....she is me. i should feel so ashamed, so disgusted with myself. part of me does. part of me is sad. is this the girl i am?

batman started dating the brunette barbie at work. she is quite pretty and as stupid as they come. has already slept with quite a few of the other staff. im biased of course but....slut!! they were just screwing around but he told me today that as of thursday they are now a couple. he is supposed to be leaving somewhere between august and november to work on a cruise ship. its his version of running away. he rekons that if we try again and it works then he won't be able to leave and he really needs to get away. sounds like the easy way out to me.

batman and i were just talking but it never ends that way. he was lying down with his head on my lap and started stroking my hair. i want to say that it was when he kissed me that there was no turning back but it would be a lie. it was more around the time i walked in the door. we have been fighting at work. he yells, i talk back, he sulks, i cry. after a raging argument last week we decided that pehaps we should try hanging out and that we should try to talk things out.

so this is how it happens. i don't like her but then thats not an excuse. i love him but that isn't an excuse either. he said he isn't going to tell her. some people never change.

i used to be stronger. or perhaps things have just gotten harder.

i don't know when exactly i grew up, when life became so hard, so real. i feel like i have been smashed into the gravel pavement. no one warns you that it will hurt this way. at some point my mum stopped being able to fix all the problems. at some point the injuries were no longer little scrapes and bruises but huge gaping wounds which it seems, the world at large is so ready to pour salt on. i want to know what i should be doing with my life, if i really love my chosen field or if i am simply afraid and clinging to the closest piece of the floating debris. i want to know that at some point i will stop loving the man who still has the ability to destroy me with just a look. i need to know that it is going to get easier, that it will stop hurting this way.

the problem is that it doesn't get easier does it? the truth is that it gets harder. when i was in my teens, the boy two doors down moved to another city and i was terribly sad. it was very shortlived though. a week later my world was right again. batman and i have been trying to fix things, to make it work for over a year now. he has cheated and lied. i have cried and yelled. we have talked all night. he has made so many promises and said all the right things. i moved in and it was all so perfect for a while. but the truth is that perhaps it was only because we were both holding our breath, so afraid that it would all fall down around us.

we went to the park at 5 in the morning and played on the swings. we lay in bed all day. he taught me to cook two minute noodles and rice risotto(its incredible how much of a bad cook i am!) and we would lie together for hours. he watched my girly movies. i watched his stupid action movies and listened to him talk about comics. he would get furious every time i was late and irritated watching me straighten my hair. i would get upset he didn't call when he said he would.

love is an amazing thing. i wouldn't wish it on anyone.

it has become so complicated that one could not understand without knowing the back story. so here it is, the prologue. it is perhaps a confession of lies i have told, moments that should never have happened, love that should never have come to be.

it began in april of this year when i invited goldilocks and two other girls from the resturant where i work out to lunch for my 21st birthday. goldilocks invited her boyfriend, a guy in the bar i had liked long before i knew they were dating. i had hardly spoken to him at work but we chatted heaps over lunch and without telling anyone, footed the $300 bill for lunch. he and goldilocks had to work that night so we met up for drinks afterwards. she went home tired, but ever the party boy, he came out to one of the only places still open, a pretty seedy gay bar. after far too many drinks we ended up dancing. I cant remember much of anything after that but aparently i tried to kiss him and threw up a lot. he had to walk me back to his and goldilocks apartment after i got us thrown out of a cab. i also managed to have him questioned by police as to what a black guy was doing in the middle of the night with a half passed out white girl. not my finest moments.

we started hanging around for a few drinks after work. we talked for hours. at the staff party goldilocks was tired and went home. the boy and i ended up on a boat cuddled up in the same bed. then we started hanging out outside of work. i crashed my car so he started driving me home. i didn't sleep with him or even kiss him but it was cheating none the less. he would stay over and just hold me. he told me it wasn't working with goldilocks and moved out of their apartment.

she was leaving in a month anyway. she was here from overseas and so her visa only allowed her to stay a year. their relationship had no future he said. he told her that he didn't want to stay with her any longer and then be heartbroken when she finally had to leave. when they broke up she was devastated. he was her first boyfriend, first person she slept with, first flowers....first love.

i felt awful so i called her, offered to talk, to hang out, to bring over chocolate and girly movies. she was just a girl at work. we weren't really friends but she had no one and she seemed so lovely. we went out for coffee and i listened to her tell me how hurt she was.

i started seeing the boy more and more. i had told him that i wouldn't date him even if he broke up with her but we both knew it was a lie. within about a week i was his girlfriend. we decided that it was best not to tell goldilocks. she would be so hurt and we were both worried that she would just jump on the first plane home. so it stayed a secret.

i decided that as much of a nice girl as she was that we would never really be friends. she was leaving soon. besides, i already had a lot of friends. what i had never had was a guy a really liked and cared about. a true comitment phobe, until i met the boy i had never had someone i could see myself with of trust enough to just be honest with. so i made my choice.