There were no rules given to me when my mother passed away. In one way, I was just tossed into life and expected to adapt without asking any questions. If I asked questions I was turned away or shut out because no one had the answers.

Even now no one knows how to respond to me...

I will confess that I am tired of fighting. I'm tired of smiling all the time. I'm tired of pretending that everything is ok. I'm tired of wishing that I had a warm pair of arms to hide away in. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of wishing that there was someone who could relate to me on all levels.

I noticed that none of my relationships have lasted. The longest one was a year and about 3 months. I always asked myself, "why?" "How come these guys never stay in my life?" "What is so wrong with my life?" They always say how "fun, caring" and overall how "awesome" I am but they never stay. Not as my friend or anything more.

I guess guys sense that I have a very strong and independent spirit. I notice that most guys that end up exiting my life often go and be with young women who are very meek at first glance. They have opinions but they rarely express them and mostly these women come from loving backgrounds where they have both their mother and father, whether they are divorced or not doesn't seem to be an issue.

I once dated a guy who said that through my writings I made him feel guilty every time I wrote about how blessed he was to have a loving mother in his life or a family at all. In my blogs at the time, I was really trying to figure out how to handle this whole "loss" thing/trying to have a boyfriend thing. To sum it up, he basically said that my loss, my struggle to figure out how to balance it all, was too much for him. So he stopped calling. He said that I was a "nice girl" but that I was too negative.

Then later he tried to be friends with me again.

My life does get lonely. My grandmother once said, "that it will take a strong man to love you..." and she is right. I want to have a loving, faithful husband one day and I want to have beautiful children with this man, but I know better than to wish on stars... because even stars fade.

It is always the same pattern. They come into my life, we share a few laughs and then they disappear without explaining. It is almost as though my heart has become a rest stop. When they are no longer wounded or tired then they move on and their next place of rest is the place where they stay.

I never make it a habit to talk about my loss to anyone. I don't want to burden anyone with my thoughts or the emotions that go behind such a topic. Most people can't handle death. So they don't go near it, nor do they want to be associated with anyone who knows it as well as I do.

When I'm in the dating the world (I don't go there too much anymore) I try my best not to bring up anything about my childhood. In most cases I find that guys are not that interested in getting to KNOW ME anyway, so I don't have that much to explain to them. I will admit, that although some people would give anything to be called "beautiful" being such is not everything...

But that is another story...

The few times that guys do ask about where my parents are, I tell them. Then I watch their reaction. Some guys say "I'm sorry to hear that" and then quickly change the subject and get extremely nervous if they can't get that seemingly "dark cloud" from above the table. Other guys pretend as if I never told them. Then there are others who go so much as to listen to me explain in depth about it all. These are the guys that I have to be careful for, because they pretend to care and they share stories claiming that they can relate, but all of that is a front because they want to take advantage of me, in the end.

It is rare that I trust males, at all... that is why I don't dip my toes in the dating world as often as some women do. I never had a good male role model. My step dad took my mothers death hard. But after her funeral he made sure to take his daughter (my sister and I are half-sisters) and go far away. Leaving me alone. He didn't want anything to do with me and at the time I couldn't figure out why, but when I got older I realized, "of course he doesn't want me I'm not his child."

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It was obvious that I would get attached to the first guy that wanted to date me, because of my background. But I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I ended up meeting a guy who was very good to me in general but was just as emotionally unstable as I was back then. We had many good times, no doubt about that. But sometimes change occurs at intervals in our life that we are not ready for. This change needed to happen.

When my first love and I were together, I was still trying to figure things out in my head about my mother. They were the two people who ended up being the center of my heart. And when I lost him (simply because he had to move away) I felt like my heart died all over again. He and I were attached at the hip. We did everything together. My "family" was never very supportive of us. They never said nice things about him, but that was partly because when I would get angry I would always go back and tell them about all bickering. I was happy off and on when I was with him, but a part of me had a need to grow.

My stress came when I really wanted to take advantage of my college years to focus on me, but I also really wanted to hold on to him. He was all I had. The only person in the world who could put up with all my "complications" "mood swings" whatever you want to call it. He was so use to it. I knew we were not good for one another, but I wanted him to stay because I didn't want to be alone.

The times when I was sad he would always hold me, but I also sensed that he could never understand where I was coming from because loss was never apart of his world.

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When a guy shows interest I never take him seriously (although a part of me really wants to) because I know what the outcome will be. It is the same pattern every time I try to date. The first week or two are great! He is very attentive and communication runs relatively well. But the second I have a bad day, he starts to question. Then he thinks that I am "too much" so he moves on, by this time my feelings are already invested. And thus, I come out with the short end of the stick again. And I question again, "What is wrong with my life?"

The truth is most guys just don't care about my life. They see my beauty and that is all they can think about. They want to capture it. They want to control it, but when they find that they can do neither, they leave. Why would you want a guy to capture you? Some would question, and I guess capture is a negative word, so protect would be better... but my heart is tired and I really just want to find a place to rest for awhile, sometimes even despite the crap that I have to go through just to find this place.

There are times I just want a guy to hold me in his arms until I fall asleep. I want to feel safe. For once, in my life I don't want to fight. I just want to rest. But often, just being held comes with a price, because I know that in his arms I will get comfortable and want more. The second I want more, as in a committed relationship he exits my life, just as I quickly as he entered.

I never get close to anyone, for that matter...

I know that if I end up really caring about someone or even loving them they will be taken away in some form, whether they choose to leave on their own or life circumstances force them to do it... they will leave and there will be nothing that I can do.

My loss isn't going anywhere. My pain is apart of me. When I see families. When I see happy couples. When I see brothers and sisters playing in the park. My eyes will always get a little teary. Those are the memories that I don't have many of. Those are the moments that I yearn to be apart of, but because of who I am I am bound to this life of solitude. And there is no way around it...it seems.