We do terrible things to hide the secret lives we live

More often than not, I force myself to be skeptical and suspicious of other people, and "other people" usually ends up being MOST people because I have very little trust left to offer to society. It's a shame, I know, but positive speculation oft yields disappointing results and I can't stress enough how fed up I am of undue disappointment.

Unfortunately for myself, I'm aware that I deserve a notable degree of bad karma because I acted thoughtlessly this summer, and to those who deserve it most, my respect was unavailable.

***

The worst part about giving your wholesome heart to someone is being in fear that they're only giving you a portion of theirs. It's even worse when the fear becomes a matter of trust and you begin to believe that perhaps they only give you an indefinite portion of their heart because the rest of it is being given to someone else. I have a friend, whom I love dearly, and I remember her telling me that she was in a predicament at the start of her relationship (with the current boyfriend she's been with for almost a year now) that easily could have ended everything on the spot if she reacted differently. I remember her telling me that her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend claimed that she was pregnant and was planning to keep the baby. My friend's boyfriend told her the news and said that he wasn't going to be with his ex-girlfriend, but he was going to support her the whole way through because that was his responsibility. He knew very well that my friend was going to leave him, but he was honest with her and despite the heavily hurtful truth, my friend said to him, "Okay. If that means you still want to be with me, then okay. But, I swear, if I feel even the littlest bit like I'm sharing you with someone else then it's over." 

A few weeks later, my friend and her boyfriend found out that the ex-girlfriend's pregnancy was falsified. Doctors notes and ultrasounds were taken from google images and photoshopped, but when the ex-girlfriend found out that my friend had decided to stick it out, despite the pain of it all, there was a sudden "miscarriage" and the ex-girlfriend left them alone. That was almost a year ago. I saw my friend again this summer when she came to visit after coming back from school in Hamilton and although we kept in touch over skype where I heard this story countless times before, there was something different about her telling me in person when she said, "Czar, honestly, it broke my heart when he told me his ex-girlfriend was keeping the baby. We were only dating for a couple of weeks when it happened so it would have been so easy for me to dump him right then and there, most girls would have. I was scared I would lose him because I knew that if I started to feel uncomfortable and if I started to feel like he wasn't only mine but he was someone else's too, then I wouldn't be able to hold on anymore. But something inside me told me that I wouldn't have to share him, that he was worth it to stay and that I had to hang on to him. So I did. And look at us, I love him, I'm IN love with him. I've never felt this way about anyone before and I know this is it, this is love."

Every time she talked about him, every time she mentioned his name, almost a year into their relationship and she was still smiling. 

I have this theory that the first three to four months are the best part of a relationship before the fire slowly starts to die down and eventually you stop feeling it. At that point you get too comfortable and despite the dying spark, the comfort and security is what makes most people stay together. The couple can still love each other, but they stop being IN love with each other; and they just simply weren't meant to be in love anymore. In accordance with my theory, I believe that it's the people who can stay in love after the 4 month mark that end up staying in love for the next countless amount of years to come. But for most couples, after four months, they see enough of a each other to convert the feeling of being hopelessly in love with someone into the feeling of being comfortable and ever-caring for one another instead, but usually it's sufficient for making a relationship last. 

A lot of people may argue that four months isn't nearly enough and that couples can stay together for years before finally realizing they're not in-love anymore. But in my opinion, I think that the feeling of being comfortable, secure, and content with someone can very easily mask the disappearance of being "in love". Those couples stop being in-love, but they have enough reasons to simply love the other person the way you would love and care about your friends. It's only at the point where loving the person stops entirely that they come to the realization that they weren't in-love with them at all.

***

So now that I've told my story and explained my theory, let me explain my situation. There is a single instant in a course of events when you make the decision that something or someone is worth the trouble. Whether the trouble has happened yet or the trouble is yet to come, there's a point in situation where you instantly know that no matter the weather, you'll bear out the storm because you instinctively feel like you need to. It's like being in school and dreading it like hell, you make the decision to either stay, switch programs, switch schools, or drop out entirely, but you do come to the point where you instinctively know whether it's worth it or not. 

Last night, I hung out with Kaitlyn and she stayed over at my house til the wee hours of the night and we talked about the things in life that we usually talk about. One of which was my situation with boys, the irrevocably stupid situation that it is and this was my conclusion:

We're not officially dating right now. That in itself is justifiable grounds for him to go fucking around with other girls and I'm not entitled to say otherwise because neither of us made the declaration that we didn't want each other doing things with other people. If he came up to me today and said, "Czarina, I fucked someone else yesterday." My only genuine response would be, "Okay, do you want to leave me?"

I'll be honest, I'll be dreadfully bloody honest. To this day, I don't know the conditions of our relationship because we're not officially together. I've heard other people refer to me as his "girlfriend" and some people refer to him as my boyfriend. Yet that doesn't constitute the guidelines of what we actually are because as aforementioned, there have been no declaration of conditions to this thing we have. However, I think it's only fair to mention that I know he loves me simply because he told me so, his friends told me so, and he shows me enough for me to believe it. Whether it's true, whether I have the ability to even say it back, the fact remains that love or not, we're not dating and there are no constraints on his willingness to do anything with anyone else. With that, I've made the conscious decision, as I'm instinctively able to do, to stick out a tumult. This is the gist of what I told Kaitlyn and Chelsea (I'm mixing up texts and conversation to come to a definitive point, but essentially points were made to both):

"I love him, I do. I won't tell him because even though he's told me numerous times, I know I'm not ready to tell him yet. We're not really together and if I tell him I love him now then he has the ability to hurt me, and I won't give him that. If he tells me tomorrow that he's been having sex with someone else, then fine, maybe I deserve it as bad karma, so go ahead and do whatever, we're not dating. If he decides that he'd rather have her than me, fine. Either way, I have no choice but to deal with it. What else am I going to do? Tell him to give it back to her? I'm not retarded, I know where I stand. I'm perfectly comfortable with knowing how he feels and that if he was having sex with someone else, he still loves me, but it's okay, we're not together. Depending on the circumstances, maybe I'll leave him. If he gave me reason to believe that she wasn't just a "fuck" but that he actually has feelings for her, then I no longer have a reason to stay. But to my fairest judgment, I know that single people have sex with other single people and that's life, I'm in no position to stop him. Sure, it'll hurt me, but I'm an understanding person and it's only fair that I don't make him feel tied down because it's his summer too, not just mine. Easily, I could be over thinking this and he could be entirely loyal to me even though we're not together. When he said I was the only girl, he could have meant it and stays true to it even now. But then again, he could have found himself a reason not to. Either way, if he decides afterwards that he wants to be with me and really be with me, not just playing this game of "what the fuck are we!?", then I'll make him know that he's mine and if he even thinks of giving himself to someone else, then she can have him entirely because I'm not sharing him."

I've come to the point of an understanding calm. I realized that whatever happens will happen. There is a reason for everything under the sun. If we don't make it past the summer, then I'll know it happened because it was supposed to and I won't fight it because that's the way the universe works. Likewise, if we do make it past the summer, then I'll know I have a reason to fight for it because I've been given an opportunity that I otherwise shouldn't have had. So instead of moping around worrying about what's to come of this confusing thing we have together, I'm going to let this thing take its course. Shit changes all the time and I know I can find happiness in any outcome if I sincerely will it to be so. 

I was told that if he gives me any reason why we shouldn't be together, it's because there's someone better suited for me. If he gives me all the reasons why we should be together, it's because he's the best suited for me right now.

So here's to the summer of shady mistakes and bad decisions; 

And to providence, I say: come what may.