God, how I hate being in this place,
It has been a while since I have had to suffer the awful, gnawing pain of heartache. It feels like suffocating. It feels like dying inside. I know you all have been there and know what I am talking about. I have suffered such horrible heartbreak in the past that I have built walls and maintained distances just to prevent it from happening again. But of course we all have to live our lives and we all meet people who are special to us.
So this particular girl is someone whom I went to college with years ago. We were close friends and nothing more at the time, but shared a strong bond that I valued more than many romantic relationships I had been in or have since been in. We would stay in contact to some extent. She would send me cards on holidays and these random, sweet "care packages" of goodies, just because she is a kind and thoughtful person like that. She was in a bad marriage for several years, and during that time we lost touch, since her husband was the jealous type, apparently, to put it mildly.
She found an old email address of mine some time after her marriage broke up. We started talking regularly, then more regularly, then we somehow became a couple. A long-distance couple. She lives in Idaho, and I am on the east coast. We have gotten together several times, including a really fun and romantic NYC trip, but the "next step" of talking about being together all the time has been avoided (mostly by me).
There is my fear of commitment, there are those "walls" I have mentioned that I have built around myself, there is the gravity of doing something like moving across the country and joining a family with children (she has two), and there is probably some degree of me being a weenie, too. But we have been more or less stagnant for months now; making daily small talk via text message and not doing much serious talk.
So last night she finally sort of went off (via text) and said "I am sick of trying. If you don't want me in your life, why don't you just say so?" Like an idiot, I allowed myself to lash out in defensive anger and said in response, "We're not good together." To which she replied something like "At least you finally had the balls to tell me, instead of letting me wonder for months," To this I responded, oh-so-brilliantly, "fuck off." I am the king of self-sabotage, you see,
I hurt her deeply, and felt immediately my own crushing heartache.
I apologized not long after, but the damage has been done, I think. I don't know what out future is, but I don't want it to end like this. When we first started to become more than friends, I expressed to her the fear that I risked losing a very dear and true-blue friend if it didn't work out. Now I am starting to taste that very real possibility. And it really, REALLY sucks.
Thank y'all for listening.
It has been a while since I have had to suffer the awful, gnawing pain of heartache. It feels like suffocating. It feels like dying inside. I know you all have been there and know what I am talking about. I have suffered such horrible heartbreak in the past that I have built walls and maintained distances just to prevent it from happening again. But of course we all have to live our lives and we all meet people who are special to us.
So this particular girl is someone whom I went to college with years ago. We were close friends and nothing more at the time, but shared a strong bond that I valued more than many romantic relationships I had been in or have since been in. We would stay in contact to some extent. She would send me cards on holidays and these random, sweet "care packages" of goodies, just because she is a kind and thoughtful person like that. She was in a bad marriage for several years, and during that time we lost touch, since her husband was the jealous type, apparently, to put it mildly.
She found an old email address of mine some time after her marriage broke up. We started talking regularly, then more regularly, then we somehow became a couple. A long-distance couple. She lives in Idaho, and I am on the east coast. We have gotten together several times, including a really fun and romantic NYC trip, but the "next step" of talking about being together all the time has been avoided (mostly by me).
There is my fear of commitment, there are those "walls" I have mentioned that I have built around myself, there is the gravity of doing something like moving across the country and joining a family with children (she has two), and there is probably some degree of me being a weenie, too. But we have been more or less stagnant for months now; making daily small talk via text message and not doing much serious talk.
So last night she finally sort of went off (via text) and said "I am sick of trying. If you don't want me in your life, why don't you just say so?" Like an idiot, I allowed myself to lash out in defensive anger and said in response, "We're not good together." To which she replied something like "At least you finally had the balls to tell me, instead of letting me wonder for months," To this I responded, oh-so-brilliantly, "fuck off." I am the king of self-sabotage, you see,
I hurt her deeply, and felt immediately my own crushing heartache.
I apologized not long after, but the damage has been done, I think. I don't know what out future is, but I don't want it to end like this. When we first started to become more than friends, I expressed to her the fear that I risked losing a very dear and true-blue friend if it didn't work out. Now I am starting to taste that very real possibility. And it really, REALLY sucks.
Thank y'all for listening.