I learned so many things from the cowboy who wasn't an actual cowboy. Perhaps a casanova. I think about these things I learned when I am up so late my eyes begin to fatigue. I find it so hard to even find an ending to the thoughts, or find motivation to put it in a blog I know nobody will see. I tend to write halfway down the page and realize it's for no reason. These things i've learned...I wish I hadn't. This cowboy was my beginning of the unravel. I blame myself more than I blame him. Which is what he was always good at. Blaming others, this was the first thing I learned from him. When I first began my association with this cowboy; the first thing he showed me was how to open up. Even when I knew I shouldn't. The older guy made me feel free, for the first time in my life I knew I had to have it. Freedom. I was 17 and looking for a way out. The path I took to get out was paved by him. When he began helping me make sense of my troubled childhood by blaming the only people that raised me. My parents had been cruel. But instead of blaming them I should have used my intelligence to understand the past is the past, keep moving forward. Looking into those brown eyes...I was convinced he was right for me. I rationalize in my head to stop writing before the story is done for a second. I keep telling myself it's not his fault. This is my true nature, forgiving. This calls for more chances to be given than there should be. Fast forward the best two years of my life. We're living together now and my life is all set. I have a great job, happy life, and wedding bells ringing in my ears when I would think of the smooth tongued asshole whispering I love you when he thought I was asleep. He had such a way with words, perhaps the wedding bells were my first mistake. Because this was the beginning. Things were great then all of the sudden they weren't. He was calling for a break because he wanted to try out some feelings he had with an ex of his. He said i've scared him. I knew about the break, not the rendezvous with the ex. Only when I had a feeling, and stupidly went though text messages I shouldn't have, did I realize he is not who I thought he was. I've never been the girl to open up and let a man in like I had with him. Obviously my heart was broken. But I'm a strong woman. I moved out for a bit to give him the space he asked for. For months we tried to make it work but the sting of the infidelity didn't ease. I found out more things from a friend of his. Saying he's been asking for nudes from her. Tits were his weakness. I've always been underdeveloped in that department. Although I am a confident woman nobody ever really talks about the toll cheating takes on that confidence. Nor would he care to hear it. That's the second thing he taught me. Not to care. Although I am confident, I care more about what people think of me than anyone ever really should. And once we were broken off for a week or so of course the rumors of the demise, and who was at fault, began washing around my head like an unwelcome headrush. I hear he had been saying I'm the one that cheated, but due to the not so clean break I had to decide not to care about the man that had once meant everything to me. He had turned ferrell. So should I. Next thing I know he's trying to get me back. Stalking me, coming to my work, waiting at the gas station down the road from my new place to know when i'd be home. The obsessiveness got worse. He would push his way through the door and things would get physical. I end up with a broken rib somewhere in the mix. Totally my fault. I lashed, I jumped, I coughed too hard...or so that's what I told everyone. This didn't stop him. I escaped into the arms of a "friend" who ended up being worse for me than I expected. Egotistical men were apparently a trend in the area. Still nothing I couldn't get over with the block of a number and some alcohol. Maybe I had gone too far with the alcohol. And trying to forget, because once I finally got sober I had made a mess of relationships around me. In my efforts to fix relationships I started with my parents. Going home felt great at first but soon I was longing for freedom again. In efforts to find it I end up at a lake with some more booze and a great high school friend. Stumbling barefoot across a pier turned out to be a very bad decision. This ended in a more extensive injury than originally expected. A 5 inch piece of wood impaling my foot was enough to take me off my very reliable management job at walmart for a month. Unfortunately my leave of absence paperwork did not go through in time and I was terminated. Yet another set back. The doctor bills were piling and so were my bills at my rent house in nacogdoches. I was being buried. Maybe I deserved it, I had done some things in my stupor caused by the drugs and alcohol. Being raised in a christian family I felt like I was probably being punished. This was the third thing I learned from him. He was right. At the end of our relationship he expressed how he had dumped the love of his life once. I thought then that it was just another ploy to win me back so I didn't listen. But only when I was 88 pounds struggling with my life long eating disorders, and begging for forgiveness from God did I realize...he was right all along. If only I had stayed. This is another thing about abuse most people don't talk about. I will always regret leaving the only thing that ever gave me peace. My life has been a disaster since. The pain haunts you. Even now. Almost 1 year later and 7 months deep into another relationship do I realize...he was always right.