On the outside, my life looks like one anyone would love to have. I have an amazing well paying job, working for a good company that loves me, co workers who support me and bosses who are good to me. I get to travel to beautiful places multiple times a year on the company dime. I get to work with awesome people every day, and have almost full autonomy to implement my ideas. I have significant influence on my company and what happens at a very young age. And on top of it all I've been very lucky that my ideas have mostly worked out.
I also have a loving wife and probably too many kids. But they are all beautiful and most of the time are good. The loving wife has forgiven me for transgressions I shouldn't have been able to get away with. On top of that, she wants it, wants the sex, a lot and as much as possible. She seems to have found me hotter and hotter as I've gotten older. The only complaint could be that she's sometimes a little crazy, a little OCD, too much of a worrier and neat freak. But she's a great mom and has basically raised our kids mostly herself, so the fact they are so awesome is due to her.
I recently have been going through the process of supporting my oldest child getting diagnosed with and fighting a life threatening illness. It's been a long road and thankfully right now he is doing great, better than most, and his outlook so far is for a full return to health. He has made it easy to be his primary caregiver. Obviously a sickness like this is not a good thing, but between how he handled it and the outpouring of support from our family and friends and coworkers and from all corners of life is just a huge crazy positive. Anyone would love to have this many good people in their lives, and frankly it shocked me to see how good people can be.
So why am I depressed right now?
It starts with the fact that I'm lonely. I stopped truly loving my wife years ago. I love her as the mother of my kids and love her as a friend who is an amazing human being. I even still lust after her a bit when the day is right and she dresses up in certain ways. But I don't have that brand new, head over heels love anymore. That love that doesn't feel like it will ever end. Of course when its been as long as we've been together, who can expect that to continue. But its crazy to me how that feeling disappearing really impacts things. That excitement and energy of new love, not even love but just falling for someone, falling hard... its the best feeling in the world. It makes all the care in the world go away and makes you feel like you can do anything. It's really like a drug, that's something I'm realizing just now, and I think I'm addicted. Because when you don't have it, or you lose it, or have it but it doesn't go both ways, its awful awful awful.
I'm addicted because I fall for people way too easily. That's why I got married so young, why I strayed outside of our marriage, why I kept doing it until I was caught, and why I still, even through all that, find myself continuing. I've fallen for so many women in my life I can't even remember them all. I fall for someone, that energy and adrenaline rush puts me above cloud 9, and I stay there for as long as possible... but it always ends, whether because the girl wants it to end, or it has to end, or just the sheer inevitable passage of time cruelly brings me back down to earth. And then when I crash, I crash hard. I go into a pit of despair where there is no motivation, at all, for anything. In these moments I surprise myself that I even get anything done at all, because mentally, I'm just not there. I'm thinking of where I was, and wishing I could find my way back, plotting to find my way back, or just so far gone that I can't do anything at all.
Right now I'm in that pit of despair from multiple addictions. I recently went to a conference, in a beautiful location filled with beautiful people. I had been literally cooped up in a room with my kid for over a month, unable to really go anywhere or do anything substantial. So needless to say, getting out to hang with a bunch of my clients, all awesome AF people, in a beautiful location, out of town for all of us... it was a powder keg waiting to happen. It took me a couple hours to find my groove again, but needless to say within a couple hours of my plane landing I was half a dozen drinks in and with the stamina of a duracell battery. The night was long my friends, and for the first time in a long time every single care in the world that I had completely disappeared. I know because I never once thought about if my wife called what would I do, if she tried to find friends me where would she see me, I never thought once about my family, my job, or anything happening in my life other than that very moment. I was living in the ultimate present, when in the present everything was as you wished it could be.
And along the way I met a girl. I was so living in the moment that I don't even know for sure HOW it happened. I know that one of my colleagues was talking to her at one bar and I joined him. I know that we went to another bar and she was still there. Somewhere along the way we were at a third bar and her and I were all over each other. Sometime later we were walking down the streets and stopped in a store to look at some boots she wanted. Then next thing I know we were heading back to her place. No wait, that couldn't happen because it turns out my colleague was in the room with her friend. And somehow I had gotten her to like me enough that when I simply asked her to come take the 20 minute cab ride back to my place, she obliged.
From there things went as expected. Make it up in your mind or PM me and maybe I'll share details. But let's just say we didn't sleep until 6am and I had set an alarm for 630. And then snoozed it and did more until 7. This girl was quite possibly one of the sexiest girls I had ever been with. At least 10 years younger than me, and fun as all hell. And she liked me. I know it because of the looks she was giving me and the shy smiles she was giving me as I escorted her on her walk of shame through the hotel lobby into her lonesome cab ride back to her hotel. I had meetings starting at 8am, we both knew it, and she was supposed to be departing on a cruise that same morning.
That day I somehow survived with no hangover on 30 minutes of sleep, presenting over and over about the same topic 8 times in a row. I managed to squeeze in two 20 minute power naps. But by the end of the day I felt mostly alright. That's the power of adrenaline. I would run into the colleagues I was out with throughout the day and with a quick smile and fist bump or handshake the adrenaline rush came back. Just typing about it now I can feel myself waking up, feeling more alive.
