Chapter 24 - I digress

I have tried to re-create the events and the details in as honest a fashion as possible. I want you, the readers to have all the facts in order to understand what happened. It is important to me, and I think you will understand why at the end.

I have to step back for a minute and look at all of this. I have to be critical and evaluate what is going on and what happened. Sometimes when you get into something you just do, and you don’t think. Or if you do think, you don’t think long term. That’s what happened with me.

I so needed to have Rett in my life in order to sort out why my life was such a mess. It hadn’t been as much of a mess until he came into the picture, but it wasn’t perfect either. The anorexia hadn’t been his fault, nor did he know anything about it, so I can’t blame that on him. I had some issues before, that were compounded by him.

I often wonder if people like me send out some sort of beacon, a signal for men like Rett. Can they tell there is a weakness or vulnerability there and they just prey on it? And if that is true, how the hell do I get rid of it…shut it off so that this never happens again. Perhaps they are like dogs that smell the fear in people. I am not sure there is anything one can do about that.

I was lonely. My marriage was over and my husband and I were miles apart. I have never felt understood by anyone, not just men. I try very hard to fit in but it is an effort. My sense of humour has been a god send, and I use it to feel at ease, but I am never truly at ease. It’s as if I am sitting on the edge of everything, never really participating fully because I fear being found out. And this didn’t come from Rett; this has been with me always.

I didn’t know Rett, and he didn’t know me. We knew each other superficially and yet likely better than most people know each other. We knew things about each other that no one else knows, and that held us together.

I knew his type of personality – the pontificating, look at me, I know all, I am so rich, I have so much, I am perfect, hard on the outside, but oh so soft on the inside. It was those moments where he would show me the soft parts, the parts that have been hurt, and he has been hurt. That’s part of the reason why he is so hard on the outside. He is wounded too. He is a good listener, when he shuts up long enough to allow someone else to speak. He is funny, a wickedly quick sense of humour, which he uses to hide his insecurities. He works way too hard, because he needs to keep his mind occupied, otherwise he thinks too much, and he has lots to think about. He knows what he has done, because he is not stupid, but he has gotten away with these things all his life…so he cannot possibly stop now. It works for him…so far. There will come a day when the house of cards will come tumbling down and he will crumble into a fetal position and he will understand hurt and alone. It will come. It has to come.

He is judgmental, and for someone coming from where he is, I found this really amusing. It is odd for someone who has done so much damage to someone else to be judgmental. I know from my experience it has taught me not to judge. How can I possibly sit up on a pedestal and look down on someone else's life? How could I possibly know what has made them make the choices they have made? Impossible.

The difference is that I have learned and I am still learning from my mistakes. I have had to pay a very high price for my lapses in judgment. Rett has never had to pay for his mistake(s). He has just continued on doing what he thinks is right without taking one single moment to think of someone other than himself. Nice gig if you can get it!

Ah, but I really don't know him, do I?