Realization

As Alanis Morrisette says, "Life has a funny way of helping you out."

So after the weekend spent with Jordan, everything was pretty much over. He and Bertha are moving into a house together in the same neighborhood, and they're going to make their life together. I ended up being the odd woman out. To be expected, but it really hurt a lot.

I spent the week following my trip to Michigan on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I was either crying or sleeping, with little else in between. Sunday was the worst. I spent most of the day asleep, and almost missed my friend's dinner party, where Brooke's husband was coming back to town from central Asia, and Nikolai was breezing into town as well. It was great seeing the both of them. And the funny thing was that Nikolai and I were sitting around and share war stories about liars and babies. Even he said that it was bad to see that happen to someone like me, and I'll meet someone better. So the time spent was great. But later that night, I went home, couldn't sleep, began to cry uncontrollably, felt paralyzed with hopelessness, and thought I was losing my mind. I was at the end of my rope and I had to do something.

The next day, I went to the doctor for a routine physical. She put me on medication to calm me down, and referred me to a therapist. I've been on the medication for two days and already I'm feeling better. I'm also looking forward to the therapy as well.

I know it's a little early for reflection, but I'm doing it anyway. While I still feel sad about what happened with Jordan, I think that meeting him, dating him, becoming romantic with him, and then finding out about him - collectively speaking - Jordan was the best thing that happened to me in a long time. Somewhere in Cincinnati (the first stint) I lost my mind. I had lost faith in God, which is the foundation of a healthy life. I was battling some form of depression, and I figured that if I found a person who could make me happy, it would help. In Michigan, I met Jordan, who in retrospect, I was sexually compatible with, but not compatible with in most other areas of life. But I did not know what the feeling was, and I felt great with him, so I took it for what it was worth and then some.

I am a doctoral candidate in the social sciences and he was a slacker with a dead-end job. This was a guy who, as Brooke would say, has an online "boob gallery." What was I doing with him? While I am not an elitist, the fact was that Jordan was not good enough for me, not by a long shot. i had everything to offer and he had nothing to offer but great sex. Even after finding out that he had a drug-addicted, insane, "baby mama" girlfriend that he refused to leave, I still stayed with him. I continued to be sexually intimate with him and I almost lost my virginity to him. And then he decided to make it work with her and he was effectively done with me, after I made it clear to him I no longer wanted to be his fuck buddy. Combine the "breakup" with the impending two-year anniversary of my father's death, and you get a nervous breakdown.

Since getting help, I am starting to see my life a little differently. I have not been myself since my father died. I have been making decisions that are stupid, self-destructive and potentially deadly.

Intimacy

It is so easy sometimes to talk about people who allow themselves to be a party to affairs and cheating, who fight so hard for what is not theirs, even knowing that if they had this person, he or she would still cheat. Once a cheater, always a cheater...and yet, people jump into it anyway. Christine Beatty did it, my professor did it, at least two of my family members did it. And I did not get it, but now, I think I do.

Yes, it's selfishness to some degree, but it's something deeper. I wonder if for these women, it wasn't that they didn't care about hurting anyone, but that they saw something in one man that they could not find anywhere else, and the only thing standing in their way was that this man belonged to someone else.

I originally intended not to bother with Jordan after the situation with Bertha came to light. It was completely against my moral code, it was a sin in every sense of the word. To have romantic relations with him knowing he was with another woman would be the worst thing - by far - I would have ever done. I did not think I could backtrack into a purely platonic relationship with him, and for that I did not think I could deal with him at all.

At the same time, one of my personality flaws is that I have a very hard time saying goodbye. Also, there was something about Jordan that made it hard to just give up, even though any chance of he and Bertha breaking up and he and I being together instead would be slim to none. Yes, it was the fact that I liked him and felt comfortable with him the same time. But it was also something else that I could not put a finger on until yesterday. When he and I kissed the day I moved back to Cincinnati, it was different than any other kiss I have had. I have kissed two other men besides Jordan. My first kiss sucked. The second person I kissed was Matt, and he was a great kisser to be sure. Jordan is also a good kisser, but it wasn't so much his technique, but it was something else. It felt like I was kissing myself - maybe not myself, but it felt like Jordan was an extension of myself. I wasn't sure exactly why that was until yesterday.

Yesterday I came back to Michigan to visit for the weekend. Jordan and I talked about getting together to hang out, so I went to visit him. We spent over five hours together...kissing, making out, touching, pretty much everything but full-on intercourse. Yes, we took breaks, but for the most part, it was lots of sexual acts and just closeness. Yes, he made me feel good, and he knew how to get me going without me telling him how. It got to the point (x-rated stuff coming) that he and I were grinding naked, genital contact without penetration, very close to sex, to where we both climaxed (x-rated stuff over).

I don't feel like a bad person, even though what I did was probably the worst thing I have ever done by a long shot. Somehow I feel like I have my own share of karma coming for this one...although I'm hoping that the good will balance it all out (but whatever). It's bad enough that I'm a bit worried/paranoid that I could have gotten pregnant since I was ovulating and Jordan did climax near the opening to the vaginal canal...maybe that'll be what I get for this and my life will really be a mess.

At the same time, I think I know now what the feeling is when I'm with Jordan. It's intimacy. I'm not just talking about the almost sex, I'm talking about when we kiss, when he touches me, when he looks into my eyes and softly touches my face, when he lays his shiny head into my bosom. Matt was a good kisser, but he felt kind of foreign, and I think it was because I did not feel comfortable with him, I did not feel the intimacy. But I feel that with Jordan. I'm not saying I love him or that he is my soulmate. But I will say this - for the first time in my life, I found someone that it feels right with. But the question is if it is all worth the cost, because in my prudent mind, I cannot see how this can end well.