“

We’re at the traffic lights , he asks me “What’s the matter?” Of course I say “Nothing”. We’re making our monthly pilgrimage to south philly to witness  the dibiacle  known as CZW . Where we’ll laugh at reasonably fit ,reasonably young men abuse themselves for our pleasure. In fact I think  we’re secretly more interested in the freak show that make up the audience.  Jerry Springer’s producer  would pay good money for this lot.

I can’t tell him the truth, even though I know that he already knows there really is something the matter. Something serious that at some point will tear me , if not us, apart. He can read me like a billboard in all caps bold . I can’t say I mind, I’m not afraid of being honest with him. I never have felt that way, though I have in past relationships. I’ve been honest about my marriage, how it happened, why it ended and how I now find myself a stranger lost in my home town.  I’ve never been more frightened in my life.  He’s been my savior . Nobody knows me the way he does . We are permanently bare ass naked to each other. So  yes, I know , that he knows there is something the matter. But I will not talk about it. Not now and probably never will. It’s just too complicated. I feel like I’m falling backwards again. I know I’m in this car heading for a fun night out but my mind is slipping and again I’m frightened.

I can’t tell him the deal that I’ve made with myself and how I have a daily mantra,  that I have to keep repeating to myself  every time I start slipping. “I will keep it together.I will keep it together.”

Something about the shape of his head catches my attention, and I realize he’s messing about with his passenger. I see her platinum hair in the wing mirror. And I know it’s them  and I can’t believe my heart is still beating and my lungs are still breathing. I want to run to his car and look at them . I want them to crash at the next junction and disappear in ball of flame, but more than anything I want to not be seeing them. As we drive past , I see just enough to confirm that it is very  definitely, him.

This time last year, I genuinely thought that I was finished with him.  Second time he broke what was left of my heart , clearly, it was time to move on. Unfortunately, I know  those pieces of my  heart and they  won’t let me.          

We agreed to not be married. We didn’t hate each other , but I stopped loving him, stopped wanting to be with him and needed my own life. I wanted to get my own place, be able to spend time with my kids and eventually return to America. I’m 35 years old, my kids  18, nearly 17 and 12 years old. This domestic situation is doing them no favours. It won’t continue. It can’t. So we agree to live together because we have to. I get a full time job; I’m saving for a place of my own.
For some unknown reason,  make the second biggest mistake of my life  and join FB. Within days some “friends” from school request me and then it happens. The man who has shaped every day of my adult life since he broke my heart at the tender age of 15. I don’t know who I might have been, had I just been a little stronger and a bit more confident. All I know is this insipid, week, poor excuse for a fuck up that I  am today. I accepted his request and told him straight up, “ I don’t want to be your friend”. I had never got over him and the way he dumped me. I always dreamed of a second chance and I was foolish enough to believe that this was my destiny. He jumped strait in with me. “one for the books” “I’m gonna make it happen, if you’ll give me chance”
He ripped me a new one. Boy if I wasn’t beggin’ for an ass kicking,  I don’t know what I was looking for. Just laid myself out there for the slaughter.

The thing is, I’m a loser. That simple, born and bread loser. Zero achievements and no ambition to achieve in the near future.

”

– The more you try to make sense of emotionally damaged people, the more emotionally damaged you will become.