The Line Between Love And Obsession...

Is drawn by only circumstance.
.....Anonymous Quote

Sometimes, when I look back at my time with "The One", I realize that we were in a constant state of flux. Or, maybe it was just me.

An affair can become like a drug. You need your fix. And yet, it was the times when we were alone, sitting at a cafe, or reading together in bed, that we were the happiest.

I remember one museum trip early in our relationship. I had always wanted to visit the Chicago Museum of Art and the day we picked for this trip was perfect. Of all of the things that I saw that day, one exhibit stood out:

"Untitled" was a masterpiece in its simplicity.

Per the exhibit:

Felix Gonzalez-Torres produced work of uncompromising beauty and simplicity, transforming the everyday into profound meditations on love and loss. “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is an allegorical representation of the artist’s partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. The installation is comprised of 175 pounds of candy, corresponding to Ross’s ideal body weight. Viewers are encouraged to take a piece of candy, and the diminishing amount parallels Ross’s weight loss and suffering prior to his death. Gonzalez-Torres stipulated that the pile should be continuously replenished, thus metaphorically granting perpetual life.

I can remember walking over to the exhibit and taking 2 pieces of candy. One for me and one for the love of my life.

3 years later and I still have that piece of candy in my jewelry box. Maybe that was the best part of being in love. While the chaos of the world was moving around us, when we were together, the simplicity of just 'being' kept all fears and doubts away. Together, we always felt safe.

An affair is not a cause for a celebration on any level. It requires a lot of bad behavior to protect those few moments of good. Again, the burden of being in love at the wrong time is just sometimes too much to understand.

But each time I open my jewelry box I look at that simple gold-wrapped piece of candy and I know, without a doubt, that for a moment in time, my heart was safe.

Let This Be My Last Word, That I Trust In Your Love...

Rabindranath Tagore
...Scholar, Poet, Teacher

I just spent the day talking with two of my girlfriends about trust.

It started innocently enough. Two of us watch Mob Wives and we were having a discussion about friendships. That sort of transitioned into how women treat each other.

Anyone who has spent time with me knows that I put my female friendships above other things. Yes, I can get mad at my girlfriends, but there are some women who will always be 'in' because I trust them to always be as honest with me as possible.

Maybe that is an odd way to phrase it, but I am sure that people have different levels of friendships or different things you expect out of people. I don't know, maybe that's just my issue.

What I know is that I am feeling a little more vulnerable lately than usual and I'm not enjoying this.

I feel like things I believed were either not true, or not totally true. People all have 'tells' and when you learn what someone's is, it is painful to watch or listen to them hedge on things.

There is vulnerability in trusting. You are allowing another person to help shape the course of your life.

I knew I trusted 'The One' the moment I met him. To be honest, the only other person I knew this about instantly on my old site was Red. Just from the second we spoke I knew that her intentions were to have the best interests of others in her heart. Usually, it takes me a while to warm up to other people on a more intimate level. I sort of hold back while we get to know each other. Maybe it's because Red is from Atlanta? Who knows.

I trust my daughter and my best friend, R. They both know me better than I know myself sometimes and they are brutally honest at all times just because they love me in a way that needs little except a return of love in kind.

But lately, as the walls I've put up around me have been tested, I am finding that my trust is fractured in places I didn't expect. It's probably not a good time for this on many levels. Or, really, is it ever a good time?

I've been clinging to things like friends, yoga and reading to get me through this time, which I know will end soon enough. The sun just came out here in New York, so I expect that as the life returns to my city, that the trust I've had shell-shocked will right itself. Or not.

All I ever know is that I miss what and who I miss and that's just the way life is sometimes.

You Broke The Bonds...

And you loosed the chains;
Carried the cross of my shame.
.....U2

I have often wondered if I ever really told 'The One' how much I appreciated him in addition to how much I loved him.

No, 'love him'. It's eternal, the feeling, when you've done it right.

My regrets in life have been few, and perhaps it is because I have not ventured out enough, or perhaps I have been lucky. But the major regret I have about the time spent with him was that I never allowed him to carry the burden of our relationship. He tried to offer; he asked; he demanded.

