Before You Tell Yourself It's Just A Different Scene, Remember It's Just Different From What You've Seen

It is said that everybody comes with a past, and this is even more true when you're what my mother calls, "older". As we age, we accumulate baggage from various sources; incidents in our past, addictions, kids, divorces, and so on. In my case, the worst of my baggage was on display throughout my twenties, though there was no shortage of women willing to help me work through it. This is why the ladies are the superior gender, because they have patience and they legit care when they see someone who is falling apart at the seams (well, a lot of women do, not all, as you'll see). But with the state I was in, I scoffed at anyone who claimed I had issues and cast them out just like that, usually without warning. It was only a few years ago that I was able to go back to those who tried to help and make amends for how I'd treated them. This decision to seek them out had many reasons behind it, but one reason was because of the BP drama and how she'd treated me. I truly believe that relationship was just karma coming back around to kick my ass for all I'd done to others in my younger years. It taught me so much about people and how some operate on a completely different level, one full of manipulation and egotistical ish. BP is one of those people who wants to fix everything with the quickness, but fails to see that she needs a number of repairs herself. Going into a new relationship, I'm always up front about my past struggles; with women, with meds, with sex, as well as the spirituality that helped me pull through and out of all that. Honesty is always the best way to go but I learned many times that some women just aren't comfortable being with a dude who has a history such as mine. For this reason, I don't just list off my past sins, I also make sure to encourage any kind of questions a person might have about them so everything is out in the open.

A lot of the time, I go into relationships with the mentality that something from the past is going to be too much for the person to handle and so the whole thing will be short-lived. This, combined with my habit of self-sabotage and just not being very good at relationships in general, usually makes for relationships that last four months or so, at the most. I've moved on from the dark ages and my self-destructive tendencies are in check, but it's like my mind still has not 100% caught up and moved on from all of that. Sometimes it still sees me as who I was at that time. Because of that, I wait and wonder when the relationship will end because, inevitably, it has to end at some point. I've rarely been in a position where the person I'm interested in has been through as much, if not more, than I have. MOC's and my first rodeo happened around the time she was getting out of a terrible marriage and at the height of my savior complex taking center stage. I was not yet in the worst of my years, they were just getting started, and I inexplicably thought I would be a good boyfriend. I was a few times. We had a lot to work through because she came from a bad childhood that left her with a penchant for getting nasty whenever things didn't go her way. She also had this idea that I was going to bail at the first sign of trouble, which would become my M.O. later on but wasn't at that time. I remember telling her I would be there no matter what, no matter how nasty things might become. That promise was helped along by us having Miss N, but here we are a decade later, great friends. This was a case of not letting your past ish destroy the future, whereas the BP saga was all about throwing the past in each other's faces. MOC was accepting of what I was at a time when, frankly, I wasn't much, but BP couldn't accept what I was because she was caught up in who I used to be. It also didn't help that she found it acceptable to question my character based off of a couple of threesomes, or laugh at my spiritual beliefs (when she found out I'm a big believer in past lives, her response was, "I just didn't think someone smart and educated would believe in that."). MOC never did that and perhaps that's why our fights never were knock down and drag out like the battles with BP were. 

Though it was a hellish time, I credit the dark ages with opening my mind to just about anything. I don't think there's a past sin or experience someone could throw at me that would surprise me or make me think less of them. While we get through our past experiences, they still have a habit of haunting us down the line. I don't do half the destructive stuff I did in my 20's nowadays, but I'm always very conscious of how easy it would be to fall back into it, which is why I no longer drink and I don't use any kind of painkiller (aside from OTC stuff, only when absolutely necessary). I know if I drink when I'm upset or sad, it makes the likelihood of my spiraling down into something worse much more likely. I'm also aware that even just the prospect of that might make someone decide they're not willing to take the risk and thus, put an end to any kind of romantic relationship. It's the price paid for being so brutally honest about stuff, I guess. I've been pleasantly surprised by someone we'll call Ms. K because, so far, she doesn't seem all that phased by my past ish. Admittedly, I was hesitant about putting all the brutal honesty out there, but something made me feel like it was okay to do so, which in turn made her do the same about her own past. I think she's dealt with a lot more than I have (not that it's a competition, obviously), and I appreciate her honesty about it all. She seems to be afflicted with something similar to me in wondering which past issue is going to be the one to make me change my mind about her, but I don't think there is one that could do that. All that's happened in both of our lives is a part of our stories but, in my opinion, those things don't define who we are today. I didn't know her back during her issues and she didn't know me during the dark ages. And, as a friend once told me, everything that's happened in your life happened for a reason and brought you to who and what you are now. It's easy to get stuck in all that past ish when we should all just be happy we've made it this far.