Last night was a lot.

Woke up in a fairly decent mood. I also weighed myself for the first time in a few days and I’ve lost another five pounds, which really surprised me. I guess that’s a silver lining in all of this. Not that it’ll last. Went to the gym and took my time with things, overthinking last night’s phone call as I procrastinated my routine. At the end of my run, I gave it everything I had. I was running as fast as I could. I just wanted to get away from everything. I still do. I feel like my head is about to explode.

Walked home and finally got a hold of Hellacious. His flights are now booked, which was a small feat in itself and a huge step toward the party. Afterwards, I walked to the Hassle Free Clinic and spent the next hour and a half there, getting tested and receiving treatment for my chlamydia. I’m not supposed to have sex for a week now.

As I walked home from the clinic, things began to grow darker and darker. The reality that yet another guy has given me a STD was sinking in, too. I got home, was about to make dinner, and then I just wasn’t hungry. I’d completely lost my appetite and felt sick from the medication. I crawled onto my bed and began to cry. I listened to Mariah and sobbed for a good half-hour. I don’t know if I want to visit Logan anymore. What’s the point? It just seems so stupid. I seem so stupid.

Backing things up a bit, I had a weird encounter with Justin LeBlanc as I was walking to the clinic earlier. I bumped into him as he was leaving the grocery store and he was walking in the same direction as I was, so we caught up and chatted along the way. When we parted ways, Justin obviously saw me go into the clinic and ended up messaging me later to see if I was okay. I thought that was really considerate of him. I explained the Logan situation to Justin and his advice was very black and white, which I had issues with. It’s hard for an outsider to understand the situation in its entirety, but Justin was saying that I’m worth more than what has happened to me. When I wasn’t taking his advice, he said that perhaps sometimes a person needs an absolute sign to make them see things differently, rather than something like this. I agreed with him. My situation with Logan obviously isn’t ideal, but I don’t think I’m at a point where I can throw it away without any regrets.

Later this evening, Logan called me out of the blue and we talked for an hour and a half. Honestly, after the essay I wrote about him last night, I don’t really want to analyze another phone call. Believe it or not, tonight’s conversation with Logan was even more emotional than yesterday’s. It was essentially 90 minutes of Logan telling me that he doesn’t want a relationship with me, nor does he want to continue letting me down. He was brutally honest. I find there are so many mixed messages, though. For example, he’ll say that we have such a unique and genuine connection, or that he feels so happy and at ease with me, and that our bond was instantaneous – but then he’ll say that we can’t be together. It hurts to even write that.

I honestly don’t know what I think anymore. My whole view of this relationship has been fucked upside down in the last 24-hours. I went from thinking that I loved Logan to now knowing that he doesn’t see a future with me. But, I told him that I won’t operate that way. I can’t. I know there are limitations, but I won’t look at this as something that has to be labeled. I don’t operate by ruling things out. I don’t want to shut myself off to things. If Logan wants to, that’s fine. I can understand the realities of this arrangement, but I’m still open to different possibilities. Anything and everything.

By the end of the phone call, I felt a little more secure with things. I’m leaving out so much of our conversation, but perhaps I need to. I can’t even remember half of what we talked about, because I think my mind is actively shutting things out for my own sanity. But, it’s weird how Logan could say all the shit he said and still make me feel okay.

At one point, Logan told me that when I admitted he was the light at the end of my dark tunnel and all I was looking forward to, it made him “extremely uncomfortable” because he thinks I’m relying on him too much as an escape from all the bad things in my life. That’s not at all how I mean it, though. Ugh. This fucking sucks. There was good stuff in the conversation, too. I just can’t remember it. It’s a feeling, maybe. At least I didn’t feel worse after the phone call. I’m still going to visit him. I think I need to.

I ended up sending Natasha last night’s journal entry to give her the full story. She called me afterwards and we talked for quite a while. Natasha was upset about some of the stuff Logan said, because she doesn’t want me giving my time and energy to someone who doesn’t want to give it back to the same degree. Natasha also said that I need to go visit Logan. Sitting alone in my apartment isn’t going to do me any good. Natasha is right. I miss her so much.

All of the boys went out partying tonight. I stayed in. I was going to go with them, but now I can’t drink because of the meds. And we all know what happened the last time in November when I drank on these pills. Well, everyone but me remembers, I guess.

I worked on my party media and went to bed pretty late. Everything still sucks. At the end of the day, I know that unless I was living in New York City, this wouldn’t be the relationship I would want either. I guess a part of me just wanted to try and make things work as I figured out a way to see more of Logan. I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I feel like I’ve lost a lot of myself lately. This is not the person I want to be. Logan made me see such worth in myself and now it feels like a rug has been pulled out from under me. I’m just trying to find my footing again.

