The longest post ever. All about my ex and bad dreams.

I can not wait for this afternoon/evening because I get to see what progress I have made this past week. It is weigh in day for the first week of the LHAS Challenge . For me it seems like the week has just been dragging by at a snail's pace. I have stayed within my calorie range and I exceeded my exercise goals so I am hoping that the scale is friendly and reflects all of the hard work I have been doing. But I know how finicky those darn scales can be.

The last couple of days for me have not exactly been easy. My past has been haunting me in my dreams and it has really be disturbing to me. First let me give you some background information. This might be kind of long. Back when I was a teenager I met a guy named Kris and feel madly in love. We moved in together when we were 17 and lived together for almost a year. Then he cheated on me, for the second time, and when I found out I immediately broke up with him and rented a U-Haul and moved out the next weekend. We had been best friends for several years, though I was trying to get him to go out with me that whole time. I was very close with his mom and his family and even moved in with them for a year. Kris and I had been broken up for a year when I moved in with his family. He did not live there and in fact he and the girl he cheated on me with had moved to Wisconsin. During that time Kris and I still talked all the time on the phone. I got my own apartment and a great job and that is when I started to lose weight. I have always had weight problems and back then I was in around a size 22 I think. I ended up going from 247 down to 172. This was the spring/summer of 1997. Kris and the other girl came to back to Texas for a visit that summer. He called me when he was in town and asked me to come by his parent's house. I got in my car and headed over there. On the way I passed him in a car with his brother when they were on the way to the store. He saw me as well and pulled over. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I got out of my car and he opened his door and saw me and his mouth just dropped. He was floored. He ran over to me and gave me a big hug and picked me up. He said I looked so good and he could not believe it was me. The whole time he was there he just get not get over how much I had lost and kept saying how good I looked. I felt like I was on cloud nine. During the months before when I would be on the treadmill working out I would be picturing his reaction and it felt so good to see him so shocked.

During that visit he cheated on Christina (the other woman) with me. And that was not the only time that happened over the next 3 years. For a long time after we first broke up I thought it was me, that I was the problem. But then as soon as he cheated on her with me, I knew at that moment that it was not me and never was. It was all him and he was the one with the problem. I was an idiot though because even though I knew that I still wanted him back. He went back to Wisconsin but we would still talk all the time. Not long after he left he called me while he was on a trip with his mother and I believe they were in Seattle. He told me that he had thought about everything and that he had decided to come back to me. He said he was going to go back to Wisconsin and get his stuff and tell Christina that it was over. It wasn't but a few days later that he called me back to say he had just found out that Christina was pregnant. Kris' dad had not really been a part of his life. In fact the reason he moved to Wisconsin was that he and his dad were just starting to get to know eachother and that is where he lived. So, Kris told me that there was just no way that he could just walk away from a baby. I was upset of course but I knew there was not really anything I could do. Kris later told me that he had found out that Christina had been flushing her birth control pills and that she had wanted to get pregnant. I do not put that past her for a second but I know that if he had really been in love with me he would never have been with her in the first place. I am sure she did want to trap him. I do not understand why a woman would want to do that because normally it does not even work but in this case it did.

The baby was due in January 1998. I met a guy that was my sister's boss in Dec. 1997 that I fell hard for. It wasn't long and he was asking me to marry to him. I said yes and thought I was over Kris. Well it turned out that they guy was a major momma's boy. One night he wanted to take me bowling but it was raining outside and he called to tell me that he couldn't go because his mother would not let him drive in the rain. He was still living at home at the time and he was either 20 or 21. Then a big group of our friends all wanted to go to San Antonio for a weekend but he said he could not go because we were all going to share one room, both girls and guys, and his mommy would not approve. That was the last straw and I broke up with him. So, I was back to being single. My sister graduated in May 1998 and we rented a townhouse together. Well Kris and I started up our conversations again. By that fall he said that he had decided he was really leaving Christina and coming back to Texas and that we would be together.

