8- Like, Love, Lost, Found

I thought I had fallen in love… really, it was just the endorphins from my first time. He got up and left and I was crushed. I thought I’d never feel that awful again, but boy is it ever the truest of life’s experiences to completely envelop yourself, in love, with another person. Physically yes, but emotionally, mentally, with combining family in the relationship, and sharing your greatest excitements and fears. Love can change everything, and it did for me.

C. was my everything, and I mean everything. I became completely enveloped in him. We worked together, we went to the gym together, and we even lived together more often than not. He was 8 years older than me and I always went with what he wanted to do, where he wanted to eat, what he thought was best. I thought the relationship was great. I loved him, I really did, and quickly! He was a slow burn to love. I will never forget the day, the day I stayed home from the gym (very unlike me) and he texted me all morning long. “I hear your voice in this song I’m listening to.” “I’m thinking about you.” “I miss you.” When he came home he jumped on the bed, got on all fours on top of me, looked me dead in the eye and said “I love you.” His look of astonishment took me aback. We both paused in the moment, time stood still for what could have been six seconds or six hours, then, a breath, a smile, a laugh, a kiss, a collapse next to me. We laid together looking up and holding hands. We spent forever looking at each other in bewildering wonder. That feeling I will never forget. It was bliss. It was the happiest moment of my entire life. When I die I like to think what heaven is is getting to relive the best days of your life over and over again. No more fear. No more hatred. No more night. I hope and pray I get to experience this day again when my days end.

I caused the demise of this relationship. No, it was meant to fail. It was very unhealthy, I was living an unhealthy life. I was emotionally and verbally abused by C. I have bipolar disorder, did you know? As of now, it is well under control. Back then however, it ran wild. I was a heavy drinker, to calm myself during mania times, and it put me on the edge with my depression. I was so up and down it is honestly amazing I made it through (almost) a year as a performer in a professional theater I was a part of, and I am still amazed C. and I stayed together for all of that time. I lost myself. It took a horrible accident to start setting me right. I ignored very clear messages. Messages telling me the job wasn’t right and messages telling me the relationship wasn’t either.

I suppose the first sign should have been when we settled in together. About 3 months in we started nesting like a pair of lesbians on a second date. Every night I would lay on his chest and try to cuddle… though he wasn’t a cuddlier so often we ended up on opposite sides of the bed. This continued from the first night together, to the last. We had sex, twice. Yep, over a year together sex, twice. I was extremely naïve and stupidly infatuated. I believe that you get back what you put out into the universe. I guess it could be seen that I got back a boyfriend who constantly cheated on me for months and months and told me I was too fat and unattractive to desire to come home to when I put out into the world a whole boat load of selfishness and crazyness.

I moved on and moved up. Literally, this time to a guy who was taller than me! (That was pretty darn exciting for me, a 6’0” guy!) N. was everything C. was not. He was musically, mentally, and physically gifted. I was in awe of N. I followed his performance career closer than I followed my own. I loved showing him off to my friends. I felt like I could be myself and then some with N. He also rocked my world, keeping me interested from morning coffee to late night romps. Speaking of that, remember in an earlier post how I said there was a good story behind my spine surgery and paralysis? Here it is! N. and I were having an excellent afternoon adventure in his basement apartment bedroom when a scream shot out of the top of my lungs as loud as I have ever made a sound. Then came his mother running down the stairs, pounding on the door, “What’s going on? Is everything alright?” A hand gets slapped over my sobbing mouth, “Don’t… Say… Anything. We’re fine mom…” As we are still one body, I get slowly pulled off him, pick myself up off of the floor, and drive myself home. Every second of the drive losing more feeling in my right leg. Looking back, driving might not have been the best idea, but how do I call home and say “Mom, I need you to come and get me… What’s wrong? My boyfriend broke me during sex.” That would go over so very well.

For the next month or two phone calls with N. dwindled down to near never and finally I called him and said our relationship just wasn’t strong enough if we could survive being apart from each other so easily for six weeks. That was over two years ago and I’ve stayed single since. I needed to spend time on me, it took acts of being cheated on, losing my job, and actually becoming paralyzed during sex to take time for myself. I’ve since started reading two books a month, mostly health and self-help books. Yes C. I’m taking much better care of myself, I could be a Real boyfriend this time around if we had what we had. Yes N. I’m eating a vegan diet and am taking really good care of myself trying to not take as many Rx’s. You both would be proud of the guy you helped me become. I will always love you both.