that's not love. that's just some codependent shit right there.

let me tell you this.... overlapping relationships, just doesn't work very well....

no, it just doesn't work at all.

well, it could....

but it's not healthy....

and if and WHEN you DO get into the right relationship, you don't ever want to look back with any type of regret, that you weren't totally COMMITTED to either one.

i don't mean you're screwing two people at the same time....

i mean that you are emotionally invested in more than one person at a time....

it's lethal.

so is sleeping with 2 people at a time, and i could really go off on a tangent about this one, but i'll leave it at "it's lethal. just don't do it."

i've clearly overlapped relationships on multiple occasions without even realizing it at the time....

before jason, was probably the best i'd ever felt "alone."

and by "alone" i mean, still having people to talk to, but committed to none of them....

i finally felt independent and like i was doing the things that IIIII wanted to do....

felt like i was being a great mom.

a good daughter (i think).

a good sister and friend.

after i broke up with mr clean, i still felt this obligation to take care of his feelings....

i was the one who left that relationship against everything he ever wanted.

he fought it like hell, but i was SO not in it anymore.

i even started thinking i really cared about one of my guy friends, which was totally just wrong and not true....

i thought that because i was the one leaving the relationship, and he was hurt, i had some OBLIGATION to help him through his shitty feelings....

"i don't hate you," i'd tell him multiple times a week.

"i just don't trust you. i couldn't ever trust you and i don't want to live the rest of my life like that."

you know, there was one point in our relationship (the very beginning of it, before we were ever together, that i imagined the type of happiness i had felt to last a lifetime)....

i knew that the type of happiness i had felt was the one that i wanted with my lifetime partner....

that just so happened to not be him, and i knew that fairly quickly.

i couldn't EVER picture walking down an aisle to him.

after all that had happened.

i couldn't imagine who my maid of honor would be.

certainly not the one who messed around with him.

because how awkward would that be?

my family wouldn't be supportive of the marriage....

something MUST be wrong...

it was just wrong on a million different accounts, and like i said, i never once thought i could marry that man....

that should have been my clue to leave....

but it wasn't.

but eventually i did....

and that's when Jason came in the picture,

when i had least (at the VERY LEAST) expected it....

that night is SOOOO fresh in my mind.... still. =) ahhh. new love.

you see, Jason and I had come out of crappy relationships (both of our exes had cheated on us; both of us tried to continue the relationship in hopes of feeling the same; both of us feeling like we had the upper hand now; both of us realizing how stupid we were to have tried to make it work out; and both of us eventually getting out of the relationships).... the relationships had both ended less than a year prior to us meeting.... i didn't have high expectations.

high hopes?

maybe....

great expectations?

none.

we both still felt OBLIGATED (for whatever reason) to "help our exes through their feelings about the break up." stupid right?

well we did.

jason still talked to his ex on occasion (which is another story, i won't get into, because for the first time in many years and at the very beginning of my pregnancy, a glimmer of that Giggity muthaflippin GHETTO reared its ugly ass head again) thankfully my husband is an extremely levelheaded man, who calmed me.

anyway.... sorry about the distraction.... and then there was i, who would still answer mr clean's crying phone calls (in the beginning) and try to talk him through it and tell him there was no way we were going to get back together and that one day he'd move on and be very happy too.... and he would just apologize and all this stuff and it was just stupid.

why did i waste so much time on that?

i thought, "ohhh, well, because i did care for him very much at one time, and i'm just not the type of person to shut someone out like that, no matter what..." and "oh, that's just not me... i wouldn't want someone to do that for me...." or "that is what sets me apart from everyone else." blah blah blah.... BULLSHIT!

i am was VERY codependent!

i, for whatever FLIPPING reason, felt it very necessary to be the shoulder that everyone in the world could cry on.

don't get me wrong, there is a huge part of me that still does this, but i am learning from this slowly.

if i wanted to be the freakin shithole for everyone to BARF in, i should have been a toilet gone to school to be a therapist, like i had originally wanted to out of high school.... sort of....

i still like to help people through crap, and i am constantly trying to tell myself that i want to help people because i love them.... i'm not entirely convinced it's love.... i'm certain it's still codependency related shit.

HOWEVER, there is still an extremely hopeful side of me that would love to help a few people out, because if a few lives could be changed for the better, the world is a "few better people" closer to being a better place overall.... *insert "we are the world" music here* what a perfect theme for earth day (this thursday), right?

anyway.... jason and i did this book "all about us" when we first got together and it was great. loved it. reading over it the other day, is what made me think about us talking to our exes and trying to "help them through their rough times".... thankfully, i didn't accept the invitation to go over to my ex's apartment, which was on the beach, and watch a movie with him....

i thought about it, and had almost even convinced myself that it would totally be okay, because i cared about jason soooo much that i wasn't going to do anything with mr clean. after talking it over with jason, he didn't think it was a good idea, and then i thought about it and thought, "if i care about jason THIS much, why in the WORLD would i POSSIBLY jeopardize what we have? to look back on this STUPID incident and blame myself for chipping away any of the innocence of a brand new relationship...." you know?

like i said,

that wasn't love.

that was just some codependent shit right there....