Valentines Day
I met a man on Valentine’s Day 2022, and I was completely swept away. Even now, I can’t quite explain why. We spent the next four and a half years together in one way or another, yet somehow never really came to know each other deeply. I tried my damndest. In place of that closeness came stories I believed, promises I held onto, and tremendous compassion for the life he had lived. Eventually, I began to understand that he was caught in a loop—one shaped by old wounds, anger, addiction, and a world that had moved on around him. And slowly, I discovered that the person I thought I knew was only one version of him. There were affairs and lies, yes, but the deception ran deeper than infidelity. Different people knew different versions of him, and so much of his life seemed carefully compartmentalized. I was left with the painful realization that I had spent years trying desperately to know someone who had spent those same years making sure no one ever fully could. When I finally understo...