I kept it all a secret from him about just how scared I was at times that it was either not real or too real.

Funny, the one person I should have been able to talk to was the one person I wanted to protect the most from whatever 'things' are out there that destroy relationships.

I thought of this over the weekend as I was visiting girlfriends in Canada. I thought of all of the ways I didn't get things right or got them more right than I expected. And all of this thinking was brought to the surface because a new friend sent me an email that made it clear he was willing and able to be a shoulder if ever I need it.

A few months ago, another friend of mine was 'there' when I needed it most. He's got one of those great broad sets of shoulders but I always hedge a bit because he has a more complicated life than I do on some levels. I can remember him asking if he was 'doing it right' (the shoulder offering) and I realized at that moment that I want to be his friend forever.

I'm not good at accepting shoulders. I feel like I should do one of two things: Warn him or try to learn to be able to receive help when I need it. I've already done things with him that I usually don't. It started when a girlfriend of mine asked what was wrong with me. She meant it in the best way possible. She looked at this friend and said: From the sound of it, you should really try something new with him.

She had her doubts about "The One" and "The Prince" from the start of each relationship. She asked me a question after my Austin trip last year. She said 'don't you just want to be single for a little while?'

I heard her loud and clear. And that's what I did. I took a look at myself and decided single would be better while I went through the painful process of thinking.

Then a girlfriend set me up with 'The Prince' and we did whatever it is we are doing. Dating? I'm not sure, although that is what he has called it at times.

It has never felt like it to me. I just didn't put in enough effort, I guess, to express it adequately.

See, I am willing to admit when I am at fault.

So, back to the new friend who has said I could write about him here, but who is still without a pseudonym. For now, he will be 'The Writer' because it is something he does extremely well.

He has me pegged in a way no one has pegged me in a long time. He quickly expressed that I say nothing while saying a lot. Smart guy.

I do my best to listen to what others say, and also to what they mean through their actions.

It's how I got to Paris, you know. I listened to words and actions on my trip to Denver and when I boarded my flight home, I sat down and wrote something just for me. Then I got home to New York and immediately booked my trip.

I had forgotten about my post until I was flying to Geneva. I opened my iPad and read the words:

Do. Not. Wait.

That's how I feel now. Like life is going and I've chosen to wait for things or moments when I know better. For months I was happily just doing then I got stuck somewhere. Confused? Lost? Ambivalent? I'm not sure.

I just know that the sun came out this weekend. Inside, where it needs to shine the brightest.

No Thanks, I'm Not Lost...I'm Just Wandering...

Sometimes, I truly do not know how the time between April 2008 and January 2010 didn't kill me.

Maybe it's a testament to just how much stress I live under on a daily basis, or maybe it's something else.

I do know that waking up each day was a miracle in many ways. I died when I was at home.

Maybe that sounds dramatic, but it is true. At that point, I had been sleeping on the couch for a few months and "The Runner" and I had stopped having sex months before. We stopped shortly after the third or fourth time that he told me that falling asleep with me was uncomfortable for him. I only happened to move out to the couch because I fractured my hand and had to sleep with it elevated. I always look back at that time and wonder just how much happiness he was hiding when he fell asleep at night.

Finally, his words and his actions didn't matter. I was forced to sleep apart from him because of a medical reason, not because I couldn't take a hint.

I remember a trip I took with "The One" that October to Chicago. We had planned on spending the weekend doing random things, but then heading to a party with one of our friends.

It was extremely cold and windy that weekend and that became our excuse to stay indoors. The truth is that we had already gotten to a point where we didn't want to be apart for more than a few hours and we definitely didn't want to spend what little time we had with other people.

I can go back into my memory banks and tell you everything about our time together. I know exactly what we did; what I wore; how he looked; what we laughed about and I can also tell you when the tears started during each trip.

Each time we saw each other it was a Friday through Sunday. I would never be able to sleep on the Saturdays before it was time for one of us to go home. So I would wake up and either sit in bed next to him and watch him sleep, or, more often, I would curl up with a blanket near a window and look outside.

If "The One" woke up and asked why I was awake, I'd always have some excuse ready. The truth was that I never grew comfortable being in love with him as much as I honestly was in love.

