WORTHY OF ME: Reclaiming wholeness from loss to love

By Jessica Juliano

How do you know whether to stay in a relationship or leave? For years Jessica Juliano pondered that very question and those two equally terrifying options.

A decade of back to back relationships left her search for the perfect companion unfulfilled. After sacrificing so much of herself along the way - body, livelihood, identity - she began the que

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jessica Juliano
• Release date: Dec 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087903170

Jessica Juliano

Jessica Juliano is the author of several books about self-trust and connecting with our inner wisdom. She is recognized for her style of authentic and vulnerable storytelling, as she believes sharing honestly can help us heal and grow. To help others tell their own stories, she offers writing and self-publishing workshops and coaching. Learn more about Jessica and her work at jessicajuliano.org.

Book preview

1

Temptation

Mark drove me home through the pitch black sticky summer night. Even with the AC on blast, we could both feel the heat around us, between us. It hovered like a cloud refusing to rain down relief.

In the back seat of his Intrepid, I tugged down on my pants and shirt to straighten them. My fingers glided through my wild mane to tame each strand back into its proper place. The passenger seats had previously been folded forward and down to accommodate us. They had been restored to their upright position since we left the parking lot. We only went to have dinner with some friends. Nothing to see here.

You can stop here, I instructed him, as he approached an intersection a couple of blocks from my apartment. I breathed evenly, the distance between my two separate realities sheltering me from harm.

We exchanged a quick and sufficient See you tomorrow. The transaction of passion had already been carried out and words need not provide more. My hand thoughtlessly reached for the door handle. My eyes glanced ahead as Mark’s headlights illuminated the quiet open road before us. Like a deer about to get hit, I froze.

Oh shit.

We both spotted Laura anxiously pacing in the street. My even breathing turned quick and shallow. Blood rushed to my limbs, causing my arms and legs to tremble uncontrollably. What the hell was she doing out here?

There was no time to think my way through this. I had no choice but to follow through with opening the door and getting out of the car. She turned in my direction, eyeing the door, having found exactly what she’d been looking for.

As I approached her, she opened her mouth to unleash a flood of fierce demands. Where have you been? she shrieked. Do you know how late it is?

We were out to dinner like I told you, I replied, doing my best to keep my tone even. I hoped it would mask the shakiness in my throat.

What’s he doing driving you home?

We all carpooled together.

I don’t see anyone else in the car.

He already dropped Scott off. He lives closer to the restaurant, I offered the facts cooly to her.

She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated exhale, but it was no use defending the truth. I don’t believe you! she yelled. Why are you lying to me? Her eyes, sad and infuriated, begged for an answer that she could trust. But for a woman who’d been hurt too many times by those she loved, it didn’t exist.

I said nothing, the intensity of her words stunning me to stillness.

What do you want? she asked sharply. What do you want from me?

I felt myself fade, an invisible fog growing between us. Her lips moved rapidly as if she had a word quota to meet, but I heard nothing. I just hoped she would quiet down before the neighbors complained and we turned into the next episode of Jerry Springer.

How did this happen? My life had never been dramatic. I always did everything right. I was the straight A student. Always had a good job and paid my bills on time. Always had healthy relationships. Always made respectable decisions and treated others with kindness. Up until last week.

Arousing me abruptly from my thoughts, Laura reached for me. Her fingers dug into the flesh of the backs of my arms. Her body pressed against mine and her lips followed. She kissed me with urgency, full of a passion too intense to be love but too attached to be hate. She was only trying to compete with what she assumed had happened an hour earlier.

Is this what you want? she asked with mild aggression. What she meant to say was, No one can love you like I do! Yet in that moment, for the first time, I felt not one drop of love from her.

I pushed her away, not sure if I should feel unsafe. My mind turned to Mark in case I needed someone to rescue me. Scanning the intersection, I found he had pulled his car to the side of the road. He was probably watching from his rear view mirror. His jury of one must have ruled that everything was fine and there was nothing more for him to do. His presence would only escalate the matter. His tail lights blazed as he drove off.

I stood in the intersection and faced the consequences of a choice I never consciously made. I didn’t intend for any of this to happen. Yet as I looked back, it was perhaps the most intentional act I could have committed to free myself.

2

Mark

Two months earlier I was the lucky chosen one to receive a promotion at work. Instead of answering customer inquiries about our software, I’d investigate reported malfunctions. This new position aligned with my IT background. It was an honor to be selected, given the team consisted of only two people. Just me and Mark. I’d seen him around the office a couple of times before, but we had little interaction since we worked in different departments.

