Wednesdays Thoughts

So lately, I have been thinking a ton about relationships.  How I handle them, how I was in past ones, why they didn't work, my strengths, weaknesses, etc...  Now keep in mind, I have absolutely no conclusions or solutions, there was no light bulb moment when I realized that I had finally formulated some type of answer,  I am simply evaluating. 

In my opinion, how we handle ourselves when dating and in a romantic relationship, usually stems from our relationships that we have had growing up with our parents or family.  It is pretty typical for a girl who grew up without a father to seek out male companionship when she is older to fill a void, along with countless other reasons.  I myself have usually been very privy to the attention I receive from the opposite sex, many a shrink has reminded me this is because I never really had a constant male role model.  It probably, took me about fifteen years of dating to be comfortable enough within myself to actually be honest and stop pretending to be something that I wasn't.  My biggest dating mistake was fake it and try to make it work.  If he liked biking, I liked biking.  He wanted to snowboard all weekend, I wasted money on a new board and took lessons, hating it the whole time.  If religion was his thing, I was in church every week, even hosting a few prayer meetings.  Maybe, I was just desiring acceptance, the crazy thing is when each relationship was over, I was completely shocked.  Wondering why he didn't want me, I tried to do all the things he liked, wasn't that enough?  It took a long time for me to realize, that he didn't like me because I was lying, not just to him, but to myself!

This past week was Father's Day, for afore mentioned reasons, this ignited the wheels in my hamster wheel to spin a little faster.  I started thinking about all the fathers in my life.  My biological father whom, I have recently come in contact with and met all over the past year and a half.  The asshole my mother was married to when I was a child and who deserves no more verbiage than just that.  The man my mother is married to now, whom has treated me as his daughter since day one.  Has been there over the past twelve years whether I needed his checkbook, a funny joke, a drink or just his love.  The father of the man I married, who taught me strength and made me feel like I was the daughter he had always wanted.  My two "baby daddy's" one who would murder me if there wasn't a chance of him ever being caught and the other who still wants to be with me even after everything.  And even the ex boyfriends whom I thought were the one at some point and are themselves, fathers now.

Quite a plethora of men for me to contemplate,  all played a part of me being who I am today, even the ones I wish that I could erase, they still helped mold me in to who I am. 

Now, romantic relationshipwise, there are the three big ones,  according to most, that means I am done, supposedly you are only supposed to have two great loves.  Anyways,  to my girlfriends I refer to these men as  11/11, 12/12 and last but not least 1/1, their birth dates.  I always thought that was kind of cool and have a running joke with myself that I can never fall in love with a man unless his birth month and date are the same. 

First, is 12/12, my first true love.  He was the guy you saw from across the room and you wanted to swoon, looked like James Dean, sang like Harry Connick Jr.  We were actually in first grade together and I was his first crush, he would sit by me during story time and I wanted nothing to do with him.  Then when I started college he would tease me and call me chicken legs or bean (short for beanpole) and he was my dream come true, I could not imagine life without him.  We were together for four years.  The shitty thing about growing up is, most of the time you change, the kids we were when we first fell in love, were not the same kids when we were twenty two and realized, crying our future was not meant to be together.  He decided he wanted to be, and now is, a pastor, and lets face it, as amazing as I am, one thing I am not, is a pastors wife! 

A few years later, a couple bad relationships, too much weed, probably way too much drinking, a beautiful baby girl and some growing up later, I fall for 11/11.  Now this is the one that might have made any sense to anyone else, but felt so right to me.  Oddly enough, we might have been "together" for a month, maybe, I am not even sure if there was even a title, I don't even think there was any "I love you's" til years later.  But I was completely smitten, he was hot, smart and he could see right threw me.  I played all my games, pretended to be something I wasn't, not only did he not fall for it, he called me on it, told me to grow up and be who he and I both knew I was.  I can't really categorize our relationship by a title, except for someone I loved to the core of my soul.  If I had a date, I would cancel it because he called, if I had a boyfriend, I would leave him to experience some of the best nights of my life, I could never say no to this man, he was the only thing that felt right and made sense.

But as they say, all good things come to an end.  And by complete chance on St. Patty's Day, I meet 1/1.  By this point, my heart had been through the ringer, I had since learned that I would never meet who was right for me, unless I was me.  And this one, he worshipped me, the only problem was and I didn't realize until after we were married is, he hadn't learned how to be himself.  He was me, years earlier, the one pretending to be the person that I wanted.  Whatever I wanted to do we did, whatever I wanted to have, he bought for me, if I wanted to talk about something, he listened like it was the most amazing thing he had ever heard.  Eventually, I realized he didn't know, didn't remember any of my stories, couldn't remember the things that I liked. we had great times when times were great, but even strangers can do that.  He loved me like the air that he breathed, but had no idea why, and for the first time ever I was actually being myself. 

Weird, how life turns out, how relationships start and end.  Eb and flow.  I wonder where I will be in a few years, what will have I learned about relationships then?  What words of my silly little wisdom will I be blogging about?  I am sure I will still be dissecting my life and judging myself.  Hopefully, then I will still feel as strong as I do now and not worrying about my future too much.  Because, there is one thing that I have learned.  No matter how I mess up, in relationships or otherwise, I am still me, learning from my mistakes and pretty fucking amazing!