Ms. K and I were just about to say goodnight when we got into a discussion about being yourself when in a relationship. It's common knowledge that I did not have that luxury in my last relationship, and it's been hit or miss in the relationships before that. Ms. K asked me if I'd been myself with her thus far and my answer was basically, "Erm...kinda?". For the most part, I have. All the makings of my weird ass personality are there and I've been 100% honest about my past ish, as is my policy. To her credit, Ms. K is very easy to talk to and very non-judgmental, but I still find myself holding some things back. There are certain stories I'd like to tell, questions I'd like to ask and discussions I'm interested in having, but I don't dare bring them up. My answer to her question led to a stern talking to about how perhaps I'm not actually destined to be terrible in relationships, but instead am just waiting on the right one to go all in on. I said maybe, but that everything ends eventually and frankly, I spend more time waiting on that end than I do working on the actual relationship sometimes. She said not everything ends, offering up her parents and both sets of grandparents as proof, all of whom have long marriages. She also suggested, and she's said this before, that I'm a better person than I think I am and deserve more than I believe I do.
This was the first time Ms. K took me to task and I have to admit that it wasn't that bad. I mean, I get her point and I sensed her slight annoyance at some of my responses, but I also feel like her comments came from a place of genuine caring, which I appreciate a great deal. That's something that's been foreign to me for so long. After she went to bed, I solicited advice from Agent W about the exchange and, having only heard the cliff notes version, she called me an idiot and said she agrees with Ms. K about me being a decent dude and deserving better. But she couldn't comment on the relationship angle because she's had similar issues to mine and has yet to crack the code herself. After Agent W went to bed (sense a pattern here?), I went back and read some old posts about BP. I'm annoyed that I still post about her, but I think the reason for that is I never really fully dealt with the aftermath of her BS. We split and I went into two more ill-advised relationships, never giving a thought to how the BP saga affected me. And really, all of this goes beyond her but I know a big part of my current feelings have to do with her mistreatment of me. BP was a mean girl, plain and simple. She got off on it and she mistook my kindness and caring for weakness and tried to take full advantage of it. And she got to me. She brought me to my knees, she got me thinking that I needed her when in reality, she never was good enough for me, something everyone but me knew from very early on. I told BP about my past, ish I'd rarely told anybody for fear of judgment, only to have it used against me every time she got upset. And soon enough, I was no better than her in that respect as I started to retaliate with things from her past. The only difference was I said things out of anger, whereas she truly believed the things she was saying to me; about past relationships, about the accident, about what kind of person she believed me to be. I took a lot of crap from her and it wasn't until recently that I discovered how deeply it affected me.
Do I deserve something great? Maybe. Am I better than I think I am? I guess it's possible. I don't need a white picket fence or any of that, in fact I've often thought it's not meant for me, that I had my one shot and I blew it. I love my life most days, it's better than anything I could've imagined for myself, but the one thing missing is the same thing that has always eluded me - contentment. I've never been content in my life. I used to think that would come from a relationship, which is maybe why I went into so many of them, even when it was clear I had no business being in one. And then I realized that may not come in the form of a lover. Or maybe it will, things like this have a habit of coming around when you least expect them to. I read a quote today that said, "Woke up wanting not a thing more than what I have here" and, to me, that's what I assume it must be like to feel content. Maybe believing I deserve that, rather than just wanting it and waiting for it, is the key to actually finding it one day. Or maybe I'm just a fucked up dude pushing 34 who will never get the hang of it and thus end up living the Clooney lifestyle (pre-marriage, of course). And maybe not being totally guarded with Ms. K is also something to think about.
