Now it's raining, just to rub it in.

It was a long hard ride.  So much so that I gave up.  I swore it off.  I put up guards.  I remember the feeling of first being back in Connecticut.  I would go out with old friends, new friends, my sister and her friends--and it was great.  I remember feeling like I hadn't been happy in years and I had finally found something that made sense.  For the first time in my life, I was being noticed.  I knew that I had this energy around me, and I knew others could feel it too.  I was getting numbers, giving numbers, and having a blast.  And all the while keeping someone on the back burner.  

He was my go-to.  My friend.  And then I got hurt more than I thought I could.  

The feeling of knowing that someone is with someone else at the same time that they are with you is a feeling that no one should ever feel--and yet most of us do.  It feels unfair.  It feels dirty.  I know for me, it actually made me physically ill--something no one had ever had the power to do.  There were a good three days of being unable to actually get out of my pajamas.  I slept.  Ate.  And slept.  And I didn't get any closure.

I didn't even have the courage to call it off myself.  I had a friend, who amazingly sounds just like me on the phone, call and tell him that he was unhealthy and to please not call me again.  My journey through all of this might have been much easier if I had gotten that kind of closure.  Instead, I looked for closure everywhere.  In dates.  In shutting down.  In giving up.  

About a week ago, I felt myself getting the itch to get out there again.  It started to feel like it did when I first moved back.  It's amazing to me that three days before my deadline of no more dating, I found the closure that I needed.

Karma has a strange way of turning things around.  For all the times I wanted to slash tires, for all the times I wanted to completely badmouth to all his friends.  I didn't.  And, as karma would have it, someone else did the dirty work for me.  Because when you cheat on two girls at the same time in a small state, chances are, they are both going to find out.

A week ago, I started to feel back to my self.  It's not an overnight transformation, but one that is gradual, and painful, and filled with lessons learned.  And I've learned, that I still have a lot to learn.