Right person

I've spent 12 or so years in a continual quest to figured out what I don't want in a relationship. I'm a slow learner....or...really really really stupid.

I'm not exactly sure what I DO want in a relationship...but I know that I'm ready for one. I'm ready to have a teammate...I'm also terrified I don't actually know how to be a good teammate. I guess that will be the next lesson. 

It's highly likely that if I do find a teammate, I'll do every damn thing I can to sabotage the situation. I'm good at that. But my friend Mel tells me that the right person won't be fooled by this. The right person will call me on my attempts. The right person will see through my web of bullshit and find me...terrified little me, who will be afraid that the moment she starts trusting in the situation that the other shoe will drop. 

I'll get really angry about nothing and probably stomp out of the house with gusto. The right person will bring me my wallet so that if I'm going to huff and puff, at least I can buy myself a beer down the street. 

I'll be scared that he's lying to me about anything and everything. I'll want to see who he's texting and if he's flirting. The right person will tell me I'm out of my mind, but show me the phone anyway so that I can see for myself. He'll help me put my trust back together. It will frustrated the hell out of him. Because he won't have caused this fear and he'll find it irrational. But he'll do it...and I'll start to see that someone really can be where they say they are and do what they say they are doing. 

I won't ask for help. Even when I need it. I'll haul things from the basement solo and sit and try to spin a web in a world where I don't need anyone to help. The right person will interject and start helping, until I learn for myself that receiving help does not mean you are weak, it means you are twice as strong. 

I'll be used to going to things alone, forgetting what it's like to have someone to introduce themselves at parties when I clearly don't remember the name of the person I'm talking too. Or someone to claim illness or exhaustion and thus giving me an out when I need one. I'll probably forget to invite him along to things, because I'll be used to doing this myself. The right person will invite himself. 

The right person will not try to make everything 50-50. We won't have to split the tab on the dinner bill. The right person will be working to build a life together and will realize that somedays he has to give 90 because I can only handle 10. The right person will also have days when he needs 90. The right person won't keep count.

The right person will love me straight through my crazy. He'll know it's really ignorance and fear. The right person will realize I really have no idea how to do this. How to share a life. How to give and take. 

He'll dance to the beat of his own drum and me to mine. But our beats will come together to make a song. He'll dance with me in public and not be afraid to be mine...he'll teach me to not be afraid to be his. He'll make plans and keep them and eventually I'll discover that as a unit, there is not less of me. There is more of us. 

And I'll relax, knowing that there is someone to catch me when I fall, call me on my crap and hold me when I'm afraid. He'll hold the skies up with his shoulders when I need him too. And I'll do the same for him and I won't be afraid that this will make me smaller, because I will never be less important to him. We'll be a team and we'll be better together than we are alone. 

So, right person. I'm ready to find you. I'm ready to learn and dance and laugh. 

But mostly, I'm ready to love and be loved. 

You can't hit the puppy...

I've mentioned before that I got a long email once from Smash's other significant ex.

While I thought that my heartbreak and this horrible situation was unique to me, apparently, we're both just that unique because all the lies, cheating, porn addiction and trolling for transvestites happened to her as well. Which is weird. Weird because it's so seedy you find yourself in an odd position of thinking "wow...this happened to someone else?" and weird because you think, "how did I miss this?" 

...and considering all that I do know...and all that I have learned...the real question is...how much did I miss?

and how?

it's the damn blue eyes and the sometimes adorable, usually awkward way he'd approach things. I found his attempts just adorable enough to look into his sweet eyes and forget that he'd hurt me. I'd look at the awkward way he was trying to perfect making me dinner...watching a video on youtube for perfect lobster tails or bringing over a bottle of wine that he thought was a unique grape, but i knew you could buy at the grocery store. He'd miss the mark so much he'd be on it. 

and then he'd look at me, with those blue eyes...and I'd think "You can't hit the puppy." 

and no matter how valid my reason to be angry was, I'd swallow it...

The very first time I caught him cheating, I tearfully called him out. I told him that he'd have to choose between the girl in the pictures and me. It was his choice, but he couldn't have both...He got wildly animated with tears in his eyes. He told me that I made him "feel feelings he hadn't felt in so long...and that he got scared." He grabbed my shoulders with both hands and made me stare right into his eyes...and softly said "I love you." 

I had only known him a few months at this time and bought it. I swallowed my anger and hugged him and said I love you too...and we curled up on the couch and he rubbed my shoulders and we both cried a little. 

and I stopped being mad, because you can't hit the puppy. 

Fast forward through five years of having a puppy. 

Right after my birthday, while the flowers he sent me were still blooming on my counter, I found that Smash had accidentally sent me not one, but two pornographic videos from the girl in the region. They were disgusting and depicted incest porn. I was floored. I was also angry. On the phone that night he told me "Honey, she's just some tramp that Pat's wife knows. I don't know her. I gave her my number when I was drunk. I'm sorry. I don't know why she sent the videos. "

Ummm...yeah buddy...

and I'm not really that stupid...you know? I'm really not. I knew that if she was sending those videos, he was sending something just as perverted. I just didn't get those in my inbox. I knew that he was telling me he loved and missed me and telling her to send him pictures. 

I knew it because it was a familiar game. God only knows what he told her about me...

When he was walking in the house coming home a few days before Christmas, I was standing in the doorway. It was "my" house by now and no longer "ours" and the room that had been his studio was now my reading room. But when he walked in, it still felt like he was coming home. I was standing there, hands on my hips...ready for a fight.

He walked in and dropped his bag and hugged me. He looked straight into my eyes and said "I'm sorry I hurt you. That girl, she's nothing. She's some slut. She's not cute, she's not you. You are everything, I love you." 

You can't hit the puppy. 

But funny how you know something and you're just RIGHT about it? I knew he was lying right then. I also knew that she'd be getting a little more than she bargained for when she got into him...I was right about both. 

Sadly, he's the same guy. He's doing the same things he did to me and to the one before me. For all the feelings I have towards this girl, she actually didn't do anything to me. I know how he is. He lied. 

and he's lying right now...i have my text logs and DM's full of pictures to prove it. I heard about some of the stuff that happened in Dallas recently. I can't imagine it's that different from any of the stuff that's happened before. You think you have him...because he's there, he's in your bed...

But darling, when he's not in your bed, he's in someone else's. Or on the computer with someone else. At some point you'll get obsessed and start looking at his phone. Find my number. Call me. I'll give you the straight shot on the truth of what is happening. 

You won't believe me...or you'll believe him when he says it's over with those other girls or that he doesn't know "why" they call... That I'm lying because I'm trying to hurt him. 

But it won't be over because it will never be over. I'm not lying because I have nothing to gain by lying. He's lying and you'll catch him and he'll mumble all the "right words" to get you to listen.

You'll find yourself staring into those blue eyes and swallowing your anger. 

Because you can't hit the puppy.