WTF???

WTF??? I know that's the question on your minds, right?

Here it is then...

Of course I am still in love with Jeff. Has there ever really been anyone except for me who thought otherwise? Why I continue to feel so much for someone who hurt me so badly is really a rotten thing, but it's there. It's impossible to answer 'why' on this one. I couldn't have told you why from the first moment I fell. Yes, he's not the man I believed him to be. But he still is someone I have so much fun talking to - Even when we lived together our conversations were always full of engaging intensity. He makes me laugh, he makes me think, he makes me groan but it's never dull.

And yes, I also know that I need to let go somehow and move on. I can never be with him again. I know it. He knows it. I know that he's not sitting around wishing he could be with me and that my feelings are very one-sided, but somehow I am just still full of so much lingering feeling for him. I wish I wasn't.

It is a different feeling. Maybe there's a safety in knowing I can't be with him for us both.

My sister found out I'd seen him and chewed my ass out seven different ways yesterday. A co-worker also blasted me but then she said something really insightful to me.

She was a battered wife. She said that emotional abuse is just as hurtful and in her opinion I was emotionally abused. She said "I can't beat you up about this, you'll do that on your own - I can't make you stay away from him because you will go to him when you want no matter what anyone says or does but I can tell you this: He hurt you before without remorse and he will do it again. At some point you will decide in your heart that you have had enough and you will stop going to him for a moment knowing that the price you pay later is more than you can bear. Until you reach that point in your heart, you're trapped by your own feelings."

She's right. I've felt like a crack-addict or something. I've lied to friends and family to get to see him. I've snuck around like a thief. I am not proud. If anything, I am disturbed by how easily he can get me under his thumb.

I did see him last night after all. I went over after work and when I arrived he was sipping merlot and watching basketball. We sat on the couch together and talked and watched the game. It was fun and it was, in it's own way, awkward as if we were new lovers. Occasionally we'd touch with the appearance if accidentally. A leg might bump and we'd leave it in place. He'd had a few glasses of wine, which may account for the night, but he was as involved in the flirtation as I was.

When the game ended, it was more awkward. It was the point I should have said goodnight and we both seemed unsure of what to do next. Under some 'innocent' gesture that I can't recall, we ended up hugging and he began to rub my back which kept me in place. A minute later we were kissing.

The kissing was better. More like the old kisses that used to melt me. It was a full-on make-out session and we began to move, while still kissing, towards the bedroom.

The rest is obvious.

It might have been the wine but it seemed somewhat 'more' to me last night. It felt like there was less of a casual interlude and more of a connection. There was more kissing, a slower movement, a deeper clutch.

When I left, I knew my heart had fallen just a bit more. I'm sure his closed up the moment I left the sheets.

At one point he asked if I would be staying the night. I pointed out that I couldn't and he said it was okay with him either way.

Sleeping beside him? Curling against him? Snuggled against his back like I did for 365 days of my life?

Oh, really...my heart would have shattered entirely. I would have lost my free will entirely and lay there in complete surrender and pain.

Again, I don't know when or if I will see him again.

So...wtf?

All of my life I have been this somewhat independent thinking person. I was the 'lead' in every relationship. With Jeff, I was able to be his entirely and I could never in a million years explain how deep and strong my love for him was. For the duration of our relationship I was always deeply in love. No other man existed. Nothing mattered but pleasing him - had he asked, I would gladly have given up sleeping and eating to wait on him hand and foot. I was beyond submissive with him...I was lost entirely. No one has ever been able to do that to me. It's a bit like training a dog to love only you and then abandoning it...I've been so lost in myself. Feeling moments of him again is dangerous, stupid and wrong but still something I crave as strongly as a drug addict.

I don't allow myself to wish that he would feel the same because god forbid that he did, it would create more problems.

Yes, I will hurt again. Hopefully less. But yes, I still love him. Even I hate myself for saying that, but I can only swear to you that you can't understand or judge without being in my very specific shoes. You have to know that if it was less to any degree I would never put myself through this - you have to know that if I could turn this off and run away I would.

Maybe the next time he hurts me it will be enough to send me away for good.

I don't know anything anymore. I'm still working towards my goals.

No one knows. No one ever will if I have my way. I see him in the late hours of night after work when my daughter is home with my stepfather and both are asleep.

God help me, I know it's wrong. I know it's setting myself up for another fall. I know he doesn't love me.

But if you only knew how much I wish things had turned out differently...if you only knew. There have been times that I would not have traded a second of being in his arms and feeling loved for all the money in the entire world. Times when I would have sacrificed a limb or an organ rather than not sleep beside him.

I'll keep this in perspective for what it is. I still love him, so I see him when I can. He doesn't love me, but will play around with me and be friendly, so he'll see me occasionally. There's nowhere for it to go. There's no future. This will end. Probably badly.

But for just this moment...

I know I'll be angry again. I've been so angry for so long. This tiny moment in time has removed that anger. It has felt so wonderful to not feel those ugly feelings. That may even be a part of it all for me.

I know I will cry again. There are times I think it could even be worth the tears.

The ultimate irony is that this is the man who hurt me so deeply and so badly that I lost the ability to let any man close to me again. I've actually slapped away the hands of men at work who reach out to adjust my collar or to touch my arm. I've literally reacted reflexively and slapped their hand away.

And this is the man I let get the closest to me.

Perhaps it's time to shave my head, get a few new tattoos and be carted forcefully away to a rehab program.