Chapter 5 – the love stories

I’m now 22 years old. Just broken up with boyfriend number 4. And seriously needing some space. I was kicked out (some people might not call it that… but what do you call it, when your dad and his fiance are moving into a smaller house, where there isn’t space for your stuff – so you can move there, but you’d have to put your things into storage?) of the house – or I moved out instead of putting my stuff into storage and sharing a room with my 12 year old sister…

A friend of mine and I moved into a house with some strange guy who was never home. We went to Cape Town for a December holiday (I was down there for a month – just recharging my batteries, and taking the leave that was due to me before it dissappeared), my friend was only there for a week or so. And when we arrived home, the guy hadn’t been home for ages, and he had offered his home to someone else – another girl. So for 2 months, the three of us lived there, and by the time my friend and I were to move out, this girl had become our friend. So the three of us, and my step cousin all moved into a house together.

It was great. 4 girls living together, loving life. I was spending time with my family and friends. The one girl (the third girl in the previous house), left to go overseas and my brother moved in. He introduced me to some of his friends, and well, his one friend, she was like “oh, you HAVE to meet my brother!!! You guys will get on so well!!!”. We met. And we did.

It was an instant attraction, and it was fantastic. We’d go out to a club, where he had friends there, and I had friends there – and we’d spend some time dancing together, and some time with our respective friends. He got to dance and laugh and spend time with his friends, and I got to do the same with mine. It was a relationship with freedom. Something I’d never had.

His friends and family thought “I was THE one” for him. That we were perfect together and that we were made to last. I could tell by the way he looked at me that he adored me. It was amazing. No fights, no arguments. Just laughs, and fun. For four months things were incredible. And then? Well, then his best friend came home from Botswana. And I took a back seat. Which, yes, I understood – his friend had been away for a while, and he wanted to spend some time with him. But all his time? All his weekends? I was fine with it at first, and then I guess I started to get a bit to clingy. Jealous even.

Ok – and while all this was happening, I was told by my gynae that I had a small brain tumour and may never be able to conceive naturally (I had turned 23 at this time). She told me this while I was driving home in rush hour traffic. It made sense that I would want my other half there. I was scared. My brother’s way of dealing with things was to make a joke of it. To laugh it off.

The boyf had a friend who’s father knew people and I managed to get an appointment with one of the top neurosurgoen’s in the country – so I went to see him. And he basically kicked me out of his office laughing. Saying that I have no symptoms. The mass that they saw in my brain was probably some blood vessels. My mom insisted I go for a second opinion – so my next visit to Cape Town saw me at a second neurosurgoen. He was a lot kinder. And said that it was an incidentaloma (spel?) – basically what that means is that they incedintally found something – 1 in 1000 women has something like this. And it was so small (it was the size of a pin head next to my pituitary gland) that they weren’t going to do anything anyways. This second guy said that if it worried me I should go for another scan in 2 years… and I didn’t do that. But I went after 4 years – and it was gone. So it really was nothing to worry about, only I didn’t know that at the time.

Anyways. So my boyf jumped when his friend wanted to see him and I was told I had a tumour. I guess the clingyness was understandable – even if very unwanted. Things came to a head in the November. He was going to mozambique over the xmas period, and I thought I would be invited. But I wasn’t. It was a “boys only” trip. Until of course, I found out that one of the girlfriends of the boys was actually going – but she didn’t count as a girl because they’d been friends for so long. So I questioned him. And we had a bit of an argument. Our first and last one. He broke up with me about 3 days later. I was stunned. There was no warning.

He broke up with me by telling me “I’m not in love with you. I was in love with the idea of being in love”. I still am not quite sure where he got those words from. But boy did they hurt. He was the first boy to break up with me. And like I said, there had been no warning. We’d had one little fight. But I guess maybe the “needyness” had been more than I realised. Looking back now, maybe my feelings were to strong for him. Maybe I cared to deeply, and he couldn’t take that kind of love.

I remember speaking to a male friend of mine in the UK. I was drunk, and my friend was trying to defend the ex. And I started shouting and screaming at one of my best friends – who was a million miles away. I was so sore. So raw. So numb. I didn’t want to know about anyone or anything. My friends tried to get me to talk about it. But I couldn’t. I didn’t talk about it for four months.

Just after we broke up, my friend who was a bartender at a club we used to frequent, well, she introduced me to this guy. We had a bit of a fling. And after the first night I spent with him, he said to me “this isn’t a relationship, I’ve just come out of a long one, and I’m not interested in anything.” I said to him, that suits me just fine. Because I’m not interested in one either. We were having angry sex. We were angry at the opposite sex, and neither of us knew how to handle it. We used to meet up on a friday or saturday night – never quite planned, and we’d get drunk, or one of us would arrive later – whichever way it was, we were both drunk, and we would go back to his place for some sex. Pure and simple. It went on for about 2 months.

Then one morning he asked me to go shopping with him. He needed to buy some new work clothes. I turned to him and said “I’m not your girlfriend, I’m not going to come with you, take a friend.” It took me a few days to regret those words. I was hurting, but that gave me no right to be mean to another human. No right at all. I tried to call him and said I’d changed my mind. He told me he’d already gone shopping.

After that we stopped sleeping together. I started studying, and I was focussing on myself again. I’d had enough heartache to last me quite a while. I had enough to process and to try and forgive myself for. For my transgressions to myself, for allowing me to callously hurt others. I had to forgive myself for being hard with my friends. I had a lot to forgive myself for.

Wow. I’ve never seen it like this before. Wow. But I was. I was cold. Numb. Sore. Selfish. Mean. Hard. I was hurting and I didn’t want to care about anything or anyone. The healing came. Time passed and I allowed myself to move on. It seems I am still learning from this lesson…