Why It Hurt(s)

This post was inspired by Kat George's over at Thought Catalog. I was originally just going to reblog hers, but then there were things I wanted to cross out and brackets I wanted to add and then it seemed like writing my own was just a better idea. 


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Because he said he loved me the night before, like he'd said nearly every night for about two months, and the next morning he said he'd never meant it. Because love should never be a lie. 
Because he was the first man of my "type" to ever have seemed to have wanted me in a substantive manner. Because his desire and "love" for me amplified that which I had for myself--knowing he wanted me around, wanted me to hold a special place in his life reserved for no one else, was such an ego boost. I certainly hadn't held myself in overwhelming disregard before he came into my life, but belonging to him [or giving myself to him, if the ownership implied in "belonging" doesn't sit well with you] made me feel better about myself. Because knowing he never wanted me like he made it seem like he wanted me unleashed every insecurity I'd previously successfully locked away and suddenly they were all feasting on me at once.  
Because I ignored the things I was uncomfortable with/unsure about and had convinced myself that we had found perfection. Because he totally blindsided me that morning; I didn't see it coming at all. Because I had been thoroughly and completely fooled. Duped. Bamboozled. Toyed with. Conned. Because the realest thing I had ever known was never real at all. Because I thought I fell for him, but it turns out I had fallen for an act, and that was personally humiliating. I was so disgusted with myself for having been blind to the truth. I was angry at myself because I thought I should have known better, I should have seen the signs. Because once I wasn't in it anymore, I could see that I had lost myself inside of this, and all along I'd been thinking I was winning. Because hindsight is a bitch with 20-20 vision. Because I'd had endings before, yes, and I'd been lied to before, but never this thoroughly.
Because I thought I was doing pretty well for my first time around the meaningful relationship thing. Because we had serious-relationship-conversations and met each other's parents and celebrated month-aversaries and how could all of that be part of something that wasn't real?
Because I'd gone and let my imagination run away with me. Once we both seemed sure about this, I lifted the restraining order between my head and my heart and let them start talking again, and when they do that I get to making silly plans. Plans like international mail and sexy lingerie and rearranging my clothes to have an extra drawer for him and leaving an extra toothbrush in his room and Thanksgiving with my family and visiting his over our extended Christmas vacation. Because it had felt so much like an idyllic movie romance and I wanted to do everything in my power to keep it that way. Because I was suddenly alone to wallow not only in losing what we had, but also in losing everything I'd imagined we were going to have.
Because if he'd spent so much time and energy projecting emotions he didn't feel for so long, he could have at least had the decency to pretend to be upset as he was telling me all the ways I was wrong and he'd done wrong. Because he just got to walk away apparently unscathed, while I felt like I'd gotten run over by a tractor trailer. Because he'd gone from being the person who could make me feel invincible to the person who left me wide-open and vulnerable in the blink of an eye. Because I will never know what was and what was not a lie. Because he played love and I fell in, even though it was hard and I was scared, thinking it was an exercise in reciprocity, a leap of faith. 
Because I thought we were good for each other; I wanted us to be good for each other. Because he was the first time I had put my love life into my own hands and gone after something I wanted in six years, and look where it got me. Because even if I'm smart enough to not think I can't trust men because of what he did,  I have learned that I perhaps should be less trusting of my damn self. Because this doubt is a stain I can't get out no matter how many times I put myself through the wash.


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Sorry if you're sick of hearing about this. That was even more cathartic than I'd imagined it would be.    
  

#truth

Reblogged from my friend Lauren over at http://inyourafterglow.tumblr.com/

INSANE WHIRLWIND OF EMOTIONS cannot begin to accurately describe the past two days.

Extreme sadness. Hurt. Fury that almost scared me. Fear separately. Deep confusion, or maybe simply a profound lack of understanding.



All of those feelings are done now. Well I'm still sad that it's over, because I wanted to snuggle into this and stay there for a long while, but I feel nothing like the overwhelming _________ I was feeling. I feel surprisingly good right now. I feel like nothing was as bad as I'd thought/imagined/suspected/worried/feared. I am not a bad judge of character, and I would like to come out and publicly say to all of you who know me in real life and know the other person involved in this situation--he is not the villain here. This situation doesn't have a villain. It has two good people who made some bad choices and that's it. #theoppositeofpubliclyflaming


I'm not gonna list out all the terrible things that have been running through my head. They don't need mentioning, as they're all either flat out wrong, unwarranted, invalid, or have been deconstructed to the point of my being content. It may have felt at first like the world was ending, but up is still up, down is still down, and I don't think anything permanently damaging happened here. 



