How Deep Is Your Love?
So Phoenix and I decided to stay together and work on things, and they have definitely gotten better, but we both aren't sure if this is something that will evolve. And with all the people I'm meeting through school and this next chapter in my life, I'm starting to wonder if investing my time in something that we definitely know doesn't have the long term future...am I wasting time? Even if I'm really happy with him? How can you definitively say something won't evolve when you're still learning each other?
On top of my own reservations with him, I have all these other emotions tied up with other men and it's certainly not helping. I've always been a firm believer that once you let someone in to your heart, they're there forever, it's just the amount of space they take up that changes with time. I definitely do still feel like this is true, but geez is it getting crowded in there.
When I told burdman that I'd reconciled with Phoenix, he got legit angry with me and called me stupid and the most frustrating and illogical person. I love birdman, he is one of my best friends, and there is some sexual tension there... and I've had my inklings that maybe he likes me, but the majority of the time he makes me feel like he just puts up with me because I don't leave him alone. He's fucking confusing...but there, that's one example of love, the love of friendship. I genuinely care about him and enjoy spending time with him but am starting to get concerned that I'm unintentionally leading him on, and after the heart break I know he has already endured, I don't know what I'm supposed to do...
Then there's Lumberjack, I still find myself thinking about him and wondering how he's doing, and in the past I wouldn't have blinked at sending him a quick text and having a brief convo, but it feels like at this point I have no business still caring about him or wanting to be involved in his life. With him, there was the love of the potential, I saw so much there and could easily see that we'd compliment each other well.
Just this past week, another man resurfaced, Mountain Man, the biggest what if I have from my time with the Sailor. I was smitten with this man immediately upon meeting him and almost called off my engagement because of the strong feelings I had for him after only knowing each other for two weeks. But I didn't, I decided I owed it to my Sailor to try one last time and thus began the path towards checking of boxes without looking for content and finding myself in someone else's life. I contacted Mountain Man in December of 2013 when I first truly began to acknowledge that I wasn't happy, and I asked him if I'd left as large of an impression on him as he had on me. He said that I had and that he thought of me often and wondered about circumstances but that felt he couldn't be honest about his feelings with me being married. I definitely let myself run away with the idea of him and I. He stopped responding to me because he's a respectable man and did not want to be entangled in an immoral situation. There was no contact between us for over a year, but I wrote him a letter in early August of last year after I officially decided to leave the Sailor where I told him that I was hitting reset, knew I needed time to figure my shit out, but that this hunger to know him was still strong, even three years later. It's now been four years since we drunkenly made out and started something that had a lot of promise. I contacted him because of a project I have for grad school and now we've been chatting pretty regularly and the giddiness I get from the interaction is something I haven't felt in a long time. He doesn't know about Phoenix yet, I haven't lied to him and even mentioned going to the wedding this past weekend.... I think my reservation in outright saying it is the fear that he'll cut me out again. This is infatuation love, I got to know him enough to know he's the kinda of person I'm looking for and that we have chemistry, but I still don't know him to know how things would play out, he is and will always be this What if...
And of course there's still Him. Luckily between school and work and Phoenix and now Mountain Man, there really hasn't been as much space in my head for the dull aches I feel for him to surface. The last few weeks have been tough though. Two weeks ago marked the day I first told him I loved him, and instead I awkwardly watched him fill up his water in silence as I waited for my lunch to heat up in the microwave. Last week marked a year since one of the best days I've ever had where we played hooky together after I got back to town from closing out the apartment I shared with my husband. Instead I had a super stressful day at work and had a brief surprise bump in with him in the repro room which is usually safe, and then I was so rattled still that when I went to clean my beloved bulldog mug I dropped it and it shattered and I had to try not to cry at work. I ended up going to Phoenix's after work and ate with him and it turned out his Sister's dog had died that day which lead to me actually telling the story of how my dog died and I cried and he held me and I was so grateful to have someone that cares about me, but even then the only person I really wanted to hold me was Him. The love I feel for that man is the most intense I've ever felt and everyday there's this underlying fear that no one else will ever invoke those kinds of feelings in me and because of that no matter how great things may be, I will always feel a little bit empty.
