He was what I wanted in high school. The mysterious dude that was quiet and goth and handsome. I knew that every girl in our group wanted him. Yet, somehow I got him to like me. We would talk for hours everyday, he was my best friend and he knew my secrets and I knew his. For months, this deep friendship of ours was hidden.

Where do I even begin. I live in a small town Alberta. Beautiful mountains, warm chinooks, great hiking trails, and full of soul suckers. Yes, soul suckers. Some of the worst people I have ever met in my life. You go to a city and you’ll hear, “the belly of the beast”. Well, my friend... try this shithole that even smells like shit. You’d think it being so close to the Rockies and all the pretty views it’d be a wonderful place, but I think it’s hell. Drugs addicts, rats, fake friends, racist losers, homophobic idiots. It’s like all these fucked up city scum landed in a hole in the wall and said here! Maybe the mountains will cure you. I think it this point I’m just writing to vent. Because I’ve never felt so far from peace in my life. I literally feel like these people are sucking my soul out of me. So there’s a guy I dated. We go back a long tome before I left and came back. Left a relationship and COVID happened, so I had no choice but to come back here where my mother and bonus dad reside. Run into this guy, wants to hang out all the time. Super sweet, at first. Very pushy on dating. I’m already heart broken from the last guy so why not. Silly me! Meet the family, meet his drug dealer uncle, meet his dying mother and his lovely little innocent 2 year old daughter. It was going great! We shared music, he fell in love with it again. We threw a few parties and I made new friends. Typical story right? I mean not like this story is going to turn into a huge surprise. It lasted two months. I have never seen someone do so much cocaine in my life! I used to be a stripper, I used to date drug dealers. But this was something else. Right on the table infront of his daughter at that. So long story short, I left him. Mom dies, I feel bad, I go back. When it’s to a point where you are trying to be a good woman and you are crying because of his problem and he’s screaming at you for it. You run girl. And don’t look back. He got an inheritance from the passing. Bless her soul. Can you take a guess where that all went? He bought a new truck off the lot and bought a camper. New big TV and the rest.. well. I don’t think I need to say it. When the tv was purchased, I went inside to unhook the old one. While doing so, one of the daughters toys fell over and in order to not lose my patience from and already stressful life, I had a smoke. He comes in and starts whipping her toys across the room like a child. And I mean WHIPPING. Big toys too. If one would have hit me it probably would have broke my nose or did some sort of damage. So that was it. I waited for him to fall asleep to a movie and I was gone. For good. Now he’s broke. Skinny as hell. Dating a meth addict.. which I won’t say much about because I have another story in the future about another endeavour of mine. It sucks because I lost a friend. And I jumped in head first when I knew my own heart still needed to heal from the man before. So I suppose if there’s something anyone can take away from this story is just watch out for you. But I’m not done! I have a few more soul sucker stories. Maybe it’s just me and the situations I put myself in. But I do feel there is some sort of nasty vibe or evil presence surrounding this town... Ta ta for now fans ❤️

Six years.

How can it be that you were with someone who you thought was the perfect person for you and you were going to be together for the rest of your lives, get married, get a dog and do all the things that people do when they spend the rest of their lives together. But you break up. And you’re so happy that he broke up with you.

My year started out like any other year: wishing I wasn’t the only one single in my family. I had just hit the 90 day mark at my new job and we had a team off-site meeting coming up so we had to make vision boards. The categories on mine were: Family, Relationship, Work, and Finances. My number one thing I wanted to work on this year was getting to know myself and feeling more comfortable in my own skin. I made the vision board and, of course, placed pictures of couples on there but didn’t have any high hopes of anything happening.

Staring down at my shimmering baby blue dress, I look up to see the face of the woman that you will be marrying today. I cannot help but swallow back the lump of bitterness that has formed in my mouth.

For two years I lived in hell. Why I stayed as long as I did, I still cannot really figure it out. I have reasons and explanations I suppose, but none that are good enough to really explain why I stayed. The biggest one was I just kept hoping and praying that things would get better and things would change that he would change, but he never did. It started out just like so many relationships like these do. He put on an act. He lied and manipulated me into believing he was someone he was not. He said he had a job and a car but did not. He hid the fact that he used meth from me for months and months. He even came over to my mom’s house to help us decorate the house for Christmas. I would get messages that were supposed to be for someone else that were “accidently” sent to me. They were messages to his ex talking about paying for his 2 little boys’ daycare costs which he did not pay for (they did not even go to daycare) or to his friend about picking him up for work, but he did not have a job. He sent me these messages to make me think he did these things to make me think he was someone he was not. One night, I would not do something he wanted me to do so he told me that he had been to the doctor and that he had a blood disease and only had 6 months to live. He was crying and everything when he told me, really making me believe this was real to make me feel sorry for him and manipulate me into doing what he wanted. He did not take care of his boys at all. When they would come over for the weekend, I would take care of them. I would wake up with them in the morning, feed them, play with them, bathe them, and put them to bed, while he slept all day or worried about finding his drugs. As our relationship continued, I began to realize all the lies he told me, but I was too far in. I was in love with him for some reason and I did not want to admit to my family that they were right all along, and I was wrong. So, I just let it go and moved on. It became easy to pretend I did not see and ignore all the bad going on, the drugs and the fact that I was losing so much weight because we never had any money for food. We began fighting a lot and they were bad. He would scream at me and everything was my fault. He would call me fat, ugly, stupid, lazy. Then afterwards he would always come crawling back saying how sorry he was, that it will never happen again, and told me how much he loved me, and I would cave every time. I would forgive him and for a little while things would be good again.