One night he loaded up his car and took the baby with him and headed to Texas. I could not believe that he was really doing it. He came to my place and I can remember my sister and her boyfriend watched the baby while Kris and I caught up on old times. Later that night he went to go visit his mother. When he left I was so full of myself and very smug that I decided to call Christina and tell her where Kris had just been, in my bed. I was being a royal bitch. There was a time when Christina and I would actually talk on the phone. She was not happy with Kris. In fact she would tell me that he would spit on her and tell her she was worthless. I honestly do not know why either one of us wanted him. He was a highschool dropout, had a shitty job, liked to drink, a sailor's mouth, was rude and very full of himself (why I have no idea). Anyway by this time Christina and I were back to hating each other again. As soon as I called her she was on the road heading to Texas. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had never made that call but boy am I glad that I did. She came back and all of a sudden he was not going to leave her. However, he would drive by my place all the time checking up on me, he admitted this to me. Then at the beginning of 1999 my sister and I were moving and he offered to come help us. He helped my dad move all of our stuff and Christina would be calling on his cell phone and he would come up with some lie and not let her know where he really was. Just like he did to me when he was first seeing her.

Both my sister and I were living back at my parent's house and going to college. I would drive down to Kris' parent's house and visit from time to time. His mother had a lot of issues back then herself. We had been like best friends, which is very weird to me now. I have to explain here a little something. Kris had an older brother and then he had 5 other brothers and sisters. Kris and his older brother's dad was the one in Wisconsin, you knew I had mentioned that. Well 4 of his other siblings' dad was the man that his mom was now married to. Hope you follow. Well she had had an affair and the youngest girl had a different father. For years nobody even knew about it and then she confided in me. Eventually she ended up telling all the kids about it and came clean. But she used to run off with this guy that she had had the affair with. She would take the youngest kid (his daughter) and leave with him on his truck (he was a truck driver). Well she would claim that he kidnapped her and would just show up out of the blue one day. She had done this many many times and I had actually covered for her several times. I know it was very hard on all the kids when she did this. Can you imagine, one day your mom just disappears for months and you don't know when she will be back?

Well she did this again, I believe it was 1999 or could have been the first of 2000. This time I had had it. I blew up and went off on her. I told her how selfish she is and how it effects her children. I had been put in a hard place many times and I was young at the time. I had been 19-22 or so during this time and I did lie for her but she was an adult that I looked up to. I think she used me as well as her son. But anyway that is another story within itself. It was also around this time that I had been down at her house and Kris and Christina were there. This particular day I was there hanging out with Kris' little sisters. You have to remember they were like my family and were sisters to me too. I had been around them at that point for around 8 years so were very close. Christina did something mean to one of the girls and it started a fight between her and me. We were yelling and I remember saying something about well at least I wasn't the type to get pregnant just to keep a man. We were about to come to blows when I guess Kris got her out of there. I was a lot bigger than her and would have hurt her pretty bad.

That was the last time that I ever spoke to Kris. I have not talked to him ever since, well not technically. Every now and then I would prank his house just to piss them off, or sometimes just to hear his voice. I know how sick that is and is very stalkerish but I was not mature back then at all. I have grown up a lot since then. I did not stop making calls to them until the day that I met Jeremiah. As soon as Jeremiah and I did meet, I knew that he was the one for me and I did not feel the need to even think about Kris anymore.

Ok, so that is the story and history. Here we are today. And I do talk to a couple of Kris' siblings via myspace every now and then but have not ever brought him up. I have even seen some pictures of him. Guess what? He is fat now. He used to treat me so bad about my weight back then (he used to wear a 28 in men's, very skinny). And Christina is no skinny thing now either. Yes she has stayed with him all these years. I would be willing to bet money on it that he has cheated on her over the years. I honestly believe once a cheater always a cheater and he was very emotionally abusive. But that is between them and I am glad that I am not a part of it anymore. So, why did I bring all this up. Well here lately I have been having Kris pop up in my dreams, a lot. I am so sick and tired of it but do not know what to do.

