Humans logo

Tempted pt. 1

Desperation + Miscommunication = Disaster / 2, re: insight.

By Osmin GallegosPublished 4 years ago 10 min read
Like

My age isn't important. Who I am isn't either. I don't know how great this platform is on account of it being my first time writing in it, but I love to write.

I'll get to the point: My fiance and I have been working on our relationship for about a year and a half now. Our pasts are sordid to say the least, but not absolutely atrocious. We met at a really strange time in our lives, and have made it work out of the sheer intensity of what we felt (and much to our surprise, continue feeling) towards each other.

It's been a long year, filled with many trials.

If you're reading this, and are familiar with Carl Jung and his theory concerning, 'the shadow' side of the self, you'll have an easier time understanding what I'm trying to communicate.

I was someone who was turning bitter out of many mistakes and not nearly enough compassion towards myself. For every person that's loved me, I've found two in my head that don't. Somewhere beyond that, I knew the way I was going about this, was wrong. Took a long time to make the very painful choice to leave a family I was poisoning--behind, stop hiding from my demons, and face my shadow on my own.

I don't recommend this. If you can find a better way, do it.

DISCLOSURE: It's important for me to not name, name's, for obvious reasons. This has to be presented in a way to protect the people I care deeply about, all the rest involved, and anyone in-between--yet still allow me to share this with the world, in the hopes that someone out there can glean something useful from this.

Or at the very least get some entertainment from it, if you love to read.

This last year's been long. Rough. Never thought emotions ran so deep, so fierce, they feel like crawling through broken glass.

Codependency's been my cross to bear alone. Though I successfully escaped it for some time through drugs, infidelity and violence, it eventually found me. Reality's always more poignant than you want it to be.

If you're lucky, you'll find someone you've never felt reality glow for, like a high you can't put words to, and discover them mature in ways you aren't. You hope the dust settles, but somewhere in there, you don't want it to. You're left wondering if you ever really lived at all...

The honeymoon never leaves, and a shift is signaled. Unlike anything you've experienced before. Change. Pivotal change.

Suddenly, all the songs of love and loss, of romance and the feelings that come with it; all the metaphors and similes, make perfect sense.

and it keeps going.

If it's real, it reveals. All things. That means if you've spent a quarter of your life running like I have, you're due for a smack to the face.

The night my story begins, started with the usual rhythms I engage in with my significant other, figuring out what time we might be able to meet up and spend the remainder of it in each other's arms. Our situation is one slowly improving, but for reasons I'll decline to divulge here, is still a ways away from being one where we live side by side.

It's worth it, so naturally isn't easy. This is where patience, a virtue I do not readily posses, gets put to the test. Forged out of restless evenings, contending with myself--admittedly drinking, usually alone, or with whomever else I can find, it's been hands-down, the most excruciating muscle to exercise.

Learning to love yourself, takes time. Patience, trust and confidence are all materials that help build an archetype you can strive for. I've noticed I have a tendency to seek company, no matter what shape it takes, if my anxiety's triggered by the feeling of loneliness.

Comes on steady, like a slow burn. Creeping behind my rationale, before I even realize what's happening. Suddenly there's panic. Fear. Forlorn and racing desperation for contact.

I don't find it fair or healthy to place the weight of that squarely on the shoulders of my beloved, and my current conclusion remains as this being at the core of my codependency. It must be. Figure if I can learn to be at peace with this, I can be at peace. If I am calm and centered, I can navigate correctly.

I know who I am, and there's a victory in that. Doesn't mean I'll always triumph, but I'll sure as hell get back up.

The night was looking glum. I was already ensnared by emotion. I could feel myself losing composure in the exchange of text between myself and my love. Voices bubbled in and out of my mind, condemning me for my weakness, creating friction with my better judgment.

This mustered out in rhetorical questions whimpered to the dead air between us. We don't always get to be with each other, and this still bothers me, even after a year of doing this. She was tired, and it wasn't looking like she was coming over.

She tends to her family. Although there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it's been my attitude that's gotten in the way. I've had to learn to allow space for opportunity in her absence. Opportunity to get to know myself better. To learn to be by myself.

I should really stop texting, I thought, but putting that into action was a harder ask than could be executed. A neighbor of mine, turned-friend, saw me compromised, expressing concern for my behavior, echoing what I already felt.

He left me with his wisdom, which I ruefully replied to with, "yeah, you're right".

Although my ears caught the message and my brain registered what I was already in, what was already set, had been so--long before his wise advice even had a chance to plant it's seed. I was already running before learning to crawl and the road ahead was quickly turning dark for me.