Recently I was in a relationship where I fell for this amazing women she pushed me in every way to better myself and I pushed her to be better. we helped and supported each other. After about 6 months we decided to get married and that is when everything started to go down hill. she was so happy and excited! Her friends and family took me in as one of there own and for the first time in my life I felt truly excepted and happy. I felt like I was finally about to join a family where I truly belong. Then I woke up one day and felt that this is not what I wanted and that i was slowly falling out of love with her. I tried so hard for weeks to convince my self that it was just a phase and that maybe I was just scared to get married. Turns out not only was I lying to myself i was secretly lying to her. Then i met her best friend of 10 years and she trusted me because my finance trusted me. We bonded and got really close. then I realized that I felt more for her then with my finance and that i wanted more with her. I wanted to be her hero. the one to hold her when she cries and tell her everything is going to be okay. I wanted to give her the world. I thought we had a real connection. We had so much in common. she was easy to talk to and we like many of the same things. I felt like we had a chemistry between us. She was in a complex situation herself where her bf was treating her like shit and hadn't really seen or talked to her for 2 months. So I stepped in and wanted to help her and that led to me falling for her. I decided that I had to break things off with my fiance. she would go through my phone and read my messages. she was so insecure and always thought I was gonna leave her and always need to know specific reasons why I loved her. When I did give her specific reasons they were never good enough for her. Granted at this point in our relationship I had already tried to push her away multiple times. So what I did next was confess my feelings to her best friend and told her that I had feelings for her and I wanted more. Obviously I knew her loyalties are with her best friend and that she was blindly in love with someone else who refused to give her marriage and kids after being with her for 8 years. But I have had many regrets not telling girls how I truly felt in the past so I decided I had to tell her no matter the consequences. After I told her I broke up with my finance and thats when I lost her as a friend. She would never talk to me again. I don't blame her she was already in a complex situation her self. But i had a sense of relief that I did not have to continue lying to both of them. The only regret I have is hurting my fiance and losing her. The pain has become so unbearable it hurts so much. I know this is probably what I deserve for hurting them both but it doesn't change the fact im still in so much pain.

This world is full of strangers. Since the start, your parents tell you not to talk to strangers. They give you a mindset that you are so scared to talk to strangers.

In these still moments I find my mind wandering to the graveyard of relationships long buried. While most I am happy are dead and buried one always stands out. The one that haunts me to this day. The one I destroyed from nativity of youth and pride. My last relationship had ended because my fiancé had found my poetry expressing my deepest desires and emotions. She threw it out and told me if she wanted her respect to not show emotion and be a man and suppress it. She eventually left me for a man she deemed more masculine. So, I was taught to bury my soul. I carried this knowledge to my next relationship. A funny thing about burying your soul is when you can't show or express an emotion it turns to resentment at the world. Being young and believing the stereotype that anger was the only feeling men could have I found it intoxicating. I was angry at having a job that was work I hated, I was angry at politicians who seemed to make a good living doing nothing but argue and make press conferences, and I was angry about my lot in life. I knew I could change my lot in life but, then I wouldn't be able to feel anger anymore the only emotion people deemed acceptable for a man. The next relationship saw something in me could tell I was suffering spent countless days trying to heal the pain, I carried with me. All she wanted was for me to feel safe expressing myself to her but, the lesson I had learned was ingrained to deep. I knew she wanted me to let myself feel and be whole again but, fear of losing her when she deemed me less than a man stopped me. Ironically it was this unwillingness to open up that doomed the relationship. For when she saw that I was unwilling, and it was not a matter of trust but of will that kept me this way she knew she couldn't save me and had to walk away. I was young, arrogant, and naive. This is why it haunts me. All I had to do was believe her when she told me it was ok to open up and trust that this time would be different. I threw away pure love in the name of fear and pride. I doubt she even thinks of me anymore in truth I hope she doesn't. I hope she found someone who can be what I refused to be but, still I regret the fact I had a chance at something amazing and lost it by my own fault.

Should I be honest here on things that affect me? How I have discovered who I am . I mean who I really am internally. It took an affair with man who I fell in love with truly and gave everything. The kicker is we both are married. I never saw it coming. I did not ask for it. I did not pursue it. I was pursued and never understood what I did back then 3 years ago to attract attention of a man. This man said to me " you and me are alot alike" I say " how is that? He said : " we are both stubborn, hard headed and people don’t know how to deal with us."

And in that moment her heart started to beat out of her chest as all of their memories came flooding in. The tears the pain the frustration the love, she was overwhelmed with angst and cheer, to feel close to him again but only while being here. It wasn't the body of the person but yet the memories created with the person that created a feeling of a void. To know those memories would never happen again, and could never be replaced, that thought is what kept creeping in. She couldn't escape her feelings of guilt for being there without her, but most of all to be there with someone else. But she needed this like she needs food, she needed to sever her ties with her once known to be love, she needed to be free to do as she pleases without feeling guilt for doing so.