I love Jeremiah with all of my heart. He is the absolute best thing that has ever happened to me. I used to lay in bed and pray that I would find someone who would love me as much as I love them. God answered that prayer and even went beyond what I asked because in fact I think Jeremiah loves me even more than I love him, if that is possible. He does everything for me and I always come first. He is the most sensitive, caring, compassionate, creative, loving, man that I have ever met (besides my dad). In fact I had always said that I wished I could marry a man like my father and lucky me, I did. He treats me so much better than Kris could ever even dream of treating a woman. We make decisions together and we genuinely want to be with each other every waking hour. The only time we are ever apart is when he is at work. It is rare that he will go over to a friend's house without me and the only time I really do much out on my own is when he is at work. It is not that neither of us is allowed to, or that we would even mind if the other went to do something on their own, it is just that we want to be together as much as we can and we enjoy it.

I know that I love Jeremiah and I am happy so why does Kris keep haunting me in my dreams? I wish I could figure this out. It has been happening now for years. The dreams did stop around the time Jeremiah and I got together and would only occur every once in a while, but here lately they are happening all the time. And the dreams are so real that it is scary. In the dreams what usually happens is somehow Kris pops up in my life and wants me back. I get so excited and happy in the dreams and find a peace that I don't seem to have any other time. It is just the most intense good feeling and I hate to wake up because I lose that feeling. I feel guilty even saying that and tears are coming to my eyes. I feel guilty because like I said I love my husband and feel guilty even dreaming about someone else.

Just last night I had a dream and both Jeremiah and Kris were in it. Jeremiah has finally opened his own tattoo shop and for some reason Kris shows up to apply to work there. I walk in and he sees me and gets mad thinking that I am stalking him. He then finds out that I am married to Jeremiah and he can't believe it. Well he and Jeremiah get to talking and start to become friends. I say to both of them that Jeremiah just can't help being friends with my exes. In real life Jeremiah is friends with one guy that I used to "date". I guess Jeremiah goes ahead and hires him in the dream because Kris stays around. Well Kris and I get to talking and I before I know it we are getting back together. I am telling Jeremiah and he is not surprised at all and is ok with it. He is talking to someone else, a female, but not sure who and says that he knows that Kris and I are meant to be together so he is fine with it. Next thing I know in the dream I wake up and realize that it all was a dream. (So in my dream, I wake up from a dream. I have never before had a dream within a dream that I can remember anyway. It was weird.) So in the dream I start talking to my mom and telling her about the dream that I had. I tell her how frustrated I am but how the dream makes me feel so good and that I think I still love Kris somehow. After that the dream gets really weird with the mafia involved, people chasing me in cars, hiding in a movie theater, and another tattoo shop with Kris and Jeremiah there again. It gets hazy after that.

In many of the Kris dreams, but not this last one, I am trying to call him on the phone and I know the number but I can not dial the right numbers. I start to dial the number but then mess up somehow and have to start over and this goes on and on until I am so frustrated that I just forget it. Most of the time the dreams involve him coming back to me and every now and then Christina will be in the dream and he will tell her that he is leaving her for good.

I don't know if I just never got closure or what the deal is. If I am honest then yes I do still love Kris but not in the same way that I love Jeremiah. I mean Kris was my first love and my first real boyfriend. We had a lot of good times and were really better friends than anything else. I think in a way maybe I did trap him into a relationship. When we moved in together he had been kicked out of his house and was staying with his brother at a friend's. It was my idea that we get an apartment together. You see he had lived in Sherman when we meet and then his family moved down by Dallas (60 miles away). I had a car and my license and Kris' best friend and I would drive down and hang out with him, or I would talk to him on the phone. He had not meet hardly anyone down there, except for one weird guy, so he really clung to me and my car and the chance to go do something. My parent's gave me a very good allowance and I had their credit card to pay for all the gas I ever needed. So I was able to buy us pretty much whatever we wanted. I think I was just convenient for him, so maybe I didn't trap as much as I just happened to always be there and nobody else was. That is why I do think he used me, but I was dumb enough at the time to let him.

