When the past can no longer define the future.
Recent events among acquaintances have got me thinking about a life I lived long before I started putting Jen into a diabetic coma every time she's around me and my fiance. Back when J and I were not sweet and sappy but at each other's throats.
I think I fell in love with him the moment I looked at him. There was something about his swagger, about how he knew exactly what he was doing even though he didn't. We went through hell together. What happened isn't important. What's important is that it happened. It brought us together and it tore us apart all at the same time. He asked me to marry him. I said yes. But when we were really put to the test, I fled. I turned tables and ran as far as I could and we didn't see each other for six years until I showed up, as all things, his fucking boss. And in those six years, I was so angry at him for doing what I told him to do, for not following me. I begged him to respect my choice and then when he did, I told him he was an asshole for doing it.
It doesn't matter where we worked or what we were doing. It matters that I was his boss and he wanted me back and I shot him down so fast. But that didn't stop the emotions. God, the more I saw him the more I wanted him. It was a leak in a dam and by the time I wanted him back, I was a heaving mass of emotion and hormones and the asshole had moved on. He'd moved on to some beautiful blonde who, for the love of God, was perfect for him. And not in a boring way. I watched their interplay. I watched them together. He loved her like he used to love me. And every moment they spent together was a knife in my gut. It didn't make me move on. It made me bitter. It pissed me off because dammit, he got married after we broke up and the two of them divorced. I had it in my head it was because he couldn't get over me. Truth was, he's fucked up. But he really cared about Hollis and I knew her well enough to know we'd have been best friends if she hadn't been sleeping with the man I loved.
I still don't know what broke them up but I have a feeling it had everything to do with her desire to retire and his single minded devotion to his job. So she retired. She went off somewhere - Hawaii - and I saw my chance and I pounced like a cat on a lame mouse, I pounced. And he rejected me. I can still feel the feel of the skin under my fingers after I slapped him. And it wasn't like it is in every romantic movie you've ever seen. We didn't kiss passionately after I slapped him. No, we fought. He called me on leaving him and I called him on his inability to actually commit emotionally. It went on for weeks with things growing more and more tense between us. Meanwhile, my own dedication to my job and some of the issues within it were making it nearly impossible to work together.
I toyed with transferring him to any office around the world. Anywhere to get his eyes away from me. He knew all my secrets and I didn't know ... I was still learning his. He knew mine by looking at me. He always did. And it made me so ... angry. I just wanted him in my bed at night. I wanted to get back what we'd had then.
See, the problem was, we couldn't get it back. We weren't those people anymore. Six years had passed between us and close to another three before we finally stopped fighting and started loving again. I was living with doubt and insecurity cloaked in political ambition and he was living with ghosts that still keep him awake at night. I needed top stop blaming him for my choices to leave. He needed to accept that I wasn't the woman I used to be. We both needed to accept our changes. And it took fight after fight after fight before we realized that. We had to start over. Completely. Otherwise it was just unhealthy fucking between old friends.
I never wanted to admit it. I wanted to be the girl I was then. I wanted him to be the one at my side while I went and changed everything. I never took his feelings into account. Not until the end. Not until I ran again. Yes again. I could have told him. I could have trusted him. Instead, per my MO, I ran. And there were times I blamed him, somehow, for how I felt. Somehow all of my mistakes were his fault.
See, the thing is ... I still don't know how I came through the other side so that I didn't blame everyone else for my numerous mistakes. I just know that I did and because of it, my life is better. Not to mention that when J showed up at my door, we were actually able to start talking again. And again, we aren't the same people we were when I left yet again. So again, we have to get to know each other. It's fun doing it and it's scary too. For as diabetic as I know we are, we also have a long, long way to go. I don't know if we'll ever get there. But we're trying. It takes a lot of effort.
Anyway ... it's all on my mind tonight. The past is what it is. All that matters now is a future.
I think I fell in love with him the moment I looked at him. There was something about his swagger, about how he knew exactly what he was doing even though he didn't. We went through hell together. What happened isn't important. What's important is that it happened. It brought us together and it tore us apart all at the same time. He asked me to marry him. I said yes. But when we were really put to the test, I fled. I turned tables and ran as far as I could and we didn't see each other for six years until I showed up, as all things, his fucking boss. And in those six years, I was so angry at him for doing what I told him to do, for not following me. I begged him to respect my choice and then when he did, I told him he was an asshole for doing it.
It doesn't matter where we worked or what we were doing. It matters that I was his boss and he wanted me back and I shot him down so fast. But that didn't stop the emotions. God, the more I saw him the more I wanted him. It was a leak in a dam and by the time I wanted him back, I was a heaving mass of emotion and hormones and the asshole had moved on. He'd moved on to some beautiful blonde who, for the love of God, was perfect for him. And not in a boring way. I watched their interplay. I watched them together. He loved her like he used to love me. And every moment they spent together was a knife in my gut. It didn't make me move on. It made me bitter. It pissed me off because dammit, he got married after we broke up and the two of them divorced. I had it in my head it was because he couldn't get over me. Truth was, he's fucked up. But he really cared about Hollis and I knew her well enough to know we'd have been best friends if she hadn't been sleeping with the man I loved.
I still don't know what broke them up but I have a feeling it had everything to do with her desire to retire and his single minded devotion to his job. So she retired. She went off somewhere - Hawaii - and I saw my chance and I pounced like a cat on a lame mouse, I pounced. And he rejected me. I can still feel the feel of the skin under my fingers after I slapped him. And it wasn't like it is in every romantic movie you've ever seen. We didn't kiss passionately after I slapped him. No, we fought. He called me on leaving him and I called him on his inability to actually commit emotionally. It went on for weeks with things growing more and more tense between us. Meanwhile, my own dedication to my job and some of the issues within it were making it nearly impossible to work together.
I toyed with transferring him to any office around the world. Anywhere to get his eyes away from me. He knew all my secrets and I didn't know ... I was still learning his. He knew mine by looking at me. He always did. And it made me so ... angry. I just wanted him in my bed at night. I wanted to get back what we'd had then.
See, the problem was, we couldn't get it back. We weren't those people anymore. Six years had passed between us and close to another three before we finally stopped fighting and started loving again. I was living with doubt and insecurity cloaked in political ambition and he was living with ghosts that still keep him awake at night. I needed top stop blaming him for my choices to leave. He needed to accept that I wasn't the woman I used to be. We both needed to accept our changes. And it took fight after fight after fight before we realized that. We had to start over. Completely. Otherwise it was just unhealthy fucking between old friends.
I never wanted to admit it. I wanted to be the girl I was then. I wanted him to be the one at my side while I went and changed everything. I never took his feelings into account. Not until the end. Not until I ran again. Yes again. I could have told him. I could have trusted him. Instead, per my MO, I ran. And there were times I blamed him, somehow, for how I felt. Somehow all of my mistakes were his fault.
See, the thing is ... I still don't know how I came through the other side so that I didn't blame everyone else for my numerous mistakes. I just know that I did and because of it, my life is better. Not to mention that when J showed up at my door, we were actually able to start talking again. And again, we aren't the same people we were when I left yet again. So again, we have to get to know each other. It's fun doing it and it's scary too. For as diabetic as I know we are, we also have a long, long way to go. I don't know if we'll ever get there. But we're trying. It takes a lot of effort.
Anyway ... it's all on my mind tonight. The past is what it is. All that matters now is a future.