Through all of this, I keep thinking of Dylan. I really feel like the shoe is on the other foot now and that this entire situation with Logan is karma for how I treated Dylan. I feel absolutely terrible.

Oddly enough, Dylan sent me a message at 4 a.m. this morning. He lives in San Francisco, so it would have been 1 a.m. for him. Dylan was also likely drunk, but still – it was a weird coincidence. I feel so bad about how I treated Dylan. Nobody should ever have to go through this. I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest and all my dreams have been shot down. It even reminds me a bit of what I went through with Peter all those years ago. Different, obviously, but it’s that feeling of caring for someone so deeply despite knowing you’ll never be able to have them. I think that might be one of the most awful things to learn, and perhaps this is one of the first real times I’m experiencing it. It makes me feel bad for how I treated RX, too. Fuck. I’m so sorry.

The message Dylan sent me in the middle of the night was a random comment about Mariah Carey. I highly doubt he expected the essay I sent back to him, but with everything going on right now, I felt a proper apology was necessary. If not to try and ease any pain I may have caused him, then at least to clear my guilty conscience. It was likely more of the latter, to be honest. This is what I wrote this to Dylan:

“Sounds like a blast! Hope you had a good time and listened to Fantasy at least 600 times.

“I’ve actually been thinking about you a lot this week, especially tonight. So, it’s interesting you messaged me when you did. I want to really, sincerely apologize for the way our situation developed and how I handled things between us. I know that we’ve had our chats, and although I really did try my best to communicate what I was feeling at the time, I know it wasn’t good enough and I could have done a better job at expressing myself. I just didn’t know how.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you. Through all of this, that’s what pains me the most. You’re such an amazing person and you don’t deserve what I put you through. I think that, in the moment, I wasn’t allowing myself to fully understand your feelings or empathize with you. I guess a part of me thought that since we had only been together for such a short amount of time, that would make the break fairly clean. But, I was wrong to think that way and I should have been more sensitive. I really did like you. I really do like you.

“I remember meeting you. I remember all of the feelings I had during that amazing first night together, and going home to my family and telling my aunt all about the magical evening I had. I remember picking you up at the airport the week after that and how happy I was to see you. How much fun we had that weekend. The happiness of sharing something I loved like Disneyland with you meant a lot to me. And when I dropped you off at LAX and saw you walk away, it really broke my heart. I was gutted. I didn’t want you to go. And for all that time after, I was fully invested in making another visit a reality.

“When I returned home from California, I was living in some weird fantasy world where I wasn’t working, but occupying my time with random tasks as I stayed in touch with you. As time went on and reality began to sink in, that’s when I saw my feelings begin to change. And it was an awful feeling because I didn’t want them to change. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps I was using the distance excuse as a defense mechanism. The limitations of our relationship were beginning to set in, too, though. And every time I would hang up the phone and turn off the lights, I would be so lonely. I didn’t want to enter a relationship with you knowing that, for at least a good part of it, that loneliness would be a regular occurrence. But, maybe it was a mixture of not knowing you that well, either. The reality was that we spent five days together and the rest was all digital. I’m not able to express my full self in a digital sense. I don’t think anyone really is, and that was a big issue for me. I was getting the digital Dylan, and apart from possible short visits here and there, that’s who I would have been dating. And I didn’t want that.

“I never would have allowed myself to engage with you the way I did if there wasn’t a true feeling there and a mentality of “we can make this work” on my part. I wanted it to work, and like I said before, I didn’t want my feelings to change. But, they did. And coming to terms with how I would break that to you was very difficult for me, resulting in my less than mature forms of communication. Lately, I’ve begun to realize just how much I may have hurt you and it’s been eating away at me each day. It pains me to know that I would have caused you any sort of hurt or heartache and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.

“I never meant to hurt you. You’re so sweet, and so caring. You’re genuine, you’re thoughtful, and you’re incredibly generous. You have a sense of humor that is so hard to find and you carry yourself with such an attractive confidence. And you’re still all of those things. I can recognize it every time we talk, which is something I’m glad we can still do. I see all of those qualities in you and I am being sincere when I say that you deserve all of the happiness in the world. I’m sorry that I made you feel anything less than special and took away some of your shine and happiness. You don’t deserve that.

“I know that this extremely delayed apology isn’t going to turn things around. It’s not going to make up for my actions or change history – change the feelings I put you through. But, I hope it helps with moving forward, because I want to move forward with you. I like the idea that we can operate as friends. I really do enjoy checking in with you, or when we share things with each other, and I would like that to continue. Perhaps I can now begin to do a better job with it, too, because I’ve finally gotten this off my chest.

“You’re such a special person, Dylan. I still care for you and want nothing but the best for you. I’m so sorry that I made you feel anything less than that and I want you to know that you are enough. You deserve it all and I’m so sorry that I couldn’t give that to you.”

Goodnight xo