In fact that pattern carried on to other guys that I dated. That is where I believe my weight was a factor. I didn't feel good enough about myself so I thought that I had to give up sex, pay for everything, and always be around if I was going to get the guy because I just was not good enough in my eyes. I even started doing that to an extent when I was first with Jeremiah. But I quickly learned that was not necessary because he really did love me for just me and not what I had. He had his own money and his parent's were still helping him (and in fact still help us now). I now know what it really means to give and receive true love. But like I said there will always be a place in my heart for Kris. I wish that there was not but there is. Sometimes I wish that every memory associated with him could just be washed away. But I know that those years did help to form me into the woman that I am today. I have often wondered what I would do if he really did show up one day out of the blue and want me back. I think for a moment, a fleeting moment, I would be tempted. Just because I like to imagine things were better than they really were. I think that in my mind I forget how much we used to fight, how mean he was to me, how he cheated on me and then on Christina, how could I ever even want to speak to a man that would spit on his girlfriend? I guess my mind thinks of the way that I wish it could have been and not the way that it really was. I say that I loved Kris but the more I sit here and think about it, the more I think that it was not love but an obsession. I think that what got to me and probably still gets to me, is that I did not get what I wanted.

If you know me in real life, then you would know that I am an extremely controlling person. I do not like to ride in the car with anyone unless I am the one driving because I can not stand for someone else to be in control. I have always believed that I never got into drugs like so many of my friends did simply because I would not want something else to control me. I did experiment one time and took some mushrooms, this was years and years ago, and I absolutely hated it. It was the worst experience of my life. I was not in control and could not stand it. Jeremiah and I have gotten into fights over stupid as stuff just because he would make plans or want to do something that I just did not want to do at the time, or didn't think of first and we would fight because he would not do what I wanted him to do. Control. That is my enemy and what I fight with daily. I am sure somehow it is also connected with my eating. I must have stayed fat because somehow I felt it was something that I was controlling.

I believe that is why I am having an easier time losing the weight than some people do. Because once I get something in my mind then it is not going to leave and I am going to control it. I have been exercising religiously and counting my calories to the tee. All things that I feel I can now control. I am also a perfectionist and they say that has to do with control as well.

Alright, maybe we are getting somewhere here. Maybe these dreams are coming up now that I am on this weight loss journey and it has something to do with control. See I knew that I needed to just keep writing. I know that my posts are like books and I am glad that you all come here to read them and give me your support. But honestly I write this blog for me. I can not afford counseling right now and this is my way of getting my feelings out there. I do think that I am onto something here. Now I just have to figure out what my these dreams are trying to tell me. The more that I think about the less I think that the dreams have anything to do with Kris at all. If I remember correct the last time that the dreams popped up a lot was back right before Jeremiah and I got married. That was another big change in my life and I was letting someone else in and giving up some control. If you are still with me after all this tell me what you think? Am I on the right track here or am I just reaching? You just do not know how bad I want to put Kris behind me and stop having him invade my dreams. I do not want to love him, I do not want to remember him, and I certainly do not want to even have to think about him anymore. That part of my life is over and I just wish he would go away.

Ok that is enough purging for one day. I will be back later to weigh in. I am going to try and go get a little sleep now before I have to get back up and at 'em. Just pray that I have some better dreams! I could dream that I finally get to my goal weight and then all of a sudden we buy the winning lottery ticket and the whole world is ready for the taking. Yes, that sounds like a plan and a dream that I would like to have (and I am more than willing for it to come true).