I Hate The Darkness

It's 4 am, and I'm here again.  Here in the place I absolutely hate the most.  Feeling things I should not feel about someone who is, to be precise, 3936 miles away from me.  Why is it that I can't learn from past mistakes?  I have played this game many, many times before.  It shouldn't be so hard - I have a fling, I care more than he does, he leaves, I cry, I pine for a while, and then I go on my happy way.  He stays out of my life, eager to avoid any awkward scenes, and I - just as happily - stay away from him.  So why is it so different this time? 

The saying is 'Fool you once, shame on him.  Fool you twice, shame on you."  Well, at this point the second time came and went three or four times ago.  And yet it's his face I see at night before I go to bed.  And it's him I try to convince myself not to think of - or to hate.  My life is not a fairy tale - it's not a book where the plucky heroine gets her heart broken and runs off to perform daring deeds and defeat the dragon only to have her one true love come chasing after her on is noble steed to sweep her off her feet.  Some people have that kind of story, but I'm not one of them.  I don't know why I can't let go of him - or rather, I know all the reasons I SHOULD let go of him.  And I know that I deserve far better than he can offer.  And yet it comes down to this - I cannot seem to let him go.  I could speculate for hours on the whys, the wherefores, and the maybes.  I could talk about emotions or feelings or desires.  I could talk about all the things he did wrong - or all the things he tried to do right.  I could talk about all the ways he used me, hurt me - and I could talk about all the days he made me laugh.  I could talk about how he broke my heart - and about how I saw it coming.  I could talk about how I had the choice to stay with him or walk away - and how I chose to walk away.   And yet I return over and over again, like some junkie.  And then finally, when I think I'll finally be able to walk away, he decides he needs to talk to me.  To be in touch.  I laughed at the first attempt, resisted the second - and crumbled at the third.       

Of all the choices I've ever made, in this moment I can't remember any that I have questioned more extensively than the choices I made while with him.  And all the things I valued most - loyalty, trust, friendship, love - none of them turned out to be what I thought.  They were all twisted, distorted, changed.  I'm not really sure I recognize them anymore.  

Which leads me straight back to my present conflict.  It's almost 4:30 in the morning and I am awake, trying not to think about him and inevitably unable to avoid the thought of him.  Tomorrow I'll get up and go about my day as if none of this has happened, as if I haven't spent one more sleepless, tear-touched night thinking of the past.  And I'll regret my momentary lapse of sanity, as usual.  And once again I will decide that I've made far to great of an ass of myself in the past to risk doing it again, to risk writing yet another letter, to spill my guts one more time.  After a while the one-sided conversations get to be a little tiring, a little overwhelming.  After a while, vulnerability loses it's charm, it's old-fashioned appeal.

  

I loved and hated who I got to be when I was with him, but now I just hate who I've become.