VE= VT x RR

Well, I don't think anyone is out there reading these things but I continue to write when I'm feeling overwhelmed. Sadly, Joel doesn't even bother to read or write here anymore, so I guess it's a dying idea. Nonetheless, I will continue to write my heart out into the depths of blogger.

I don't understand what has happened in my life. I went to sleep and I was excited because Joel was coming down to visit the next day and I woke up to a call telling me he was missing. I don't want to go into the private details of the situation because it's not all my story to tell, but it shook my entire world. Suddenly, my happy (or so I thought) relationship is sitting here in ruins. It took days to get him to even speak a word to me and once he did he was brutally cold. He is slowly warming back up but he's not the same Joel. He is lost, I guess. I don't know. That's the popular phrase right now. "I don't know." He can't give me answers to any of my questions. He can't explain why he did what he did to me. He can't answer his own questions. I guess in reality, I should understand because I've been in dark places like this. I've been in a place where I knew nothing but depression and tears. I guess it's a lot harder to be on the other side of the situation. I just feel hurt. I feel completely betrayed. He lied to my face about a lot of stuff. He did things without telling me about it. He was basically living a whole other life behind my back. Everything from fake trip plans to hidden money. I feel so betrayed. I shouldn't because I've done worse to him but I do. I feel betrayed because we made promises to each other. At least my sins were done before any commitment was made. I'm not justifying it or saying it's any less awful, but breaking promises seem so much more intense to me. I feel stupid because here I am, this naive girl, spending all of my time and money on a guy who wasn't doing the same for me. I feel so dirty because he would spend weekends in bed with me then go back to his dorm room and live a completely different life. I feel crushed because he looked me in the eyes and said "see you tomorrow. I love you." and then he didn't show. Most of all, I feel completely empty because all of this led me to one conclusion that I can't get out of my head: He never really loved me at all.

He wanted to love me. He probably even thought he loved me in some sense. I think the bigger problem is that he doesn't truly understand what love is or what it is supposed to look like. Sadly, I think I was the first person in his life to spark something so he snatched it up and labeled it "love." Meanwhile, I truly did fall in love with him so I think he just played along and said the things he was supposed to say. He did everything he was supposed to do to love me, yet he doesn't. Love isn't something you can force even when the person is so lovable. We want to love the right people but most often our hearts fall for the complete opposite. This series of events has led to me to replay every memory I can possibly conjure and I see everything completely different now that I don't have a giant red heart of new love in front of my vision. I flashback to our very first trips to Chicago, I see a guy who likes me but he isn't sure. I look back to the first time he walked through the train station door and the look on his face screamed "What am I doing here?" I go back to our walks through downtown Chicago and I think about how he never really acted like he enjoyed it. I move forward to the trips to Carbondale and I see someone who was coerced into visiting me. I see someone who didn't really want or need to have sex but probably did because I was ready to. I look back on every situation and I see myself wanting him and him not wanting it but doing it for me regardless. That's sweet in theory but it's horrifying to realize that you can't think of one time when your boyfriend actually suggested something. I planned everything on every single trip and I thought that's just because he was a poor planner but now I see it's because he couldn't find a desire to go out of his way and plan something special. I look back and I see him always getting nervous when he saw someone he knew when he was with me. I see how he never introduced me to anyone. I understand we were on the "down low" because of his parents, but no one. He never introduced me to anyone. I often wondered if someone asked who I was if he would tell them the truth. I always wanted to meet his friends and say hello. I walked through a group of his friends one time and he didn't say a word to any of them about me. I guess his roommate knew because Joel spent so much time talking to me in his dorm room but that's probably the extent of it. I spoke to a lot of his friends about his whereabouts that day he was missing and none of them knew I existed, not even his best friend. His best friend who wouldn't have said a word to his parents or caused any problems for us, but yet he wouldn't tell him. The guy was happy to hear Joel had a girlfriend, he was nice to me, but Joel never said a word. I had to hear this guy tell me about how Joel "didn't really talk about any girls" or "he didn't get lucky his freshman year." It's like I didn't even exist. I don't understand how you can have a girl in your life for two years and not even mention her. Even his parents knew I existed in some form. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to know this. Yes, it's horrible to put your self worth in the opinion of another person but it makes me feel worthless. I see even the worst of guys brag about their girlfriends. They are proud to have that girl in their lives and they let people know that. Am I not something to be proud of? I've always struggled with that question. My dad leaving really made it hard to find an answer to that. Why would he leave if I was such a good daughter? Of course, the logical side of me knows he left because he didn't want to be in the marriage anymore but he left me too. He isn't very involved in my life so he did leave me too. I guess that's where my perfectionist complex comes from. I've developed this need to do well and exceed in things to compensate for the loss. Somewhere along the way, all the hard work I was doing to get my dad's attention somehow transferred over to Joel. I started working my ass off in school to get the A's to impress him. I bought nicer clothes to try to impress him. I worked extra hours at my job and maxed out my credit cards to get nicer hotel rooms and do nicer things on our trips to make him happy. I bought silly embarrassing lingerie to try to turn him on. I tried to do everything right and I still wasn't worth a "Hey (his best friend's name here), I met this girl a while ago and we've been dating awhile and she's absolutely amazing and she makes me so happy." I sat around hoping that one day he would fix the thing with his parents and he would finally be able to show how proud he was of me.

I'm sorry, I'm completely rambling at this point. I just, I just don't know anymore what to feel. He still tells me he loves me but is that right? I look back on my own faults and I know how imperfect I am. I was a needy, controlling, dramatic most of the time. I understand how unhealthy I made the relationship at times. Despite all of that, I still want to believe what we had was real and good and true. I want to believe that everything we've been through wasn't something fake. The only thing I am certain of in all of this is our friendship. Our friendship will remain strong no matter what, it's unbeatable. I guess I just don't want our relationship to end there. Sadly, I think it's going to. The way we're handling things right now, it's already there. We chat about basic stuff, we watch a show or two, we say our "goodnights" and go to sleep. It's become so routine that it's terrifying. We aren't intimate on an emotional or physical level-we haven't been in months. He won't plan a trip with me so we can't be together and talk about this stuff like real couples do. We're already a giant friendship that claims to be something it's not. The scariest part is that I don't know if it can or will ever be the same again. And if it can, I don't know if I can make it long enough for the things to be fixed. Should I even want to?

I should have saw all of this coming from a mile away. The entire relationship he's been sneaky and shady with me. He's always been reserved and secretive which bothered me from day one. I should have predicted this one. I should have known better to just believe every time he wrote off my concerns or questions about something. I should have walked away when he refused multiple times to introduce me to his friends, tell his family, or even acknowledge that he wasn't single. I hate to be so negative and bitter, but I should have caught this one. None of this is a "blame game" or anger, it's just pent up emotion that is being transferred onto this blog. I guess I became the one that was blinded by love like every other sad desperate girl in history.

-Danielle