I expected nothing from that girl moving forward. I didn't get her number, only had her friends number who texted me so she knew where to reach her if something happened. I honestly didn't even know her name. But I was into her. Substantially into her. But with no way to reach her and assuming she was gone on a boat with no internet she was gone. Now that I think of it - she probably had internet. No cruise boat wouldn't have a way to connect to wifi right? Anyway, by that afternoon she had texted me... to say she was on her cruise, and she had had fun that night before. And yes she even dropped her name for me! While my colleague who had been with her friend completely ignored and deleted any messages, content with the one night stand, even with everything I had going on, I responded. Because I had that feeling again and it was great. There were a couple of texts about when she would be back and when I was leaving but then I had another meeting and it ended. Mine was the last text and I haven't heard from her since.
Now the double whammy. There is a client of mine who is a beautiful, sexy, fun woman. On top of that, I'd like to think she likes me enough to party with me, and flirt with me, and come on to me. For years we've had this relationship, this work relationship which just gets closer and closer to the edge. This woman gives me that same adrenaline rush of new love anytime I talk to her. I see her twice a year for about 6 hours total and I've slowly fallen harder and harder and harder for her. The sad reality is that either she's 1) stringing me on solely for the sake of work, 2) really into me too and just forces herself to stop somewhere or 3) expecting me to make some move first that I also find it hard to make because of my job. I honestly don't know what the answer is. I'd like to think I know her really well, but I don't. I know the persona she puts out there for her job. I know for a fact that she at least likes to party with me, but I also know I'm not the only one she will party with like me. I also know and am confident enough to know that I'm probably her most attractive client, if not in pure looks, in total personality. She wouldn't laugh like she does with me if there wasn't something real there.
So shortly after the last text was sent to the new girl I'd just met, I run into the client girl at a cocktail party. I knew it was coming, and like I always do I didn't know how to react. I came up to the group she was talking with, hugged the other woman I knew, and just smiled and slightly waved at her. She smiled back at me, with this smile that says I'm glad to see you and I want a hug but I want you to come give it to me. I didn't hug her, not then. Instead I talked with some of the others and then moved on to let her finish her socializing. You see, she needs to work the room in her role, and we had dinner planned, I didn't want to stop her from doing her job. I would have my time. She is a flirt with EVERYONE, everyone loves her, and she loves the attention. I'm sure of it. Old, young, attractive or not, the male dominated industry we're in loves her and she loves that she stands out.
By this point I had no memory of the girl from the night before. After a short while I got to be the guy who was walking out of the cocktail hour talking to her as we headed to dinner. Two other colleagues were with us, but they also knew how the two of us were together and wouldn't get in the way. And from there my clock began, the few hours I would get, one of two times a year with her all to myself. Yes, other people were watching, but neither of us care about that. In fact this group of 4 was the smallest dinner group we'd ever had together, and it became anti climactic to not be able to show off our flirtiness in front of everyone. There were some public games, but nothing to the extent we've done before.
You see the year before, we'd basically made out while sharing an oyster in front of 6 people and while on camera. That was followed by a long, long, long night out where we shared a cab home at 5am. We had danced and drank and danced and groped and danced some more. At one point she had been holding me and staring into my eyes with her big beautiful blue eyes that it just broke me. Somehow we didn't go back to any room together the year before. But the experience broke me and I had spent the months following randomly texting her, just trying to talk to her about anything. Professing my feelings, talking about the weather, anything to get her to respond. And she did respond. Reluctantly. And not all the time. And eventually my feelings faded a bit because it was clear it wasn't being reciprocated and father time wins all battles. I finally gave up, let her go in my head. And knew that we'd still be working together, so I'd have to somehow clear the air of me confessing my feelings and get it back to being professional.
I couldn't do it via text or a phone call. It would have the be in person. So 6 months later, when I finally got to see her again, I fought through an hour of public awkwardness and finally got to sneak a 20 minute ride with her in her car alone. Of course I brought it up after waiting too long and awkwardly. I straight apologized for being awkward and making it weird. She didn't say much other than its fine. And in our last breathes alone I said I'd back off and she got the last words: "Please don't."
WHAT!?!?!?!? After all of that and the lack of responses, and the fact it seemed she was trying to let me down easy, with two words she hooked me back in!
But then she backed away again. That dinner was the least fun dinner we'd had. It didn't help that she had to get back to her kids that night. She's got 2 kids, but is divorced and with a boyfriend. And lives in a place where everyone knows everyone, so its a bit fair to say that she was going to tone it down on her home turf. But I tried, and when I offered her oysters that evening, she didn't accept.
Needless to say after that whiplash experience, I kept myself in line. Other than being randomly flirty when we had to communicate for work, there was no extra texting. No extra phone calls. I backed off, like I said I would, but didn't stop flirting, like she said not to (if I were to guess, who knew what those 2 words really meant.)