There was that one time a call from Mark’s client got misrouted through the system and rang on my line. I wrote down the client’s message on a sticky note and set out to find the recipient. I wound up lost in the open cubicle space of Mark’s department.

I asked the first person I saw, Where can I find Mark Jackson?

Oh you mean Macks! His desk is right down there on the left.

With a quick hello and explanation, I handed him the sticky note and went back on my way.

There was nothing remarkable about Mark Jackson, or Macks as they called him. In an office full of young hard-working men, he blended right in, neither doing nor saying anything to leave an impression on me.

Upon my promotion, I packed up all my desk gadgets, notepads, and my computer, and relocated to the empty desk attached to Mark’s. Only a thin blue privacy screen separated us. We were set up such that we faced each other, but due to the privacy screen, I could only see him from the forehead up.

As we began my training, I noticed Mark’s frequent sighs of frustration and overwhelm. It had been two weeks since the previous guy left, and he’d been holding down the fort solo all this time. He was a patient teacher, but there was a lifelessness in his eyes, like he had been trying to find his way out of the suffocating jungle of a neverending workload and had given up hope of ever seeing the light of day again. He’d been working a ton of overtime and was grateful to have me come on board.

Mark was involved in the interview and selection process quite a bit. He reviewed my interactions with customers and answers to a technical questionnaire. He was both impressed and relieved that the executives didn’t screw up this decision like many others in the past. Too often they let office politics call the shots over true qualification. After a couple of days, I was ramped up, pulling my weight and easing Mark’s burden.

Initially I was delighted by the freedom of no longer talking to customers on the phone all day. The promotion felt more like a vacation in the Caribbean. In the absence of the constant ringing, I created a peaceful sanctuary. I worked at my own pace with no distractions. I established my own priorities. Essentially they paid me to chill out. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine digging my toes into warm sand and overlooking a glistening sapphire blue beach while sipping a refreshing coconut pineapple beverage through a thick pink straw.

After a few weeks, I completed my training. Suddenly every task became top priority. Overwhelmed, I didn’t know where to focus. My tropical getaway abruptly ended and I found myself right alongside Mark. We trudged through the dense jungle of overflowing email inboxes. We struggled to maintain our footing over the snaky vines and uneven ground that threatened to swallow us both.

Our work served multiple stakeholders and VIP customers who all bombarded us like a cloud of mosquitoes. Solve this problem for me now or I’ll bite you, they all seemed to threaten in unison. This promotion didn’t come with bug spray.

Mark suffered in silence through it all, carrying the weight across his broad shoulders and back. I would later learn he was quiet by nature and solved problems most efficiently in the vast peaceful space of his mind. But at that time, his quiet demeanor served more as a means of survival. Any further stimuli would, like the breath of the bad wolf, blow his fortress of sticks and bricks to a heap on the ground.

For all our efforts, we received little reward, save for the glory of marking an inquiry Closed and never having to deal with it again (hopefully). At least with a customer, I could hear the joy and appreciation in their voice. Then I would know with certainty that my time had made someone’s life a little easier. I once had a customer play the song We Like to Party by the Vengaboys into the phone, and we danced together as we wrapped up our call. While Mark had a serious no-bullshit attitude toward work, he would have appreciated such grateful gestures. It seemed those days were long gone.

Mark and I quickly bonded over the demands of our thankless job. To get a break from the constant barrage of questions, we took refuge in the unoccupied space below our office. We worked in a business park on the second floor of a two-story building. Most of the first floor was vacant. We could access it from a stairwell door that had unintentionally been left unlocked. We discovered one day when our friend Scott was curious enough to test the knob. Before Mark brought me down there, I didn’t even know it existed. I felt like Princess Jasmine as Aladdin took her on her first magic carpet ride, revealing a whole new world of complete privacy.

We need a plan, and I need a break. Let’s go discuss downstairs, Mark typed to me through our work chat application one afternoon.

Grateful for the escape, we laid on the floor of the empty conference room, staring at the ceiling and brainstorming how to tackle our latest project.

My eyes drifted over to Mark and I found myself suddenly distracted. The rolled up sleeves of his blue flannel shirt exposed his thick dark-haired forearms. I imagined him posing in a lumberjack calendar clothed in overalls and Timberlands. One foot up on a tree stump, axe in hand, glistening as sweat trickled down his forehead and back. He was a sexier modern day Brawny man. With that idea planted in mind, the rest of the brainstorming session was mostly one-sided.

My attraction to Mark came on like a dust devil, shocking the heck out of me. He was nothing of the type I’d chosen over the past five years. He had considerably more hair and muscle. There was something about him, both physically and intellectually. I was stirred by his thick sturdy features, logical thinking, and creative problem solving.

