Memoirs of the Emotionally Incompetent

Today I would like to write about a rather personal story, a rather long story; a love story that expands over half of my life. I would like to share a bit about my past, my hopes for the future, and perhaps someone who will inevitably read this will understand why we were never meant to be and gain some closure, or hate me for wasting his time.

This will be long, and somewhat rambling, and is an account of my personal life. A lot of which I'm not proud of but accept as mine.

I am a normal person like any other who has made mistakes, and I am owning those mistakes. Outside of being a cat-obsessed, fiction-writing gamer-girl who is currently trying to lose weight, this is who I am. 🤷‍♀
 

Let's begin many moons ago,

When I was sixteen.

_{Probably the only photo I have of me at that age.}

There was a boy -- let's just refer to him as 'L' -- who was infatuated with me but whom I only considered a friend. We would go through stages where we would be friends for a while, he'd start advancing, I'd tolerate it for a while before getting fed up and telling him that I wasn't interested, there'd be angry silence for a couple of weeks, and then we would be friends again.

Until it inevitably happened again, and again, and again.

L worked at KFC and talked about me to one of his workmates. That workmate somehow got it into his head that, "This Kaelci girl sounds perfect for my good friend M!" and convinced L to give him my msn messenger details so he could chat to me and set me up with his friend.

Ahh, teenagers. Obviously L was pissed when he found out... but this is how a 17 year on-and-off relationship began.
 

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I ended up chatting with M every day once he was on my messenger. We were at different schools so never had the chance to come across one another before, but he seemed nice and within a week or so I agreed to go over to his house, only a 2km walk away, and say hello in person.

That very first day I met his dad, his grandparents, his step-mum, his sister... and I very, very quickly fell for the tall, somewhat awkward, car-obsessed boy with the most beautiful brown eyes in the world.

I went over to his house all the time. I loved being with him, near him, playing games with him, just hanging out with him even if we were doing absolutely nothing at all or saying nothing. We were each other's first sexual encounter. Everything was wonderful... until I slowly began to understand that he was interested in someone else.

I was a foolish, love-struck teenager and I loved him with my whole heart with all the passion and zeal a teenager could summon. I thought for a while that my constant presence might sway him, that maybe he would see that I was right there, with him, always... but after a few months it was evident that I was the only one truly in the relationship. So. I broke up with him. And thus began the great spiral of my life.

Hopping in and out of tiny relationships that meant nothing, hoping to find something even somewhat comparable to what I felt with M, by the time I was 19 I ended up pregnant to an abusive man 6 years older than I whose pastimes were throwing TV's and stereos around when he was angry, getting drunk and smashing his way through windows to get inside the house late at night, and humiliating me.

I didn't have it as bad as other victims of abuse and I was able to leave relatively easily, but I was now a baby with a baby and my life was in shambles.

_{Probably the only photo I still have of us}

Despite the now-shambolic nature of my life, I was still a teenager and was able to snap back relatively quickly. I was still young, innocent, and naive to how the world really worked.

I had people around who could help look after this baby whenever I wanted to go out, when I wanted to spend time with friends, when I wanted to do whatever I wanted. I had help. And it was good. And I didn't realise at the time just how amazing that was, how amazing any of that was, and how good I actually had it compared to other people in my position.

I was still a kid. I was not ready to be a mother. I was an awful parent. In fact, maybe I still am -- just slightly less awful.
 

---

 
When I was 20 I reconnected with M, and very quickly remembered every last feeling I had for him when we were 16.

Although I was naive with rose-tinted glasses blinding the reality of he world, I wasn't quite so naive as to believe he'd want to be with me, ever again, especially now I had a child. But after hanging out for a bit we slowly found ourselves together again.

It was only meant to be a friends-with-benefits type thing.

I thought I could handle it.

I could not.

I loved him still with every fibre of my being and I could not cope with just being a piece on the side and not the girl of his dreams. So I stopped everything. And tried to continue on with my life.

_Friends!

I went through a period of back-and-forthing. I reconnected with friends in Brisbane and visited there for a while before coming back, then I reconnected with more Brisbanites and even moved there for two weeks before I realised that city life just wasn't for me.

Sometimes I would visit M and ignore my feelings. We would play videogames together and watch movies, have drinks, I would stay the night and sleep with him, not in a sexual manner though he most certainly would not have minded, and I thought I was finally growing up, being able to spend time with someone I loved and not act on anything.
 

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When I was about 23, I thought I found happiness and a future with someone I'll refer to as 'S'. He didn't mind that I had a child though at the same time he pretty much ignored her. He was very computer addicted. His head was never very much in the real world. I still talk to him nowadays and turns out his head still isn't very much in the real world. But we were together for nearly two years.

It was an awkward existence and I soon realised I wasn't happy at all. There was nothing inherently wrong, but as the days and months passed I became the most depressed I'd ever been in my life.

