Contradiction

This was supposed to be easy.

All I was supposed to do in life was fall in love with a good, honest, Christian man, get married, have children, live in a decent home and just enjoy life.  That's it.  No complications.  No drama.  I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would limit my selection so much that I'd be forced to stick with only one man, have my first kiss with him, give myself to only him, etc etc.  And it seemed like, for the longest time, He was answering my prayer so well, it was driving me insane!

Now.....I don't know what happened.  Well, I say that and then this soft voice in me whispers, "You know exactly what happened.  You grew up."

I look in the physical mirror, and I see a somewhat baby-faced girl who needs to shed a few pounds and retrain basic combat skills.  I look in the mental mirror at myself, and I see a cunning woman, not as much hardened as she is sharpened.  Older.  Wiser.  Much, much more aware of the world around her, both seen and unseen.  As much as I hate admitting it, sacrificing my virginity before marriage may have saved my sanity in the long run.  It was just like Mom had described it: a greater awareness, an extreme sharpening of the senses, a powerful awakening.

But at what cost?  I find myself grieving the death of my innocence, regardless of the reasons or who I was with.  I will never regret my time with Tristan.  I still, and always will, hold a great affection for him.  He gave me wonderful memories and helped me achieve....a "level"?  Whatever you want to call this advancement, or maturation, I will always have him to thank and hold no regrets, only happy memories.  While ours is a tragic story of what happens when too many people hold too much power over your life, it is also a story of an unbreakable friendship, even when we cannot speak.

My grief is for the life that once was, that sweet longing for something that seemed so unattainable, so precious, that it held a priceless value in my life and made me a rarity among women.

Lately I've been looking at myself from another's eyes.  Mostly Jake's.  Not like I ever really knew what the man was thinking, ever (or I did but had no clue I was actually listening to his thoughts....I was....rather undeveloped in my abilities at the time.....).  But still, I often wonder what he would think of me if he saw me now, if he knew what I have become, and the end result is a bittersweet blend of pride and grief.  Pride for finally honing in my abilities, for standing strong in the midst of turmoil, for remaining resilient against the onslaught of pain and depression, and for just living a decent life.  Grief, for not being the one to stand with me through it all.  For having to, for lack of a better term, share me.  And in some sense....a disappointment in that despite the logical sense of it all, I sacrificed the one vow I held on to so tightly.  The one thing that made me different from the rest.

This was supposed to be easy.  But no.  Instead of playing Dorothy Day, I ended up playing a mash-up between Helen of Troy and a heterosexual Pussy Galore.  Maybe I'm being too generous with the imagery, but hopefully you get what I mean.  I could be nursing my firstborn and folding tiny clothes in a clean hamper, but instead I'm rifling through senseless crap trying to connect dots that have connections but no set pattern.  And while I had imagined my life to, by now, be filled with nights of seemingly endless passion with my sexy, insatiable husband......I lie alone in my parents' guest room both grateful for and loathing my inability to control my "seer" abilities during coitus.  I don't sleep around because I value myself, I value what people think of me, and I really, really, really don't want to/need to see/hear every little sordid detail about some random stranger because it's both depressing and slightly disturbing.  This I say on theory, as I've only been with two men (in hindsight that just seems almost like two men too many).  With Tristan, I was actually able to remain "surfaced" enough that I didn't consciously hear/see anything out of the ordinary.  With Michael, what I heard/saw intensely was not creepy or disturbing at all, it was just incredibly depressing.

Ugh.  What Jake must think of me.  Or even Tristan.  It didn't help that Lydia's fiance/husband said I "whored [myself] out" just to have sex.  He didn't mean it in a mean way, he was stating it like one would state the current weather.  It's cloudy outside, and I whored myself out.  Thanks, dude.  Love ya, too.

Ugh.  This was supposed to be easy.

FML.