Second Chances.

Inquiring minds want to know!...So with the goal of time management, I'm going to write this blog to give you ALL the deets! I'm also writing this because I know I'm not alone in this situation. I never ever thought the day would come where I would write a blog about second chances. Not something I give very often. I'm a dirty dirty grudge holder. Forgive and forget is not something that comes easy to me. Maya Angelou's quote runs through my head every time I'm presented with a bad situation. "When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

Over the years I have been really working on not necessarily forgiveness, but letting my anger go. I'm not opening my arms and welcoming everybody back who I feel has wronged me, but I also don't want to give them the power to hurt me anymore. That anger is a heavy burden and load to carry through life, and it gets to the point that you just don't have the strength to lift it anymore. It's no wonder I have a bad back! Another quote comes to mind by Buddah "Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die"

We all make mistakes and if you read my blog, you know that I'm no exception. My big issue has always been that I need people who I feel have hurt me to acknowledge that fact for us to move forward with any type of relationship. If they can't acknowledge a mistake, it will never be corrected and to me, it is a clear representation of their true character and we will go our separate ways. That part has not changed. What has changed is I look at it as more of a compatibility issue. We are different people who operate at different levels, that are just not compatible. They aren't going to be a part of my life, but I try very hard to let my anger go with them as they are removed from it. I think I strive for a feeling of indifference. I don't love them, I don't hate them...we are just passing ships in the night. Is that the perfect way to operate in the world? Probably not....but it's better than having hatred and anger toward somebody. #babysteps

My entire blog is a diary. Some of my posts are funny stories from my past, funny moments in my present and many of them are very personal experiences I have had with friends, family and relationships. I waited until I was 39 to start writing and it kind of became my therapy...an online journal of sorts. It surprises me every day that anybody is actually interested in reading any of it. So far about 20,000 people have which is just crazy to me. I'm a very shy introverted person that is often seen, but not heard. For some reason, I feel more comfortable typing my words, than speaking them outside of my inner circle of friends. So I will type them now to add another intimate chapter of my ever changing life.

An ex-girlfriend has been the subject of many of my blogs. We had a very public beginning and end. She was married with children when I met her at work. Neither of us were looking to fall in love, but it happened fast and hard. And once that train started going down that hill, the brakes gave out and there was no stopping it. It was the kind of mad passionate love that you see in movies or read about in books. A type of chemistry and passion that some people have never had the pleasure and pain of experiencing. Yes, all relationships are exciting in the beginning, but this was different.

Unfortunately, there was a trail of carnage that came in the wake of all that passion. She was very much a people pleaser at that point in her life. I was not. That one fact would ultimately lead to our unfortunate demise.

She was married with children and belonged to a very conservative church. Leaving her husband to be with me did not go so well for her. It didn't matter that there had been infidelity at this point on both sides and that they were miserable together. The fact of the matter, is it was wrong. And I acknowledge that fact. We should have waited for her to be divorced before moving forward with a relationship, but the reality is, she probably would have left on her own eventually...but I wasn't going to wait around.

The gossip and madness that came at the beginning our relationship was to say the least...exhausting, but we made that bed. She was excommunicated from her church, divorced and came out to the world all at the same time. Just one of those things would be challenging for anybody, but she had them all at once. And when you care what EVERYBODY thinks, that's a hard pill to swallow. Because of this, she lied to me and everybody else to try to please as many people as possible. She wasn't lying to be malicious at that time, she just wanted to make everybody and therefore herself happy.

I was blinded by love, but we fought a lot, She put me at the very bottom of the list of people to please and she acknowledges that fact. She took for granted that I would always be there. We would get into these horrible fights where I would say "One day I will stop crying...One day that switch is going to flip and I'm going to stop caring and I will be happy to see you walk out that door. And when that day comes, there is no turning that switch back on. I will be gone forever." And that is exactly what happened.

I left.

And in an instant, she became the girlfriend I had always wanted. I was at the very top of the list with her children and nothing else mattered, but it was too late. The damage had been done, and I was NEVER coming back...ever.

Our breakup was very public and working together didn't help the situation. We have talked for hours and hours about all the horrible things we said about each other. I 100% thought she was the most horrible human being walking the planet. Everything I said about her was 100% true as far as the facts of our relationship. Everything she said about me was not true. But again, her nature is to be a people pleaser, so at that point she said things to make herself look better in the eyes of the world and in some ways, I think she believed a lot of it until the dust settled and some of the hurt and anger passed and she realized that she had a big part of the blame for our relationship crumbling.

I can not put all the blame on her. I was selfish with my love and was unable to see the gravity of all the things she was dealing with. All I knew is I loved her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. (We were engaged...twice.) But I wasn't the one that had to explain to her children that A. She was leaving their dad and B. She was a lesbian. I wasn't the one that was basically stoned in the public square by her church and excommunicated. I didn't have to come out to my friends and family during all of this. I didn't have to sit across from my baby daddy during mediation and divide possessions and time with the people she loves the most, her children. I didn't have to deal with many of my friends trying to persuade me to stay in that bad marriage for their own selfish reasons.

Our relationship never had a chance of survival...it was doomed. We were madly in love, but all of this was more than any two people could endure. I couldn't see that when I was in the middle of it, but it is painfully clear to me now. I can no longer point the finger at her, I have to point it at all those facts.

We have been apart for several years and she has never stopped trying to be in my life in some way. Depending on my state of mind when her texts came through, sometimes I was nice and sometimes I was not. I was so hurt by the lies she had told about me. She apologized over and over, but I just didn't believe her. She asked me to have lunch like 10 times and I always said no. At some point along the way, I started working on letting things go and on the 11th invite...I accepted. I did my best to walk into that restaurant with an open mind and LET MY ANGER GO.

She sat across from me and cried and apologized again and justified her actions with the reasons I gave above and for the first time, I believed her. And because I had let my anger go, I could see the horrible position she had been in and had an enormous amount of empathy. And really felt like a selfish jerk for not seeing it sooner. But again, all I saw was I put her at the top of the list and she put me at the bottom and she was bad and I was good...and that just wasn't fair.

So we left that lunch with the hope of having some kind of friendship.

Fast forward to today. We have been hanging out for a couple of months as friends and nothing more. And I have to say, the chemistry we have is like noting I have ever experienced with another human being. I was on a dating website for a little while and in my profile I said "I want to be with somebody I can have fun with while doing laundry"...shocking, but I didn't get a lot of dates :) Well, she is that girl. We laugh non-stop every time we are together. We trash talk each other from sun up to sun down and practically wet our pants laughing. To an outsider, it might appear that we don't like each other very much based on the things we say. But nothing ever gets taken personally...ever. It's really just a battle of wits...that lets face it...I'm better at it....but she tries real hard.

We have spent a lot of time together and have posted some pics and bantered on social media. Because of this, there is a daily stream of questions from friends and acquaintances all wanting to know..."Are you back together????" Some are concerned, some are just curious. Up until this point, we have said, we are just friends and I really don't know what is going to happen.

She went away for work last week and we found each other missing one another more than we should. We found it strange that we went years without speaking and suddenly we are finding a few days apart challenging. But it is what it is.

So we were texting about our feelings on Thursday and came to the conclusion that we should give it another shot. On Saturday as I was calling her a monster and mid-laugh, we kissed.

I never thought I would want her in the same room as me again. And now I think about holding her hand. I'm gonna give us a second chance. We might fail miserably, or we might be together forever. All I know, is at this point, my life is better with her in it. And we both feel like we have not had closure on our relationship. It feels unfinished. One way or another, we are going to write the last chapter of our story together. Could be a tragedy, or the best love story ever written. Time will tell.