A Goodbye Story

I really did love you. I loved you like I have never loved another. I hope I will soon be able to love someone new, as much or more than I loved you.

I fell in love with you at first sight. It was terrific and thrilling. I think we swept each other of our feet. It was magic. And it was impossible.

It really, really sucks in the end to admit that you were right. You were right to be worried about how I would handle our life together. Standing now, six months down the road, I think I can see really clearly all that transpired between us. I fell madly, deeply in love with you. But after our very first trip to Portland to meet your family I began to see and think about the realities of life with you. I came to realize that I really DIDN'T want to leave my life here - my friends, my family, the quality of life at home. I was sooooo scared of starting life anew in the States. And I was soooo scared about how I was going to manage to do so. My debt load was crushing me and made it next to impossible to follow you across the border.

As time went on I really began to have doubts as to what my life would be like with you. I began to believe, and rightly so, that I would mostly be a single parent. We would rarely have weekends/vacations together because there would always be work or some train event in the way. I began to realize that your love for me would never supercede your career ambitions, nor your dedication/passion/obsession for steam. Maybe even your obendience to Bill. Bill's been more of a father figure to you, than your own Dad. I once accused your father of being an emotional retard. Turns out I was a bit of one also.

These feelings, this fear, led to our first break-up. I am soooo sorry that I ever made you feel that you weren't good enough. I was soooo conflicted over thinking you were the one, my love for you, and my thoughts of not wanting the life that we were to be building. We obviously loved each other enough to get back together and attempt to move on together. There was soo much hope when it seemed like maybe you would get the job up here. But nothing was the only thing that kept happening. No movement. No alternate plans. No talk of the future. No promises. No assurances that it would all work out. OK... that's not all true. Part of my fear would not hear what you were saying. BUT, there was also no actions on your part to support those statements. We didn't nurture each other or the relationship. So the fear and distrust and unhappiness grew - despite an almost desperate love.

I became an ugly, needy lover. And my constant messages of fear, distrust and (subliminally) that you weren't good enough only fueled more bad behavior on your part and a need to assert your own independence. I can guess, only guess, that this is what you were subconsciously hearing. The less you gave the more I withdrew, the less I gave the more you withdrew. A never-ending vicious circle. I had lost my independence, I lost my joy in life. I let go of my own desires and passions to make myself available whenever you were and I grew more and more resentful.

You never came back to the relationship. You never re-committed. You were dishonest and deceitful. You grew increasingly distant and secretive. I had no reason to trust you. I should have called you on it before Christmas. I bought every excuse you fed me. I never should have let you come to the Olympics. You went to San Diego, bought a camera and fixed your car without paying me. You created an alternate FB account, and/or you locked your other FB account from me; you locked me out of your MySpace. You would never let me visit you. I knew these were red flags and I ignored them. Who knows what else you were up to...

Add into this a non-existent sex life, the pressures of maintaining a long distance relationship with conflicting schedules, and the constant unknown of when we would see each other again and the only natural conclusion is failure.

I know that you're not happy with your part in this. And even though you've moved on, I suspect that something is still not right within you. You're still "off" with how you've treated me. On one hand, I suspect that you'll never make it right between us. On the other, I hope that someday you'll pay me, and then we'll both move on - freer of heart and spirit.

I'm not happy with my part either. I'm so sorry for how much I pointed my finger at you, and didn't point it at myself. I wish I had the detachment and hindsight that time has now offered me. I wish I could have seen how badly I had been behaving. I was so focused on what I wasn't getting - what YOU weren't giving - I didn't have the smallest iota about what I WAS getting. At the same time I didn't have a clue about even admitting what it was that I did want and what I wasn't prepared to give for the relationship. Yes, there are compromises in relationships, but they don't include compromising yourself. No relationship is worth having if you give yourself up. And maybe that is what you saw. Maybe you saw what I couldn't.

So much of this I have written previously in piecemeal. Some of it I have only admitted partially in my mind and heart until now. Now it's out there. I am trying to put it all together to have fully learned the lesson and to say goodbye. To let go and move on.

I've begun dating again, even tried at a relationship. But I realized that I STILL haven't quite put you in my memories box. So I am attempting to do that now. Write it out and get it really clear for myself. The other part of this will be acknowledging all the parts of you that I loved. And that part of me that was so free and open when I met you. If I can connect those two things again, no matter how tenuously, I think I can be successful at another relationship. I will be moving to draw in the powers of the universe through the laws of attraction.