June 2010

It's 3:30 AM as I type this via my iPhone. Each word meticulously thought out, considered and chosen. Why the detail? Because i want to be fair to myself and to you.

In February I started dating a guy who I had been curious and interested in for a long time. He and I really hit it off, I loved out phone calls and his guitar playing before I went to sleep at night. He and I would laugh for hours, and we had so many inside jokes. He helped me get over some obstacles that I had in my way. And he knew if he needed me day or night I would be there.

But our relationship was a lie. How else can it be explained? He was already dating someone else, and I think-no, I won't paint it- I know that my dellusion of our friendship, that he could call me anytime was really nor friendship. I was a holla' back girl.

It feels funny to type that, as though these words are tangible and I am holding them. Those words are heavy in my hands.

Holla' back girl.

Who was I? I had somehow lost my footing: the false love I had painted in every aspect of this relationship seeped into every nook in my life. What I thought was whole, good and redeemable, really was rotton and began to infest everything. My friendships with my cloesest friends, my beliefs, my schooling. How did something that cleared the stumbling blocks in my heart, veer me so off course?

I finally left, after a month and a half of this on/off again painful cycle I walked away. Each day after was a struggle, every moment was a re-evaulation of my selfworth, my friendships, future and, though shallow, my beauty.

After the first fifteen days the storm clouds that hung over me began to disperse. Sunrise began to peek on the horizon of my future. If I could make it half a month without him, clearly I could go on without him.

After my trip to Israel and Egypt, I returned home May 6. Who was the first person to call me when I was stateside? Him.

The vicious cycle began different, slowly, creeping; lurking in the shadowy forground of our friendship it again overtook me, by such suprise I wondered how my footing had slipped without my notice.

Now, as I try again, reachingday 6 on a journey of recovery I recallthe words of C.S. Lewis, "the road to Hell is a gentle one, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts"