Time doesn't wait for me

Finally, closure

Any time I thought about the situation with Katie, the more I realized, with the insight of friends, that she was controlling everything and that the situation itself was controlling me. So I took it into my own hands. I sat down and put everything I had in my head about our past, present, and future, onto notebook paper. I ended up with a 5 page front and back letter, and I sent it out in the mail to Katie, effectively putting the ball in her court.

Well she finally responded today, confirming everything I thought. She was real nice about it. Told me she loved me as a person, truly hopes i'll be happy. Shes glad I'm doing well. But she doesn't love me that way anymore. She says shes the person she is because of me, shes got nothing but fond memories and is grateful for what ive done for her. She regrets any pain she caused and wishes shed communicated everything to me better. But that it simply couldn't work out.

I respect her decision, you can't force love. I have nothing but fond memories of her, and have never had nor will I ever have any ill will toward her. But the silver lining is that finally I can say it's over, and not dwell on the whole will we won't we thing. I responded to her with nothing but nice things because I still think she's a great person. I told her to live her life, to be happy doing what she loves, surrounding herself with people she loves. I wished her the best in everything, told her my memories of her are nothing but fond as well, and that anybody whos life she touches should consider themselves lucky.

I can't be friends with her. It was a big mountain for me to climb getting used to the idea of not being with her. Afterall, it's all I've known since I was 16. It would be quite another very high mountain for me to climb as a person to be able to be truly happy for her being happy with somebody else. And maybe I'm selfish, but I'm just not there yet as a person. Hopefully someday I will be, and I'll be able to give her a call and tell her I'm happy for her. But not yet, and not soon. I still deep down want her to be happy as a person, because she deserves it. I just need to not have it staring me in the face while I enter the next major phase of my life, and my development as an adult human being.

So that, as they say, is that. It was sad reading the email, but in a different way. I can finally move on. She will always be in my heart, and I can never forget her. I can only hope and pray I find somebody I love that much again, and odds are I will, someday. But as for now, life moves forward again. Until the next life event, livejournal. Thanks for sticking by me.

What a difference 24 hours makes. I feel pretty good, and see things in a pretty new perspective. It may be a bit too soon to tell but I think I'm finally ready to tackle life as it comes and just be happy. Thank you extremely much everyone who played a part in helping, you know who I'm talking about.

Short one tonight, but I leave you with a quote: "If someone wants to be a part of your life, they'll make an effort to be in it. Don't bother reserving a space in your heart for someone who doesn't make an effort to stay."

I've made quite the effort to rid myself of any form of thinking about her. I went a good 4 weeks without so much as looking at her name, including avoiding her facebook page at all costs. Unfortunately though, while I was checking to make sure I still had exactly 222 facebook friends (no more, no less for as long as possible), I saw her in the first few friends I had displayed on my profile with a new picture. I must say she looked beautiful in it and it made me click on her profile. Somewhat of a relapse, but whatever.

I still miss her. A lot. No I don't listen to sad songs on purpose anymore. I don't sit around asking why, feeling sorry for myself. After almost 6 months now of being separated, I've finally let the real reason why we broke up actually sink in. She just simply didn't love me anymore. Or maybe she loved me a little bit but not enough to stay with me while she went off to find herself. And that's not true love then. I mean it still sucks but at least it's a reason. I can honestly look at myself and say I'm doing much better right now than 3 months ago or even 1 month ago.

I think a reason that I still can't fully get over the hump is that my future just seems so unresolved. While we were still together, pretty much the only unresolved thing was what city we'd live in. But I knew there'd be a job, there'd be money, a wedding, and someday kids. I mean we'd been together for 7 and a half years, and we'd made it through college which is usually a relationship death trap. As little as 6 months ago, my whole future was planned out. And now nothing is certain. I have no idea when I'll get a job, what it'll be in, where it'll be, where i'll live, how long i'll be single, when i'll move out, anything. And in the grand scheme of being a 24 year old, that's probably not as abnormal as I would think. It's just a pretty big system shock when everything kinda spirals to chaos at once from a state of calm. But i'm pretty sure once I get something in the win column (like a job plz) things will get much better much quicker.

