This time of year

This time of year is, well, hard, anymore. I know it's going to sound all emo and I'm not an emo person, but I'd rather just crawl into bed and forget that this time of year exists. Like crawl into bed around the 20th of September and not come out until the 15th of October. Just skip the days in between.

Eight years ago I met the man of my dreams. Sounds clichéd, right? I guess it is all things considered when looked at from today's perspective. Our first date was 9/27 and by 10/01 we decided that it would be exclusive...exclusive at least for the next three and a half years. That's a story I'll get to eventually. Anyway, things went fast...I fell in love with him, his kids, his family. Moved in together, had a wonderful relationship for two and a half years and then we decide to get married. Can you hear the wedding bells, feel the rice pelt against your skin, see the glowing smiles, see the happy tears as they flowed down our cheeks? Yeah, I could then, too. We ended up getting married on our third anniversary. October 1, 2004. His second marriage, my first. After many ups and downs, trials and tribulations, we decided that we've made it this far, the first three years of any relationship are the hardest so if we survived what we survived so far that we could survive it all. Wrong.

I had my fairy-tale wedding. My big white dream dress, my flowers, my church, my friends, my family, my cake, the groom I'd always dreamt of...everything went off without a hitch. My God-father even married us. Dream come true. I was so relaxed the day of the wedding that I took a nap...I was sure that I was going into this and that it would last forever, that I'd have what my parents had at that point for 24 years, what my grandparents had at that point for 55 years...I knew everything would be fine. I bawled my eyes out the whole way down the aisle...was greeted by that groom that was beaming, who couldn't take his eyes off of me, walked behind the step-children that I loved as my own, that were like my own. Walked back down the aisle no longer Natasha Hall but Mrs. Natasha Shade, deliriously happy. Went out our short honeymoon still happy.

It all crashed five months later. Five months that I thought that things were fine, that things weren't changed, that the rings hadn't changed anything, that me taking his name wasn't that big of a deal. Evidently it is. I mean, before the wedding we were all but married to begin with living together, sharing finances, taking care of the children, day-to-day dealings and so forth...how could two rings and a signed piece of paper change things? It did.

Next thing I know he's telling me he's taking off to visit his sister in Dover, Delaware as that's where her husband is stationed in the Air Force. Okay, just a quick visit to his sisters to clear our air, to get us some alone time that we needed after a month of fights, of problems as he was off of work hurt and problems of us living with his parents still when all I wanted was my own place for just us four, of his ex-wife causing problems...just time to clear ourselves and think, right? No. That's not how it went. He had been on the computer talking to someone...someone that I myself had talked to, whom I'd been assured was just a friend that he was helping through some problems with...I'm so trusting, so naive, so confident that my husband loved me and only me, so confident that nothing would happen that I believed him. I was so, so wrong. So wrong and it still hurts today to think of it, almost five years later. He took off to Dover. Stayed with his sister...we talked that first night, he told me he needed space that he didn't know what he wanted to do anymore...he supposedly was going to go to his friend's house in Jersey the next day...he never showed.

After worry, after calling his cell, his whole family, even Larry in Jersey, trying to find him as he's MIA for a day and a half, he surfaces in a hotel in New Hampshire. I had already known by this point why he was there, what had more than likely happened as his sister let slip that he was searching for directions to there...so I, not knowing where he was as he wouldn't contact anyone, hacked into his emails to see if that would pinpoint where he was. It did. Those emails are so damning, so hurtful that I cry to think about them.

Her name was Valerie. She looks like me, talks like me, acts like me...but she wasn't me. She was someone different...someone who was helping him through problems, not vice versa like I had been told. She wasn't pregnant by someone of a different race that her parents didn't approve of so therefore their help with rent and so forth was cut off, even the baby's father didn't approve so they were no help not to mention the baby's father's ex was causing problems....yeah, it was elaborate and looking back I should've seen right through it, right? He met her up there. Took her out to dinner, got a hotel room, fucked her...all with MY money. Money he had taken out of my bank account before I even knew that I had been paid. So, he surfaces claims that he can't remember how he got to where he was but that he needed additional time and was therefore going to his cousin's house in Maine to stay the rest of the week and to be out of his parent's house by the end of the week as he wasn't coming home until I was gone.

