It's like a horrible deja vu, a terrible part in history being repeated where the lesson is learned if only for a moment then soon forgotten with time and a lonely heart. Women are far too ruled by their emotions, mankind is ruled too much by fear of loneliness, it's that desperation that sends people going back and doing the same stupid thing.

This all happened earlier this month. I came home from work one Friday and decided to pop over to her job to say hello to everyone as I do. My smile fades as once I walk in I see someone sitting in a chair, someone I hoped never to see again, her ex-boyfriend. He gives me an awkward hello hoping that I've forgiven or forgotten the wrongs he committed, out of manners I give him a chilly glare and a cold hello wondering if he's still scared of me.

I play with my nephew, who she's watching for a few hours, then make my leave wondering why she's bringing him back into her life. I could understand if this was the first or second time that he had done something horrible, apologized and promised to make things right, get on his feet and do right. But no, this is like the fifth.

I can't help but notice as the days go by turning into a few weeks that the time I once spent with my mother turns to nil. She takes him to Florida to visit my grandmother leaving me to watch her dog. She hardly talks to me and I hardly speak to her still upset with her for stupidly letting him back in. Quickly we become distant, strangers to one another, and she's too caught up in him to notice the coldness, the way I won't look at her when we talk.

She thinks that she's being smart this time, 'He can't stay over.'
Ha, like that means anything.

She doesn't notice how she has started treating me like the rest of the family. Never contacting just to talk to, only when she needs something; a request that is quickly and purposely forgotten.

And then it happens, the awaited call, it's the end of this cycle with him. He's done it again, broke something, stole something, maybe had a jealous fit, and has disappeared until the next phone call from a jail.

She needs help and secrecy in cleaning up this mess and make me her small source of refuge as things return to how they were. She'll say that THIS is the last time, the last time she tries to help him, the last time she lets him in.

I've lost track of how many times she's said it was the last time. I just roll my eyes knowing that next year the cycle will begin all over again, he returns, we become distant of one another, her world revolves around him and the hopes that this time things will be different.

Such an intelligent woman, so strong, she seeks to help others escape abusive relationships. So I sit and wonder, why does she keep repeating the same mistake?

It scares me most of all that I may one day do the same.