Cauterization and a Lack Thereof

This  is one of those things I don’t even know where to start with.  I feel like there’s going to need to be a lot of explaining thrown in with this, so I’m going to apologize now to anyone who bothers to read this……this is bound to get incredibly wordy.  If it doesn’t, I would be shocked (SHOCKED, I say).  That out of the way…time to dive in headlong……

I’ve always been bad about looking at the past with rose colored glasses.  To me, things were always better then.  Whenever then happens to be.  But my relationship with Shera is not necessarily one of those things I look at that way.  As I look back it now, I can plainly see it was horribly fucking self-destructive.  I came so close to losing the people I held most dear to me because of her, and all because I kept thinking she truly, truly loved me and would eventually want to be with me.  Of course, when she gave that idea the final nail by moving out of our apartment without actually coming to do it herself on the off-chance I might be there, well, that should have been the start of letting it go for me.  But the exact same day that happened, I went on my first date with Heather, who is now my fiancee.  I guess what I’m really saying is that I never gave myself a chance to get Shera out of my system.  I always kept telling myself it was no big deal, that surely it didn’t matter that I had no time to come up for air between the two.  I mean, of course Shera and I never technically dated, but for well over a year, I was completely and utterly devoted to her.  Like, to the point that it was just sad.   I would have done anything for her (and usually, I found myself doing exactly that).  How else besides retardation, denial, or insanity can you explain me continuing to stand patiently by while she dated four other men, all the while telling me she loved me and couldn’t live without me?  It makes no sense, right?  That’s sure as fuck how it looks to me now, I can tell you that much.  Now, from the time she had her boyfriend (at the time) move her stuff out of our apartment, we barely ever talked anymore.  It was a nearly clean cutting of the cord.  We both had people to be interested in otherwise.  Occasionally we spoke over the course of the next year (by which I mean, maybe three times).  But I tried really hard to show her in each of those conversations I’d moved on.

Fast forward now to about 3 or 4 months ago…

Randomly, as I’m sitting here in my Nerd Cave (the spare bedroom of mine and Heather’s apartment….it’s where most of my stuff is and is basically my room), I get a text message from Shera just checking to see how I’m doing.  We talked back and forth via text for about an hour or so, just kind of catching up (she had dumped Chris because he valued his pot-headedness more than he valued her….I strained very, very hard not to bust out with a huge "I TOLD YOU SO!" because, y’know, I’m a nice guy like that).  We talked a bit about maybe trying to be friends again, which sounded nice in theory.  But nothing ever really came of it.

Fast forward to this past Saturday night.  As I’m bored off my ass at work (it was an especially slow Saturday….shortest staffed night of the week for the call center, and I didn’t have to lift a finger because calls were only trickling in most of the night….a real boring stretch for someone who monitors volume), I get a random text message from Shera.  And, honestly, it was something I’d thought about doing in the days previous.  Just for shits and giggles, y’know?  Well, this conversation went on for about 4 hours through texts back and forth (fortunately for me, Heather was basically asleep already by the time I got home….she would kill me if she knew I’d been talking to Shera…and even moreso if she knew the subject matter for some of it).  Some of the "high points" (because I can’t think of what else to call them) are as follows:  she misses me a lot lately, my friendship, companionship, whatever; she wishes she’d snagged me when she had the chance (to which I responded, probably foolishly so, that, yes, she should have and that she easily could have back then); she thinks Heather is wrong for me just based on how I talk about our relationship; she wants to be friends with me again.  

So here’s why this is something I feel worthy of a long bit of spilling:  I don’t know what to do with myself.  It’s becoming harder and harder to contain how much I feel that Heather and I may not be working.  Heather seems blissfully happy most of the time, but I often wonder how often that has to do with me.  She’s very much the type that just wants to marry someone.  She needs a caretaker and she knows it.  And oftentimes, that’s about all I feel like I am to her.  I wake her up every single day so she isn’t late for work.  I drive her there three days a week (we carpool, but she never, ever drives).  I buy her lunch every day.  I make her eat something for dinner after work.  I am asked to retrieve various whatevers for her from where ever (be it kitchen, store, or fast food joint…any of the above).  I have been asked to take on an increasing number of housecleaning chores, to the point where I now do the majority of the cleaning tasks after it began as a 50/50 split.  It wears on me.  As does the fact that she cannot, ever, admit that someone else might have a better way of doing things.  Or that, even though her way works fine, there are other perfectly acceptable ways to do things.  She can’t ever admit being wrong.  Anytime I challenge her on the way she remembers something, I am always the one who ends up being wrong (even if I know I’m not).  Basically, everything is done her way.  Sometimes she cuts me off when we’re having a conversation just as the first sound is coming out of my mouth, but then five minutes later will be accusing me of being a terrible conversationalist because I’m not responding to her.    Now, don’t get me wrong…..I love her very dearly.  It just gets harder and harder to envision us spending the rest of our lives together.  Since the wedding won’t be until October 31, 2010….I guess there’s time for me to figure that part of it out.

But here’s where Shera plays into all this.  All the ingredients are there.  I’m ripe, so to speak.  I’ve always been terrified of trying to be friends with Shera again because I’m afraid that it won’t take long for me to fall back into the self-destructive pattern again.  What she and I had between each other was so strong.  I don’t mean the love, such as it was, but the bond.  No one has ever been able to crawl into my head like she has.  That’s not an easy thing to do.  God knows it’s a very difficult place to figure out.  Heather, bless her heart, still just has so many problems trying to figure me out a lot.  I’m I&n

bsp;making a joke?  Am I sniping at her?  Am I being a douche?  There’s a lot of times that she just can’t tell.  And that’s a terrible thing to me.  But Shera could always figure it out in about 2.5 nanoseconds.  There’s a level of comfort in that which I can’t even describe.

And that’s what scares me.  The comfort I think I would find myself feeling.  It would kill my relationship with Heather…..and that’s not something I want to have happen.  It’s been about a year and a half that we’ve been together now.  I think that, with a little work, it really could work forever.  The way things go between now and the wedding day will decide how that part of it goes.  I love her and would never want to hurt her at all.  And, yet, I find myself sometimes thinking us breaking it off would be for the best.  So, again………..I don’t know what to do.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I don’t have a clue where things are going to take me.  With a gaping wound trying to reopen and a new one trying to start alongside it….I’m just kind of lost in myself.  Which, in itself, may cost me this relationship.  I’ve grown really distant and quiet.  We don’t sit and talk much anymore unless it’s about work.  And I think work could be contributing to what problems I think we have.  She can’t leave work at work…..and I can’t stand bringing it home.  We have the same hourly schedule, but we have completely different off days, so we never get a chance to go do any date-like things.  Working ’til midnight every night kinda kills that.  So…I dunno.

Once I figure out where I want to be, I’ll figure out how to get there.

Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox:  "Possession" by Evans Blue, "Careless Whisper" by Seether, and "I Want to be the One" by The Megas

Sayonara.