A woman whom we'll call Samantha, texted me during this time. See I do construction and know my way around handiwork, so anyone who needs help with home improvement projects, hits me up. I'm fairly novice, so my clientele is understandably small, and Samantha is technically my first real customer.

A tricky thing about people like Samantha, is that she's someone whom I met while still working at the same place as my fiance. All three of us began roughly around the same time, so we had a history on a workplace-basis. During the first few months of me learning my trade after leaving this job, she helped me stay afloat by providing money for work I'd do around her home.

Samantha lives with her mother, who she looks after and sometimes I'd help her too, with her desktop computer. Wouldn't call myself a jack-of-all-trades, but I'm definitely not useless.

During this period, Samantha was going through these personal troubles regarding a man she's been interested in for some months now, finding herself let-down after waiting around for him in the hopes that he'd give her some of his attention. Perhaps it's my way of handling things, or the demeanor I carry, but people like Samantha always seem to flock to me, venting about their problems.

I don't mind conversation while I work, so I think this made things less rigid between her and I, which I think helped encourage her to reach out for advice. Feeling the need to talk to someone myself, she asked what I was doing this night.

Irritated, I answered, "Nothing. Looks like I'm alone tonight."

She asked if I was having trouble with my girl, if I needed company, maybe to talk, to which I replied, "Yeah, come over. Need someone to help me talk through this."

She offered drinks, I said, "Yeah--I could use a drink."

Samantha showed up. Made herself comfortable by sitting on the floor of my studio apartment. I sat across from her, while we traded stories about what was going on in our lives. In my venting, I was angry because I still struggled to wrap my head around the way things had played out this night between myself and my fiance.

The drinking doesn't really help. I just fall further into a morose state of mind where my existential nihilism really comes out. Suicide becomes a reality as I start to forget the point of why I bother living.

Having lost her sister at a young age, she became animated and irate about what I expressed, and began tossing out ideas of what to do to get me out of my funk. Asking if I wanted to play music, go outside, or try something else.

The conversation was haphazard. Really didn't carry the kind of weight I felt I needed to pull me out of the hole I'd fallen into. Instead I began turning on her reasoning, feeling really dick-ish and rude.

I can be dark and cold. It's not something I enjoy letting out for other's to see or experience, though sometimes I can't really help it, so I leave. As she expressed all the things in life worth fighting for, I shredded everything to pieces with cruel replies.

I dashed her hopes and illusions. Asking her what the point was in all of this, if none of it was going to matter in the end; in the real grand scheme of things, when no record of us having ever existed, held ground to very dust tossing in the winds of annihilation.

She fell silent, lost in her own pool of thoughts.

"What does it matter, really, when all our stories, all that we were and would be--fell silent to the planets and stars?"

I stared at her looking down and gloomy. My better nature kicked in and remorse washed some sense over what I'd just done. I apologized, looking to fill the silence with something worth a damn.

I asked her how her sister died. She said it was a drunk driver. Earlier, while first trading stories, she'd recounted a time in her life after her sister's passing, of going off to smoke crack and just do what I was doing this very night myself: wanting someone to talk to.

Sex happened every now and then between her and the men she'd hang around, doing that with, but it was more the company and conversation she was really after. Something to help her make sense, I suppose. I asked her if she ever stopped to consider that she may have been looking to escape the pain of loss, and she said yes.

Here, I began feeling my depression abating. Lifting just enough to help me confess to listening to people and offering advice, in the hopes of witnessing change. Some semblance of growth. That this made everything worthwhile.

As I felt better, Samantha seemed to quickly forget what was happening before her, and began to turn very touchy. Instincts came back online and I knew exactly where this was headed.

Goddammit, I thought to myself.

It was here I was faced with a blemish from my past.

Immediately, I regretted having invited her as things began threatening to spiral out of control. Samantha began calling me by the name of this disappointing lover, asking if I was hers. All I gave, was a cold, "no."

I kept repeating the phrase, "you need to leave, Sam..."

Standing to my feet, while helping her to hers, she insisted on getting one hug after another, gripping me tighter and tighter. Hands going towards uncomfortable places. When she lifted my shirt, I had enough.

Grabbing her arms, I forced her to the door, closing it behind her, then walking to my bed feeling profoundly ashamed.

All the years I'd cheated on my ex, all the self-loathing that fueled my false sense of validation. All the rationalizations I had come up with to justify my actions, were a wall of noise slamming into me. There was no one to be with me now.

All there was, was me and myself.

breakups
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.