Graduation

When I graduated from High School DH showed up at my graduation party with a gift. Never in our year and a half relationship had he purchased me a gift without me knowing about it and so I was a little surprised. I can still remember where I was standing when I opened it, with him and his mom looking on.

It was a ring. A blue topaz, in the shape of a heart with two diamonds on the side. It is his birthstone. It was supposed to signify how much his heart would be with me when I went away to college.

I can still feel the sinking feeling in the bottom of my stomach when I opened it. I did not know it was possible to love and hate something so much all at the same time. I was excited that he had gotten me a surprise. Loved that it was a ring, I was into rings, I had one on each finger but I HATED the fact that it made me feel like I owed him something.

Now he had given me this beautiful ring I couldn't just break up with him when I went off to college. For me, it was always something. Always an excuse why I COULDN'T leave, even though I REALLY wanted to.

To make matters worse Impossible Dream Man (IDM) showed up at my party. Him and I had ALWAYS joked that he was going to come back for me when I turned 18 but I never... EVER believed that it was true. Yet there he was, I had turned 18 just a few weeks prior and there he was at my party.

He pulled me aside and told me that him and his girlfriend had broken up and my stomach just sank further. Inside, at my party, was DH and his mom and on my hand was this ring he had just given to me, yet standing in front of me was the man I really wanted to be with.

To this day I STILL kick myself for picking the way I did. I don't know if IDM and I would have ever even gone on one date. I don't know if we did if we would have liked each other. But I REALLY.... REALLY wish I would have given the ring back to DH and given it a shot. Now, I will never know.

05/11/98

Well, I'm still here, still with DH. Although I'm beginning to want out. I love him more than anything else in the world but what I want from him I'm afraid he can never give me. And every day it becomes harder and harder to leave but sometimes I want more.

He doesn't think pot is bad. He's a kid and I don't know if he'll ever realize that. He hasn't done it for a week but he says after high school he may go back to it. I don't think I can do that. If it's this hard to get out now, how hard will ti be later.

I love him, that I know but i hurt because of him. I wish there was no such thing as drugs and alcohol. I wish I never had to deal with this. Sometimes I wish I was dead. That way that hurting would stop.

What I want from him is forever; a clean forever. What will I get? Maybe a month. Tow or three more and I have to get out. Living like this is killing me. I want him, but I WANT HIM CLEAN!!

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I'm not even sure if I can express to you how much it hurts me to read these words. To know what my life became and to know that it took 11 more years of this and much, much worse for me to finally walk away.

11 years of my life and I will never know why. Why did I stay?