I don't listen

 to myself, or anyone else.

I just go full bore into situations I know are not for me.

half of me understands this is trauma, that i identify with the feelings, that they are familiar, and yes, exciting.

the other half has grown out of the drama and just wants peace.  Peace alone, or with someone, but peace. This half doesn't find it entertaining or exciting - this half understands relationships that start like this end like this.  

And yet, i keep siding with the familiar.  I KNOW better.   I know that while i'm over here playing games with this man I could be living a joyful, peaceful life alone, making myself available to the right man.

Okay here's the fuckery in my brain - What if i hadn't drawn a line with Mr. Tattoo?  What if i had happily kept going to his house when he called?  What if i had just enjoyed him and not tried to keep him?  Would we have eventually just ended up together by accident?  Or would he eventually grow bored with having sex with the same women he didn't have any feelings for?  

Do feelings grow and over time you nurture them to bloom?

Or are they just there.  or not. 

What do healthy people feel when they fall for someone? 

I had a crush on my husband in high school.  We would see each other in the hall between classes and he would make direct eye contact with me and smile.  I felt fuzzies every time i saw him.  Then he graduated and i thought that was it.  His brother died that summer, and my mother asked me if i knew the family.  I wrote him a letter because i was away- and he wrote back.  When i returned, we continued to write until November.  We had our first date on Thanksgiving.  It all just happened.

I met my ex, Wolf, through a friend while i was still living with my husband, but had asked for a divorce and was having the police called on me nightly for just coming home.  I tried to stay away from home to avoid the nightly police visit and spent time with my friends from work.  One of them told me i needed a "distraction" and showed me wolfs picture on a website we were both on "hot or not"........we started talking and eventually met one night when i went out with my gf.  We kissed. I hadn't felt that feeling in YEARS, and i had forgotten what it was like.   

That was it.  I moved out about 2 weeks later, after a summer of collecting furniture at flea markets and tag sales and storing all the stuff to restart my life with two children by myself.  I honestly didn't think anything of Wolf during that time- i was too busy and too scared.  He actually called me the day i was moving out and apologized for not having called me sooner.  I told him i couldn't talk, i was moving.

I remember clearly thinking i didn't have time for this guy. 

And 13 years later, with many ups and downs and tears - it was over.  With nothing to show for it.

I have thrived since then.  The pain and depression actually forced me to thrive.  I've done nothing but better since we broke up.  

But i still can't pick the right man.

OR maybe there were right men and i was just asking too much too soon.  Maybe my need to be loved is scary to them.

I am the one that runs hot or cold.  On or Off.  I see that.  I see that i don't make my life easy with men.

Mr. Cigar wants me over for tacos tonight because i've been talking about tacos all week. I might go.  I haven't gotten through this day yet.  I don't know if i will feel like chin up, or stay home and just cry.

I do have to make a choice.  And stick to it.  I've given him too much power that hasn't been earned.