And here we are, as promised a few posts back, my drama filled blog. This one's exciting, because you get a bit of back story to me, and also some juicy gossip to liven up the talk around the water cooler, it has been kind of dull ever since that outspoken lady from 5th had a car crash and broke her leg.
I'll set the scene. It was a warm evening on the streets of Adelaide, the sun was just setting and a grand fire performance was about to begin. I had rushed there from the car park over in Siberia and made it just in time for the performance. You see it was a close friend of mine that had organised the event and I wanted to be there for him. I haven't included myself in the fire crowd for three years, after a very emotional break up with one of the spinners. But he was travelling the country last I heard, no chance of seeing him that eve.
When I say emotional break up, I mean emotional. It's strange to talk about now, because at the time I was utterly convinced I would never know happiness again, and here I am, living and breathing and happy. I'll keep our history lesson brief, because after all this is supposed to be about moving on from the past, and the more I dwell the less I move forward.
I was young, with no self esteem and an eagerness to impress. He was charming, and aloof, kind of quite and seemingly impressed by one thing (my assumption, his negligence to rectify it), sex. We never officially dated, he wouldn't acknowledge our relationship in public, he wasn't really into public displays of anything romantic. I was obsessed. I loved everything about him, his kind heart, his laid back nature and his amazing sex. And then there was Her, my beautiful best friend. He introduced us... ah I see you've already guessed the ending of this predictable tale, but please bear with me, it gets kind of twisted... he introduced us, and we got along right away. She was so intense, had a lot of mental health problems and we were best friends who hung out all the time just like that. She was engaged so I never saw her as a threat. Except that that's a lie. I did. That's why I befriended her in the first place, because I knew He was fond of her and I thought if me and her were friends then he couldn't go there. But our friendship grew organically as well and much surpassed this initial reasoning. When her fiancée left her, I knew my relationship with Him was doomed. I held on for dear life and used sex as a means of meeting up, knowing he had a weakness. I was desperate, I had a weakness for him. He tried to end things officially, but we still "hung out" often. It got less and less between each time. This adds up to roughly 10 months of my official time with this man. I was still lingering on to hope that we'd meet up once again, it had been a few months this time, but that didn't stop me hoping.
It was a confusing situation, because the 3 of us were all friends as well. During this whole time, we, the 3 of us, would all hang out. I knew of their feelings, I recall one time her telling me she'd wait til I was OK with anything, if it ever happened. I waited to sleep with this man again ,whilst still being in a relatively functional friendship with both him and the girl who ruined everything. And then all of a sudden, on facebook, they were in a relationship. You see, he'd learnt from his experience with me, and was going to do it all better this time around. So fucking glad I could lend a hand.
(I know I said brief, but once I start its hard to stop)
That was in February 2011. The rest of that year I tried to forgive, and even attempted being their friend again. A poisonous thing to do, but I thought it was the right thing. We hung out like before and it was awful. I cried almost every single day. By around October I wanted to kill myself. I had a plan and I got super scared to die. If only they weren't together, because that was the one thing I couldn't get out of my head, the one thing that haunted my every moment. I didn't want to die, so I begged them to break up. They were less than kind to me. I drove to his house and planned for him to find me on his front lawn. I called him, he figured out where I was and held me for a long time. I decided to post pone it til after I had sorted out my stuff, and written letters etc and then 4 days later I met a new man. The man who showed me that happiness was possible again, the man who gave me hope. It still sucked, it still hurt, but I started to improve from then on; no more death plans.
We lasted 6 weeks, this new man and me. During that time I became best friends with the girl again and when we broke up, she took me over His house and I stayed there several days. She was so mean to Him, so abusive and psycho. How did she get to have a boyfriend and I didn't. How could He pick Her over me.
They broke up several weeks later, and my heart skipped a beat. It gets a little convoluted after that but basically I had never really gotten over him and he started leading me on, then I found out they were still sleeping together. I don't think she knows how much me and him hung out and how many times he came onto me, and its not cheating if the clothes stay on, right?. For the most part I said no, I wanted to wait til she was OK with it, like they had promised me, foolishly thinking that he wanted to eventually be with me. It ended with a big confrontation in the park, she had told me they were not seeing each other (I guess one of the conditions of mine and her's successful friendship), I sent her a valentines card, and she called up saying she couldn't keep lying to me. It was at the last fire night I ever went to; He was there. I confronted him, slapped Him full in the face and yelled for awhile.
Shortly after (this is 2012 now) I cut all ties and I lost my two best friends. I know after all that bullshit I just told you most people's reactions would be to hate them both forever, but the thing is, I really did love both of them, we had the best times together; we all understood each other, I didn't have to put on any faces. I could just be myself, and the saddest thing was not all the heartbreak or all the wasted time I spent crying, it was that I couldn't see them any more.
The whole thing was a shitty time, but its been so long since it all ended and I really have completely healed, completely forgiven and am completely happy. I have this amazing life now, where I know what my passions are, and I'm not driven by the desire to please men. or the even more powerful desire for approval. I approve of myself, I love my body, I love my plans, I love my sense of humour and my family, and I love my taste in movies and books. And I love how I never give up on friendships, even when every one tells me I'm an idiot, I love being friends with difficult people.
So we return to this fire performance, which was amazing by the way. I'm so proud of my friend who organised it. And of course who do we see but Him, sitting in the crowd. At first I got nervous. But then I remembered who I am, how awesome I've become and the nerves went away.
For a few years now, the girl has been in Perth doing Christian Mission work, she sent an apology letter to me at some point, finally acknowledging the part she played in my pain, and it healed a lot for me. The guy has been travelling around Australia, until a few weeks ago.
I said hi to him, complimented his new beard, and we got along so well, we chatted for ages. It felt like we were friends again. Most people would say I'm stupid to let someone like that back in my life. It took a second to be OK with it, but for me it means peace and healing and its good for us to see that the awful experience we shared (I made his life hell as much as I could at the time, don't you worry) is over for both of us now, and no permanent harm was done to anyone. I can't describe how happy it made me to know that all is well with me and him, we're not best friends, I have no plans to see him again, but I just feel so peaceful.
Apparently She is back in Adelaide as well. This thought was harder to digest. It was a little harder for me to forgive her and for a second I was worried that they would get back together. But then that thought was immediately extinguished with a brand new one. I don't care any more. I am liberated from dealing with the bullshit of that whole chapter of my life, and it took until now to not care.
Her apology letter, from a few years back left it in my hands, I said I wasn't ready to be friends and maybe that I would never be ready. I'm still not sure.
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