It had gotten to the stage where when S was at work and the child at Kindy, I would sit in the kitchen, in a daze, staring at the cleaning cabinet... wondering just how much bleach I would be able to drink without vomiting it up and how long it would take to kill me. Would I die before anyone found me? Or would I be rescued from my deathly desires, leaving me to hate the world even further?

It was around this time I discovered Minecraft and created a server for friends to play with me. M joined it and we played together every day. Then Diablo 3 was released and we were soon playing that together also.

I was depressed as fuck. Wanting to kill myself. Wanting to die almost every minute of my existence. But M brought some modicum of happiness into my life and I pulled through.

It was then that I realised my life was a lie. I couldn't stay with S any longer. The only person I wanted in the world was M and that would always be the case. And guided by my heart, as ever, I left S and once more tried to pursue my age-old hopes and dreams.

_{M's car back in the day; me learning camera skills and using his car as a model}
 
M was confused. He had feelings for me, but also had feelings for yet another. Again. He needed time, he said, to work out his feelings and to work out what he really wanted in life. He needed me to be patient with him, and to please just wait.

Once again, just as nearly a decade earlier, I thought that if I was always there, always present, always with him, he would see me for what I was, the person who had always loved him and was always there for him, and he would forget anyone else and we would finally be together like we always should have been.

Of course, that didn't happen. And I slowly spiralled out of control.

My old town has an annual Pub Crawl and that year I went to that and drank more than I'd ever drunk in my life. I was hysterically crying in the gutter, unable to even stand upright by 1pm, and my friends quickly called M to come and pick me up and look after me. He took me back to his house and helped me get cleaned up. I was an emotional mess and yelled and cried at him. I think that was the day he finally realised just how much our relationship was hurting me, just what it was doing to me. But it still didn't change.
 

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A month or so after that incident, I met some people while I was out walking around and got invited to a backyard bonfire that night. I wanted to say no. All I really wanted to do was stay home and play Lord of the Rings Online, but something inside of me told me to agree. To stop being antisocial, to stop moping at home alone, and meet new people and have fun.

So I agreed.

Little did I know that these people had only invited me because they had a friend who wanted to get his dick wet and me being a depressed drunk, and quite frankly, an easy one, ended up sleeping with this bogan drug-addicted trash.

I didn't want to just sleep with someone once like a slut. So we ended up together. I knew he was bad news but in my head I didn't deserve any better. I was a terrible person. M wouldn't want me anymore. This was my life now. And I was just going to accept it.

A week later M called me in tears and begged me to come over. He needed me. Now.

I looked at my new bogan boyfriend, and against every tiny piece of my heart and soul and being I said, "No. I can't do this with you anymore," and hung up.

A month later I was pregnant. Again. To a douchebag bogan who fleeced me of all my money, maxed my credit card, applied for another credit card in my name without my knowledge and maxed that too. And while I thought that we were in some form of a relationship, he was referring to me the whole time as some hanger-on who just wouldn't leave him alone.

_{We went to Defqon.1 together, and that's when reality set in that he was just a dickhead junkie and I deserved better and needed to leave}
 
My life was ruined and I ran away to Far North Queensland to get away from everything, everyone, to start a new life. I was only there for a year. It was too expensive to live up there and I was crammed into a teeny tiny house with my mum and her boyfriend and we were always at each other's throats, ready to kill one another.

I've always let people walk all over me. It was easier than standing up for myself, speaking my own opinions. But whilst crammed inside this toxic environment, for the first time in my life, I screamed with pure-blooded anger at another person.

My mother's boyfriend had flipped his lid at me, and I responded in kind. A hidden switch flipped on inside of me and I went berserk. That night I made plans to move to a new town, a cheaper town, far away from absolutely everyone. I would have no family or friends. I would only have myself and my son. I had already given up my first child and she was living with her other grandma. She was better off without me.

I dumped everyone in my life.

Everyone.

And moved to a little country town in the middle of nowhere, where no-one would find me, and my son and I would start our new life. Alone.

_{My son and I}

It's been eight years since that decision.

A few years ago I decided to re-activate my Facebook account and ended up reconnecting with a few friends. I only have 14 people on my Facebook these days, when once I had hundreds. Only people I consider actual friends are on it now, and there is most certainly not any family on it. They've been forever disowned for reasons not written in this.

Over the past eight years I've made no effort whatsoever to meet anyone in this town I moved to. I've only just started meeting people now due to the fact my son has started school and I've begun talking to other parents while waiting to pick him up in the afternoon.

Quite frankly... I enjoy being alone. There is nothing better than peace and quiet, no drama, the serenity of being alone with my own thoughts and mind. Becoming one with myself. I love it.
 

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I've had two relationships in this time.

