Tuxedo Cat’s father visited today and I don’t know why I felt the need to talk to him and express how I felt even though it’s still the same as it’s always been. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for or what I was hoping to accomplish.

I’m know I’m no longer interested in getting back together. Unless something drastically changes, that isn’t possible. What I mean by that is, something on a deep, fundamental level in who we are would need to change. And I know that I have already changed significantly in ways that can’t be undone.

I can’t go back to the person I was before I started college. I can’t go back to the person I was before the divorce when him and I were just friends. I realized today, that if everything happens for a reason, then the entire point of us dating this time around – for my end anyhow – was to dissolve all the walls I had so that I could reconnect with my emotions and discover the value of my vulnerability and authentic self.

It actually goes deeper than that. Intellectually, I understood the Inner Child as a concept. This relationship forced me to face mine in a tangible way. It’s a point of no return type of deal. Something that once you see it, you can’t not see it anymore. It’s like developing true photographic memory. Once the brain knows how to have perfect recall, it can never unlearn that skill. And now that you see it, something needs to be done with it.

He wants to be friends. I told him today that we can’t be friends if he isn’t able to deal with my intensity of emotions. This part of me isn’t going away. I get the impression he believes the intensity is due solely to us dating, when in reality us dating was only the catalyst for that.

This is the real me. This is the me that has been repressed for years. This is the me that most people only get glimpses of in my writing. Not anymore. I feel deeply. And I’m tired of being expected to contain the equivalent of an ocean in a teacup. It is not possible.

Talking to him today made me realize that those who are truly members of my Soul Tribe, especially the one meant to be my life mate, not only are able to handle and understand my intensity but will also celebrate it.

For quite some time I had felt like I have lost something when we permanently broke up. Something I haven’t recovered. Which was greatly upsetting since when we first got together, I felt like I had remembered who I was. When I said this to him, I realized it was me – not him – that I’ve been trying to reclaim.

I had been slowly erasing myself ever since we started dating, trying to please him. I even stopped writing personal posts in response to his deep concerns about what other people will say or think. I never started this blog because I was worried about what other people thought. And no, this is not his fault. This is my fault. I lost sight of myself.

I allowed myself to become invisible and when I tried to correct it, I was met with resistance. Even now I repeatedly hear, “I don’t like hearing how I’m wrong all the time.” I never said that. All I’ve ever been saying is to acknowledge the realness of me. To see me. To hear me. To understand me.

I feel just as small, unloved, and insignificant dealing with your anger every time I make this request as I did every time my parents got angry with me for being upset that my birthday was forgotten. Each time I was given a justification for it. Each time I was told why I shouldn’t be so upset over it. Each time I was told why it wasn’t a big deal.

I feel just as unimportant, pushed away, and ignored dealing with your rejection every time I reached for you as I did with my parents when they punished me for attention seeking. Somehow asking for a hug is a crime. Needing affection is a crisis. Wanting to hear it was a sin.

I feel euphoria when just as I am at my lowest and I’m completely crushed and beaten down, you swoop in and love on me the most. Exactly as my parents do even now. They are the most supportive and loving when I am at my worst. But during my brightest days, they are my harshest critics. There is always something to rain on.

God forbid that I was ever present without serving a need. I thought what I wanted was to be wanted. What I need is to be valued and celebrated.

And I’m come to realize that what I’ve done – what I’ve been doing – is I’ve been trying to replay my childhood. To prove that I do have value. Because, when I’m on my own I’m fine. I’m more than fine actually. I have the confidence and strength, and the sense of direction and of self. My path and purpose in life is clear. It’s when I start getting involved with someone that I lose all that. Why? Because I pick people that remind me of my parents.

People like my parents never change. They don’t like the idea of being wrong. They don’t like the idea of being vulnerable. Apologizing is a crisis. They will blame you for the feelings that arise when faced with any of it rather than addressing it. I know this because I have been this. And if not for years of therapy I would still be this.

I was actually starting to believe that I suffer from codependency. And maybe I do? I do know that I suffer from trauma bonding. The hurt and rescue cycle is a powerful and toxic weapon in any type of relationship. It drains a person of endorphins by causing suffering only to spike them later when they’re rescued from that suffering.

It’s a hard thing to forgive once you realize it’s been happening. Even harder when you’re recovering from the addiction to the cycle. Even if you can acknowledge that it wasn’t intentional, how do you trust someone after that?