So after all of that, here we are at dinner again. The small group of 4. It was nice, but calm, less of a show, and we all didn't drink nearly as much. On my end, the events of the long night before were clearly wearing on me, so my intake was only so available, and the fact she wasn't as flirty with me with a larger group kept the adrenaline rush low. I feel like the events of the past year had ruined it. So at the end of the meal, feeling happy to be around her but sad it wasn't the same, I went to go to the bathroom which was on the upstairs floor. She decided to go too and go with me. So we got a few moments alone to chat. Nothing but small talk. Into the bathrooms we went and being a guy I finished first and decided to at least be chivalrous and wait for her. Being on a second floor with no one in sight, when she came out she was happy to see that I waited, and I was able to make the move for the hug I owed her. She accepted and willingly stayed in my arms while I whispered some more sweet nothings about missing her, being glad to see her. I also said something about not having as much fun with dinner and not being on camera. She whips out her phone and we don't kiss, but get real close and touch our tongues together. Of course the pic didn't show the tongues touching, so I stopped her halfway down the stairs and had her do it again, this time to get our tongues touching in the pic. And yes, she listened. And sent it to me. And I still have it now. And she also sent it to some of our other normal dinner friends. Because in a way she's happy or proud of it, or again, just reeling me in for business. Who the hell knows!
From there the evening went downhill. We squeezed in a cab to go back to the hotel, and I managed to have my arm around her and secretly rub her thigh the entire ride. She didn't stop me. But then back in the hotel there was a crowded hotel lobby bar with half the industry at it, and she had to work the room again. Give some more hugs, and side cheek kisses and let the much older men catch views of her cleavage as she chatted them up. I kept my eye on her and got back to her side at times. But I'm not her little puppydog. I also have plenty of contacts and could work the room. Eventually I lost track of her for a while and texted her. She's just fine at responding to texts when we are at an out of town conference! Unless it isn't what she wants to see. She told me where she was, although responses were way delayed as expected. And when I went to go find her around 1am, she was already gone. Then the bar cleared out and she was gone, in bed, getting her sleep for another long conference day tomorrow.
I stayed up until 3am, pondering my fate. Wishing so many things had gone differently with her. Why was it so easy with the girl from the first night and so hard with the one that sparked a fire in me with just a glance? Eventually in a mostly drunken, definitely loosened up stupor I went to my room, and texted her a message saying "we should just hook up" before I passed out asleep for a few hours.
Seeing the message in the morning I quickly replied again: "oh man. I'm sorry about that." Nothing else. I didn't say a thing and neither did she. A day full of meetings and I was flying out early that night because of halloween, and so was she. I did see her for about 5 minutes between meetings, and I diverted my entire group to go say hello, get one final hug and wish her a safe flight. And just like that the experience was over. I sent a message about the post-conference blues, and specifically said I would miss her... no response. I did get a single response when I planned out and offered to figure out an out of town night away for us, masquerading as a business function. She said no, but with plenty of good reasons why she couldn't. I couldn't tell if she was legitimately disappointed or just glad to have an excuse. One last message the next day from home, saying something again about the blues and not being able to work... no response.
I get that it can never work. And even if it did for a while, eventually that would end, and then our fun would end... and it would get REALLY awkward to sit through a dinner together. I get that she can't risk her career given where she lives and such. I can't either. Maybe she ignores me because she's afraid of really falling for me back. Maybe she ignores me because its all just fun to her and she likes the attention but doesn't care for me that much, not really, not like I do. Or who knows, maybe she wants me to be making the moves, pushing it forward and over the brink.
I honestly don't know. And I would push more but I know what the response will be. Or the lack of it. I will just have to wait. Suffer here and think about her. Respond to her when she needs something for work. And not really get another experience with her for 6 months. Just enough time to maybe move on before she can wrangle me back in.
So I decided to text the girl from the first night. The one who I spent all night in glorious ecstasy. No response yet, but its late at night. She could be out, or sleeping. I won't call that possibility dead until I get nothing all day tomorrow. But its a hopeless text. She lives halfway across the country from me. If not the whole country depending on which place could be her home. And I certainly am not going to legitimately screw up what I have going for that. Am I? No, I'm not. Because I'm smart enough that if I really needed to, I could sneak away and meet her, and keep it for fun. Until the moment passes and I enter the next bouts of normalcy I occasionally get into.
And so here I sit. Back to reality, stuck in one place for the next 5 days. Mostly by myself and in charge, which is nice. But depressed and down because twice over the past week, I got to experience that adrenaline rush of new love, of the drug of falling for someone hard. Twice and in two different forms. Both of which had incredible highs but a short half life and a huge crash after. And I am going through withdrawal. I crave it again. I find myself willing to take risks to try and find it elsewhere again, but yet so depressed that I don't actually go through with it because ultimately its not what I want. Its not the one(s) who are on my mind right now. But the ones on my mind right now are unattainable.
Withdrawal sucks. The crash sucks. There are no answers.
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