All these men may have caused me grief, but I will always believe that all the heartbreak is just practice and training, and will only make me appreciate that final heart all that much more.
On top of my own reservations with him, I have all these other emotions tied up with other men and it's certainly not helping. I've always been a firm believer that once you let someone in to your heart, they're there forever, it's just the amount of space they take up that changes with time. I definitely do still feel like this is true, but geez is it getting crowded in there.
When I told burdman that I'd reconciled with Phoenix, he got legit angry with me and called me stupid and the most frustrating and illogical person. I love birdman, he is one of my best friends, and there is some sexual tension there... and I've had my inklings that maybe he likes me, but the majority of the time he makes me feel like he just puts up with me because I don't leave him alone. He's fucking confusing...but there, that's one example of love, the love of friendship. I genuinely care about him and enjoy spending time with him but am starting to get concerned that I'm unintentionally leading him on, and after the heart break I know he has already endured, I don't know what I'm supposed to do...
Then there's Lumberjack, I still find myself thinking about him and wondering how he's doing, and in the past I wouldn't have blinked at sending him a quick text and having a brief convo, but it feels like at this point I have no business still caring about him or wanting to be involved in his life. With him, there was the love of the potential, I saw so much there and could easily see that we'd compliment each other well.
Just this past week, another man resurfaced, Mountain Man, the biggest what if I have from my time with the Sailor. I was smitten with this man immediately upon meeting him and almost called off my engagement because of the strong feelings I had for him after only knowing each other for two weeks. But I didn't, I decided I owed it to my Sailor to try one last time and thus began the path towards checking of boxes without looking for content and finding myself in someone else's life. I contacted Mountain Man in December of 2013 when I first truly began to acknowledge that I wasn't happy, and I asked him if I'd left as large of an impression on him as he had on me. He said that I had and that he thought of me often and wondered about circumstances but that felt he couldn't be honest about his feelings with me being married. I definitely let myself run away with the idea of him and I. He stopped responding to me because he's a respectable man and did not want to be entangled in an immoral situation. There was no contact between us for over a year, but I wrote him a letter in early August of last year after I officially decided to leave the Sailor where I told him that I was hitting reset, knew I needed time to figure my shit out, but that this hunger to know him was still strong, even three years later. It's now been four years since we drunkenly made out and started something that had a lot of promise. I contacted him because of a project I have for grad school and now we've been chatting pretty regularly and the giddiness I get from the interaction is something I haven't felt in a long time. He doesn't know about Phoenix yet, I haven't lied to him and even mentioned going to the wedding this past weekend.... I think my reservation in outright saying it is the fear that he'll cut me out again. This is infatuation love, I got to know him enough to know he's the kinda of person I'm looking for and that we have chemistry, but I still don't know him to know how things would play out, he is and will always be this What if...
And of course there's still Him. Luckily between school and work and Phoenix and now Mountain Man, there really hasn't been as much space in my head for the dull aches I feel for him to surface. The last few weeks have been tough though. Two weeks ago marked the day I first told him I loved him, and instead I awkwardly watched him fill up his water in silence as I waited for my lunch to heat up in the microwave. Last week marked a year since one of the best days I've ever had where we played hooky together after I got back to town from closing out the apartment I shared with my husband. Instead I had a super stressful day at work and had a brief surprise bump in with him in the repro room which is usually safe, and then I was so rattled still that when I went to clean my beloved bulldog mug I dropped it and it shattered and I had to try not to cry at work. I ended up going to Phoenix's after work and ate with him and it turned out his Sister's dog had died that day which lead to me actually telling the story of how my dog died and I cried and he held me and I was so grateful to have someone that cares about me, but even then the only person I really wanted to hold me was Him. The love I feel for that man is the most intense I've ever felt and everyday there's this underlying fear that no one else will ever invoke those kinds of feelings in me and because of that no matter how great things may be, I will always feel a little bit empty.
All these men may have caused me grief, but I will always believe that all the heartbreak is just practice and training, and will only make me appreciate that final heart all that much more.
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