We were never just friends. At least, on my end. And I wish he understood that. I can never be just his friend. It’s like telling me I have to quit smoking cold turkey while setting a pack of cigarettes in front of me.

So I’ve been oscillating between wanting to give him what he is asking of me, even though it kills me, and completely shutting him out of my life. The duality of this is tearing me apart. I feel like he is taking advantage of the fact we have a son together. He will always have access to me through our son.

He even got upset with me when I suggested that our son go to his place for visitation. His argument was how our son is used to it being this way. So sure, be ultra accommodating for our son’s Autism, but don’t budge and get angry over mine. I can assure you our son is capable of adjusting just like I am.

I will never be happy in any relationship as long as I continue to choose people like this. I will never be truly happy as long as I live in my parents’ house. The longer I am here, the more like them I feel myself becoming.

The paranoia, the back handed compliments, the snide remarks, the refusals of affection, the bottling of emotion… the avoidance of issues… all of it like a damn disease. It hangs like a black cloud here.

Dad has started up again with his talk of how this house is going to be mine someday. I guess it bothered him when I mentioned at the boys’ birthday party living on our own. He’s even gone so far as to start asking me my opinion on the renovations he’s been doing. This is a new thing. Before, my opinion meant jack shit.

And I know that as soon as I settle into this new mode, that something will happen to yank the rug out from under me. As it is, he’s already starting to boss me around again regarding how I should parent my boys. He’s even gone so far as to start dictating more responsibilities.

It’s not Tuxedo Cat’s father I’m looking for. I’m not even sure if he’s the mirror of my soul anymore. The reflection is beginning to distort. I don’t see myself in him as clearly as I did before. I guess this means I’m still rapidly evolving?

I don’t know where I’m going, how I’m getting there, or what any of it is going to look like. I just know that this journey isn’t over yet. Far from it.

I feel like the box I’m in has become a coffin and I need to expand well beyond it, but I haven’t a clue as how to do that just yet.

My Inner Child deserves a safe place to be expressed. I deserve a safe place to express. To be seen. To be heard. To be real. To be free to be me. Without restriction. Without pretense. Without bullshit.

I’m tired of feeling punished just for existing. I’m tired of bleeding all over the place. I’m tired of feeling this empty hole inside. I’m tired of being told what to think and what to feel. I’m tired of being told who I am. And maybe I’m just as equally tired of being wrong.

Maybe none of us are wrong. Maybe we just haven’t been willing to listen. And as a result we broke each other. Maybe someday we can align, but it was not today.

Today he kept talking over me and changing the subject. It kept breaking my chain of thought and derailed completely what I thought I had intended to do when I reached out to him. And admittedly, a part of me wasn’t really interested in what he had to say today. I just wanted to get what I had bottled up inside me out, but the derailing that went on sort of fucked it up.

All it did was clarify how right he was when he said back then that we are not compatible. I am in love with an illusion. One that I will never get back. Again, it’s one of those things that once you see it, you can’t stop seeing it and you have to face it. I don’t have any idea who he is. I’m not sure I ever did. Not sure I ever will. And there is a deep sadness in the realization of this.

Companionship: “a feeling of fellowship or friendship.”

At least now I know that the next time I’m dating someone and he tells me he likes being around for just my companionship, it means I’ve been friend zoned and I seriously need to move on to find someone else – immediately.

Staying in something like that will only result in getting hurt. Period. And I’m tired. So very tired. To the point I’m starting to wonder if love is even real.

He talked about the MeToo movement and how men need to be allies and support women but even as he said this, he talked over me and interrupt me and changed the subject on me like I didn’t matter. How is that being a supportive ally? The MeToo movement is about more than sexual harassment and consent. Is has everything to do the power exchange that occurs between two or more people. This is why consent matters.

There are people out there waiting for me. I want to believe that. People that will embrace the real me. The true me. The intensity of me. People that won’t try to squash me into a little box and revise me. People that will celebrate the entire ocean of my emotions. People that will allow me to see the all truth of who they are and allow me to decide for myself to accept them or not. I just need to get out there and find them.

I don’t know… the more I struggle with this mess, the more Maraboli’s concept of a funeral for past relationships makes sense. And I guess today a part of me wanted to do that with him, but I should have known better than to try.