Sweet Dreams?!?!

Well, I wish that man would get outta my head.

Probably the single biggest reason I am single today is Mr. Sex on a Stick. He has ruined me for all other fellas.

Mr. Sex on a Stick and I met the very first day of law school in 1993. It was lust, or perhaps love, at first sight. He was married. I was engaged. We settled into a sexually charged friendship. It was no surprise to anyone aside from us when we crossed the threshhold of "Bad People" a few months later.

SS was smart, funny, sexy, tender and tortured. He had married rather young for all the wrong reasons. He wasn't happy, his wife wasn't happy. It was a mess. And I made it worse. We fell deeply in love, and tortured ourselves with how wrong it was.

I broke it off with my fiance, who I had been with since I was 18. SS and his wife broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together. In amidst all this, SS's social drinking became problem drinking. I tried moving away two provinces, he tried concentrating on his marriage. None of it worked.

Over ten years SS and I were friends, then lovers, then enemies, then lovers....Every guy I dated over those years paled in comparison. The connection between SS and I was strong and passionate. We struggled with being Bad People. He struggled with his alcoholism. It was a big mess. In admidst all this, he had a child with his wife during a reconciliation, I got engaged and disengaged, lived with another fellow.

We didn't speak for quite a while. I eventually moved back to my home province after SS had a terrible tragedy and got a divorce. We hadn't spoken for about a year at this point. Turns out that by the time I got back here, he had given up on the idea of me and moved in with a woman decades younger than him who had a daughter the same age as his.

In short, we had tremendously bad timing. Or the Bad Karma that resulted from us being Bad People caught up with us.

He helped me leave The Tricky Man when things were terrible - gave me the money to do so, and asked for nothing in return. He and I have been together a couple of times since I got back, most notably after his girlfriend cheated on him, but it simply wasn't the same. After 15 years, we had managed, to paraphrase Springsteen, to take what we had and rip it apart.

We don't really talk anymore, although we are in the same field, just on opposite sides. He very carefully works the northeastern part of the province, and I keep to the northwestern side of the province. He never fails to ask my colleagues from my town how I am doing, but he refrains from contact, other than birthday and Christmas wishes.

So why am I thinking about all this. For two reasons: a) the last time I stayed at the Union Bank, where I am staying tonight with The Tricky Man, I was with SS. We had the most incredible weekend there of my life. And I guess I need to delve into whether or not what TM and I have is enough for me. b) I keep having Sweet Dreams about SS, lo these many years later. I know I am dreaming about what he "represents" rather than him as a person. But it is disconcerting, because sometimes I will have these dreams whilst sleeping next to the Tricky Man. It is disloyal as all get out.

I have almost made peace with the fact that I will not settle for less than what I had with SS. And if that means being alone, I think I am ok with that. A part of me will always be in love with the idea of SS, who was perfectly flawed, but who loved me passionately and completely despite the circumstances, the odds and the situation.