I've only been in love once. Her name is Katie and she was the most amazing, kind, gentle, intelligent and loving person I'd ever known. She would go out of her way to do sweet things for me, she'd bring me coffee at work, take my dog out to potty when I wasn't home, make me dinner, take me out to places I'd never been to.
She was my neighbor, we'd been living next to each other for almost a year and we'd make small talk but it took a year to actually sit down and hang out. I was outside walking Baby Shane and he was barking so loudly we couldn't hear so she invited me inside. Later she told me she was pleasantly surprised that I said yes to coming inside with her.
From the start she was so honest. Katie opened up about her childhood, the sexual abuse by her step dad, her discovering she was gay, coming out to her family, I mean everything. I was blown away by how emotionally strong she seemed.
Katie lived with her gf of four years. She was very open about the problems they had been having, the therapy they went to and the "breaks" they took. But I never got the feeling she wanted to leave, even though she seemed so unhappy.
For the next week I went to her house every night after work and hung out with her and her gf and sometimes their friends. We went out to bars, stayed in and watched t.v., etc.
I was so excited to finally have some lesbian friends! The only lesbians I really knew were my ex gfs and I wouldn't exactly call them friends. Not that we parted on bad terms I just don't want to hang out with them. Anyway...
About a week into it all Katie and I were shopping for the perfect red lip stain for me to wear at my upcoming birthday dinner. We were in the car and out of nowhere she tells me she wants to say something but couldn't. Being so naive I told her we were both adults and words were just words and to tell me. As quickly as she could she yells "I like you! I think you're the hottest girl I've ever met!" My first thought was
if I jump out of this moving car will I die? Will it be worth it to escape this awkward tension.
I didn't say anything back which caused her to have a mini panic attack but once she calmed down I told her I didn't know what to say. That I didn't think of her like that. And she had a gf!!
Katie told me she didn't expect anything from me and still wanted to be friends. Then she said she was going to break up with her gf. I began to panic. "Not because of me, right?" She assured me it was something that was a long time coming, that she wasn't happy and stayed because staying was easier then starting over.
I looked out the window the whole ride home. She asked me if I thought of her
like that. I told her it never crossed my mind because she had a gf whom I thought she was in love with so I never let my mind go there. We got closer to home but I asked her to keep driving, now I was buying time. I needed answers, like how could she do this to her gf:? Didn't she love her? How were her feeling for me
so intense when she barely knew me??
A few days later she broke up with her. I felt so bad for both of them. Katie was clearly hurting but then she'd look at me and tell me she was hopeful for the future. That she felt free for the first time in years. I was happy she found what she needed.
To make this long story somewhat shorter, we started seeing each other soon after her breakup. She said she didn't want anything serious, though I could tell she was lying, I said the same but I obviously knew I was lying. A few months later we were official and inseparably.
The good times didn't last forever. Everything I said or did seemed to hurt her. Katie related everything back to her bad childhood and kept telling me she spend five years in therapy so she was fine now and it was me that needed help. Help? For what? Katie would get upset over everything and make small things seem like the end of the world. She would lie about things, then when I asked her about it she acted like I was being controlling. I became afraid of how she would react to certain things. Passive aggressive people aren't fun to date. If I were having a bad day and she could sense it she took it personally and would hold it against me for days. Soon she started to tell me I wasn't okay, that I seemed unstable. Being so madly in love with her I thought maybe I do need help. Maybe it's not normal for me to have bad days. How have I gone my whole life without someone else telling me I had so many problems? Soon after I was finding a therapist. But before I made it to my first appointment Katie broke up with me.
That's right, Katie broke my heart. She ended my life as I knew it, destroyed all my future plans, took away all my happiness. I was devastated. Broken. How could she leave me and still say she loved me? She was living with me for a month during our break up because her new lease didn't start yet but her old one ended. And where was she moving? Into the apartment upstairs of the duplex house that I live in. She's now my upstairs neighbor, seemed like a great plan when we were dating.
We slept in my bed every night still, I would cry myself to sleep, she'd hold me and tell me it was for the best and that she still loved me. Her words couldn't comfort me now because she's the one who broke me. I didn't know who I was without her. When did I lose myself? Would I ever come back?
A few weeks later I went to therapy, I told her how my ex told me I had mental health problems, that I wasn't okay and I asked if I ever would be. She assured me I did not have mental health problems, that I was in an emotionally damaging relationship where I was manipulated into thinking no one should ever get upset and that I was lucky to have got out when I did. Lucky? No, my heart was broken, I could feel the pieces moving further apart.
Katie was taking her issues and turning them around into my issues, and I didn't even notice. My therapist told me I was fine and I didn't need to be in therapy but it was fine if I wanted someone to talk to. The therapist told me to embrace my anger, that everyone gets angry and it was okay,
it was okay to feel. Those words changed my life.
It's been about four months since our break up, she still lives upstairs, I hear her walking and talking and her new gf steals my parking spot.
Today for the first time I felt grateful to have had the experience of dating Katie, and for the break up. I never thought I would be at a point where I was aware of how damaging she was to me. I didn't really write much about it on here but there were so many things that happened in our relationship that I'm glad I went through and I'm proud of myself.
I found myself again.
And I will never lose it.
