A Boy Story

FWB

Ghosting, so that's what the term was. I was able to feel the worry when Jessie mentioned that word, like running my finger over velvet. When someone had connected on a deep and inspirational level, only to be left alone again, was painful. The constant memory replays in my head were of these situations. There were too many to count.

I would remember Tina in grade school that always sat with me on the school bus. We talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up, what fun things to do in the city when we were able to travel there. She was a transfer student and she didn't mind me being different than the other kids. We went to different high school but we still kept in contact. It was a short bit until I heard the final door slam sound effect from the messaging app we had used.

I would also remember Greg in high school. We would talk about how unfair life was for homosexually oriented individuals. We protected each other from the popular kids and also found ways to learn more about politics. I had also not heard from him in years.

And then there was Josh. He had always accepted me as I was, and we even learned skills that would be useful for the future. We would learn how to build sheds, put up insulation, and also build computers. The range of things we did was endless and we had fun learning. Ironically, he had terrible grades in school. We wanted to come up with ways to improve the world, whether it was a computer program or a schematic for a perpetual-motion device. We were inventors that saw the stars as the limit. The craziest part was that we worked on a dating website together. I wrote the matching algorithm and personality assessment, and it was almost ready to launch, but he changed jobs and it never happened. As well, I hadn't heard from him in years. The messages were always natural and pleasant, but then they just stopped.

Along with all the hundreds of coworkers that I felt had a solid connection, the connections of my life started fading. I would start hearing that I was a little too intimidating to talk to. This superpower was to be able to see people's insecurities was becoming a curse. People would come to me for advice and after that was over, there would be nothing to talk about. If it even got that far.

These recurrent memories would occupy my head daily, almost incessantly. I was blessed by the thoughts of Jessie. Even if they were better, they were still thoughts of a woman other than my wife. I needed to get help again.

"Akina," I started, "I can't get Jessie off my mind. That can't be healthy in my situation in life."

"Neil," she responded. "It's obvious you care a lot about Jessie. Didn't you say that she was interested in just remaining friends?"

She did... so why can't I stop these uncontrollable, relentless thoughts of her? Every moment I can, I see images of her. My daughter is even saying her name all the time because it's the same name as her newest favorite movie character. I'm still having dreams of her. They aren't even sexual, just dreams of us living life together. Can you do something that can make me forget ever meeting her?"

Akina put her hand firmly on my shoulder. "No, I can't do something like that. Like it or not, people come into our lives for a reason. Was there something that Jessie brought into your life?"

I knew the answer. "She made me realize how limited my world was. My inexperience in varied, real relationships. How to crawl out of my made-up, glass world. She made me love to appreciate me for all the things I bring to this world. How strongly I want to be a good father and a good husband. My dedication to a job to support the things I love in this world."

"That's not something you want to forget, right?" Akina said. "Those are wonderful milestones of personal growth. It sounds like you truly love Jessie."

I was afraid of that word. "Love?" I asked. "Is it possible to love two women like that?"

Akina shook her head. "Let me help you see this in a different angle. Would you be upset if Jessie found the man of her dreams that wasn't you?"

"If it was the man of her dreams, I would be infinitely happy. She is such a sweet person that deserves the best." I answered.

She nodded. "This is a different kind of love, Neil. This is unconditional love. It can be both romantic or platonic. Yours, however, is not quite there yet."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you feel a responsibility for her to be happy?"

"Yes... I shouldn't though, right?"

"Right. Your condition to love her is for her to be happy. Unconditional love is to surrender and allow her to find happiness in her own life with or without you."

"But I've tried so many times to leave the chat." I started. "Coincidentally on the nights that I said 'forget it I'm done,' she would send me a message. Then we would chat for hours. I don't know if it's my weak self that can't leave her, but I also promised I wouldn't ghost her."

"Sounds like you know what to do now." Akina concluded as we closed up the session.

Yes, there was no doubt about it. I had love for her. I also felt guilty that I had love for her, and she reciprocated feelings for me. I felt guilty I was unavailable for her romantically as I loved my wife and was devoted to our family. I felt guilty I couldn't be the good husband and remove this other woman out of my life. To move forward, I concluded that Jessie was a part of my life now. She was to me more than a friend, but could not be a lover. The best title I could attach was Twin Flame - a never-ending fire that would connect us. A shared soul that awakened myself to value what I truly valued. Jessie loved me for who I was. She loved my family values and my overwhelming love for May. She opened my eyes to my own personal growth, but she was not responsible for what happened. She simply gave the energy as a boost to do something about it myself. I needed to do the same. She wanted to be friends, so that's what I would be.

The second time I told May about the Twin Flame journey and Jessie, I brought up unconditional love. Communication had always been the strong point in our relationship and I felt I understood myself enough to bring it up again. She almost immediately and completely understood me this time. She had noticed all the pretty large changes since the first time. Instead of telling my kids to be grateful, I engaged them on how they felt about the things I would do for them. Instead of beating myself up for breaking a fast, I would accept it and resume. Instead of counting the minutes before work started, I cherished the playtime with my kids. She understood my connection with Jessie and knew full-heartedly it was a positive one. She accepted my unconditional love for Jessie, but did I?

My dreams continued, more than a few times a week they were about Jessie. One of the most memorable dreams involved us walking through my hometown city hand-in-hand, with our warm breath creating miniature white clouds as we talked about our love of being amidst the loud yet intimate city environment. She was dressed in a beautiful charcoal pea coat, jeans, a stunning red scarf and black gloves. She couldn't help but wear heels even though we were walking through the city. I was in my usual, slightly tattered grey pea coat, jeans, dress shoes and fingerless gloves. We made sure to walk very slowly and sometimes I would catch her and we both just laughed. Together we looked like just another couple in the busy city, but we both knew that we were in our own world.

I still had erogenous dreams, but these were becoming almost non existent after a while. My pre-alarm wakeups filled with an engorged erection were consistently daily now regardless of the dream. This constant flow of sexual energy wasn't leaving and it didn't matter anymore. I was using this energy to improve all the other aspect of my life. I was able to sleep less and still felt energized. I ended up losing 40 pounds, got the highest promotion in my department, and gained enough strength to carry both kids for as long as they wanted. I had never felt more intimate with May. I was happy.

It seemed the last part of this equation was my mind. I had to convince my mind that this possibility of a romance with Jessie was no longer part of this life. Perhaps it was healthy to keep this romance to my subconscious dreams. I had always taken importance in my dreams and always tried to remember them. I kept a dream journal when I was younger, but for these dreams with Jessie I didn't need to. I was able to remember such vivid details, and even experienced the emotions. I was essentially living a happy double life.