I think that if I never initiated contact with her again and deleted her from my facebook, I would never hear from her or know a single detail of her life. I think shes made up her mind to never speak to me again. I mean I made that decision too (temporarily at least), but there are a couple times I've had to email her for business related things, like letting her know when people are gonna come see the apartment or asking her to let the realty company know that the lease won't be renewed. No responses. It was more than 3 months ago now I told her sorry for blocking her on facebook and that I'd like to talk once in a while to see how she was doing. She said that'd be nice, and that it's understandable that I would block her and that she understood I needed time. But that's the last time we spoke. Maybe it's for the best.

Sometimes I wish she had just cheated on me or something. Or at least told me it's over for good, forever. It probably would have made it a lot harder at first but at least I'd be able to say I hate her. Or, well, now it's over and I can just move on because she's never coming back. But as long as she left that door open, even if it's only open 0.001%, I'm always going to wonder. If and when I go out with another girl, I know I'm going to hold back from her and that it's going to feel wrong. I mean how am I going to be able to commit to someone else when in the back of my mind there's going to be that voice saying that i'm making the biggest mistake of my life by being with the wrong person?

I still can't make up my mind. Part of me wants to just make the commitment to myself to never have contact with her again and accept whatever life throws my way, eventually falling in love with someone else (God willing) and never thinking twice about it. Another (slightly more vocal at the moment) part of me still wants to hold out hope that one day we'll get back together and resume what seemed (and seems) so right. Part of me even wants to openly go for it when the moment is right (be it in a few months or a year or more) and just ask her to come back. Most if not all of my family would strongly advise me to pick option A, since it's the safest and comes with almost no risk and still a lot of potential for happiness down the road. But matters of the heart aren't really logical matters are they.

At this point I'm babbling and I've said all I need to say. Thanks as always for reading.

It seems I am a glutton for punishment. The past two weeks have been brutal. Its been what, 7 weeks since I've updated this thing. I've had good times, bad times, super optimistic times, super pessimistic times.

But damnit, it has been more than 3 months since the breakup and i'm doing just as badly as I was the night I moved out of Boston. Not an hour goes by where I don't think about it. And not only does thinking about it keep me up past 4am every night, but I'd say that I've dreamed about her every night for the past two weeks. Sometimes we're together in my dreams and I'm extremely happy. Sometimes we start out not together and she takes me back. Sometimes we're not together and I'm upset about it.

I listen to sad songs on purpose. I look at pictures of us. I read old AIM conversations and then read the ones we had after we broke up. I can't stop.

And you're thinking the same thing I'm thinking. Jesus Christ dave, get the fuck over it, get over yourself, stop feeling sorry for yourself, think positive and move the hell on with your life. And we're both absolutely right. The worst part is that family and friends have answered the call every time I've needed or wanted to talk about it, and I STILL feel like crap all the damn time. It's to the point where I get super nervous every time I'm sad about it and just never say anything anymore because I don't want to talk about it and have people thinking "oh man here we go again, having the same damn conversation". I don't want anybody to think they aren't helping me because they do help. I just bring myself down again.

We haven't even talked since that phone conversation we had at the end of January except for a quick IM exchange in the beginning of February where I told her sorry for blocking her on facebook and that we should keep in touch every once in a while. But clearly cold turkey isn't helping (though maybe it's not hurting either). Trying to get close to another girl didn't help and actually made me feel worse.

My logical math brain is telling me to just move the hell on, get a job, get money, move out, and find another girlfriend when I'm ready. There will be other girls and chances are I'll be able to find one who's right for me.

My super sentimental romantic brain is telling me that there's a chance for us in the future and that in however many years we'll get back together and our first reunited kiss will bring me to joy and tears all the way to wedding day. After all, it was true love (at least on my end), and she was my best friend.

Both of those sound completely awesome and at the same time sound like completely terrifying risks.

