Starting to Feel

After I reconnected with Jes, I don’t want to go back to my old self again. I don’t want to keep pushing down my feelings and trying to convince myself with logic that whatever feelings I had were not validated because of my role in my life now. I have to diminish my own needs for my children. I have to diminish my own needs for the sake of the family. I got obese, depressed, physically and psychologically ill. I don’t want to do these things anymore. I want to be myself, the self that’s always been there since I was born.

On Thursday evening I texted Eric on WhatsApp. I don’t know why. I was taking a bath and going through my WhatsApp contacts and I saw that he was actually on WhatsApp. So I texted him asking if it was him. He said yes and I had to identify myself so that he could figure out who I was. He had just landed in KL at that time and was going to pick up a rental car to go to his hotel, but I told him that I had to go to bed soon so he decided that he was gonna talk to me on the phone while he was in the parking lot.

We first exchanged texts and then our phone call lasted for two hours. It ended at midnight, which was way too late for my bedtime. However, it was a lot of fun. He and Jes were the only two men I feel like reconnecting the whole time.The circumstances are difficult in both cases. Eric is also married now but he doesn’t want to have kids with his wife and he is open about being polyamorous. Before we ended the conversation he wanted me to tell him honestly my feelings about our conversation. At first I said “it was very nice talking to you” and that wasn’t good enough so I said, “fine. I feel very happy talking to you.” Then he said maybe we could talk again in 9 or 10 days. 

But then the next day he wanted to talk to me again so I managed to use my lunch break to talk to him on the phone for 90 minutes. In this conversation, he told me that he was surprised that my essence hadn’t changed much, which is unusual for most people he knows. The last time we talked was 12 years ago. We talked about a lot of things, including my current situation, my kids, my work etc. He said he was surprised that he still cared so much about me after 12 years. He also said that he found it extremely ironic that when we met I was all about being taken care of like a princess and yet I ended up with a life where I am doing everything for everyone else. I said, “that’s indeed the biggest irony in my life.”

He wanted me to tell him how our last conversation ended because he absolutely couldn’t remember. I told him that he told me he wrote me a letter but he couldn’t send it to me because he didn’t want to hurt me. So I never got to read that email. Then he started looking for that email in his drafts and he found it. He read it to me over the phone. In essence the timing was just wrong and he was an emotional mess at that time and he really didn’t wanna hurt someone he really cared about. It was bittersweet, but it was also somewhat amusing to see who we were like 12 years ago.

You have no idea how good it feels to be able to converse with someone who actually understands what I’m talking about and resonates with me. I have gone without it for 10 years. It makes me feel alive again. The scary thing is that these men’s circumstances are difficult, and mine is even more so. These conversations will probably die soon and I will be all alone again. I don’t want to go back into the endless darkness where I had been in the past 10 years. Not being heard once, not being felt, not being empathized, not being cherished, not being fought for. I just can’t live like this anymore. I can’t keep doing those things for others while no one does it for me. And I don’t know how to move on or pick up any hope of meeting someone new. My circumstances were already difficult in my 20s, and now it’s even worse. It’s like my destiny is cursed.

Between Jes and Erik, I feel more safe to tell Jes absolute everything, but Jes’s ideology now is hard for me to get to him. His ideology is his protection and it seems like he’d choose ideology over true love. Erik on the other hand is more emotionally available and honest, and our ideologies are very close. He is also fluent in the two languages that I’m fluent in so culturally he’s just easier to talk to. If only Jes could fight through his armor and have the courage to meet me just once.