Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Story of Jack Daniels

So I've been avoiding this post, but to understand me and my story, I'll have to introduce you to Jack Daniels.

In October 2008, Jack Daniels broke my heart. For years I'd kept my heart protected; locked behind barriers and walls. Finally, I'd started to let someone in...and he crushed me.

Jack Daniels was a high school friend - a guy I'd never dated, but had always wondered why I didn't. We were never super close back then, but were part of a larger friend group. And there had always been something... a connection unexplored. After high school we lost touch. It wasn't until our 10 year reunion that we once again became a part of each others' lives. I felt it all over again...something drawing me to him. But sadly, I didn't act upon it. Instead we started to slowly reconnect. We emailed regularly, hung out with friends when he was in town, and talked - just really talked. He wasn't living in the area so we'd mostly email. We'd both dated other people. Slowly it grew to be more regular, talking almost everyday. Something was happening between us. We both realized there was a connection we couldn't deny. At the time, I was single...he'd been dating a woman for about 2 years. He told me his relationship wasn't going well but he was seeing if there was anything to salvage it - he said he felt he needed to give it his best effort so he would know he tried everything before moving on. I respected that, told him I'd tread lightly, and asked him to just be honest with me through things. It all went wrong.

In the next few months he told me how much he thought about me, how he wanted to be with me, and I really believed that they were ending. He was exactly what I'd wanted - he was engaging in my life, helping me through the daily challenges, waking me up with messages of "I can't stop thinking of you, beautiful", and ending my day with "I hope you dream of the day we can fall asleep together every night". It felt so right. Growing up he had been one of the most honest, trustworthy people I'd known. No one had a bad word to say about him. So I trusted. I believed what I wanted to believe. I believed he was torn between going after what he wanted (me) and knowing that he'd hurt her. He'd always cared so much about protecting others from pain. I was wrong.

One morning last October, I woke up to find his engagement pictures plastered all over a social networking site. A site where we were "friends". I was crushed. I spent weeks crying. I'd believed in our future. I asked for an explanation. He swore that he was a coward and he didn't know how to tell me. He said he was torn because he truly cared about me but felt he had to do this. He tried to spin it to save himself - he knew he'd screwed up, been selfish, and hurt me. I didn't understand. I felt naive, confused, used & broken.

I walked away, erased him from my life, and tried to move on. But I was weakened by my encounter with him. I'd never felt so intensely for someone before - not even my ex-fiance. How could I feel so deeply for someone and be so wrong?

*There will be other back story posts on Jack Daniels because I'm sure other aspects will be relevant to my continued story.

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