The answer is inevitably live life and see what happens. Whatever is meant to be will be. But how the hell do I do that without driving myself completely insane, or getting stomach ulcers from the constant stress of obsession? How am I supposed to pursue what's "normal" when I haven't had to live life without her since I was 16? How am I supposed to build new relationships with anybody when I'm carrying such a huge scar and suit of armor from this one?

I was always semi proud of the fact that I was kind of a sentimental guy. While I never exactly seek them out, I'm always able to appreciate a good love story or love song. I get tears at the ends of really sad or really happy movies. And I always seem to attach memories to objects or smells or even words. But it's working against me now. Pretty tough to rid yourself of memories of someone when everything youve built for yourself since you've been an adult has been shared with someone.

Now I'm just rambling and feeling sorry for myself so I'll stop. Thanks for barely reading. My mom wakes up for work in 6 minutes and I'll feel like a tool if I'm not at least trying to sleep by then.

I saw Katie Saturday night at my old roommate's birthday party. I was cool until about my 7th drink, at which point I started to get extremely depressed. All I could think of was wanting to be with her. But most of all, I couldn't shake the feeling that we SHOULD be together. Shes changed a lot in the past couple months. She's more social, more confident. I thought she was already well on her way to accomplishing what she wanted to accomplish.

So tonight, I took a chance. I spent hours figuring out what I was going to say, and asked her to call me when she got home from work. When she got home, I spilled my guts. I told her how much progress I thought she'd made, how special our relationship was, and how it'd be crazy to not give something like that a second chance.

In hindsight, from a logical perspective and from probably a mutual observer's perspective, this was a bad idea. But I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I hadn't.

Basically, she told me she couldn't do it. She wants me to move on. Find happiness elsewhere. Prove that I can be happy elsewhere. But most of all, she just doesn't want to be with me right now. She's not looking for a husband, for a serious project. She felt if we got back together, it would be too one-sided, and she wouldn't be as into it as I was.

So I told her that I'm sorry, but I don't think that at the moment I can be just friends with her. I honestly tried. I talked to her on the phone, on AIM sometimes, I tried to hang out with her on Saturday. But it was always just too hard. In fact, looking back, the best and most positive days I've had since the breakup were the first couple weeks when we had zero contact with each other. So we're just not going to talk for a while. Whether that's days, weeks, months, longer. I have no idea. But I need to get over her before I can really be friends.

So that's that. In every sense of the word, I am now a guy who has had the reset button in life pressed completely. Back at my mom's house with no job, no girlfriend, no real commitments.

There are two ways that can sound: one, man what a loser. 24 year old single jobless guy living at mom's? But I choose to look at it as a stepping stone in my life. I have a plan for myself. First comes the job, then the apartment, then new people enter my life, and the cycle repeats.

And maybe when that time comes, and I've forgotten about how I feel right now, maybe Katie and I can be friends. Maybe in 3 years we can be more than friends. But I need to live under the assumption that we won't. Besides, maybe I'll realize how silly it was to have held on for this long and will have completely moved on. Only time will tell. But I'm done holding on to it. I need to live my life from now on moving completely forward.

I seem to talk about nothing but Katie, but it's what consumes my thoughts. Besides, it's my journal.

We had another long talk today. I had some questions in my mind that I needed her to clear up and she did. I asked her if there was anything about me, or anything I did, that might have made her unhappy with the relationship or pessimistic about our future and she said no.

I asked her if she hoped that our relationship would end up working out when she comes back from the peace corps and settles into her own life, and she said yes, as of right now she does hope for that. I asked if she'd prefer to test the dating market first, and she said she'd rather not actively look for another person or go on eharmony or anything when she's ready to get serious again before considering me. And a serious relationship is out of the question right now for her before leaving for the peace corps, she called the idea "disturbing" and that she needs to be on her own for a while.


I know that I come on strong sometimes, and the questions I ask might make someone believe I'm neurotic, but sometimes I just want answers and Katie was willing to provide them.