I could never forgive myself for having those 72 hours of happiness. And yet, I never felt the guilt that I told myself had to be there.

Having an affair is not something I ever imagined myself getting involved in and I wanted to be devastated. Sometimes, I believe growing up Catholic did me a great disservice.

And then there are other times when I realize it is just me: I need to be the martyr, even if only to myself. That has to be it.

How do I know this? It is easy: I had never felt the type of love or connection that I felt to "The One". Never.

And to be honest, I won't ever feel it again. Oh, I will (and do) love. But never will I find my match in the same way. Yes, that is an extreme statement, but I am okay saying it because there is only one him and there is only one me.

That's a fair statement that any of us can understand.

Sometimes, I have a fleeting image of us together and I wonder which of us sabotaged the relationship. Then I realize, no, that's not what happened. We fell in love, we loved, we faced adversity and our timing was off.

But before it was off...we had our first Christmas together. And it was like a movie with all of its perfection. Even though it was in Atlantic City in the most ridiculous hotel ever. But we had Denny's. And presents.

And lots of love.

(Heart caption info: Lyons Township High School art teacher Jamie Rey's acrylic heart, located in downtown Chicago)

The Science Of Loving Yourself Way Too Much...

Trust me, you aren't that interesting.

Actually, neither am I.

A few days ago I linked a HuffingtonPost article onto my Facebook page.
The article, Do Narcissists Know They Are Narcissists?, was a big hit as a status update.

Of course it was. First, we all know at least one narcissist, right?

I know I do. I love the ones who refer to themselves as 'empathetic' towards others. Grade school psych majors can tell you those two words can not go together. I remember saying that once. I was told I didn't know what I was talking about. Where is the 'that's so ironic' emoticon when you need it?

My favorite sentence from the article was:

Perhaps narcissists assume that others are just failing to realize how bitchin' they really are. They may think that people are just too dim to recognize their brilliance. Another possibility is that narcissists may think critics are just envious of them. Narcissists may take negative feedback and think to themselves, "Those haters are just jealous!"


Ha. Haha. Ha. See, I believe this sums up the whole study. Actually, it sums up all three studies. Prefection.

I had a long talk with "The Prince" last night and we went through the usual talking points of 'what's new, etc' and we started talking about narcissitic behavior.

He has a lot more patience for it than I do. I wish I could learn from him, but that would be a long learning process.

See, I don't find anything appealing abour the behavior. At all. I find it sad and annoying. I think a lot could be written about the stories "The Prince" and I could tell.

In fact, I have a friend, "The Writer" who wants to have dinner this weekend so we can talk about these books we all keep talking about writing.

My time on "The World's Largest Sex Site" should come in handy, right?

I mean, look at all of the stories I can now tell. No, no one will ever believe me. It is impossible for anyone to imagine some of the things adults do and say to each other all for the sake of being liked.

And yet, it is not only possible, but it is happening every day. And, for those of us who can read, it is also a wonderful study on human behavior.

Yeah, I may need to re-think my major. It isn't too late for med school is it?

For more on the science of self-love...

If You Look At My Life You'll See What I See...

"I hate you and I wish we had never gotten married."
....May 15, 2008; then husband's last words before leaving our apartment.

It stared small. A simple argument over one of us wanting to mop our hardwoood floors while asking the other to watch the Yankees game in another room. It escalated, quickly.

For years I said that while I knew "The Runner" had a lot of issues with anger and passive aggressiveness, he never took those issues out on me or "The Girl, A". See how foolish some of us can be at times?

"The Runner" asked me to marry him three times before I said yes. What changed my mind? 9/11. It feels like a long time ago, but it is really only about 10 years.

I never learned to listen to my doubts until about two years ago when I started seeing the world's best therapist.

Until that point, if something was wrong I simply found excuses for why I was the issue - not anyone else and never the actual issue.

"The Runner" was funny, smart, brilliant and gorgeous. How could I find fault with those things? Yes, I had all of the doubts firmly rushing through my head: The 'First Love" who questioned me constantly about why now, why this guy; the best friend who said I was being silly; the best girlfriend who pulled me aside and said she would get me through the wedding, but then would be done because she wasn't on board. All of it. I chalked it up to them not seeing the 'real person' that I saw.

