Today I realized that the person I re-opened my heart to, that I love with my whole heart, simply isn’t right for me and it hurts, especially because the last time I walked away from this man was only in November and that was brutal. It took all I had and it’s still so fresh. And so painful. I was and still am one that believes you break up for a reason and it’s best to stick with that reason. I went against that belief because this person came back and told me he understood everything I had been begging him to understand. He said that he missed me, he loves me, that other girls bore him, that he was unhappy without me, that he missed my laugh and most importantly that he wanted us to work. He felt he could be the man for me, that he wanted to be that man.

One thing you must know is that I have anxiety. No, not the kind that pops up here and there that everyone experiences from time to time but clinically diagnosed and medically treated for 6 years now. The kind of anxiety that can ruin relationships if not addressed and nurtured appropriately. This makes relationships more difficult. So when he came back, after all my episodes of anxiety and told me he wanted to be with me, that he realized my anxieties were simply a part of me that he loved, I was shocked. I didn’t believe he could do it. He said my anxiety is tough to deal with but that the good outweighs the bad and he wanted to give it another shot. He said he wanted to take the good with the bad. The bad, yeah.

To hear this from the person I love with my whole heart…fuck…there are no words. Never in my life did I think we would get back together and I tried to say no and ignore him but with his relentlessness, I let him back in. I was and still am in shock. I let him in because although I was blissfully happy without him, deep down I wanted (and still want) to be blissfully happy with him. He said there were a lot of things he regretted with how he treated me and he genuinely wanted to do better. We both agreed we had some things to work on but we could do it together because, well, we love each other.

If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have anxiety. I am the first to admit that my anxiety is overwhelming for me and those around me. I exhaust myself.  I try to surround myself with caring and nurturing people that do and say the right things to help keep that anxiety at bay. I work with a therapist once a week and I work with myself every waking minute of my life to gain control. When people work with me, us together as a team, I am happy as a clam.

Am I at fault for needing that team unity? No. Is that too much to ask? Depends on who you ask. But it’s what I need and what I have begged him for and he can’t quite grasp what that means. He tells me it’s exhausting to keep up with my level of communication and that is true, but it is who I am. I am exhausting but there’s a lot of good that comes out of this person sitting here writing this extremely open post that may or may not be appropriate to broadcast but it’s that human connection I spoke about in previous posts that I so desperately need right now. To feel deprived of that from my own boyfriend is excruciatingly painful so I am reaching out to someone, anyone.

After 3 months of trying to make it work again and a year and a half of extreme turmoil with brief moments of beauty, beauty that I am struggling to let go of, I have realized that we are like oil and water. There’s nothing wrong with either but oil and water don’t mix well and I have once again learned that the hard way. It was rough at first but then it started to get better, until this week. It was inevitable that the volcano that exists in our relationship was going to erupt. We tried. And I truly believed this time was for real, that we would make it. That I would control my anxiety and know 100% that he loved me. But it’s not that easy. I am angry with myself for letting him back in, for giving him so much of myself. I was happy without him. Why didn’t I let it stay that way? Did I miss him? Yes. Insanely at first but it dissipated as I came into my own and rediscovered all the beautiful things I have in my life that enable me to feel blissfully happy and I realized he wasn’t one of them no matter how badly I wanted him to be.

My heart hurts. My heart is broken. But I will be ok. It’s hard to walk away because there was great things about us together. I love him. I don’t know why. I had a connection with him unlike any I’ve ever experienced. I am scared I will never find that again. I am scared I will never find someone that will “put up with my level of communication that is just extremely exhausting.” He did come back after we broke up, after he knew about everything I struggle with. I know he loves me, I know he wants to be the man for me but he does not have the capacity to fill that role. And that, for some reason, kills me.

So here’s to starting over…again. I’ll be fine just like I was last time around, it just hurts a lot more this time. And to move on from the idea that this is my fault. To move on from the idea that if I just changed the way I react to things, then we would be fine. I was faulted for my anxiety. It was always my fault in his eyes. But we can only change so much of who were are before we lose ourselves entirely and I don’t want to lose myself because anxieties and all, I love myself a hell of a lot more than I love someone who faults me for something that is such a big part of me, faults me for something that over the last 6 years I have worked on and overcome in ways he will never understand.

I love deeply. I care deeply. I am open with my emotions, some might say to a fault in that I share my life with the world. I can be a bitch. I can be difficult. I overreact all the time. I obsess. I ruminate on stupid shit. I can be stubborn. I can be exhausting. I can be inappropriate in my expression of self. I am the queen of TMI (too much information for those of you not current with this generation). I am by no means perfect. But at the end of the day, I love all that about me and I hope that someday I find a man that when I need him the most, no matter how out of line he thinks I am being, if he knows it’s driven by my anxiety that I cannot control at that moment, he looks me right in the eye and says, “Kara. You’re fucking crazy and out of line right now and I don’t understand where this is coming from at all but I want to understand. I love you. It’s all going to be okay.”

Is that too much to ask? I hope not.

At the end of the day, I realized that I lost my love of self. I hate who I have become in loving him, in trying to please him, in trying to control my emotions. I hate the needy, neurotic, insecure, dependent person I have become because that is not me. I have blamed myself for everything and I am sick of doing that because it always takes 2 to tango. So with a heavy heart, I move on again in my life without him, having learned more about myself than I ever thought possible.