I left. What else was I to do? I packed up my shit, took the bed, the dog and everything that meant something to me and left. Crawled back to my parents who didn't understand as they had a strong marriage and had never thought of infidelity. Waited for two weeks before I talked to him and then was....stupid. The first stupid act in a long line of them, actually. We met, we talked things over, I called the hotel using government credentials to get info that I needed to confirm that his story of her not being there were correct and took him back. Told you it was a long line of stupid acts. Those were just the first.

So, we make promises that were never kept, goals that were never realized/reached and assurances to each other that were pointless and never fulfilled. I move back, we take things slow, stay married only to have the cycle repeat it's self two years later. Once again, I didn't, but at the same time did, see it coming. I knew he was close to someone, but once again I believed HE was helping HER not the other way around. I swear I'm a dumb piece of shit sometimes, I really am. I'm blind, stupid, and any other adjective that describes those things.

I asked a week before our final split if his depression was causing problems, if he wanted me to leave, if things weren't going okay to him, what we should do. I tried all those tactics. I was sworn to that nothing was wrong, there was no one else, that he wanted me, NEEDED me to stay, please don't leave...a week later I'm being ordered to leave. See? Another line of stupid acts...stupid decisions...by this point, if I'da stayed gone the first time I could've been in such a better place, not going through the same thing again not even three years later...but instead I came back, I stayed, I believed that my fairy-tale wedding and relationship was going to come true, that I'd found my forever, that I had what my parents have what my grandparents had, that I wouldn't end up being a statistic, that I wouldn't have to leave kids that I loved as my own knowing that I probably wouldn't be able to have any of my own. I was so, so wrong.

So, I bucked up...I did what I needed to do and had everyone kiss my ass. I asked to stay in the house for a few more days (as those promises of our own place still hadn't come true and once again I was the one leaving as it was HIS parent's house and HIS decision) so I could find my own place. Found my own apartment that same day, went and saw it the next, signed the lease the next and moved in a week later. I was better, right? I was making myself better without him, doing things that I knew I could do, that we could've done, by myself, I didn't need him as I had thought all along. Was sworn to at that time that there was no one else, that it was all him...which was yet another lie. This time there was more insult to injury--the newest was my brother's ex-girlfriend who was still a senior in high school as graduation was in three months, someone eight years younger than me, nine years younger than him.

I know that by this point you're wondering why I'm sitting her writing all of this as tears flow from my eyes as I make an ass of myself at work when I could've avoided most of the heartache and pain by not believing him when he said he didn't cheat on me the first time, why I'm so depressed right now.

Bottom line: I'm still in love with him.

Like the choking kind of love, the way I felt when we met, when we got married. It's sad, isn't it? There's something wrong with me, I think. There has to be. No sane person should still be in love with someone who repeatedly breaks promises, won't help support you, who is unhealthy for you, with someone who repeatedly cheats on you. It just shouldn't be possible. I guess it's because it's my first love? I don't know.

We're still friends...some how through all of that bullshit we've maintained a friendship. I know that part of the reason why I do is because of my feelings, I don't want to lose him totally. I know that I should sever all ties to fully move on. I should just write things off, try and forget, not talk to him any longer, see him, deal with him. The thought of that terrifies me, truthfully. Like scares me shitless. See? I said that something is wrong with me.

We had a long talk three weeks about things--about what went wrong, if truthfully we were better as friends all along and shouldn't have gotten married like we say all the time now after the divorce, what problems we had. Cleared the air. Made me feel better as I finally got answers to things. In a way I wish I hadn't gotten those answers, hadn't been told that he still loves me and that he doesn't want me totally out of his life but at the same time he doesn't know what to do.

I do know some things...stupidity ruled my brain, my heart, my life the first two times. What would the third time be? Suicide probably. I should just shoot myself and get it over with. There's too many things to overcome in order for things to work no matter how much I want them to work, no matter how much I want what I once had. I know it's not right for me, that it's not healthy for me but yet I sit and think yet again "What if?!?" like I did after the first time I took him back.

Bottom line is this....things are over. We have a friendship. Or so I think. I don't know what in the fuck it really is. It's messed up that's what it is. It's something that we have that no one wants to try and take from us but yet causes problems for each of us so we're still trying to figure out how to handle it. I swear I'm going bi-polar just like he is to begin with. We had other problems that I didn't get into...I'm not going to get into them...they're over and done with but I do know that they'd surface again.

See? Brain says one thing, heart says another. Fuck it. I'm just going to cry and feel better and be depressed for the next day or two and then bounce back like normal.

It would've been five years ago tomorrow...my fifth anniversary...an event that I thought wouldn't bother me but is more than I realized I would.