I sensed he felt the same way about me and expected him to make a move any day now. With all that alone time downstairs, he had plenty of opportunities. We didn’t discuss our personal lives much, which fueled even more the attraction of which neither of us spoke.

Over the next week I anticipated a telling gesture. I hovered over his shoulder one day as he walked me through a task at his desk. The hairs on my neck stood upright at the prospect of brushing arms or catching a revealing glance.

Nothing.

At our next downstairs meeting, I watched him fumbling with his pen in his hands. What else might he do with those hands? I imagined him taking a simple and gentle approach with me, like reaching for my hand to caress my fingers. Or maybe he’d be bold and aggressive, letting his testosterone call the shots. He'd throw himself on top of me, pressing his lips to mine with insatiable lust.

We laid there talking about spreadsheet functions while wild fantasies unraveled in my mind. Mark still gave no sign of any fantasies of his own.

One morning Mark brought his pull up apparatus to work, the kind you hang over a doorway. What’s that for? I typed inquisitively in our private chat.

I’m gonna start working out downstairs after work with Scott. Wanna join?

I’d been in the habit of going for walks and doing lunges and push-ups outside on my lunch break. But as we approached the heat of Florida summer, that option would soon take a hiatus.

Sure, I accepted his invitation.

That evening Scott and Mark took turns on the pull up bar. I warmed up my limbs by galloping around the open spacious room, flapping my arms like wings, ready for take off. How freeing it felt to release the pent-up energy from both sitting at a desk all day and harboring unspeakable desires for Mark.

Our small group workouts became a routine. A couple of days a week, I led us through shuttle runs, traveling push-ups, planks, and jump squats. The empty office space served as our private gym.

One afternoon Scott had a prior commitment, and it was just Mark and me in the gym. He’d brought his pull up bar as usual. After he fixed it into place, he nonchalantly removed his lumberjack red plaid shirt, tossed it on the floor, and went at it. I stood motionless, unsure what to think of this rather arrogant display. He pulled himself up, lowered back down, repeat, repeat, as the definition in his arms taunted me.

Who the hell does this guy think he is?

Obviously he was trying to make an impression on me. Even though my mind had become a soft core porn production studio, this felt a bit distasteful. I decided to ignore it and focus on my lunges. When he finished his set, he turned to me with a flushed face and sweat pooling at his forehead. You’re up if you wanna give it a try, he offered.

I walked over, avoiding his gaze, and stretched my arms up towards the bar. Standing at 4'11'' tall, my fingers fell several inches short of the bar.

I gotcha, Mark said as he put his hands on my waist and hoisted me up. My fingers wrapped around the padded bar as shivers spread from my core, down my limbs, and into my toes and fingertips. It was the first time he touched me. My singing body was not in the least interested in a pull up. I hesitated, disgusted by how cliché this whole scene was. Yet I was curious if he’d explore further. When nothing happened, I began my set. Satisfied with my ability to hold my own weight, Mark let go and moved on to his own exercises.

We went about the rest of our workout in a quiet and considerate rotation. The tension of what could happen hung in the air, ready for anyone to grab it, if only one was willing. I certainly wouldn’t be the one to make the first move. I was way too shy for that. Mark may have been quiet, but he didn’t strike me as shy. But he didn't seem to know the ball was in his court. The only other skin contact that night was a celebratory high five when we completed our workout.

Surely it was for the best. After all, we both had women waiting for us at home.

3

Laura

Laura was waiting for me, and Danielle for him, but that didn’t matter under the spell of teenage-grade lust. I wasn’t looking to Mark to replace her. He was just all my mind could focus on, like a new Christmas toy. It wasn’t any better than the tried and true train set or faithful teddy bar. Just shinier. This attraction to Mark had formed in a separate compartment that had nothing to do with Laura. But I couldn’t tell her that, and I couldn’t expect anyone to understand. I said nothing.

My desire for Mark surprised and confused me. I’d dated Laura for the last two years and other women for several years before her.

When my relationship ended with my first girlfriend Katie, I found myself incredibly lonely. It wasn’t long after that until Laura and I met. Neither one of us intended to get into a relationship, but that was precisely what we did. If jumping into a relationship too soon was a crime, I’d be behind bars right now for multiple offenses. I was a product of a world that taught me coupling is the key to happiness, and being alone means there’s something wrong with you.

It was the same pattern with Katie. I met her in my mid-twenties, shortly after relocating to Florida from northeast Pennsylvania.