My last shot?

Look no further for the fool. It is me. Shame on this fool. I should have known better.

We met online. At first we followed each others blogs, then we started emailing. I was enamored by her. She was exciting and fun, and lord knows I lacked both. What I didn’t know is that I caught her on a high.

I would soon meet the low.

One day she posted about ending it all. I emailed her right away with my phone number. Not on my watch will a friend do this if I am able to help. She called me. That voice, oh my that voice. She sounded broken, despondent. And so sexy. Her loneliness reached through the phone lines over the many miles and nearly choked me out. Her marriage was in shambles. She felt marginalized, abused and feared that she will be homeless and alone due to a cruel, heartless dick of a husband. I implored her to find the good, to not end it all. After an hour of rambling conversation she said she felt better. She called me a lifesaver.

I was just being kind. That’s what I do. Normally it works out for me.

Daily conversations soon followed by text, email and phone. She was feeling better, she was exciting again and I got caught up in it. It had been so many years since a woman paid any amount of attention to me. It blurred my judgment as much as it stirred my loins. Every fiber of my being told me I was on a steam train plummeting towards destruction but I strapped myself in and hoped to survive the impact.

She said we should be a couple. I saw my exit from the train. I told her long-distance doesn’t work. That I can’t let myself get caught up in that boondoggle.

“What if I was to move there? My marriage is over. I have no ties. A change would be nice.” At that moment I allowed myself to feel for her. It would prove to be a crucial lack in judgment with tremendous implications.

6 months of at least 8 hours of talking a day. I was smitten. She even got me to say the “L”word. It had been so very long since I had said that phrase to anyone other than my children. I allowed myself to get immersed in it. I wrote sappy blogs about what our first meeting would be like, what our lives together would be. It made her happy. And that made me happy.

I fell. Hard. The voices in my head screamed at me to slam the brakes. That it can’t work out. That I would get hurt. But I was feeling things that I hadn’t felt in so long, often feeling them stronger than I can ever remember. It was new, it was exciting, it was a high that I couldn’t explain. One thing I did know is that I was in need of what I was experiencing. I was starved for affection, excitement, romance. She offered all of it.

She stole my heart and I let her keep it.

Then one day she tossed me aside like a cigarette butt out the window of a speeding car. How could I be treated like that? Don’t I deserve better?

I should be over it, but I’m not. To be discarded like a stale pastry is not something I can just “get over”. I don’t miss her…I miss the feelings she gave me.

In a futile attempt at recovering, I signed up for a dating site. The results have been less than spectacular. My honest profile, in the interest of saving the trouble and embarrassment of having the conversation abruptly end when the phrases “I live with my mother” and “I have a chronic illness” are spoken has left me with little to no activit. By trying to avoid it I have apparently scared them all off. No “likes” or conversations started. My page is a ghost town.

I miss how she made me feel. I want to love again. I want to be loved maybe for the first time.

Have I had my last shot at love already?