The only variable here is time. She's not graduating until the fall, she's going to work long enough to pay off some debt and take my mom off her loan as a cosigner, and then she'll be in the peace corps for 27 months. That's the main point Katie keeps stressing. That it's pointless to discuss these things now because 3-4 years is a LONG time and everything could be different by then.

It could be up to 4 years before I can realistically think about her and I taking another crack on it. 4 valuable years in my youth that I don't want to waste, but at the moment I want nothing else, and nothing else would make me happier than to be with her for the rest of my life. She was the one. I can't imagine anybody more perfect for me in every way. This wasn't some dumb infatuation with someone who after 1 year I thought was the love of my life. We were together for 7.5 years, nearly a third of my whole life. You don't spend 7.5 years truly HAPPY with someone unless they're right for you.

But what if she meets someone? What if I don't date anybody seriously for 4 years and she comes back from the peace corps engaged to someone else or serious with someone else? What if I myself move on, and she comes back single and ready to mingle, and I threw away an opportunity to be with someone amazing with whom I already have such a strong foundation?

I don't know what to do. I got all the answers I wanted to hear from Katie...she hopes for the same thing I do. Given the gun to her head choice of wanting to seek someone else or start again with me, at the moment she feels she'd rather start again with me. But freaking time.....4 years would be such a ridiculously long time to wait and anything could change between now and then. How do I stop obsessing about it? It consumes my every thought. It doesn't help that I have no job to distract myself.

Maybe it's just because I'm still hurting from the pain of loss. Maybe I just miss her a lot and it will fade. But I want to wait for her. My life will advance...I'm going to get a job, pay off debt, get an apartment, get a cat, take trips I've always wanted to take, see my family more, see friends more, etc. But I want to share my life with one specific person, and I already know who that person is.

Call me silly but everything would be a ton easier if we had split up because of irreconcilable differences between us. When a couple knows they aren't compatible, they just aren't, and they can both move on and look for someone more compatible. But Katie and I are PERFECT as a couple for each other, we just aren't in a place in our lives and maturity levels where it can work. Which is pretty much the most helpless feeling imaginable.



I need help livejournal. Am I being horribly stupid for wanting to wait? Maybe I decide to wait but in 2 years I'm over her. Maybe in 2 years she's over me. Maybe she meets someone, maybe I meet someone. Who the hell knows? In the meantime though, I'm worried about myself. I feel anxious and helpless a lot. I think about it constantly. I don't know what the right decision is. I feel it would stupid to wait 4 years from someone who you have no idea will still like you or even be single, and I feel it would be equally stupid to put her out of my mind, get over her, and say goodbye to any chance of spending the rest of my life with the girl who I know is perfect for me and would make my happy from day 1 until my deathbed.


**EDIT**
I'm somewhat calmed down now. I know the answer. Take life as it comes. If it's meant to be it's meant to be, etc. I know all that. My mom has told me that. My brother has told me that. Katie has told me that. If it's meant to be it'll happen. So I guess that's it. I'll wish for it but will have to accept the possibility that it won't come true. I just hope I don't drive myself insane in the meantime

I'm really starting to not believe in coincidences. Since the breakup things have generally been going well for me. Small ups and downs but mostly positive, seeing good people, enjoying time with friends and family.

But today was a real crappy day for some reason. I just could not stop thinking about Katie and missing everything about our relationship. Not for any particular reason, just out of the blue. Then early in the evening she sends me a text. She said her friend tom was moving in for the next 6 weeks and she needs my keys.

So of course, like most guys I know, I had a mini freak out. A DUDE moving in? So i texted her back asking to call me when she had a free second, and she did. I mean who texts their ex boyfriend out of the blue after 4 weeks telling them that their closest male friend is moving in?

But she explained to me that her and tom's relationship is as plutonic as can possibly be. Which was evident, I mean i would come home from work sometimes and they'd be in the living room playing video games. And Tom has a girlfriend. And Tom's father apparently said it best when he said "if they wanted to hook up they would have by now".

