Good Mourning

February of 2008 I broke up with the only person I ever called "Soulmate."

While I moved away to pursue graduate studies across country he entertained dozens of affairs with many women (single and married) and engaged in sex parties with people he met online. I expected we'd drift apart when I moved away, but he assured me that such would not be the case. I shared openly with him the possibility of seeing other people, but he didn't want to do that, and I believed him. The fact of the matter is that he didn't want to see anyone else, he literally just wanted to fuck as many people as he could.

This reality, which he at least had the decency to tell me on his own (I would have never found out) has single-handedly been the harshest blow I have ever known, and believe me, I have known some hard times! It has been so difficult to wrap my brain around the fact that I knew this man for four years and never saw this coming. I have never been so clueless about a person who was so close to me! Not only that, but even my most discerning friends and family missed this one! He became a part of my family. My mom, dad, brother, and best girl friends accepted him as part of the family! I thought I was going to marry him (and I ain't the marrying type!) For the first time in my life (with him) I imagined having someone's babies. When I told my friends and my family, they cried almost as much as I did.

It's been over a year since he broke the news of his addiction. We broke up immediately and we both entered therapy. I was a mess. I was beyond a mess. I experienced so much with this person. We both taught each other to love. We traveled across the country together, we shared our fears, our dreams, everything. Well, not everything. And because of that, I was close to hating him.

While we were broken up he also started attending Sex Addicts Anonymous. Six months into our break up we started talking again. We took it slow and tried to make it work. We were working on stuff individually and we were reading Tao meditations together over the phone. It felt like I was taking a huge risk re-building the trust that was lost but I truly believed he was worth it (and still do). We were together for about six more months before he decided to come clean with the news that he "fucked up again." That was in February of this year. I haven't talked to him since then and have cut all ties with him. I have had to un-weave him from my soul and of course all of my databases. I deleted his numbers from my cell phone and deleted him from my myspace, two very profound declarations. Everything that I thought he was, wasn't. Or at least it wasn't the full story, so it was time to cut him out for good.

The hardest part for me has been making sense of all the memories. I recently took every letter, photo, ticket stub, etc, ripped them into tiny pieces and made art out of it all so that I could keep the memories, but give them a new context in which to interpret them. Even though my memories are no longer what they used to be, I couldn't pretend like they didn't mean anything.

He was my best friend, and now he is a stranger. How is one supposed to process that? I don't think I'll ever know. I think this whole experienced has aged me a lot...physically and emotionally, and in a good and bad ways.

When I first found out a year ago I cried every day for about three months. I just didn't have a frame of reference for the news he shared or the affect it had on me. It was as if he died. I have to admit, it's much better now. I cry when I need to, which is not that often. It is very important for me to cry when I need to though, and sometimes the strangest things bring on a cry. Last night as I laid down to go to sleep I kind of curled up on my side and I got this flash of a memory of how we used to "spoon". Not only did I cry myself to sleep after that, I am actually welling up just thinking about it.

I recently realized that I am pretty angry too. I am angry at him, angry at women, angry at men, angry at porn, angry at myself. Just angry. I suppose that will fade eventually too. I just have this rage inside me over this that makes being around happy couples the most torturous of situations. Sometimes the weight of my emotions sits on my chest like a brick. So much so that on occasion I have to go bra-less just so I can breathe! Good thing I have small boobs!

The worst of the worst part is that I am not just sad for me, I am sad for him. Don't get me wrong I HATE what he has done, how he has lied, etc...but I know his story. I know what has shaped him and why he does what he does. I know he is tormented by his own decisions and that makes me sad for him. It's such a catch 22. On one hand I wish there was a way I could end his pain, and on the other hand I wish I could bring him the same pain he has brought me. (Even though vengeance isn't really my thing.)

(I am literally exposing my heart in this blog because it is a cheap alternative to therapy (which I can't afford right now) and I sometimes think that if I put it out into the universe it will help me let it go.)

I called this blog "Good Mourning" partly because it is the name of an India Arie song that gives me great comfort right now, and partly because I know that I am grieving well, giving myself time to cry, and I am being honest with how I still feel about him. I miss his laugh, his touch, his politics, his smile, his taste in music, his spontaneity, his competitive nature, his willingness to talk to me on the phone when I'm grocery shopping, his willingness to take salsa lessons with me, his stubbornness, his intelligence, his strength, his KISS (that man was the best kisser ever) and his friendship. I love him still, and I always will. But like Samantha said in SATC, "I love myself more."

I don't know what will become of him. Sometimes I think that a person who has the capabilities to lie the way he has, and segment his life the way he has, also has the potential to be a serial killer. (I am not exaggerating.) The idealistic/romantic side of me still hopes that I will serendipitously run in to him two years from now to find out he has turned his life around in some kind of miraculous way that would provide me with a "Carrie and Big" moment. Then that realist side kicks in, and I remind myself to not only NOT hold my breath, but to also run like hell from that evil bitch Serendipity!

I don't know what will become of me either. I just know that minding "me" is where my efforts must be devoted.

Ahhhh, I feel a little better. It's going to be a good mourning.