Chapter 58. "A woman."

Hey, hey! I hope that you all have been doing well since the last entry.

Thank you all kindly for 28.88K Views! And an additional 16.7K in Spanish!

Your loyalty has been pretty damned amazing, and I wish I could find more words with which to thank you all.

I would have never thought that these old journals of mine would be of any interest to anyone, you know?

Let alone interesting enough to garner such a following, lol.

As small as it may be.

I love you all, and I hope you all stick it out till the end with me.

These old journals are and have been weird and wild for me.

Both healing and hurting, you know?

Cathartic, they say...

I will have at least 50 more journal entries to go, so let's hope that this is more healing than hurtful lmao/lbvs.

I won't keep you all. I believe that I know what you are here for.

Enjoy. 

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July 8th, 2013.

Journal #058.

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This day wasn't so bad after all.

Work seemed to drag on, but it wasn't a bad day.

Just long.

So me and XXXXX met up and got dinner after I got off.

That really made the day worth all of the little stresses.

She's a pretty intricate woman.

-I use the word woman lightly since most of the "women" I know are still girls-

I think there is a future for us.

Now, hear me out.

I know it sounds selfish and cruel to imagine oneself with someone outside of the person you are with -and I am a Karma-fearing man- but this is different. 

This goes beyond XXXXX.

Beyond just someone I'm dating.

The future is unknown.

I can't see myself marrying XXXXX, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be with her.

Our relationship is fine.

It's just not one that I can see ending in marriage.

Call me wrong, I guess.

So we went and got pizza -that seems to really be our thing, lol- 

Then we hung out and had a drink and a good talk about really so many things that I shouldn't bother list them all.

But it was great nonetheless.

Her mind is so deep.

So profound.

XXXXX is a woman, not a girl.

She is a wife, not a girlfriend.

I swear I will do right by XXXXX.

I will.

But there will come a time when a "future" will come up in a conversation, and I will be honest with her.

I can't see me marrying her.

Not for XXXXX.

Not because I want someone else.

No.

Simply because in the time we have been together, we haven't gotten to that moment when I've really just felt like:

"Damn...I could stay here, have a kid, be a family."

I can't feel that, and it's been over a year.

Maybe it's just me?

Maybe.

It's just crazy.

I do look for a future with XXXXX, but I know anything could happen.

Between here and me turning 26.

Anything. 

Only god knows what the outcome could be.

Only he knows the plan he has in place for us.

For her.

For XXXXX.

For me.

Hmmmm.

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-I was so captivated by this woman, regardless of the fact that I was in a relationship. 

I know it was wrong, but I was falling for her more and more with each day, and each time we hung out.

We would link up and go get pizza and drinks a couple of times a week, so not only was I helping her cheat -by going on these little meet-ups that may as well have been dates- I was not being faithful to the young lady that I was with at the time.

No, we didn't have sex or kiss or anything like that, but it was definitely not known to our respective significant others that we were doing this. 

In hindsight, I see that this should have been a red flag all along, you know? Her willingness to link up with me behind his back and my willingness to take her out.

That is/was not a healthy start to what would eventually evolve into much more. 

-I knew a decent amount of people back in my more youthful days, and a good portion of them were platonic female friends. I used to call them "girls" in place of "women" or even "young ladies" because the majority of them were not very mature lol.

I didn't mean their ages.

I had a few friends back then that -looking back now- I often wonder how they even garnered the places in my life that they had once held.

But alas, I was much younger and much less developed than I am now at 36, lol. We all have people in our past that we simply grew out of, so to speak.

-Was the way I felt about her beyond just the young lady that I was with at the time? Yes. I had known this one for nearly nine years at that point in time, and we had been pretty good friends before the foster care system stole me away once again (another story for another time.) I felt that the Universe itself was drawing us together.

I wasn't right, but I was also not wrong.

Regardless of what I believed COULD have been, I was still in a relationship...and sneaking about for dinner and drinks was still wrong.

I just didn't care at the time. I wanted to be with her any any way that I could and as often as possible.

-I had to leave the young lady I was with. But when? I knew that it wasn't meant to last between us, and my blooming love for this alluring, mysterious lady was soon to be out of my control.

-We would eat, have a few drinks, and just talk. We talked about anything and everything.

We would talk for hours. She typically did most of the talking, but I didn't care. I was so captivated by anything and everything to do with her that she could have been speaking Cantonese, and I would have just smiled and nodded along.

I think that a big part of me was waiting for a reason to leave my girlfriend outside of just not feeling as deep of an attraction as I would have liked and outside of longing for someone else.

I feel like I had gotten with her as more of a rebound than anything, and the more that I realized that I liked this other woman, the more I saw how inorganic my "love" for the one I was with was.

That feeling sucked. 

The spark just never came, and I don't honestly know how much that had to do with the outside influence of another woman and how much it had to do with a simple lack of attraction.

-I can recall some form of conversation...some form of pact that we had made. Some kind of deal that had to do with us getting together by the time I was 26 and she was 29 if neither of us was married by then. 

I THINK that this was it, but I can't fully recall.

How ironic that deal would turn out to be is fucking hilarious, though lol.

Stay tuned, folks! lol.

-I had an inkling that "God" or whatever Deity governs over this world had a plan for the two of us.

Oh, did he!

She?

Them/They?

I don't know, lol.

I personally refer to whatever it is or may be as "The Universe." and boy, I tell you, did The Universe have not only a plan but quite a sense of humor.

I will leave it at that for now, lol.

I hope that this finds you all well and that I will see you all back here soon enough for the next batch of cringe lmao.

You have all been wonderful thus far, and I hope that this weird little series keeps hitting the mark for you all.

Have a good day/night, yeah?

I will see you all back here soon enough, The Universe will it, lol.

Till the, and as always: Safe travels, folks.

Stay safe.

Stay healthy.

Stay vigilant.

-Redd. 

Ps. Be careful getting about if you are in a snow-bound state this week! It is WILD here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!