I have, however, learned a lot. And the things I have learned can be listed:

1.  It is entirely impossible to undervalue honesty, especially when you know the truth is going to hurt. 
2. Wanting to mean something is entirely different from meaning it. Changing your definition of something so that you can mean it isn't being honest either. 
3. Relationships are based on a lot of assumptions. It's probably a good idea to talk about things rather than assuming you're on the same page about X issue.
4. It actually shocks me that these words are about to come out of my mouth, but maybe it really is the thought that counts. Intentions mean something, even when they lead down unpredictable and hurtful paths. Sometimes people deserve the benefit of the doubt even in the most unfortunate situations.
5. Anger is actually an essential part of the healing process. 
6. My friends are awesome. But I already knew that.
7. Pain does not automatically negate all the previous joy a situation gave. Hurt does not erase prior happiness. I'm not saying "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened," because I think that crying is a healthy part of LIFE in general, and it's important to be unabashedly sad when something makes you sad...but when it's all said and done, everything good that happened still happened. And that's what you should focus on. 
8. Your world should always be bigger than one person. I think I forgot that mine was for a little while until the support came rushing in from every direction while I was freaking out and I remembered that I have a whole network of people who love and care about me. 
9. Love is a nuanced, nuanced thing. It has so many layers and components and meanings and strivings. It varies from person to person and situation to situation. There are lots of things that love is. There are also lots of things that love isn't. And I'm still learning the differences, I think. Maybe we all are. 
10. Don't underestimate the benefits that can come from actually talking to someone who hurt you, instead of just festering in your own emotions. Every story has two sides. 
11. Analysis of every tiny detail of a situation is pointless and futile. Analysis of what major mistakes were made and what should have been done differently in those specific instances is an opportunity for growth that should not be overlooked. 
12. It is evidently possible for me to open up to my father under times of complete and total duress. It is also evidently impossible for my mother to let me open up to her during such times. This is unsurprising. Maybe I should be less freely open with my mother and talk to my dad more. 
13. I have no regrets. None. I might even want to change everything I've ever believed about exes and want to try to be friends. And on that note, I will pick a song:

And I'd choose you again...

Fragile Families

I know this isn't true, and is thus entirely irrational, but sometimes when I'm listening to lectures, I feel like the speaker is talking about ME. For instance, we had a guest lecturer in my Sociology class on Tuesday, speaking about research she and a team of grad students had just done on Fragile Families--children born out of wedlock and the tenuous ties that bind their parents. She kept talking about these people, these children, these parents, like they were so far removed from our current situation, and the whole time I just wanted to scream YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ME!
She said a lot of things I don't agree with about children supposedly like me, but if being a SOC major has taught me anything so far, it's that I'm not like anyone who falls into any of the same categories as me. Comparison is futile. So I fumed silently, then finally treated myself to a Starbucks coffee mug to make myself feel better.
But early this morning, as I was laying in bed trying to go back to sleep, I realized she was right about how the introduction of new partners into the family and the dissolution of those relationships is stressful for the child involved. I had been refuting this because the dissolution of my mother's marriage was perhaps one of the most joyous occasions of my life. But laying in my bed, I began to feel this forbidden ache: I was again missing the one person I'm really not allowed to miss.
Greg. My mom's ex-boyfriend. I recognize that he was not right for her, and that the best decision for her personally was to terminate this relationship. I understand that, and on some level I am proud of her for being able to make the decision to walk away...in the past, I have known her to fear solitude over second-best relationships. 
And yet. Greg is one of those people that makes me question whether there is someone somewhere with some great big plan in which everything happens for a reason, because even if the 6 years or so he and my mom spent together weren't right for either of them, in some respect they were perfect for me. ...Wow, I didn't mean for that to sound so damned selfish. It's like, I mean no disrespect to my actual father, and all the disrespect possible to my ex-stepfather, when I say this, but in many ways, Greg is the closest thing to a traditional father I have ever known. (Not that he's very traditional about anything.) I guess, the relationship he and I had...he made me want to be enough of a little girl that we could go to Daddy/Daughter dances and enough of an adult to sip wine and have intellectual conversations at the same time. I would never admit this to him, but I cared SO MUCH what he thought about everything. He kept it real. He listened to my poetry and didn't judge me for it, just listened. He was trying to win my mom's heart, but he managed to get a pretty good chunk of mine too, and goddammit, I don't give a fuck if it's somehow disloyal to my mom, sometimes I miss him so much it HURTS. If ever I believed in family, it was when he was the head of mine. He lies somewhere near the root of my belief in unconditional love, too. It feels so wrong to say this, but it's how I feel so here it goes: Losing him was like losing my dad all over again.
I want to be able to have dinner with him. I want him to know about my JP topic, and I'd be more comfortable talking to him if I started dating than either of my actual parents. It's not fair that my mom wanting him out of her life meant taking him out of mine too. It's just not fair.

But you know, I still firmly disagree with the guest lecturer about one thing, and my belief about this is unwavering. She said children of fragile families would be better off with no transitions, even if they were into better relationships. That's just plain untrue. Even knowing how much it would hurt to finally understand what a father-daughter relationship is supposed to be and then lose it, I'd do it all again for the sake of the memories. I'd do it all again for the pure joy I got from running into him at Walmart over the summer, or for the shared secret joy my sister and I got from texting him to wish him a Merry Christmas.


I really do want to meet him for dinner or (in a few months) drinks or something and catch up. Maybe that's stabbing my mom in the back, but hey, I never wanted to break up with him. Don't I get some choice in who stays in my life?