April 20, 2007

Last time I took you through the beginning of 2006. I will try to make this one shorter so I can talk about what is currently going on. For some reason I feel it is important for you to understand the whole situation and how dumb I have been! So, on to the story...

Things were going great with kindred spirit and I. We had the same routine daily and weekly. Text beginning when we get to work in the morning and all day long until we could end our day and talk on the phone at night til we went to sleep. Sounds like 5Th grade doesn't it? It gets better! We didn't hang out as much for 2 reasons. He was seeing girlfriend/fiancee more nights a week and I didn't trust myself around him. I really was physically attracted to him. I like sex. What can I say? I knew if I saw him I would be tempted to sleep with him and he sure wasn't trying to get me not to! Then, on the last day of March, my life changed completely. I am not going to get into the whole story now. I don't know if I will ever be able to seeing as I am not dealing with this - by choice. My problem. Any way I'm just gonna say it to put it out there because it has huge meaning to the story. I took my perfectly healthy Mom to the doctor, who sent us to the hospital where she stayed for 2 weeks. After that she went home where my sister and I had to care for her and on April 29 she passed away. Thirty of the worst days of my entire life. I will get into my family dynamics another time as this is a very funny, sometimes shocking, always complicated subject for others to grasp.

I have been a single parent for the last 10 years. I have a daughter L who turned 18 this year and a son J who will turn 16 later in the year. At the time my Mom was diagnosed I was working 2 jobs. I took a leave of absence from my second job and a ton of time off from my real job so I could be with her. Kindred spirit was great during this time. I would talk to him in the morning after I had taken my kids to school on the way to the hospital. He would text periodically asking me how she was or how I was. If I needed a smile all I had to do was tell him and he would send me a cute picture of his dog or tell me a funny story. If I just wanted to see him he would send me a picture of what he was doing at the time. No matter what. If he was asleep he would get up and take a picture for me. I got some of the cutest pictures of him just getting out of bed with his hair all a mess and his eyes all sleepy! Trying to work, take care of my kids, host siblings who came in from out of town, and spend as much time at the hospital as I could I soon exhausted myself. I was so freaking tired. It didn't matter though because I had to keep on. It's funny how tragedy can befall you and the whole world will just keep going on because it doesn't give a shit what you are going through. I did not have the time nor the energy nor the emotion to spend on kindred spirit like I had before Mom got sick. I still had contact with him daily. Lots of time it would be right before my head hit the pillow and all I could do was tell him goodnight and I love you. After the first week I even skipped a night or two. I have to say, during the beginning of Mom's sickness some thing happened to me. I got pissed. Really pissed. I still am. I have lost more people than I have left. And damnit my Mom was the last straw. My brain and my heart started functioning differently. Unfortunately so did my mouth.

I remember random things during this time. I was at the drugstore picking up a prescription for my Mom. Kindred spirit and I were texting. Nothing big I'm sure but I remember texting him back and out of the blue telling him I wasn't going to allow myself to fall in love with him. His response? "Thanks for being honest." I know! One night he was talking about the pressure he was getting because girlfriend/fiancee was suspicious that he was still in contact with me and I just said, "If you need to quit talking to me then I can do that." His response? Nothing. I know!Another time, and I can't remember the details, but we were talking about sex and my mouth failed me again. He is very well endowed (which he knows and is very proud of!) and honestly, there is just something about being with him that really really gets to me. I have not told him that-ever. No, on this particular evening I told him he was impressive but was not, by far, the biggest I had ever had. I know! Seriously, I know! Some truths are not meant to be shared! You get the picture by now? I was pissed and scared out of my mind. My comfortable little world was falling apart and he was some of the problem. The truth is I was starting to fall in love with him. I didn't want to. I tried not to. After all, what kind of a relationship did we have anyway? He had a g/f - I had a b/f. We were cheaters who didn't cheat physically. I told him I love him - he told me he loves me. It was screwed up to say the least. Our daily talks ended sometime during this month. I noticed but couldn't find the energy to do anything about it. He would text me - I was busy. I would text him - he was busy. The nightly phone calls were no more - I had to stay and take care of my Mom at her house or come home at midnight and try to make up for not being here with my kids. The night I got a phone call from my sister at 3 am telling me to get to Mom's right away I called him. He was asleep so I left him a desperate text telling him I was scared shitless because something was wrong. He text me back as I walked in to my Mom's house complete with the paramedics and police inside. She had died. She was sick but we were told when she left the hospital worst case scenario was 4 years. Not 2 weeks! I had just left there 9 hours before. Total shock. I didn't answer my text right away, of course, I was busy being blown away by all that was being said to me. 5 "what's wrong" texts and 2 unanswered phone calls later, I text him back and said "she's dead."

