Loser

The early hours of March 19, 2011:

Five years ago today, my life changed forever.

I guess it's creepy that I still remember the date, but I always remember the dates of life-changing events.

I met a man--one who took only one kiss to captivate me and throw me onto a roller-coaster ride of epic proportions from which I still haven't been able to extricate myself. I knew from the very first time that he kissed me, I was in trouble.

I think I fell in love with him in that very instant.

It shook my belief in everything I'd ever known. In one instant, the course of my life was irrevocably changed forever. Nothing was ever the same again.

For a little while--a very, very brief while--I believed for the first and only time in my life that I was good enough. I thought my luck had finally changed, that I'd met the man I'd spend the entirety of my life with. I'd found the one I'd been destined for from the start, the one with whom I shared an empathic connection, the one who could match me in passion, not just for sex, but for life itself...my equal...my only equal.

But, in life, there are winners, and there are losers. You'd think after years of being thwarted at every turn, beaten down, chewed up and spit out, and kicked in the teeth, I'd have gotten the message that I'm one of the losers. But no.

But I get it now.

I'm not good enough. I never was. I never will be.

He might be able to walk away without a word, but I'm still here clinging to the delusion that I was...am...worthy of his love. And I reckon I always will be.