TIME TO GO

"How do you know when you're in love?" he asked me after our first kiss sitting in his red jeep in the dark outside the bar after our first "date."

I say this in quotes because there were flags even that first night. 

He'd invited me to come play pool at the local dive bar we met at and I'd been sooo excited. Nervously getting ready to spend time one on one with someone I was really into. He seemed so nice and funny. Like a decent guy, always smiling and happy from what I could tell the few times I'd encountered him.

About an hour into our night his friend showed up and asked him to leave for a bit to share a joint and play video games. Tommy said yes to my surprise and asked me if he could leave and come right back. My 22 year old self didn't know what to do except say, "sure."

For some reason I waited it out and when he came back we resumed our time together, ending with a kiss in his jeep. An electric, the world stops spinning for a moment kind of kiss.

And I was hooked.

From then on Tommy was all I could think about. My college grades plummeted. My attendance at school dropped. But I didn't care about anything but being with him. I fell in love. Or what felt like love to me at the time. 

I remember one night looking at him as we lay in bed and thinking how lucky I was, how grateful to have found someone that made me so happy. I was very present in the relationship. After having been single for a few years, I was beyond joyful to be with someone. 

The first year went by quickly and I was blissful. For Christmas he got me so many thoughtful gifts. I decided to bring him home to meet my family, which he did.

Another flag when I caught him hanging a little too close to one of my best-friends at a hometown night out. I dismissed it as nothing. 

About a month later, Tommy called me around midnight on a school night. He was intoxicated and told me he had taken some magic mushrooms and watched a movie. What he'd gotten from the movie was that telling the truth will set you free, or some such message. "Ok..." I said unsure where this was going. 

"So I need to tell you I've been cheating this whole last year we've been together" he says.

My mouth drops and my mind goes blank. I'm in shock.

I ask with who and WHEN? I was with him ALL the time how could he have time to do this? My mind couldn't make sense of it.

He says "lot's of times, with lots of people. This girl and that girl, that woman from the bar and a couple." 

I say, "Did you say a COUPLE?" As in a man and woman in a relationship?"

"Yup."

He then says he couldn't tell me all along because, "I was just so in love with him."

Needless to say we broke up. I was devastated. Embarrassed. My family and hometown friends had JUST met this guy. 

I tried the re-bound route, but ended up going back to Tommy. I needed him to know how much pain he'd caused me. So we spent months with me crying and yelling at him, asking him WHY?? I wanted so badly to understand how it was so easy for him to lie and betray me as if it was nothing. 

Eventually my distrust of him led to us leaving all of our friends behind. I isolated with him in hopes he wouldn't be tempted to stray again.

But I knew he continued to in my gut.

Several times we had horrible fights when I'd find him in compromising situations, or catch him in a lie. It got scary several times- my rage was so consuming. One night our fight got so intense he put a pillow over my head so people wouldn't hear my screaming. I thought for a moment that was it for me. 

Some nights I would sit in the bathroom and cry so hard. So mad that he'd treat me so badly when I tried my best to be everything he wanted. 

I reconciled this by telling him we were not in a committed relationship anymore. I decided if we had no rules he couldn't betray me. And I could be free too- even though I never wanted that. 

And so for the next 3+ years we held on to this bizarre relationship. He was my best-friend which feels so odd to saying considering I couldn't trust him. I loved him anyway.

My last year of college I got a job working with him at a small 1 screen indie theater. We ran it together just the two of us several days a week. I loved every minute of it. We were in a bubble, just us. But in the back of my mind I knew I wanted more for the future.

I knew Tommy was never going to be my husband. Or be faithful. Or give me the kind of relationship I wanted. I missed having girlfriends, being able to be out with a group, having a support system.

I started feeling the pull to move back to my hometown. The Universe started nudging hard and I knew I was going to have to say goodbye to Tommy soon. 

One night we sat at his apartment watching a movie and out of nowhere I burst into tears. I felt it in my body that this chapter was going to end soon, and I was feeling the grief of saying goodbye to someone I loved. No matter how dysfunctional we'd become. I was attached. He looked at me like he didn't understand. I think he really thought I'd just be around forever. 

The end of the summer after I graduated (after getting my stuff together and getting my grades back up I was able to get two degrees in the midst of all of this), we packed up my belongings in a U-haul truck and Tommy helped move me home. 

I hadn't told my family about all the chaos because I was too mortified, so they only thought he was a great guy at this point. 

We had a few nice days together and then the night before he left we had one of our biggest fights. I had known I may never see him again- or at least for a very long time so I wanted to spend some time together. Instead, he ended up solo at a bar and walked back in the dark to my parents house in the middle of the night. 

I had my friend drive him to the train station in the morning. I couldn't even face him.

I had a visitation dream from his deceased father shortly after. I'd never met him in life, but I recognized him and who he was. He was showing me two roads. A crossroads. One was dark and the other light. He showed me Tommy going down the dark one and he encouraged me to take the other path. To leave his son and go my own way.

After that Tommy and I talked a bit on the phone, I saw him a year later briefly to get some final closure, and then when I found my husband we stopped talking for many years. Eventually we had a call here and there and I texted him Happy Birthday sometimes.

My biggest wish was that he would change for the next girl. Be the man I needed. Commit and be honest and faithful. Learn from all the ugliness.

But he didn't. The next girl got a restraining order against him. 

He eventually lost most of his few friends due to heavy drinking.

Two years ago I got a call that he had died from a blood clot in his heart.

As much as I cared for this person, my future was bleak if I'd stayed. I might have been that girl getting physically abused. I would have continued to settle for way less than I deserved and wanted.

I wish he had turned his life around, but I do have peace after talking with a medium, more skilled than I, knowing he is in a hospital of sorts on the other side surrounded by healing energies and guides/angels. A "healing chamber" she said. Through her Tommy shared that he was sorry and wanted me to know how beautiful the angels were. Though he was very troubled I always saw the light in him. The beauty of his soul. He is free now to be that without all the darkness. 

Some relationships are meant to be temporary and serve to help us grow in Earth School for just a short time. Tommy helped me learn what I did deserve and wanted from the relationships in my life. Contrast inspires clarity. Being with a liar pushed me to search for the opposite and helped me find my husband, a man of more integrity than 99% of the people I know. 

If you are feeling that Universal nudge LISTEN to it. 

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