No more fairy tales

At 3 am my eyes popped open. This is unusual. My eyes rarely open fully before about 7 am. Even then I'm still stumbling around rubbing them and wondering how anyone is a morning person. I woke up thinking about someone I'm trying not to think about. Someone who, frankly, doesn't deserve any time in my thoughts at all anymore. Yet there he was. But there are no more tears, so I think that's good. And I miss him less and less.

Tonight's insomnia didn't come bearing gifts of motivation or creativity. No new blog posts came to mind. But I stumbled across this in my drafts from and decided to finish it up.

A friend wrote about regrets on his blog, (Giving Thanks for Not Having Regrets) which got me thinking.  I've tried to spend my life not having regrets. Just as he said, every decision and action brought me to where I'm at today. Getting married at 17 gave me the opportunity to live in Germany and have my beautiful daughter. It gave me happy years with my ex husband. I do regret the hurt I caused him, though. 

Being with my second husband gave me many happy years with my stepkids, gave me experiences I would have never had, gave me joy with a man who loved me. Again, my regret is pain I caused him, not leaving before the mistakes, not communicating my unhappiness but instead acting out.

I'll use Dutch Brothers Guy's own phrase here: I call bullshit.

But right now I do regret giving into the fairy tale idea of connections and love. I regret that I believed it when someone told me we had a connection and we shouldn't ignore it, that I made him happier than he'd been in years, that he wasn't going anywhere and that I shouldn't be afraid. Because as soon as I did, he disappeared. A few vague texts. Promises to call. And then just nothing. Not even the courtesy of a discussion in person. Not even ever officially saying it's over. And my heart hurt. And I do regret giving him that opportunity.

Maybe it's karma. I've hurt people with my inability to fully commit, with an addiction I gave up working on overcoming for awhile, with not being able to give them the forever I promised. But I feel like I tried. I didn't give up easily once I committed.

So I'm going back to not believing in the fairy tale. Maybe I'll do as my friend did: "I married the person who irritated me the least. I don't believe in the fairy tale."  Maybe if someone touches my heart deeply again, I'll run away fast. Maybe I'll keep that wall up and choose comfortable and safe in the long run. Or maybe I'll find the happy love story that's more realistic and longer lasting than the fairy tale. I suppose time will tell...