The Lingering Fling

To be well versed in the way that I want to have a love (romantically) hasn’t been something I thought that I needed to ponder on as much as now. In the early months of winter; which is what Seattle can feel like for the majority of a calendar year, I slid into the passenger seat of his car with my opened and half full bottle of red. This moment felt exciting. I believe most twenty-somethings find a time where after several drinks with the girls in the afternoon, the most satisfactory way to end the night is with a sneaky link, or someone more committed. At least emotionally available to do as such.

When some stories (like this one) begin with ease and spontaneity, maybe that’s what makes them cling closer, and longer to my heart until I can just call them heavy memories, and call on them too, very easily in fact if ever I need to feel something. And these heavy things have humor, like most thankfully.

As dramatic as it sounds, Derrick and I were done after 10 weeks or so. I was heartbroken. I knew this to be true because a couple mornings after his sort of sort-of-not confirmed departure from this situationship I felt a similar emptiness as I did as a teen and those thorns that would soon be all that I would mourn until something equally as devastating would come along.

So here it was, you heard it here first y’all (and to those who I’ve brought it up to over and over again) yes, this girl here had started to fall in love in a damn situationship. Snoh Aalegra couldn’t have had her song out at a better time for me. I mean could you blame me? With an unresolved past like mine, at least with the gaps in my romantic intimacy, my nervous system was bound to cling on. I started to ask things such as “hey intimacy, why won't you stay?” It was therapy sessions that helped me realize what this feeling of deprivation meant for my healing journey. I couldn’t have started therapy again, only as an adult, at a time this significant either.

After our fair share of you slide into my DMs I'll slide into your passenger seat type of exchange, it was time to meet his family. I should mention he had moved back home post long term relationship breakup, so this meet and greet came with the package. Which I suppose didn’t make it as special but it was nerve wrecking still, I enjoyed every moment of it. Me? You mean to tell me I can have a shot at this too? And wow did it feel good the more we hung out, the more we woke up to one another. Even when I first noticed butterflies, checking my face waiting for him to pick me up. I know good and well I didn’t really want to avoid it all. Even if I held in my pee till I got home, this was so I wouldn’t pass his mom and her open bedroom door. Honestly, sorta disrespectful of me, right?

As I’m feeling these feelings within reason and probably without acknowledgment, my spidey senses, my women intuition guide, my gut feeling guardian angels pay me a visit or three. I see his ex’s name on his phone a few too many times, I work up the courage to ask what was up with that. Before I knew it I was channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw. Could choosing me really be too good to be true? Can you believe I let myself get to that point? Basically saying “I’ll sit right here unless you choose her”. I suppose I was a little desperate. Confused. Hurt. Hopeful.

Eventually January 2020 rolled around and to my surprise so did the first time we bailed on each other. It wasn’t all that bad, I wasn’t feeling well anyway, no it wasn’t Covid, mostly anxiety maybe. I came home with tests that I bought anyway to take with me to the bathroom; exactly, pregnancy tests, and they came back positive. What would this mean for us? A few more days go by and I can’t wait to tell him in person anymore. He can already tell the change in my demeanor, I know it. I stooped pretty low by sending it through text but at least everything that came to follow answered other questions of mine right? Even if I didn’t see it that way at first.

These days I had two jobs and today, an abortion scheduled for the following as well as several days off. I was standing at the counter talking to a guest when extreme pain took over my side abdomen. I had to dismiss myself and let my coworker take over only to find myself a minute later laying on the hard and cold employee restroom ground. I lay there in the fetal position calling my mom, luckily her workplace was close and to this day I am so grateful that she drove in that day. A quarrel inside of me on the way to the emergency room. Have you ever felt such a thing? A violent quarrel between your lungs, your heart, your stomach, even your come down. A sort of high I never thought was happening with Derek was very much like reality hitting. An argument bursting and bleeding inside of me, that is what too late of an ectopic pregnancy feels like.

Derrick never asked if he could come to check on me, my mom later told me it raised red flags for her but he could’ve and she never knew, she didn’t ask she knew how I was, or so she thought, ““ anti-love she called it and I cringed I knew what she meant but it was like unfamiliar territory. This experience left me exposed, and ultimately to myself. Even friends had said I looked so happy. That worried me.

I like to call them souvenirs from Vegas, now. After just a few days post surgery healing I managed the strength to go with him and his family to Vegas, something that he bought for me as my ““ Christmas gift. I had spent the past few days getting on and off the toilet with the help of my mom. I had scars from the surgery that I can’t remember if he attended to but I know for a fact a couple months down the road another man would kiss on.

I lay there in Vegas on the first night in pain and taking maybe a little too much of midol but he and I just say they are cramps, there is no one else on this trip I can talk to about it.

During this time my grandmother also passed, at this point my in person audience takes this as que for a pit stop pity party. Actually, it just amazes me how quickly I went from regret for not being there to him telling me “you don’t sit in your misery”. That was me consumed by the fact that I got the information I was curious about by looking through his phone, a first time act for me. I kept it inside of me for the remainder of the trip, a second time one.

My kind of love

I: terrified yet true

II: as present as it can be, I’m afraid it’ll haunt me forever

With COVID to follow, you can imagine this only heightened my emotional hangover, my physical trauma. I had to commit to my healing journey and my growth, something that is still and forever will be ongoing. Being ok with that is where I’m at with that, in a whole new state in fact, something that I’ve wanted for myself for years. I don’t want to feel defeated when I tell this part of myself anymore, I want to feel empowered and make that impact as small as it may seem to others, that is what I gather when I read stories alike and watch films that trigger this time. I don’t usually take experiences lightly, I’ve learned this about myself, so this is vital.