LOSING When Love Steals More Than Just Your Heart MYSELF
Liz Beggs
Jayplaywriter
I crammed everything I could into my small maroon '93 Probe, left behind everything I couldn't and headed back to Kansas City. We woke up early that morning and sat on our camel-colored leather couch, telling
Jayplaywinter leather couch, taking each other in whispers that we'd had a good run at it. I said goodbye with a hug and an, "I'll see you soon," and an, "Of course I'll come back to visit."
course I come back to visit.
I said goodbye to six years of my life that morning. I said goodbye to winter nights under the covers, butter-pecan kisses and soft lips on my eyelids. I said goodbye to, "I love you Elizabeth" and "You are my World" and got in the car as the sun came up, drove the 14 hours home and left him to the cold Ohio April.
April.
As I look back on it, I don't even know how I fell in love with him. Well, yeah, I do. He was smooth. I guess the real question is how did I keep loving him?
After two years of dating, a
shadow fell over our relationship in the form of a 5-foot-6 blonde. Her shadow darkened our time together, captivated his thoughts and stole his heart. I didn't find out about her right away. I had asked questions that he half-answered. I had made calls to his house that he avoided. After two weeks, I realized this was more than a down phase in the relationship; this was the end. And yet, I hung on to him for four more years. I hung onto him after the blonde was gone and others followed. I hung on through nights of my unheard sobs. I hung on because I was under the common misconception that all you needed for a relationship to work is love.
is love. After four rocky years, we decided to move in together. We bought furniture and rugs, paintings and plates. We bought groceries, cooked dinner and made love on the counter. We would wind up snuggled in bed, and I would laugh up at him with my chin buried gently beneath his rib cage. The window to our bedroom stayed open and tossed rose-colored curtains about as the September wind caressed our naked bodies. He was mine again. And I was happy.
He was mine again. And I was
It was only a matter of months this time. I got that feeling in my bones
again, that feeling that creeps up on you and makes you question whatever he says even though his excuse is completely plausible. I would hate it when that feeling came, not because of what meant to our relationship, but because it made me untrusting, and I despised that the most. I hated that feeling of looking at him and knowing he was lying to me, but letting him get away with it because I was supposed to love and trust him.
supposed to love and trust him Trust him? As the relationship carried on, my love for him blinded me as he guided me from store to store, case to case, band to band, with his voice brushing my ear whispering he wanted a baby. I would swallow the knowing with a forced smile and a heavy heart. I thought was mine again and that I would be happy.
Honestly, there was never an Oprah-like "Ah ha" moment. I just finally got fed up. I got fed up with the yo-yoing of one minute feeling like I was his most precious gift and the next a piece of trash. I got fed up with his dishonesty and feeling like an untrusting bitch. I got fed up with not being myself and not even remembering who "myself" was anymore. We had become this creature with one body and two heads (his had horns),
pulling each other in different directions. One day I looked around our apartment for things that the pre-relationship me would have been in to, and I wondered where I was. There were no tubes of oil or acrylic paint, no canvases, no brushes, no books, no music that I enjoyed. There was no basketball rolled into the corner, no National Geographic on the coffee table. There was no dirt, no mess, no disorder. Everything was pristine and picked up. We had leather furniture and a sound system. We had rap CDs, Playstation games and a subscription to Cycle World. I wasn't in the relationship anymore. Everything of mine left a long time ago in my need to keep him loving me.
him loving me.
I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed time, but I do not regret those six years. I do not regret losing myself, because it forced me to find myself and redefine myself. I will never regret loving him, because how can you ever regret something like that. And as silly as it sounds, I do not regret staying with an unfaithful man because I have learned to truly value the right one.
9.30.04 Jayplay
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