coming clean

Unafraid, you have taught me so much this year. You have taught me that I am allowed to hurt. You have taught me how to pull myself out of my darkest moments. You have taught me that I am strong enough to overcome all my bad days. 

I am so thankful for you. 

Because December has been the hardest month of my life. I have had to face some of the hardest things I think I have ever had to overcome—the effect that my actions have on other people. Specifically the people I love most in my love. The one person that is my forever love. 

I cheated on Justin with a guy that I had been seeing before Justin and I got together. Never in person, strictly through facebook & texting... But that still doesn't make it okay. I demonized the person I love the most to his family and friends, managed to make it so that he couldn't trust in himself or in me anymore. I pushed Justin away so hard and then blamed him for everything that went wrong in our relationship. I got caught in so many lies I couldn't tell what was real and what was fake. I have to atone for all of the mistakes I have made.  

I guess to really understand the story we have to go all the way back to early 2012... Rehash falling for one of my best friends & having him let me down again and again and again, and eventually using sex as a coping mechanism for my hurt. 

At the beginning of the year I was in love with my best friend. We sang "Take A Chance On Me" by ABBA to each other because it was our song. He always picked me up when I was down and I tried my hardest to do the same for him. We loved each other, we really did, just never at the same time. 

He always left when he got too afraid of his feelings for me. Just out of the blue, he would cut off all contact until he decided I was worth talking to again. So one day, in my pit of post-Jared depression, one of my friends said "Hey! You're single! You don't need him! Make a plenty of fish account!" So I did. 

And I have regretted that decision every day of my life since then. 

It was on plenty of fish that I met J, the boy that broke me worse than Cody ever did. The boy that manipulated me and kicked me down again and again and again. He used me for his own pleasures, tried to extort me for money, had me lying to my family & friends. It was because of him my friends had to stage an intervention and try to get me my life back in July of 2012. It was because of him I ran back to Jared again, scared and begging him to please save me from all this hurt from J which was a coping mechanism to deal with all the hurt that Jared had put in my heart in the first place. 

And once again Jared pushed me away. Though not after calling me one night, lonely at the end of July, drunk on vodka cranberries, and kissed me in a way that has come to define how I am able to kiss Justin now. I remember feeling so much hope. I wore the same shirt for five days straight because it smelled like Jared. I clung so hard to the hope that things would be different this time, because maybe those kisses meant as much to me as they did to him, and once again I found myself alone and empty with J breathing down my neck. 

Then I met Justin. And he promised he wasn't like all those other boys I had feelings for in the past. He wanted to save me from myself, from my demons, from all the bad things that constantly play on a loop inside my head. 

And with everything in me I tried to let him. I tried to open myself up completely to him, to let him know all my demons so we could work together to beat them. It's been a long and arduous process, one that I'm still working on every day. 

Somewhere my trust in Justin faltered. I couldn't let go of J like I had so willingly given up on Jared. I am not very skilled in the art of letting people go, and I continued to allow this manipulative, abusive, controlling boy take over my life. Behind Justin's back I would continue to talk to him, hurting Justin and our relationship more than I ever could have realized.

Once again I fell for the lies and the scare tactics, truly believing I needed him in my life because he was willing to fulfill my darkest fantasies. And then I would get sick of him and stop talking to him. And then I would start up again because I missed him. It felt like Cody all over again—the confusion because you're not supposed to miss him because of what he did to you... which then turns into self hatred because you know you're supposed to hate him and you don't.

Over the course of about a year and a half into my relationship with Justin, I continued to talk to J. We had Internet sex almost every day while I withdrew completely from Justin and our love. Another manipulation, another messed up coping mechanism, another crack in my foundation, which led to more and more lies and deceit and betrayal in my relationship. 

Unafraid, thank you for sticking with me this year. Because I truly don't know how I would have survived without you. After Justin found out, our world shattered. We're working things out. I'm working through my guilt and my trust issues and my inability to be vulnerable and open myself up to him. He's working on forgiveness, because he loves me and can't imagine life without me even though everyone has told him to kick me to the curb.

I have truly hurt everyone around me. I hurt Justin more than I could have ever possibly imagined. I also hurt his family because they love me too. I have damaged the trust of everyone around me, my friends, my coworkers, my own family. Slowly I'm working on regaining that trust back and working on taking the necessary steps within myself to make sure I never do something like this again. 

The life lessons Unafraid has taught me this year have been absolutely invaluable. I'm so thankful for everything I've learned this year, and it makes me excited to see what next year has in store for me.