And so this is Christmas.

Is it that I’m weak and easy manipulate?

Is it that I have attachment wounds?

Is it that I am simply a love addict?

My PG&E bill was over $700 this month. I guess I’ve been turning up the heat a little bit extra this winter.

I’ve ended up back in a situation. Or maybe it’s a new situation. There sure are a lot of familiar faces in it, though.

It’s been less than a week since I spent the night with my ex (the abusive one). It’s hard to keep track of the days as they all blur together. But I know it was less than a week ago. We spent a couple of days drinking, numbing, and fighting. It got ugly and scary. There were some moments that I thought he might kill me. But he didn’t. So that’s good, I guess.

He needed to go back to work as well as to go see his kids for Christmas Eve. Of course I wouldn’t have been invited to a family gathering like that, seeing as how volatile and unhealthy our relationship had gotten. It definitely wouldn’t have been appropriate for me to see his daughters (this part makes me sad).

But also I’m just so over this mean, scary, violent man. Plus, he’s out of shape and he lets his ex wife have more control over his social life than he does. It makes sense that he’s angry about life. And I feel for him, this life is shitty. And he got dealt especially shit cards, his childhood filled with physical and emotional abuse, and then his high school girlfriend knocked up at 17. Can’t be easy to carry all that weight.

But I’m done being his outlet. Having a shoulder to cry on and somebody to drink with isn’t worth those scary, angry episodes that make me fear for my life and/or send him to jail.

Seriously. What was I thinking, staying in that relationship? Or rather, going back to it, over and over, trying to leave, seeing other men, but then going back to it, again and again, so repetitively and redundantly, for a year and a half?

Stupid.

And where was my new boyfriend while I was fearing for my life with my ex? Well. He was busy finishing up his own dysfunctional relationship, right? It makes sense that I would want to hang out with him again after he lied to me and put me through a whole night of anticipatory agony, right? He just needed to figure out his own shit, right? I can’t really judge too harshly, right? Relationships aren’t all black and white. When there’s feelings of attachment involved, things get messy. There’s got to be room for error. I know I’ve made lots of errors. Lots and lots of them.

Plus, it’s Christmas Eve. Of course I don’t wanna be alone. And of course I wanna hang out with the person I have the most fun with. He’s the only person I wanna hang out with. And I desperately want to hang out with him. So we’ll just look past the reality that he is literally still trying to get back with his ex.

Like, literally. He stayed up all night texting with her…and then climbed into my bed in the morning when he felt like that conversation was finally done. He was hoping to get back together with her. I know this because he’s telling me. He is my friend, first and foremost, right?

It’s ok that part of the reason he wants to hang out with me is to distract him from his breakup with her, right? I mean I’m kind of doing the same thing, aren’t I?

Oh man. This is so fucked. But whatever.

So he climbs into my bed at, like, 7 o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve. He’s wearing the pants I bought him for Christmas. (I had angrily dropped them off at his house, along with his key, a few days before.) I’m snuggling with the stuffed dinosaur he bought me for Christmas. (He had left it on my porch, beginning his attempt to win me back, the day before.)

We immediately resume being best friends. It’s SO good to see him and talk to him. It’s like my favorite person in the whole world, who I thought I had lost, has returned from the dead. We decide we’re gonna spend Christmas together, like we originally planned. I’m so excited. I can’t stop grinning.

“I don’t wanna have sex with you, though,” I quietly say.

He offers me a fist bump to this statement.

Ok. So I’m ready to get out of bed. And he’s gonna skip sleeping and stay up to hang out with me all day. We go to the store and get supplies for mimosas. It’s so fun just to get in the car and drive around with him again. My face hurts from all the smiling and laughing. I feel alive again.

And so this Christmas was not the worst. I wasn’t all alone on my couch, mourning the loss of the family I never had. Instead I got to spend it with a fun-loving, goofy, sexy man who was looking to show me a good time after breaking my heart into so many tiny little pieces.

And this time I was safe. I didn’t have to fear for my life, that is.

I still fear for my heart, though. I imagine it will get broken a few more times before this mysterious life comes to an end.

My new boyfriend is back to work tonight. We spent the early afternoon together today. We played tennis and then ate some Indian food. The tennis was like the most fun thing I’ve done in the last 9 months of my life. Even more fun than all the ping pong we’ve played in his backyard.

I think we’re gonna hang out again tonight, but I can’t be sure. I don’t know what to do or what to think or how to feel now.