sink or swim.

I wrapped my sweater a little more snugly around my sides this morning as I approached my front door, dodging the falling autumn leaves, who, far too soon, will be replaced by dancing flakes of snow. My location has changed, my mindset has been altered, and the seasons are turning, yet even with each ending and beginning, too numerous to name or celebrate or grieve, certain things just refuse to budge. As surely as I know that winter is lurking around the corner, he has returned to me once again, and his timing couldn’t be worse.

These days have been exciting times for me. My feet have planted in my new locale, and I’ve begun to dig in my roots and explore a little, on solid footing, for once. With my new city as my shiny new oyster, I basked in the bliss of being an unknown – flying under the radar, the mysterious stranger from a far off land. I could walk into a room full of other gay men, and nobody knew my story already. No one could rattle off a list of people I’d slept with, why me and my ex-boyfriend broke up, who had a crush on me, all of the things that plagued me at home no longer applied – I knew hardly anyone, and I had a clean slate, plain and simple.

Before long, I had stumbled across what all parties involved widely considered the ‘gay holy grail’. Tall, dark, handsome, funny, kind, talented in the kitchen (not to mention other rooms of the house, as well), and, simply put, everything you could ever want in a man, and more besides. I experienced one of those moments of insecurity that I’ve heard others talk of before – the ‘why me’ syndrome. By no means do I have any self-esteem issues, in fact I generally have it in excess, but once it became clear that this guy had taken an interest in me, it seemed almost surreal. Too good to be true, and for the first time in memory, I almost felt slightly out of my league. However, I was humbled and definitely up for the challenge, and thus instead of curling up into a ball and dying amongst my self-doubt, I took it as a chance to step up to the plate and actually strive to be on top of my game.

And then, horror of horrors. Right on cue enters the one who not only threw me off my proverbial horse, but rather, shot my horse dead and then proceeded to beat me to the brink.

My happiness and elation over my new beau was torn apart like a typhoon passed through my coastal fishing village of love – suddenly, everything was turned upside down and I was left to flail around in a contained panic – what do I do? How do I react? Is it possible to contain the situation before it erupts completely?

I’ve learned that I am the definition of safety for my ghost of relationship past. Whenever there is a crisis or major development in his life, after which he needs to regroup and be steadied, I am the proverbial rock to which he returns for comfort. He knows that I am always here for him, that I have yet to let him down, and, to a certain extent, he also knows that things between us could potentially be drastically different had he not so royally fucked it all up. Thus, whenever there’s a storm on the horizon, he comes running to me for shelter – and, like a fool, I allow him to. The trouble comes along when you consider the fact that he has, and always has had, the opposite effect on me and my stability. To him, I am the calm sea after passing through the hurricane. To me, he is the hurricane, and I fumble around in the waves hoping for the occasional eye.

Thus, the entire situation is thrown into jeopardy. I am on the cusp of complete and total euphoria as far as men are concerned with the beautiful new model/chef boyfriend, and the whole thing is up in the air simply because my old beau is back dropping hints of remorse for the pain he caused me more than two and a half years ago. The strangest thing of all is that it should be glaringly obvious what the proper course of action for me should be – I am able to recognize that I’d be a bloody fool to do anything other than give yesterday’s love the complete and total cut-off heave-ho, and focus all of my attention and effort towards soaking up as much of the holy grail as I can. And I don’t anticipate it making any sense, but it’s not quite so easy for me.

As strange as it may be, when yesterday’s love talks about relocating himself to my new city, with the intention in mind of very likely giving things yet another try – my knees go weak. I have difficulty breathing and my chest sinks through the floor – but not out of terror. Rather, it is out of pure and unadulterated hope that this will actually come to pass. He talks about coming up to visit me, and I want to squeal like a schoolgirl. Despite our history and his record when it comes to destroying me, I actually believe that he has grown by leaps and bounds since we parted the last time, and that with each passing day, he becomes more and more capable of being exactly what I need him to be.

But, I won’t hold my breath – until I have solid reason to think that his plans to relocate and start over are actually legit, and not just experimental banter, I’ll call off the holy grail cavalry. Until then, I’m going to cling onto my little tiny boat for dear life, and try to navigate this scarily rocky ocean we call love. I just hope that the ship doesn’t sink, altogether. I’m a good swimmer, but losing out on both would surely cause me to drown.

~ by glamnesia on October 10, 2009.