healing a broken soul

I’m getting better. Slowly. An inch at a time. Talking about Quinn still hurts sometimes. Talking to Quinn still hurts pretty much every time and those times are few and far between and honestly, it’s better that way. Whether or not it will remain better I don’t know. Waiting and seeing how things go is about all I can do on that front. I still love him but I’ve learned to accept that the Quinn I loved is not the same Quinn I talk to now. I have accepted that a part of me will always love past-Quinn. During one of our rare conversations we were talking about memories of our relationship and he asked me didn’t I have any good ones? The honest answer is that right now, I don’t. All the memories I have of us are bitter right now. Bitter because I don’t know when the lying started, when this chasm opened up between us where I was on one side in love and he was on the other drawing away from me. Bitter because they remind me of what I no longer have but still want. In time they may become only bittersweet. But I don’t know when or how long it will take. Those memories may not be simply sweet for a long time to come. He tried to make me promise not to let his actions, the hurt he caused me, stop me from opening up to possibilities when they come along. He knows how much he has hurt me. He took the time to look and see and he says he hates himself for doing that to me. I don’t think I believe him. I don’t know what to believe when he talks to me anymore. And now he tries to open up to me the way I always used to ask him to when we were together. I almost want to tell him that it is too little, too late. Because really it is. I don’t know how he can fix our friendship right now. I don’t think he can. He asks why I don’t open up to him and I told him the truth, I don’t feel like he is as close to me now as he was before. Now I don’t know how to trust him, how to open up to him, what to say or how to say it. He already showed that his love for me was fickle, fleeting, weak. What does that say about him? What kind of a friend can he be when I’ve seen how he is with some of his friends. They don’t speak for months, they hardly spend time together. Those aren’t the kinds of friends that I have, those aren’t the kinds of friendships I have. True I have friends that I can go months without speaking to and we start talking like no time has passed at all but those are friends that have been a part of my life for years before we moved to that, years of talking every day, of learning all the nuances and ins and outs of mannerisms and thought patterns. I can’t be that kind of friend with him. I don’t feel like I know him anymore. What I thought I knew was wrong.

I bury myself in work and hobbies. I tried going out for a while, still not sure if it’s for me or not. It’s kind of hit or miss situation. A lot of it depends on who I’m hanging out with, what we’re doing, how much alcohol is involved. I am supposed to have a date soon. I don’t really want to go on it but this guy really likes me and he hits on me all the time. I just want to be friends and have tried telling him that but it doesn’t tone down the flirting. So I’m giving him his date, seeing how it goes. I doubt anything will come of it because I’m not physically attracted to him, though he is a great guy. I wish I was attracted to him because then I might actually feel something other than anger and disappointment and resentment and hurt towards guys. But I don’t. Really I’m just hoping this will satisfy his curiosity about me. I am pretty sure most of his attraction comes from the fact that I am not attracted to him. Typical guy thinking. Hopefully the date will make him see that I’m really not interested and we are better off as just friends and that will end the whole him flirting and me feeling like a bitch when I flirt back out of habit then having to shoot him down when he starts thinking things have changed. I’ve told him a million times, I am a flirt, I’m pretty horny, but in reality I’m not interested. I was interested in hooking up with Christian because there were no feelings involved, it was what it was. There was no friendship to ruin. But I’m not going to sleep with this guy just to stroke his ego when I’m not attracted to him and there are definitely feelings involved. So instead I remain horny and more importantly lonely. I’m not really looking to get off when I say horny, when I say horny I mean the whole kit and caboodle, foreplay, mind-numbing sex, and the amazing glow afterward where you just lay together entwined and savoring the moment. I can’t have that and I don’t want anything less so I am celibate. The Christian disaster just proved to me once and for all that I am not meant to be even attracted to anyone right now. So I will enjoy flirting. I will keep my hormones under control and my infatuations to myself, locked down tight in my brain where no one will see them. I will not bother to get my hopes up that a guy even finds me attractive anymore. (No this is not me being down on myself, I know there are guys who find me attractive, and I am assured by some guy friends that they find me attractive and if they weren’t married to/dating someone else they would be with me in a heartbeat, and various assorted comments to that effect.) I will not acknowledge that guys find me attractive because to do so gets my hopes up that one of them will be different. And it has yet to happen. Every relationship I’ve had (minus B) had turned out to be filled with lies, has had its honesty, its meaning, its whole existence called into question so that I am left with the knowledge that at the end of the day, not one of them was real. Oh they were real for me but if they aren’t real for both parties, can they be called real? I don’t think so. I think if one party turns out to be lying about the relationship or any aspect of it, it’s a lie. I have been dated for sex, for the challenge, and for personal gain. I have only once that I know of been dated for being me and that is B. And I would go back to him if I still had feelings for him but I don’t. I look at him now as my friend and only my friend. He doesn’t appeal to me now after what I have experienced of life since parting company with him. Had we stayed together we might have had a future, I might not have done some of the things I did, made the choices I did. But I can’t undo them or how they have shaped who I am or what I want from my future. And I know B (as he is now at least) is not what I want in my future. So for now, friends and quite content to be friends.

And no, there is not glimmer of hope that one day I will find some great love that will make my life complete. I have put away that particular childish notion for the more practical idea that I must endure for today. That I have to take care of more mundane and immediate con

cerns. Love is not one of them. Love will never again be one of them. If love wants to find me, it knows where I live, it has my number. It can come to me and show me that this time is serious. It can do the work to earn back my trust. But I don’t trust love anymore. Love is all too often a lie.