1000 Miles of Thereapy*

* Thereapy is the therapy of driving 1000 miles from my home to a magnificent wide open space in Wyoming in a single 15 hour time frame.

Driving has always provided me a safe place to contemplate the world's problems. Along with the songs on the radio, to me, it is the perfect environment for solving problems. If I could drive along a beautiful canopied road, or out in the countryside, or anywhere there is little traffic, it would even be more perfect. Music calms me. Music puts all things into perspective. I would die without music.

Somewhere just North of Las Vegas, I started thinking about him, them and us. And I thought almost nonstop until I got to Idaho, just after Soda Springs.

HE was him before we met. I was me before we met. When we met, HE said, "I want to be a better person with you." HE would talk about how HE wanted to "do it right" and how this was his chance to be the person HE's always wanted to be. I was flattered. I was motivated to be a better person myself...and I was totally head over heels for him.

HE showed me how open and truthful a person can be even if it's hard and even if it is not intuitive. HE showed me how accepting someone can be when you tell them your deepest, darkest, and most embarrassing experiences. HE showed me true desire and how to trust another human being. HE showed me compassion and acceptance for others, even if they are not deserving.

When HE says that the other women are just a small piece of his world, why can't I believe him? I am scared to believe him. I am deathly afraid of being tricked, again. I don't want to be the fool, to give him everything I have only to find out that I've been used, wasted, taken for granted. So what are my options?

I can leave. Ok, not an option. HE is my one.

I can accept and love him for who HE is...which would make him the happiest. If I truly want his happiness, which I have confessed to him on many an occasion, then why can't I just do this... yes, I'd have to actually put my feelings aside and be there for him, support and love him for his good pieces and not so good pieces...According to him, HE'd love me more for this.

I can continue freaking out and asking him every sordid detail about the others, continuing to make this small issue (according to him) an obsession (ugh! Really?) and adding misery to our life together where eventually HE will leave or I will commit suicide (not really, I am much too narcissistic to do such a horrid thing).

Wow, I guess I'll take door number two please! Lots of work to do.

The other thing I figured out is that I do NOT want to sleep with the boy. It is all wrong. It would be a scorekeeping thing. The boy is adorable but he is very broken and I would just feel yucky when it was all over. He doesn't deserve me anyway. I don't mean to judge him but I am in love with someone who I still desire immensely. I can't really imagine dating anyone else much less sleeping with anyone else. I just thought we were through with that game.

If I do decide to try my hand at an open relationship, I certainly want the situation to be one of two ways: 1. with someone I respect and am hot for or 2. in a spontaneous situation with someone I am hot for but wouldn't mind never seeing again. Of course, #2 poses a small problem... I would have to figure out how to let him know before I have sex with the person. I have experience with #2, though, and I feel more comfortable with that one...but there's the issue that would have to be worked out prior to the actual act which could be near impossible.

The drive back will be interesting.