reconciliation

I am sad.  It doesn't control every activity I engage in, every expression on my face, or every interaction I have with people, but I am carrying a deep and penetrating sadness around with me every day.

I'm making peace with the fact that the situation with Noah was unsustainable, fundamentally unhealthy, and expressly laid out from the beginning.  There were points where he seemed like he was changing his mind about refusing to consider a long-term, serious relationship; maybe those were times he was actually on the fence.  He ultimately settled back on his original pronouncement that he was not looking for a girlfriend and that this was not serious.  I'm a mixture of disappointment and annoyance that I accepted the challenge of waiting it out.

I eventually became, for lack of a better description, addicted to Noah.  Spending time with him was calming, pleasant, and predictable.  There was never any sort of drama or conflict (between the two of us), which I was wholly drawn to, and I enjoyed participating in his many tales and adventures, whether he was relating them to me from his past or reiterating events I had been involved in.  The oral tradition was fun, and it gave me a role among the others in his life.

relations

Three and a half months later, the dust hasn't settled, there are no complete solutions, and this man that I am in love with is still actively contacting me.  I've told him--looked into his eyes and told him--that I love him and I probably won't stop.  I had hoped that this would convince him to either avoid me for a long enough time to start getting over him or recognize that he loves me too and doesn't want to play this halfway game anymore.

Either way, I need this saga to end.  I need finality.  My heart can't handle having a few days, a week, to scab over, only to have him reappear, jovial and interested, to tear out the stitches and rub the new scabs away.  I am so raw and vulnerable, and my heart is simultaneously full and broken when he reaches out to me again, when I see him, when we spend another night together.

I'm so tired of trying to guess his meaning.  He may require his "freedom" and want things on his fickle terms, but it is devastating me emotionally.

Here's where the challenge lies with me:  how and where do I draw boundaries to begin preventing this man from accessing my heart?  What a horrifying thought--to actively bar my object of LOVE from my life!  But I can make no progress with his weekly re-emerging.  What will I choose for my own safety, for my own healing, and for my own peace of mind?

Admittedly, it is slightly comforting to know that this man is unwilling and possibly unable to walk away from what we have had together.  He's doing it to himself, without realizing that he's doing it to me too, but I don't think he can help it.  Of course, it's a bittersweet condolence to know that he can't avoid his feelings for me.  It's his internal conflict that I can't quite understand.

It's really not complicated--either you love me or you don't.  You want to be with me, or you don't.  There is no middle ground, it is not sustainable, and I don't want something grey and amorphous.

I want someone who is not at odds with himself over loving me, seeing a future with me, committing to me.  I want someone whose heart swells and grows warm when he tells me he loves me.

I really shouldn't be so conflicted either--I could decide that this man who can't bring himself to openly love me or commit to me is NOT for me and continue on my way.  I could stop the self-destructive pattern of being cheerfully available when he comes around every week.

The thing is, whether he admits it to me or to himself, Noah obviously loves me.  He obviously wants to be around me, respects, adores, and values me.

My boundaries need to start growing in healthy places.  Commence...