Mirror, mirror, on the wall

“Meet me at the park in twenty minutes.”

My heart skipped every single time he would text this to me. The thrill of sneaking out of my office, meeting up with him, and disappearing to our secret spot to participate in my very favorite nonsexual physical activity, making out, was always a welcome surprise. It always had to be on his terms, because, well he was a busy man.

Both with his respectable career and with his longtime girlfriend.

So, when he could get a few free minutes in his day I happily obliged in filling that time.

(I know, I know… trust me, there is nothing that you could possibly be thinking about me after reading that last part that I haven’t already said to myself about myself.)

“Yes sir.”

I responded as I grabbed my purse, threw it over my shoulder and sauntered out the back door of my downtown office building without alarming anyone with my exit.

Lance and I had history.

Once upon a time he came into the barbecue restaurant that I waited tables at, sat in my section, and could not get enough of me. He began frequenting the establishment weekly, sometimes twice a week.

At first, he didn’t say much at all.

He was quite an asshole, which I would come to find out was his everyday personality. Eventually, though, he softened up, which lead to light flirting.

His crooked smile held pain that I recognized within my own and his baby blue eyes made me weak in the knees.

Though he was rather blunt with his words, which could come off very hateful from time to time, he always made sense when he spoke and he kept me laughing.

One day I received a friend request from him on social media and the trouble began.

Up until this point I could always lie to myself and justify my flirting with a taken man… as a taken woman as “Me doing my job” and providing quality customer service… but this was outside of business hours and I could not help myself.

The conversation began to come quickly through direct message and I became obsessed with the feeling that the attention he gave to me provided, so I ignored my inner voice screaming at me to stop this.

Before I knew it I was in a full-on emotional affair that I had no business being in.

We spoke in-depth about hopes and dreams, traumas that life had given both of us, we spoke a lot about relationship issues that we both had, and of course, we spoke a lot about sex, although it took a very long time before we became physical.

About a year into this emotional affair shame got the best of me and I told my then-partner the truth about why I had become so distant from him, I told him about Lance. I did what I needed to do to release the guilt

For the following year and a half, I had no contact with Lance.

I unfriended him from social media, cut contact on my end and he quit coming into the restaurant.

………..Until I got singled up.

No matter how hard I tried to move on from the thought of him, I could not. So I broke no contact. I told myself that I would just check in with him. If he was single, that would be cool. If he wasn’t I would at least know he was doing well and I could finally move on.

Before I knew it I was sitting on his lap, in his Toyota Tundra in the middle of some random field keeping a lookout for the owner of the property in the middle of nowhere with my tongue down his throat and my hand in his pants regularly.

He would tell me how sexy I was and how amazing my lips felt on his.

He would whisper in my ear that my ass sat so nicely in his hands as if they were made for each other. The way his baby blues scanned my body made me feel as though I was the most beautiful thing in the world and his lips on mine felt as though he wanted to devour me.

I became addicted to the attention.

Addicted to the rush.

Addicted to the thought of me being on someone else’s mind.

Addicted to Lance.

I equated this attachment to a taken man to love.

I had starved myself of love for so long that I no longer knew what it looked like.

I wanted it to be love so badly.

I WANTED to be loved so badly.

So badly that when he decided to break our routine and take me to the house he shared with his girlfriend instead of the field, I was for it.

Not only was I for it, but I felt a sense of victory. Like I had won something as we pulled up to the garage on the side of the house.

He looked over at me, licked his lips as he opened his door, not even cutting the engine of his work vehicle off because he was here with one purpose, and it wouldn’t take long.

He walked to my side, opened my door, looked down, and winked as he grabbed my hand and pulled me out of his still-running car toward the camper parked under the carport. We walked up the metal steps opened the door and motioned with his hand for me to step on up.

Thinking back to that moment now brings tears to my eyes.

I want to go back to that version of myself and hug her so tight.

Let her know that she deserves so much more in life than being snuck into an old, dingy camper, outside of a house that another woman was doing her best to make a home, laid down on a bed that did not belong to her, and after two pumps used as target practice as he pulled out and finished on my stomach, pulled his pants up, neatly tucked his work shirt back into his belt buckle smiled that crocked ass smile and threw me a towel as he walked back to his vehicle that was waiting in the driveway.

Truth is, at that moment, that is the only “love” I was willing to accept because that is the only love I was giving to myself.

You see- people treat us the way we allow them to treat us.

We allow people to treat us the way we feel about ourselves.

At that moment, I felt like shit about myself there for, I not only accepted shit… but welcomed it.

Today I woke up completely overwhelmed with gratitude for my journey back to myself.

It has been a beautiful disaster with every step, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for every single one of the steps I have taken.

This is just one of the many examples of really fucked up situations I have put myself in seeking validation outside of myself, because, to me, this was love.

I continued to hurt other people and myself seeking anything to fill the void that was in my soul when the whole time it was a void that had to be filled from the inside out.

Today I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the process of transformation that I have been so blessed to receive. My idea of what love is has transformed along with me.

I got tired of my shit and learned how to love myself so that I would never accept anything from anyone that didn’t match the love I give to myself.

Today I am overwhelmed with gratitude for God creating me just the way that he did.

Above all else, today I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the many versions of myself that have gotten me to this point.

Though I often look back on some of the shit I have put myself and others through with pain, I no longer look back with guilt or shame.

I may not be proud of the things I have done, but I can still be proud of the person I have become through those experiences.

I felt the need to share this with you in hopes that, maybe, just maybe, you can begin the process of forgiving and accepting yourself today.

My hope for you is that you can look back at the many versions of yourself with compassion and be proud of where you are because they existed.