weirdness, weirdness, weirdness...

i know i posted once before, last spring, about discovering the whereabouts of my rapist. well, interestingly (and horrifyingly) enough, he found me, too, this past fall. he g00gled my name and found my website (not this one, obviously, but my non-anonymous one) and emailed me. emailed me. what fucking gaul. apparently, he'd been through counseling and was then on this great mission to right his past wrongs and apologize to all of the people from his past. fantastic. lucky me. so he sent me a email saying how he "won't be offended" if i didn't respond, but he'd really like to be able to talk to me and apologize and tell me about how his life has changed. because, of course, i care.

long story short, i wrote him a nasty, nasty email back, and told him basically bully for you, congratulations on the conscience cleaning-spree, but count me out, fuck-o. and he emailed me again, saying that he hoped that i could someday confront him and tell him all of the things i need to say so that i can move past everything and what happened won't effect me any more.

what the fuck?

this was all back in the fall. i didn't hear from him again until a few months ago, when he IM'ed me. this is where it gets even weirder, if that's at all possible. at this point, i'm so sick of him hounding me that i unleash on him, tell him what a sicko he is, how fucked up it was for him to be 22 and be attracted to a 14 year old, how much he shredded everything i thought i knew. and i told him that i hoped that hearing this didn't make him feel any better or benefit his therapy, that i hoped that it instead would make him feel like the despicable, vile, disgusting human being that he is.

and he, in return, attempted to carry on a conversation with me as though we were two old friends who hadn't spoken in ten years. completely delusional. he went on to tell me that he's going to be in my part of the country in a few months, and that he'd like to see me. i told him he was out of his fucking mind.

what is going on here? i suppose i should clarify enough to say that i was not raped once by a stranger, but repeatedly over the course of six months by someone i knew very, very well. someone my family knew well. someone who the entire community knew well. after i told him that i'd tell everyone what he'd done if he didn't leave me alone, he left the state and hasn't been back since. i guess the one-time familiarity is the only reason that i haven't blocked his email/IM and been done with the whole thing. i don't exactly understand that myself, though. what am i doing? what makes me think that he could possibly understand and feel remorse for what he did? why am i bothering to try and make him, after all this time? this whole situation is incredibly, incredibly surreal. to my best understanding, he's just trying to make himself feel better: if i can forgive him, then he can forgive himself and be absolved and move on as though it never happened. and there is no way that i'll ever give him that. but part of me is so angry about dealing with everything that i dealt with at such a young age, and doing it alone, and never really confronting him, that it almost entertains the notion of seeing him. as though ripping him a gigantic new asshole, in person, and making him face the reality of what he did (because he clearly isn't now, if he thinks we can somehow be friends) will assure that he is never be able to forgive himself, that he will never feel absolved, that he will suffer the way that i suffered for the rest of his life.

and then there's this other part of me, that says, "aren't we supposed to forgive?". that thinks that if he took the action of putting himself through therapy and admitting to me that he did a horrible thing and trying to apologize and do what he can to make sure that i am able to move on with my life, should i accept that and let us both move on? on a humanitarian level, i feel like that's the "right" thing. but on a real and visceral level, i don't think i'm capable. i want him to suffer, and that frightens me because i'm not that kind of person. at least, i didn't think that i was.

is there a real-world right answer here? because god help me if i know what it is.

i've been a negligent poster...

so. things are good. boy is good. his anonymous on-line reference name has become arizona, so that's what i'll be referring to him as, most likely. this relationship is hands down, by far the most phenomenal one i have ever been a part of. the level of trust that we have is fantastic and such an enormous change from my last relationship.
not to mention the fact that i've been an emotional mess lately, and he's been pretty good about dealing with me in that state. i've just been feeling like a bit of a failure...the money situation is very, very tight right now, and it kind of makes me feel like i've failed at bit at the grown-up thing. which i know is ridiculous, because i've been taking care of myself for a long time now, and i know i've done a pretty good job. but i guess i felt like approaching twenty five, i'd at least have more than $5 in my savings account. it's not the money itself, per se--i do quite well on a limited income, and that's never bothered me. it's the fact that a) i detest the thought of being financially dependent on other people (the whole "i can take care of myself" thing), and b)i don't feel prepared for the future. i mentioned that things are going smashingly with arizona...so much so that we've discussed (and are pretty much planning on, at this point) me moving out there next summer, when i'm done with grad school. i want to have at least *some* money saved in case i don't find a job before i get there. i don't want to mooch off of arizona. i know he's willing to help me out, and i love him for it and appreciate it, but the bottom line is that i *hate* being in a postion where i need help. hate it. i suppose this is where my "fierce independence", as it's been called, comes in to play. this seems to be a repetitive problem for me. you'd think being independent would be a good thing, and i know that it is, to a degree. but i know, too, that i take it too far sometimes. i'm really just only now beginning to recognize that about myself (did i mention my stint in therapy during the spring...?). another post, i guess. anyway...i know it's something i need to work on, not beating myself so much when i can't do everything 100% alone.
so, uh, yeah...how did that start? oh. right. arizona dealing with me when i'm being a head case. when i get all down on myself and depressed, mostly what i need is someone to tell me the things that my subconscious is only now beginning to realize: it's okay to need help, it's okay to not be able to do everything alone, it doesn't mean you're a failure or that you're inconveniencing people or that people think less of you. because i am an ace at beating the crap out of myself. and M...well, quite frankly, he sucked at comforting me. sucked. couldn't do it worth a damn. not when my grandfather died, not when my cat died, not when i felt low about myself, not when he'd f*cked up...not once. and i really grew to resent that about him. i don't need much, just a hug and an "it's okay." and arizona...he's better. his first approach the other day when i was near tears after receiving another enormous bill that not only can i not pay, but that i shouldn't have to pay alone but probably will end up doing so, was more along the lines of an "it's not so bad, it's only money, i can help you" pep talk, and that helped, it really did. but it only scrapes the surface, because as i said...money isn't *really* the issue. what i really needed was something more along the lines of "i love you, and you're not failing, you're working hard and you're doing a better job than your giving yourself credit for." because my nasty voice does an amazinly efficient job of making me lose sight of that. but he can't know that unless i tell him. it's one of the major weaknesses of our distance--we aren't together often enough to iron out all of each others' quirks. but we're working on it...

he lands here in two days for a six day stay, and i cannot wait. it's been a month and a half since i saw him last, and i feel like this is roughly my limit. longer than this gets a bit unbearable. we're going to go camping and fishing and see a lot of friends...there's so much planned that i know the 6 days are going to fly by, and i hate that feeling, but at least i get to see him for longer than an abbreviated weekend.

alright...bedtime. i'm going to try to be better about this...it's therapeutic...