As I look back through the posts from 2010, I noticed how few there were in comparison to the preceding years. I surmised that it may have been because my mind was busy trying to sort through other things rather than the business of continuing to tell this story. Obviously, or maybe not so obviously, I had become consumed, to some degree, with the distraction of Paula and Sharon instead of dedicating myself, and my time, to writing as much. I suppose, trying to keep the peace on fb with Paula, had become so important that it tended to make all else less important. My need for emotional balance, and the belief that I now had something worth protecting, with regards to my new commitment to her, had become the more critical point. The need for a human connection to someone was now at the forefront. It had superseded my original intent of, "Write Bobby! Tell the story, and don't let anything get in the way of it!"
In a way it was serving a deep need in me. The need to feel loved by a woman, and to love her back. My entire life had lacked that, so it is not hard to see why this happened. It was the child in me who had always felt abandoned, and uncared for, and certainly unloved. But it was also the man in me who desired to have a relationship with a woman based on caring. I had never been able to do that in the past, so the seeming opportunity to rectify it, with Paula, became of primary importance to me, and for her as well, or so I believed. The blind ability, to superimpose one's own need to love, and be loved, onto another person, hoping it will be reciprocal, was a critical misstep, and I made it.
Each time I questioned what I was doing I pushed it aside and continued on, telling myself it was OK. That it was safe to do. I felt, or believed, that any doubts I had were simply old fears that I had to get rid of to make this work. I didn't want a make believe relationship, I had had too many of those in the past. I wanted the real thing. I wanted to trust someone, and wanted them to trust me. I tried to keep the fb world at bay, because I believed it would destroy what we were building if we let it, and in the long run, it did. The virtual world of friends today, enemies tomorrow, was full of gossip and misrepresentation. There were those who liked nothing better than to cause trouble by whispering in the ears of the gullible. I watched relationships and friendships go down hard, too many times, to believe there wasn't someone watching from the sidelines with a desire to get in closer, and pretend to be a friend.
The choice I made between Paula and Sharon was nothing I ever planned on. It came from the experience I had with having them both in my life at the same time. It came from real feelings I had for Paula when push came to shove. Sharon became the victim of that choice, a choice I didn't want to make, and foolishly had not perceived as a possibility. It wasn't fair, but either was what caused it.
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