Anyway the point of all my rambling is, Katie and I were able to actually have a good meaningful talk for the first time since the move-out. I asked her if she misses me and she said yes. I told her I didn't want to give up on her. Understandably she stands by her decision still. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't go into the peace corps and have that life experience. But I'm not giving up on her and she knows that. Maybe I'll meet a girl between now and the time she comes back. Maybe I'll stop liking Katie. Maybe she won't have any interest in me when she gets back. Life will come as it comes. But I'm not actively giving up.

Anyway she was afraid to call or talk to me because she wasn't sure of my mental state. Understandable. Telling her the story of my trip to the bar with Brian felt really good. I want to still have her in my life, even if I do still have to block her on AIM and Facebook so it's not rubbed in my face whenever she's online. But talking to her every so often makes me happy, so I'm going to do it.

Is it so hard for us to just do whatever the hell makes us happy?

The first week went by great, the second week got tougher and tougher. We had absolutely zero contact until yesterday (Jan 5th, 12 days after the move).

Today we talked a little about business (the lease on the apartment, etc) and she said shes planning on working for 6 months or so after her graduation in the summer/fall and then heading out to the peace corps for a couple years. So. That's that.

It's weird now sitting here, slowly coming to the realization that there is no shot at renewing the relationship, seeing as how she wont be back around until between 3-4 years from now. It feels extremely helpless. I don't want to imagine having to pursue somebody else, see if they're right for me, see if I can picture being with them long term. I've never exactly been a 'try to get laid' kind of guy, nor will I ever want to be.

But i'm going to have to. Not soon. I don't even know how I'd start. But life must go on. It's pretty depressing having to sit around while the person you thought was perfect for you for 7 years goes off on her own.

I'm home now. Each day that goes by gets a little easier.

I thought I was doing alright during the week before the move. Katie and I had a nice talk and decided to be friends. I'm not sure how good of an idea that is. She did do a lot to turn my life upside down. We were never friends before the relationship so I've only known her as a girlfriend. It'd definitely be a hard adjustment if it's possible.

I moved home on Friday. Everything was fine until a few hours after I settled in. It was extremely sad. But Saturday went by, then Sunday, and its been a little easier each day. Katie and I have had zero contact since our goodbye hug Friday.

Between you and I, journal, I don't know if I hope to be with her in the future. Would holding out hope subconsciously hold me back from pursuing someone else? I feel like Katie and I have such a good foundation, but we both have a ton of growing up to do. She needs to be more confident in herself, take control of her own life, and be able to take care of herself.

I also realized that, coming from living with my mother to living with Katie, I have only been living with very nurturing people. Perhaps I've become lazy and let people somewhat "take care of me". I think, before I am able to settle down with anyone again, I need to live truly by myself and learn what it's really like to take care of myself. Once I do that, is it crazy for Katie and I to get back together with our biggest flaws erased? Or will we just remind each other of our past, of a time when we were nothing but immature kids who viewed each other as their own security blankets?

Time will tell. I don't want to make it seem like I'm waiting for Katie because I am not. The chances of us getting back together have seemed less and less from day one. But I am not going to rule it out completely.

The mornings are the worst. Every morning, I wake up with her but I'm alone. I wanna tell her love her, kiss her goodbye and say I'll miss her, but I can't. I might never be able to again. It sucks. Then I walk to the bus and go to a job that I can't wait to leave.

Usually I feel better at night. But this is pain unlike any I've felt. My family keeps advising me not to wait around for her. Live my life. Move forward. I want to do all that. But I also want her back. No offense ladies but in 7.5 years I haven't met any girls who I have more in common with and get along better with, and whose personality so closely matches exactly what I'd want in a partner. I want to win her back in the future so bad. I'm not gonna put anything else in my life on hold, but she will be my goal.

Which begs the question. Should we stay friends? I don't wanna cut her out of my life. She said there's probably a better chance of getting back if we stay friends, even though there's no way to know. But talking to her and seeing her is really Damn hard knowing we aren't together. I dunno what to do.