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.