Just when I’ve thought I must have learned all there is to learn about love and relationship, I find that I know less than ever.  I mean, come on.  I’m forty eight.  But age is just a number and it means nothing.  All I know is that I’m always learning, and that’s a good thing.

The latest discovery I’ve made during this journey of learning who I am (so that I can finally get over myself) is that I don’t think I’ve every truly been in love.  It’s a shocker to admit, considering how many I’ve loved in my life.  This isn’t to say that I’ve never loved.  I love everyone (almost).  I’ve loved all the men with whom I’ve been involved.  And I still do.  I don’t stop loving.  What I’ve realized is that I’ve been infatuated, time and again.  I’ve been excited about the thought of what might be, rather than what is.  I’ve allowed myself to be duped by this time and again, and it’s caused no shortage of anguish in my life, and by extension, in the lives of those around me.

At the core of my very soul, the essence of me cries out, “Do no harm!”  Yet time and again, I find myself bruised and battered by the emotional fallout caused by my own inability to understand myself.  And by extension, I’ve hurt others in the crossfire.

When I’ve fallen in love (or rather, gone head over heels with infatuation), I’ve jumped in.  All in.  With every ounce of my being I exuded love.

The thing is, the honeymoon doesn’t last forever.  Or very long.  At all.  So when the honeymoon is over, I start to see the reality of things, and pay closer attention.  Maybe it’s safe to say that I started to pay attention at all, because during the honeymoon I was too caught up in the magical feelings of hope that I’d projected on another – hope that he understood me, that he heard me, that he got me.  All too often it turns out that during all this time, I was listening to him, paying attention to him, trying to get him.  I jumped in to him.  But not vice versa.  And how can I fault someone for not reciprocating my projections?

So it’s been with Rock.  I met him in September (2011), and broke up with him in September (2012).  It took me several months to muster the courage and strength to break up with him –I remember thinking, if I can just make it to July…  …I had a trip planned and my mother was coming to watch my boys while I was away, and all these wheels were in motion and I just didn’t think I could handle the logistics of things if I were to pull the plug before the trip.  I know, it sounds horrible to say it like that, but that’s the way it was.  Sometimes it feels crippling to be a single working mom with no nearby social network.  It’s funny (not really), I can’t even count how many times he left me before that.  That’s how it was with him.  So much drama.  I got caught up in it – he spins an amazing tale.  He’s a very gifted orator.  He really can spin a captivating tale.  I hope that he finds a positive way to channel that, because it truly is a gift.

He would break up with me — well, he wouldn’t break up, he’d just leave. Take off with all his things, stop answering his phone…  And I’d track him down, demand an explanation, assure him that I love him, and bring him back.  Over and again.  All because I was so caught up in that storm that I couldn’t catch a moment to get a realistic perspective of what was going on.  In retrospect, the suffering that we’d have avoided had I just let him go when he tried to go the first time.  But I didn’t know.  I figured it was just a challenge, and I’m not one to give up easily.

I will say this.  In my entire life, nobody has treated me worse than he did.  It’s appalling to even admit.  I suppose in a way it helps me to glimpse a little into the world of abuse and battery and understand why and how some women get caught up in it.  He was never physically abusive, but verbally?  Oh, the venom he could spew.  I’ve never told him how horrible he was, and I’ve never told him that nobody’s treated me worse, ever, and that includes Snake (that is a confusing chapter about rape, theft and mind control, but it’s another chapter for another day).

Relationship is all about perspective, and I write only about my own.  It’s always bewildered me that he perceives that I was abusive to him.  I can’t even fathom it.  I am such a gentle soul.  I tread so softly in life, wanting to do no harm, leave no room for anybody’s disappointment (in me).  So it baffles me that he would consider me abusive.  Mean.  He would say that I’m mean to him.  Okay, I have been told that I’m brutally honest.  I can see that — I am honest.  But I’m not mean.  And I’m not vindictive.  And I am gentle and kind.  Those who truly know me know this.

So, it was September when I told him he had to go.  He didn’t move out until mid November.  Now it’s late April, and only these past few weeks he’s starting to understand and finally accept that it’s over.  This has been the longest and strangest breakup of my life.  In times past, when I’ve realized the shoe didn’t fit, I ended things and that was that.  No looking back.  I love you, and will always love you.  But we don’t fit, and we must move on.