When I was sitting in the funeral home making arrangements I received a text from kindred spirit simply saying, "I love you." When I was sitting in the limo, following the hearse, I received a text from kindred spirit simply saying, "I love you." Perfect timing those texts, except, they were texts. He wasn't there. Couldn't be. Our relationship was secret. She somehow found out he had called me during the last few days and threw one of her by now famous "fits." He told her about Mom, but that made no difference to her. I was fine with that. I didn't want to love him anyway. The feeling of being pissed off when Mom got sick went over the top when she died. I can not even think of a word to adequately describe the anger I have. So, I got through it the best I could. I have 5 siblings. 3 older brothers and 2 older sisters. Best sister ever and I were the only ones who stayed in this state, close to Mom. So it was pretty chaotic when all of them were here. I had other things to keep my mind occupied. My hurt, my children's hurt, my other siblings guilt for moving away, my nieces and nephew's, etc. It was pretty easy to keep my mind off of kindred spirit and how our relationship had taken a turn. Easy until things died down. Easy until I was left to "get back to normal." While I had been too busy with my life and problems to maintain my part of the relationship kindred spirit had grown closer with girlfriend/fiancee. He was busy with her when I would try to text or call. He couldn't talk when she was there which was almost daily now. When she fell asleep he would text or IM me. Not every night but still 3 or 4 nights a week. Phone calls became rare. There were no "deep" conversations. There was still flirting and an occasional I love you - mostly from me. Things had changed. There was a shift in our relationship. One night I asked him about it when we were online. I was totally unprepared for his response. After telling me ALL the things that had been going on in my life for the past 5 months and reminding me how he was THERE for me through it all, he told me he couldn't believe that I was now going to tell him I was pissed because he had FINALLY started living his own life! WTF? Seriously! I said something dumb along the lines of I thought I was a part of your life or something. I honestly don't remember the exact words. Or the rest of the conversation. That hurt like no other. To this day I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean.
Two weeks later she found his previous cell phone bill. It wasn't detailed but he had a ton of verizon to verizon minutes used, over 3,000 verizon to verizon texts, and over 1,000 verizon to verizon pictures. The only problem was she was not verizon! I, of course, am. It was a couple months old phone bill but off she went again nonetheless. He got upset and threw his phone across the room smashing it in to pieces. He called and told me what had happened and told me not to text him any more. Wouldn't have mattered. That was 8 months ago and he has yet to replace it. His answer to her was it wasn't me he was talking to it was his family. Her answer to him was that he could talk to his family from his home phone or use her cell. He said he didn't need to replace it because I was the main person he used it for and we could just talk online or on the phone. WTF?

A couple weeks later I found out from a mutual friend that they had decided to get married. They had set the date for 13 months away. I was totally shocked. I couldn't believe he had not told me this. I still talked to him. Granted not as often, or about as many things, but still! It was a few times a week! That night when he got online and IM'd me I asked him about it. His first reaction was to be pissed at mutual friend and then he told me he wasn't ready for me to know yet. When I asked him why he said he wasn't ready to discuss it with me. I told him fine we would discuss it when he was ready and then we changed the subject, ended up talking about sex as usual, and that was the last time his wedding was brought up.

Oh, it gets better! About a month after that, she broke in to his screen name! She found some pretty sexy/raunchy/extremely fun emails we had sent back and forth. Yes, she somehow knew my screen name. She called him over to her house early that morning and they got in a huge one. His answer to her was that mutual friend must have used his screen name and sent those back and forth with me. It wasn't him. Her answer to him was two-fold. If he had not been the one to talk to me and he doesn't talk to me, then he should have no problem calling me right then and there, in front of her, on speaker phone, and breaking all ties with me. So, I get a phone call that morning and he says something bad has happened and he is going to have to cut all ties with me. He, of course, is sorry, but he can't speak to me any more. The second thing she asked him to do was change his screen name. She wanted it to be private and for him to block all but her and the 2 friends she approves of from seeing that he was online. Which, of course, no one would know his new screen name so that was a moot point. Anyway, he did this also. He also called me that night and told me what was going on. When she has one of her episodes he lies his way out of it and then lays low for a week or two. Always. Since they have started dating he's done this.

A week later she feels the need to IM me. I was not in the mood. This had become a stupid situation and I was not going to be forced to act like a child any more. Our mutual friend had started to take the rap for kindred spirit as he had done in the past but decided he was also sick of lying and told her the truth. So, she asked me. I told her the truth. Well, mostly. I told her they were a joke because that night I think they really were. For once it wasn't pictures of ourselves we were sending but rather pictures off a porn site of some guy with an 18" member! She was on the phone with kindred spirit at the same time she was IMing me. He, of course, was telling her I was lying, and I, of course, was telling her whatever! I was sick of the lies. She said she knew it was her fault things had gotten so out of hand and if I could just listen to her for a minute maybe I would understand. Honestly, at this point, I didn't give a shit. I wasn't gonna listen to her. I was beyond caring what caused her episodes and for her to be a control freak. I was done lying and if that wasn't good enough then ....yeah. Within 5 minutes I get an IM from a new screen name telling me it's kindred spirit. He is pissed. I have betrayed him. We have a huge fight and agree that we are never gonna talk again. I am so sick of this. He thinks I have changed. I think he has changed. My friend, who was so sure of himself, who had no problem standing up for his sometimes off the wall beliefs, would not allow himself to be controlled like this. Sorry, but kindred spirit was not in existence any more. So we ended it. It turned out in the end we weren't fighting, just telling each other how disappointed we were. I was crying by this time. I was beyond sick of losing people I loved. This hurt. Too much. I ended it by telling him I loved him, that I really did wish him well, and that if he ever needed anything I would be here. I meant it with all my heart. His response was, "Maybe someday."

This happened at the end of August. Once again, this post has become too long. I promise I will finish the story soon. I have to. I talked to him today!