One was with a New Zealander who came over here to Australia and stayed with me for a couple of years. That was never going to work. He was younger than me and I had a child who needed a father figure. He was more my friend than anything else, and still is. We talk at least once a week, play World of Warcraft together, and I give him guidance in his own relationships. Since obviously I'm now an expert at these things after years of bad choices and experiences.

The other was an American with whom I felt such a deep connection with... at first. Unfortunately years of his anxiety weighed down on me, left me feeling almost grateful and relieved every time he would leave, and eventually I realised that I was starting to feel obligated to him, to simply rescue him from his American life, and that I didn't love him.

I tried to break up with him last year but it was an awkward time. My son had just broken his arm. I was an emotional mess. And everyone thought that I was simply having an emotional breakdown. He flew back here the next day and we were in a celebrant's office the next week, sorting out our future.

As someone intending to get married I should've been happy. Ecstatic. I should've walked into that office with a big blooming smile on my face, happy tears in my eyes, joy in my voice, excited for the future. Instead I felt awkward, ashamed, obligated to be there. A horrible excuse for a human. My partner was happy. I was not. But there was no going back. This was my life now. My son had a father figure, I had someone who loved me even if I did not truly feel the same way, and all that I could think of was that I should just settle, accept everything. This was it.

_{A storm approaches...}

He left in February this year and as usual I felt the heavy weight of guilty relief flood my veins, and then COVID-19 came to play. Australia's borders were closed. And I felt something I shouldn't: even greater relief. But I kept on trucking on, resigned to my fate once Covid died down a little and life would return to normal.

Finally, after months of pretending, some friends were getting married and he began to talk of our future honeymoon and all the stuff we were going to do. I couldn't take it any longer. I broke up with him over the phone, over the distance, and at last ended it.

I didn't love him. I couldn't marry him. It was over.

As though decreed by fate, M contacted me a few days later. Though we no longer talked much, he still said hello every now and then since I had re-activated my Facebook. Usually it was just to show me a new car he'd bought, or what he'd been doing with the car, or just to say, "Hi, how's it going?" and then there'd be nothing for a few months.

It wasn't that I didn't want to talk to him. I just had nothing to talk about and I really didn't want to risk falling into the same-old with him, ever again. If anything, every time he spoke to me I was a bit rude and stand-offish. Just keeping myself closed off and my heart safe.

But something changed this time.

It began just as it always did. "Hi, how's it going?" and I answered, like I always did, asked him the same thing, then expected that that would be it. This time there was more.

"I just need to tell you. I've been wanting to tell you this for four years now. And now I am. I love you," he said. "I always have, always will. I don't dare even hope that you still feel the same about me. I've been an idiot my whole life. You were always there, you were always the one that I wanted, who I loved, and I've hurt you so much, and I'll never forgive myself for what I've done to you. But. I just want you to be happy. Please tell me that you're happy. I don't care if I never hold you again, I just need to know that you're happy."

I burst into tears. Years of repressed emotions flooding me at once. I could scarcely believe it. It took me nearly an entire week to take it in and actually equate those words with him as a person.

Then, at last, I dared to believe it.

Now we're talking every day again, playing games together, talking about life and what we want in the future. He's happy to be a father figure for my son, he wants us to be together, to live the rest of our lives together. And I want nothing more.
 

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It's going to take me a long, long time to get over the pains of the past and he understands that.

Three days ago, M and I saw each other for the first time since 2012. He drove the nearly two-and-a-half hour distance and when I saw him I've never smiled more in my life. Everything came flooding back. I forgot how tall he is, how I have to tippy-toe hug him. I instantly remembered how he always made me feel, how my heart swells, his kisses, how much I enjoy being wrapped in his arms, just sitting together in contented silence, watching a movie cuddled up against him.

He looked me in the eye and said, "I love you."

I've been waiting years to hear him say those words. To smile up at him, tears in my eyes, and return the sentiment. My whole life has been a crazy romance novel, and I feel as though the happy last chapter has at last been reached.

I have a future I'm honestly excited for. The future I've always wanted. It's taken 17 years to get there. But we've both grown in this time, and I like to think that we've both become better people. This is the end of all the madness and the beginning of something more, something I've always dreamed of.

This is what I've been waiting for all of my life.

And I am happy. 😊

_{So very happy. I've not stopped laughing and smiling and ~feeling alive~ in over a month.}
 
It's still early days but I am optimistic for the future. Once this new laptop is paid off in a couple of weeks, I'm saving all of my extra money. I'm also powering down a third of my HIVE, hoping that it could help me financially come next year.

Providing all works out -- which I have no doubt about but am forcing myself to retain a logical disposition -- in June my son and I are moving back to where it all began.

...and at last our lives will truly begin.

 

That's it. That's the end. Thank you for reading. ❤️

 

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_{All images in this post courtesy of me, yoinked off my Facebook from over the years.}