Well...looks like they were the brightest bulbs.

Do you know how someone who is independent views quiet, behind the scenes abuse? Yeah, I didn't either until it happened to me. While I would have picked up on it if it had been directed anywhere else, when it was sent my way, I made up reasons like: He's the youngest and this is how he was socialized; or he's just got to lighten up; or, or, or. And then some more or.

I will always have "The One" in my heart because we were both aware that our timing was terrible.

But on May 15, 2008, when I called my best friend and then "The One" and cried on the phone for hours to both of them, I knew I was going to start packing away the emotional baggage of living in a marriage that was honestly making me sick. I also knew that "A" was well-aware of how unhappy I had been, regardless of how much I tried to hide it.

Six weeks after that night of the great 'angry outburst', I was in Chicago and pretending that time didn't exist. "A" was at camp and "The One" was showing me his city so that I would be able to navigate it like a native. I thank him every day for this gift.

When I returned to NYC July 4th weekend, I was ready to concentrate on all of these real-life things, then I got a call to start traveling with the Obama campaign as an advance-pollster. I sometimes wonder if that is really what did in my marriage. While "A" and I only grew closer during this time, "The Runner" thought my work (both paid and non-paid) was insignificant in comparison to what he was doing. I was 'just' this or 'just' that. And as much as I tried to engage him, I knew it was only on the surface.

September of 2008 was a true turning point for me, "A" and the campaign. Everything seemed to be moving at warp-speed. Right down to "The One" offering to move to New York to be closer to me.

I wonder what would have happened if I had said 'yes'...

(photo by CarbonNYC; Mosaic Heart near Grant's Tomb, NYC)

No, There Is No Such Thing As "Too Soon"...

I remember when "The One" and I returned from our April trip. He to Chicago and me to New York. We waited a full three hours before we started talking about our next trip.

I swear I thought that we would leave each other that April weekend and probably stay friends, but nothing else. That's not true. I had hopes that I could ignore what I felt.

Then I asked him where I could send him a birthday present. He said to send it to his house. Gasp.

His house? He laughed at me. Over the years, he did that a lot. Laughed at my naïveté about how he felt for me; laughed when I pushed; laughed when I tried to shut down. Laughed at my inability to see where he already knew we were going.

But that April morning, when he laughed, I cried. I had no idea where to go with 'us'. I just knew that I had to try to figure out how to make a lot of people happy from that point forward. Well, a lot of people excluding myself. Years later, when my then-husband and I were filing for divorce, he asked if I was happy.

It is hard to be happy when you put everyone else first. There. Now that I've said it, you can see why I have been seeing the same therapist for two years.

"The One" and I talked every day from that April trip, onward.

We made plans for me to visit him in Chicago that June in time for "Taste of Chicago". I laughed because I thought we could get away with seeing each other every three months or so. He laughed, too. I thought that was enough. Then I couldn't wait and he flew me out to see him for Mother's Day Weekend.

And that began two years of crying each time I had to say goodbye to him. Especially when I left him on an amazingly beautiful May Sunday in 2008 and said, with tears in my eyes, 'when can we see each other again? Three months won't work. I'm sorry I suggested it would.'

I wrote my first love letter to him on the plane ride home that morning. And then I allowed myself to breath. I knew exactly what would happen if I ever had to make a decision to not see him.

I knew there was no way I could do it. Not willingly. But I tried to resist everything that was abnormal about our 'lives' together and instead, focused on raising a teen ager and keeping a husband who couldn't see me unless we were in a crowd, happy.

A few weeks later I was back in Chicago for that "Taste" weekend and again, I could hear my heart break when it was time to say goodbye. I think that is when I started considering that not only was I in love but that nothing had ever been so scary to me before then.

Sometimes, when I allow myself to think about it, I wish I had never understood what it feels like to have that much love given to someone or received, in return.

It's made the past year all that more difficult.

(no rhyme or reason to the choice of images, other than I heart Chicago and the Bean. And so does Kanye).