I’m in Portland, staying with my very recent boyfriend. Still very fresh in the honeymoon phase, I can’t get enough of him. My limbs are drawn to his, tracing my fingers along the veins that run from fingertips to forearm while we speed down the winding highway or our feet doing a dance under the kitchen table while we hang out with his brother.
Yet, in this place of complete and utter happiness, l find myself so tense. I know I should be able to sink into his arms while we lay in his bed just enjoying each other’s presence, but instead I’m reminding myself to breathe evenly. To release tension from my shoulders, hips, neck. Being someone who doesn’t have much stress in their life, I don’t feel this anxious and uneasy often. So why now?
I laid my head on my boyfriend’s chest this morning and really thought about it. Was it the fear of starting a relationship with someone who lives across the country? Was it being in a place foreign to me? Was it my intimidation of his extremely active lifestyle that I’m not sure I can keep up with? It came to me, and it is none of that and all of that at the same time.
I have good taste in guys. I always have. And until recently, I could say that I’ve never been truly hurt in a relationship. All of that changed a few months ago while I was living in Hawaii.
Being alone in a place that, while technically part of the United States, felt anything but familiar, I was fortunate enough to meet a group of friends that invited me into their lives with open arms. These people and their lifestyle was as foreign to me as the new city I temporarily called home. The familiar faces from home who were full time students and spent their free time playing card games were traded in for blue collar, beer swinging, surfers. And I was drawn to it. The carefree lifestyle of going to the beach and spending time with friends for sunset after short and inconsistent work hours was one that I craved. I wanted to be a part of this new group so bad, that I left my logic behind and fell for someone who embodied it more than anyone else. Yet, someone who if I met back in Michigan I wouldn’t have given the time of day to. Something about him embodied Hawaii. And I loved Hawaii.
So I fell. And I fell hard and quick. Thoughtlessly. But so did he. At least that’s what I was told.
Falling asleep at his house the night before I flew home for a few weeks, he told me that he would do anything to protect me. To keep me safe. But stupid me, the only thing that would have kept me safe was staying far away from him. Too late.
I returned to Michigan, his name constantly lighting up my phone. He called nightly to tell me how much he missed me like it was some kind of ritual that he must complete before falling asleep. Yet somewhere along the way that all changed. As if overnight someone pulled a plug, suddenly halting all desire he once had for me. Leaving me, a 20 hour flight away, grasping for straws. Hopelessly wondering what I did wrong. Reading over every text and replaying every word that snuck out of my mouth over and over and over. I drove myself insane, and every time I grabbed out my phone to ask if everything was okay, I was met with the brushoff response that he was “just busy with work.” Apparently, we would “talk about it when I was back.” I began considering canceling my flight to return to Hawaii, but the desire to know what went wrong was overpowering.
A few days later, he picked me up from the airport. It was late and I was to meet a temporary roommate, so we said goodnight and promised to see each other soon. I left after a kiss, convinced that the lost connection that I noticed while in Michigan was all in my head. Everything seemed to have reverted back to how it was the night he whispered those comforting words into my ear. But it wasn’t.
I only saw him once or twice after that. I tried to make plans over and over again and kept getting met with the same phony responses like I had gotten in Michigan. This “relationship” was one of the shortest I have even been in, but the “breakup” was the most painful. The lack of closure stripped me of my certainty, leaving me convinced that I had done something wrong. That it was my fault. I found out through social media (then confirmed it through mutual friends) that it wasn’t me at all, but rather that he started dating someone else in the friend group. The day I noticed the change was the day they became a couple.
I suppose knowing that someone better came along was the form of closure that I needed. And while it stung for weeks afterward like an open wound, eventually it began to heal. I no longer think of him or have any hopes that it would have turned out any other way. I was able to move on.
And as I laid on my boyfriend’s chest in the dark this morning, feeling it rise and fall peacefully, hurt from this past relationship flooded into my mind. The wound may be healed, but it left a scar.
I am insecure about being enough. I am terrified he will leave into thin air, just like the other guy did. I am terrified that I will get hurt like before. Even though my boyfriend has given me no reason to think these things. Instead, he pulls me in closer when I tell him I’m scared he’ll leave.
When I would hear stories of people getting cheated on in relationships my mom would always tell me that the act of cheating wasn’t the worst part, but that the person will never be able to trust someone again. It’s a memory that will stick with them forever. That will leave a scar. While never having been cheated on, I am left with a different scar. But a scar nonetheless.
I remind myself that not all guys are the same. That one bad experience shouldn’t put me off forever. That I just need to trust again. But with the past hurt playing through my mind, it’s harder this time around.
