I find it difficult to be the person I want to be when it comes to love. While I can be a good worker, friend, sister, daughter, advice giver and supporter, the person I am when it comes to love is less than. Less than what? Less than the person I want to be, I guess.

When I was with my ex-husband, reason and logic went out the window as we ushered in screaming, choking, door slamming, running out of the house, throwing our rings at each other as we threatened divorce fights. It got better, it did. Had we stayed together, I am sure we would have eventually gotten to a healthy place. I really do believe that. But in the middle of things, the intensity of the emotion I felt overtook the reasonable part of me.

I like to think that I’ve progressed since my divorce. Even my interactions with my friends are better. I feel less frustrated, stuck, drowning and angry as a whole. That certainly contributes or will contribute to a healthier relationship.

But I guess there is still progress to be made when it comes to not letting my feelings take me over. I don’t want to be one of those people who becomes wholly consumed by whatever relationship or feelings they’re currently experiencing. And yet I do. I hate it, but I do it.

It’s so easy to think about the person you want. And it’s okay when you know they’re thinking of you, when you talk frequently. But I find myself feeling utterly dejected when I develop feelings for someone and they don’t return them, or we can’t speak. I know how much love works like a drug. It’s an addiction — albeit, a lesser one. I realize that speaking to the bartender is akin to a hit, that it gives me a high. And a lack of communication sends me spiraling downward similarly to anyone who isn’t able to get their next hit.

I hate it. I see what’s happening. I know I should do better, but nothing I try to do or think rationally seems to combat it.

Right now? It’s kind of unbearable. I haven’t seen the bartender in 2 months. It’s the longest we’ve gone this year. While things were sweet and awesome, he’s become distant. Logically, he’s busy and flighty. Paranoid-ly, he’s avoiding me or somehow hates me. And not talking to him makes it more difficult not to see him.

Bleh.

I hate talking about this. I hate how I sound whiny. I hate how it’s the same thing every freakin’ time. I know people don’t want to hear about it and, worst of all, I recognize that this misery is because I won’t walk away. So I fully feel as though I have no right to feel any of these things.

But perhaps what is scarier is that this situation — as awkward and painful as it may sometimes be — has reawakened in me the desire to be something other than single the rest of my life. That desire is so strong that it scares me sometimes, and it feels like it directly competes with how I need to think to be happy. Because at the end of the day, there is no guarantee of love or relationships, and I cannot survive simply by convincing myself that those things are somehow achievable. This cannot be my only tenet of faith.

But boy does my heart want it to be.

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Categories: The Bartender