Not yet...

I want to cry. I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to tell anyone how upset or hurt I am right now. I don’t want people to know what a fool I am. I just want this sadness to go away.

I don’t want to walk away from Whiskey yet. I’m not ready. I’m not ready to be all alone with no façade of sensual connection. I know it’s not real. I know it’s a disaster. I know more hurt and more disappointed are inevitable. But I have walked away from too many, necessary, but too quickly. These past six months have been brutal. A repetitive loss of friendship, reminders of a lack of respect, to be tossed aside as the disposable stripper… It has taken a great deal of stubborn resolve to keep looking ahead instead of yearning for the illusion.

It has been six months since I spoke to Maverick. I think of him often, and in weak moments it still burns my soul. But, I took my broken heart, and didn’t look back. Disenchantment still hovers when I think of my dear friend from high school. The Brat is also done. The disrespect and assumptions cut too deep, and I am not willing to sift through the rubble in the attempt to rebuild the naivety. What I thought was there, is not. I will be finishing that today. Still so fresh… at least I don’t have to wait another month to gain closure. There is another leftover affair I have also ended. If only in my own mind I know I will not be going back to that one. He was never worth the effort to formally end. Regardless, all those have ended over the past six months.

I know I’m worth more. I know I deserve more.

But I also know that I have another six months ahead of me in this transient life. I know although I may be more emotionally available than I have been in years, I am not geographically available. I travel. I will not be home for weeks or months at a time. I understand that dating me is difficult under the best circumstances. I understand that dating a stripper is a tall order. I am a peeler. Men I do not know watch me naked. Men try to have sex with me, and I do receive offers of various forms of prostitution on a regular basis. I take my clothes off and reveal all of my flesh for strangers. I flirt, and tease.

… and then I go home alone.

I am hurt, and angry. But I am not ready to walk away. As much as I wish I could, as angry as I am at myself for being so addicted… I don’t want to destroy this one… not yet. I want something to come home to. I want someone to look forward to seeing when I get home. It may be a chimera, but it can be so beautiful. Selfishly masochistic, I don’t want to obliterate every pseudo connection all at once.