this may be interesting only to me

I just hit a new level of letting go: I realized that I don't want her- in any capacity.

I don't even yearn for one last demon-dusted sexual encounter. And I always, always craved sex with her. I can understand, now, that one of the reasons I craved it so much with her was because it was so infrequent. I was absolutely, 100%, wildly attracted to her (and this was a feature in my problem in letting go of her, post break-up). Would I still be, if she were to cross my path now or in the future? I imagine so. Sexual attraction goes a long way for me. Whether or not I want to act on it is a different story.

Truthfully, I haven't "wanted" her for months. That stopped somewhere at the end of spring, and I was filled with a sense of relief in no longer wanting her back as my girlfriend. Once I began to allow myself to see all that had actually gone on in our relationship- once I recognized and labeled my hurt- once I allowed myself to realize that she is surely not the only woman that will ever want me in any capacity- it got easier. There was a shift that ebbed within me throughout the summer: and this summer, it was made entirely of healing, experience, and forward movement. I wouldn't trade a moment of it.

She is gone from my life, and has been been since May. While she still merges into my dreams on occasion, my waking thoughts are focused on other things, other people, other curiosities. I no longer care what she's doing, or who she's doing it with (and I haven't cared about those things for a while). I'm healthier, so much happier, and confident.

The letting go: it has always been difficult for me. I just went through it over the last two weeks with C. It was hard to walk away from that for the simple fact that I knew she wanted me. It's an undeniably good feeling to know that someone likes you. But I wasn't there- and that wasn't fair to either one of us.

With Great Lakes, I never felt safe. I only ever felt wanted in her stretches of needy-mania (typically the pre-self-destructive stages, not the stages of solitude and every other breed of mania that threaded through her) and in the rare sexual encounter. We never had solid ground, and we never found ourselves on the same page. I think, in some ways, the unsteady ride is what kept me hanging on- I wanted to believe it could, and would, get better, and I wanted to be there to see it happen. I always saw so much potential for us.

But potential-- that isn't anything to build a life off of. The here & now is infinitely more important. This isn't to say I don't believe that things can't get better in relationships, whether romantic or otherwise. The measure of betterness comes with the terrain that these "things" are built upon. No one should ever spend so much time being unhappy, uncertain, full of love but with nowhere to direct it.

And the truth is, I cannot fathom driving myself open-eyed into another long-distance relationship. So much of the time that made up my last 3-years-long relationship was spent apart from one another. Had we been closer together, I imagine we would have self-combusted much earlier than we did. Or maybe things would have been different (I doubt that). But I know now that when I enter my next relationship, I want a stronger sense of normalcy, and a much shorter commute to see one another.

Other than that, I don't know what I want. I think that's become fairly obvious over the last month or so. I know what I don't want, and in my case, I think that's more important than its counterpart. Do I want someone who gives as much as I do? Absolutely. Do I want mutually unbridled attraction and adoration? For sure. I want a safe body to lean upon, to rouse from sleep, to nudge into the morning. I want a brain as fueled as, if not more than, mine. I want compassion and respect and laughter and understanding and release and reprieve and excitement and learning and the desire/action to move forward-- together. I want more.

And do I want my Obscure Object? Yes, without a single doubt, I do.