He’s a very strong man, is Rock.  Alpha male, through and through.  I wish him well.  I do.  I love him dearly.  I do.  We don’t fit.  I know this.  He doesn’t agree.  But this isn’t about what he thinks.  This is about me learning about me.  I would rather go through life without hurting anybody, and without anybody feeling hurt because of me or anything to do with me, but the fact of the matter is that hurt is always a risk when relating with others.  I’m sorry for the pain and anguish and sorrow and tears.  But I have no regrets.  There is much to learn from all things, and from this relationship I have learned a lot.  A. Lot.

I’ve learned about vigilance and more keenly honed my boundaries.  And I’ve learned that I’ve mistaken infatuation for love.  I realize that I’m not in love with him, and more importantly, that I probably never was.  It sounds so callous, but it was in my own ignorance of my own self.  I realize that I don’t actually know what it is to be in love.  Apart from the love I have for my children, that is.  Oh dear God in heaven, how I love my children!  I am in love with my children!  I love them beyond the edges of the universe and back again.  But love with a man, a partner?  No.  I haven’t experienced that.  Only the hope of love.  The glimmer of love.  The projection of love.  But not love.

Love is so complicated, and yet so simple.  It’s one of those eternal paradoxes.

I don’t know if I will ever be in love.  I don’t even know if I ever want to be in love.  I already love everybody.  And I in turn am loved by many.  Many!  But I don’t know if or how I can be a partner with someone.

That’s another thing that Rock doesn’t understand.  I told him that I’ve lost track of who I am, and I need to be alone.  I yearn to be alone, to have a few moments to at least try to capture my thoughts and ground myself in a safe place where I can catch my breath and rest.  And to find myself again.  Or find myself at all.  He can’t stand to be alone.  He wants or even needs to be in contact with someone, nearly every waking moment.  He will leave the television on, just to have voices fill the space.  When he’s driving, he calls to chat.  Not a moment of solitude for him.  And how I yearn for just that!  We are fundamentally different.  A day goes by and I don’t contact him, and he feels so hurt by it.  Are you mad at me, he asks?  No, I say.  Not at all.  But why don’t you call?  Because I don’t feel like talking.  (To you, or to anyone, I say in my head.)  He just can’t grasp it.  You used to like to talk, he says.  Actually, I’ve never liked to talk on the phone, I finally said the other day.  All this time, he’s been the one talking, I’ve been the one listening, and wishing that I could just hang up and be alone with my thoughts, or with the sweet nothingness of silence and the peace it brings my soul.  Is there someone else, he asks.  No, I say.  He could understand it if there were someone else, but to want to be alone?  That he just can’t grasp.

You used to love me so much, he’ll say.  He longs for the early days when I’d do anything for him.  Bend over backwards and move heaven and earth.  It was like that. Then.  In the beginning.  During the honeymoon.  But what can I say to him now?  I’m not that person any more.  I don’t have the strength to try to move heaven and earth.  I’m sorry.  I’m truly sorry.

I was good for him.  He grew up a little, during the time he was with me.  He learned some things about himself.  He changed in some very good ways, and let much of his anger and venom go. He’s learned to have a little more patience.  He’s a good man, and I will always love him.  He wants a wife and family, but we don’t fit.  I know this.  Deep down in his heart, I think he knows it too.  But he hasn’t admitted it or fully accepted it yet, even though I’ve told him so, time and again.

I don’t like that he’s hurting.  I don’t want him to hurt.  I need to find myself and get over myself so that I can be the best mother that I can possibly be.  My children are my priority.  It’s as simple as that.  They need me.  I need them.  I absolutely need to take this time for them and with them.  I need this for them.  I need this for me.

It doesn’t mean I love him less than I did before.  It only means that I recognize now that far too often in the past year I’ve shuffled them aside in my endeavor to be a couple, and that is something that I should never have allowed myself to do, and something that I want to ensure does not happen again.

And as for love and relationship?  I have absolutely no idea.  Only that I now know that I know nothing at all.