I had even talked with Rex that day and we had begun talking about him coming to see me up in Philly.  But I couldn’t stop myself.  Someone who had rejected me from before wanted me again and despite my heart’s desire to keep myself for someone else, despite my promises and my prayers and all my fear—I did it anyway and I was devastated.  Absolutely devastated.  Never before had I been so disappointed by myself.

I didn’t tell Rex. I hadn’t told him I was sleeping with someone before I certainly wouldn’t let on I was sleeping with someone now.  I rationalized it.  We weren’t in a relationship and I didn’t owe him commitment.  But I ached.  My heart gave me truth while my mind tried to convince me that all was well.  But I was far from well.  I hated myself.  I hated that I knew I couldn’t be for Rex what I knew he could be fore me.  I never wanted to be in that place again.  Never again. It was like my very heart cracked and cried and screamed for relief and I had no idea where to find it.  I knew where to find warmth and yet I continuously sought it in the coldest of places.  I was insane. 

The brokenness that consumed me over the next few days was inescapable.  It was unbearable.  It tarnished everything and I was angry. I turned into a four year old who only knows how to react by throwing a temper tantrum; I cannot express my anger. I had anger at allowing myself to be used and to use someone else.  I continued to talk to Rex as if nothing had happened and I felt dirty.  This wasn’t right and I knew it.  My ethical values at this point in my life dictated that though there was no commitment I had done something wrong.  I was expressing an emotional connection with someone but I was cutting it off by seeking comfort and warmth in those cold places.  And despite my values I continued doing it anyway.

That was my addiction in its entirety.  Seeking warmth in all the coldest places.  I begged to God for relief.  The only whisper I heard from God in that time was “I am present, I haven’t left, I meet you were you stand”.  I went to therapy and talked about it.  I talked to my sponsor and I talked to a good friend.  I knew I had to stop what I was doing with Rex or in the least be somewhat honest to give him a choice.  He was falling for someone he didn’t know and I was terrified of rejection.  What’s more, he was falling for someone who was presenting herself as something she wasn’t.   

In a brief moment of clarity I wrote him an email.  I told him that I had always been bad at long distance relationships and that, in the past, I had cheated on people when away from them for too long and I feared it happening again.  I told him, as closely to the truth as I could at that time that I was afraid that if we started something it would end badly because of where I was emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  I prayed, and hoped he would want me anyway knowing full well that if he did he wouldn’t be the man I thought him to be. 

My fears were confirmed.  He told me he didn’t see how it could work and while he was glad I had been honest he didn’t see how we could continue.  I let it go… for about three hours.  I texted him and asked if he could do it anyway.  He said he wanted to on many levels but he couldn’t.  In as short of time as we’d been talking I realize now how hurt I was.  The one person who I’d found that was healthy, unique, talented and educated didn’t want me.  I was not in place emotionally where I should be wanted. 

In my short life I had never come across a man who was healthy enough to say no to what he wanted because he knew it wouldn’t be what he needed.  That is how I knew he was a man and not a boy.  But it hurt.  Oh, how it hurt. 

I would like to say at this point that hurt changed my actions and this is where my life changed.  But like many moments of clarity this is not where it ended.  The clarity passed and I slipped into a fog of self-pity and more anger and I acted out again with yet another guy.

 I was leaving for Thailand in only a few weeks on a service trip.  It was the trip I had planned and dreamed about for months.  And through talks with my therapist and my sponsor in the weeks before I left I decided that Thailand would be my man-detox.  I wanted to stop but I needed a break from all my old hook-ups and flirty text messages to gain enough resistance to say no.  The day I would leave would be the start of a one-year commitment to stay away from physical and emotional relationships with men.  And yet, like any addict I had one last hurrah and slept with my ex the night before I left.

The whole experience was awful. All I wanted in the world was to be loved and all he offered was some physical imitation that did nothing to fill my heart.  He wasn’t capable and neither was I for that matter. I couldn’t accept love anymore than I could stop myself from seeking it in the physical aspects of my relationships.  I left his house that night in tears realizing that I was at rock bottom.  If I ever wanted something healthy, good, loving, kind, patient, and long lasting it wouldn’t be in the sex. Until I made the choice to stop and stay stopped I couldn’t let the wounds from the past begin to heal.  I needed healing and I needed another country to help me do it. 

I left for Thailand on December 14^th, 2009.  It is the second date in my life that I will remember forever.  It was the day I realized that Rex had been the catalyst for the greatest change of my life save stopping my drug use. I was incapable of maintaining anything healthy in my relationships because I wanted the man to take care of me the moment he entered my life.  I knew I had to learn how to take care of myself and realize that even in a relationship it was my responsibility to do so.  As simple as that concept is, I never realized that before. I felt like I’d had a spiritual awakening. 

Everyday I was in Thailand and the following months I resisted emailing Rex.  I deleted his number out of my phone because I was powerless over calling him otherwise.  I cut off contact and he made no efforts to contact me.  I stayed abstinent and I stayed crazy but I began to grow. There has not been a day that passed that I hoped he still thought of me.  There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t want to thank him… partly because I hoped that he would come back and like me but partly because it is rare that someone tells you that a simple choice changed his or her life.

In the first few months of my new commitment my life dramatically changed.  I realize now that I never want to meet a man again who is ready for me when I know I’m not ready for him.  I do not want to ever again seek warmth in the cold places of physicality.  I want something good and healthy and kind.  For the first time in my life I realized that I had that opportunity to embrace myself in a good and healthy way.  But it wasn’t until I had the chance to realize what I wasn’t enough for one man that I could choose to become enough for someone else. 

These realizations didn’t happen over night.  The first few weeks and months I was quite insane.  I was in the process of removing a huge negative coping skill in my life and in the absence of one coping skill there is often the potential for old skills one thought long gone to return.  For the first time in years I began craving alcohol again, my smoking increased and sugar intake went out the wazoo.  But in time, through the support of amazing women and friends I began to find a level of peace in the fact that I was doing something good for myself even if it wasn’t comfortable.

Quite often uncomfortability is what makes us grow.  I have termed this phase as one of “uncomfortable joy” and it’s in this time I found happiness despite my growing pains.  There was hope, in that; I had the ability to grow.  There was hope, in that; never again did I have to meet a wonderful man only to find I wasn’t ready to be his partner.

At the end of the day I now go to sleep with the consciousness that as long as I keep doing the next right thing and stay in God’s will for my life everything will be ok.  Everything is ok.  And that is beautiful and life changing and it is in that that I have found my greatest gratitude.  I never knew one simple decision made by someone else could totally alter my life, how I lived it and how I much I could grow in such a short amount of time.  But one man leaving created the necessary change in my life that I’d been looking for.  I am eternally grateful for his decision.