tonight I feel like crying

I haven't written in a long time.  I've been too busy trying to pretend I'm fine.  Here I thought I had turned a new leaf on my blog, writing nothing but happy anecdotes, but sometimes its just too tiring to be happy and brave all the time... so tonight I'm going to let myself cry and let myself be sad.  I think in light of the situation, its pretty justified... its about my one that got away.

.....

I walked away. He gave me a choice, it was him or this new guy. At the time it all made so much sense.  In all honesty it seemed like I didn’t really have a choice, it felt like fate had stepped in and decided for me. Now months and months and months after the fact, I’m still suffering from losing him.

I work in a restaurant that plays country music. Most days I am fine.  My mind is too preoccupied with tables orders and salads and drinks. I don’t have much time to stand around listening to the white noise coming from the juke box. But Thursdays are absolute torture. I hostess on Thursdays, so I stand up there at the hostess stand, more or less forced to listen to songs that I’m certain were written for the soul purpose of prolonging my suffering. Every song reminds me of him… songs that he once played for me, dedicated to me… they play on repeat. Some lyrics remind me how foolish I was for letting him go while others paint a bleak picture, knowing I’ll never really get over him.

I know our love wasn’t perfect and we never could quite seem to find ourselves on the same page, more than anything I don’t think I was ready to be loved like that. It was frightening because I felt so responsible for his happiness. I always felt some sort of pressure because of it… so I would leave. I would go out in search of something and then I would always return to him, but this time I cannot return. I left him for someone that presented all the qualities I thought he lacked, the qualities I thought I needed. In that sense, I am glad that I left because I learned that the things I thought I needed were absolutely useless to me. What I needed is what I had had all along, I was just too naïve to see it.

My pride kept me from crawling back… I told myself that it was too much, that I made too big of a mistake and he would never take me back for it. I took a break from dating for a few months, I felt that maybe I needed to clear my head and just let things happen for a change… but then nothing happened. No knight in shining armor waltzed into my life to rescue me and sitting around by myself left me longing for him more and more. So then I began dating again, any male with a pulse.. That’s pretty much been my motto since the new year. Some weeks I felt like I needed a secretary to take care of my schedule.

A week or so ago I was at work one night. When I got off I noticed I had a missed call from him. I was so excited and scared, I didn’t know why he would call but I didn’t care, he had called me finally. It had given me hope. I had text him a few times since the new year, but he ignored them, I had thought that maybe the number I had for him was no longer his, but sure enough, there his number was as a missed call on my phone. I hurriedly text him to inquire about the call and for the first time in months did he respond, but to my dismay it was a cruel joke at the hands of a mutual friend… at least he was talking to me. It had been nothing but silence for so long that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to talk to him, albeit text messages.

Since that little prank I’ve been sick, not really knowing what to do… I asked him for closure and he dismissed it… but today I asked him outright. I needed to know if my hopes for a reconcile were childish and unrealistic. I needed to hear him tell me that we would never get back together again. When I had left all those months ago he had told me that he would never say never… that has left me with far too much hope that maybe things can go back, that maybe we could give it just one more try. When I text him today I didn’t want him to say never… never would mean the end of all my hope… but hearing never from him, and knowing for certain would be a far lesser pain than sitting here in limbo, blindly hoping for something that would never happen.

For a moment after sending the text I thought maybe, just maybe he still loved me, even just a little bit, enough to listen to me and tell me so… but no.  Like I had dreaded, he told me never.

A part of me wonders if he still reads my blog… if he does I would want him to know how much I love him and that I never stopped loving him. I would want him to know that I needed to leave so I could know for certain about he and I, so I could know how great we really were for each other. I would want him to know that it wasn’t until I was with someone else that I realized how much I had put him through, that I couldn’t really appreciate how much he truly loved me until I met with someone who was indifferent towards me because of my flaws… the flaws that he had embraced. I needed to learn those things to make my love for him as powerful as it is today. I don’t know what would have happened to he and I if I had chosen him all that time ago. If I had to wager a guess, I don’t know that we would have survived anyway. I had an unfounded love for him at the time, but it was always laced with a pinch of doubt and a hint of uncertainty, by now we probably would have broken up anyway…

… so I learned what I needed to. I finally learned how to love him as deeply and profoundly as he loved me. As much as it hurts me, I am grateful for the journey that he and I took together. For every single up and down. He was with me through some of the darkest hours of my life and I would hope he knows how eternally grateful I am for that. I am grateful to know that my heart is capable of loving someone this much, in spite of how painful it is. My only hope is that the pain begins to dull and I can start to really heal. He told me never, that we wont work, and that I should move on. I told him I would never stop loving him, and I meant it.  I love him still and always will.