The X-Factor

Okay, another thing that happens when one is “caught in the 20s” is that sometimes you end up dating another person “caught in the 20s” with equally or more dysfunctional issues than yourself. Case in point, I gave a year and a some change to someone whom has serious issues with commitment, intimacy, and follow-through. What I initially viewed as extra caution = high level of respect for me, actually turned out as him being deathly unable to allow himself to fall in love with another person. Of course he has legitimate reasons for his behavior (death of both birth parents, infidelity of his previous 2 girlfriends) but is that still a reason for him to be inconsistent and unstable as a see saw? Actually, now that I see it written in print, YES. Where the heck was I you may ask? I was in love la-la land. TRIPPING. I could blame it on my undergraduate drug use but that didn’t really kill all of my brain cells. Just some of them and even so, potheads should still be able to smell a rat. Anyway, if the truth be told, I loved him in high school as a teenager and fell in love with him as a grown woman last year…At first it was great. I just knew that he was the ONE. I have never loved anyone like I loved him. He was perfect to me. Even his hands. Each of his fingers were designed by God so perfectly that I just stared at them sometimes, lost in them. But anyway, back to the story. So, anyway, his brother graduated yesterday from the university I work for and he comes in town. I haven’t seen him nor heard his voice since that fateful month of February when it all fell apart and I fell apart (but that is another story for another blog). So, he sends me a text message on Saturday saying that he is coming into town and wants to talk. Anxiety swallows me up yet this is the moment I have been waiting for-to tell him how much he sucks and to see how much he would grovel. To make a long story short, we meet over a soy chai latte and a caramel macchiato and he attempts to explain himself to me and to apologize profusely for his actions. I am angry. I am hateful. I am mad. I am extremely hurt and so sad. I am still in love with him and I hate him more for ruining the life that I had created in my mind of the two of us growing together, traveling together, working together, laughing together, and growing old together. I had to erase all of that in February and now I was forced to erase all of that all over again. It would be so much easier for me to get over him if I knew that he did not love me or did not care about me or that we really were not meant to be together. I would then be able to put him in the closet with the rest of the Xes. But I cannot. I believe that there is just that one person who really GETS YOU. Sometimes, you don’t end up with them and you just do with what you have or who you end up having. But every time you see that person who really GETS YOU, the both of you are reminded of that connection you’ll forever have. You’ll say your hellos and then your goodbyes, walk away, and then forlornly shake off that great love you still hold inside and continue on with your life. Until the next time you meet when you are forced to do it all over again…