Here's what I think happened, part 4

We’re reaching the end. I couldn’t stand making all these plans, having all these hopes and mental images that were becoming microscopic chances that were not, apparently, meant to be. So I finally wrote another email that followed several he hadn't answered, asked what he wanted to do. Said it wasn’t necessarily a fair question - demanding a decision, but I couldn’t find the fairness in asking myself to wait endlessly for someone to decide if I was wonderful and worthwhile or just too much work. I wanted his interest – to try – or I wanted out. So we agreed that taking an indefinite break was the right thing for now. And I let go.

OK, I tried to let go. After 7 months of having someone – in some way or another – it’s tremendously difficult for me not to reach out to them. Demand more attention. Why wasn’t he reading my blog? Why couldn’t he take some time to send email? Just to see if I was OK? What had I done wrong? Did he think I was crazy? Was I? If I’d calmed down, would he have come around? Should I have waited longer? What if we were almost to the turning point and I’d let go days too early?

And so it hurt. I didn’t understand completely, but I tried. He was busy, though I hate that excuse. It makes me feel small and unimportant, and I so badly wanted to matter to him. I couldn’t get his attention – regardless of my numerous efforts in recent months – and I wondered what part of me was lacking. It was difficult. I was sad with no outlet. I still cared about him very, very much. He was a good guy I met at a bad time. And while it seemed like such an easy thing to overcome – the timing - there were just too many factors working against us. But that was OK. It wasn’t meant to be. I would live.

At least until he did the smart thing, changed his mind, and asked me back. So instead of fantasies of us together – being happy and intimate and close – I pictured his return. He’d miss me, I thought. He’d have to if he felt even the tiniest fraction of what I felt. He’d realize that dating is a rather miserable process and it would be better to deal with someone he already knew – me – who understood him, appreciated him. Then I could bring back my happy little plan! Move, date, see what happened. It could still come together. It was better – healthier – to let go in the short term, but the hope that I’d still end up with what I wanted was irresistible. So I indulged in it. Continued to hold his spot in my heart because I thought he’d want it back.

But I want things now – impatience is a character flaw. So I tried to figure things out. Make myself more appealing somehow. Get his attention. If you've ever had someone make you feel special and beautiful and important, then stop, you'll understand. It's hard to explain. I wanted him to make me feel happy again. So I tried to understand what was taking up so much time when he should just change his mind already.

[This is hard. Really, terrifically difficult. Were it not for the nudge from Unnamed Friend, I would leave it alone for another day. Let myself dwell here in the worst part - the most confusing part - of the pain. She said it might be good to get through it. I agreed, then went to bed. Cried. Wondered how much good advice I'm going to turn down? So here we are. Bear with me.]

So, bored on Friday night, doing work that was uninteresting, having no plans, I snooped around. Looked for sites that linked to him. And I found one. Read, with increasing sickness, someone else write of feelings I remembered from my own beginning with him. This awe that someone so wonderful existed and found her. How she was simultaneously thrilled and miserable because he was out there, but not physically close to her. There was more, and I read all I could find, then sat. I knew all those feelings – they were once mine. It was all so familiar and how he could have been all that for someone else for months while ignoring me – when I needed him, was waiting for him… I was sick.

Then came the angry email. I had sighed earlier over our gentle ending. If nothing ever happens, I thought, it just kind of died softly. It mattered to me – there should have been something to signify the ending! It’s not even a good blog story because there’s nothing to say. I fell in love, and he didn’t. He was wonderful, but it didn’t work. I eventually gave up, but held on to the hope that he’d eventually see me again. Eh - not a good story at all. Unsatisfying. So I dealt with the sadness that I wasn’t going to find anyone. If he didn’t come back – and I knew he wouldn’t though the hope was strong – I was on my own. So I tried to work through a bit of that.

Ah, but this was the drama I had sought, apparently. I was wronged! Betrayed! He was certainly evil! And I wrote.

I need an answer to a question as I decide whether I regret you completely or just considerably. When I offered you the out in July - [when he said he was in love with someone else] - why didn't you take it? It strikes me as infinitely more honorable.

Because when there are other women online (and yes, it makes me mildly pathetic that I looked) who profess love for you, it strikes me as despicable (I'm angry, yes.) that you couldn't own that. This is just ... beneath you. If how I'm seeing you now is in any way correct, then how I saw you before was incomprehensibly wrong. I honestly don't understand how I could have been so completely incorrect.

This is childish - this whole thing likely has been. So - my apologies. I wish it hadn't happened. I'm going to assume you'll act on my request to delete any emails you still have. Please forget it - I - ever happened. I just couldn't tolerate the idea of you thinking of poor, dear Katie - of this sad girl who loved you based on something completely incorrect. So. Forget it. Please. Never happened.

And I was awake all night waiting for an answer. It didn’t come, so I wrote some more. I was lost in pain – sharp, sick misery – and needed him to make it all better. He had to. It was what he did for me – even when we were bad together, he knew what to say. There had to be an explanation I could accept. Something I could cling to as I was so hurt and confused. My next email? OK.

Please say something. Help me make sense of all this. Indicate the irony in how I now have a much better understanding of how you were hurt. Tell me why you were glad I asked about visiting over Thanksgiving. Offer me some explanation of how someone I thought was so wonderful, compassionate and self-aware could have done something so cold and selfish for so long. Anything. Tell me something so that I can stop being sick, or perhaps grow sicker in the short term so that I can be better in the long term. How could you know how I felt - about you, about being ignored, my hopes for the future - and hurt me so badly?

You owe me something here. ... give me some closure on this. Please. Soon. I can't stand myself right now and don't know how to escape it without understanding it.

And he tried, bless him. He offered more words that were lovely and soothing, and I let myself try to believe them. I ought to let him go – we just weren’t right. What we had was genuine – he had cared and hoped we’d be together, but there was too much working against us. He just couldn’t hold on anymore. He was sorry. He knew he was cold and cruel to have hurt me when he knew how I felt. But there wasn’t anyone else for him. It was sad, but I should trust the next man. He would love me and I should give to the next love all that I hadn’t been able to give this love. I’ve never been able to share his words with anyone – have protected them viciously. I've paraphrased here because I need to – they’re all I have to figure this out. But much of what you’re reading - and have read in the earlier posts - is his. Phrases and sentences I’ve memorized and included because they became a part of this whole situation. He just writes so well. I was eased a bit, felt better. He did care, I told myself firmly. We had something. It’s OK. Nothing’s really changed.

But apparently he didn't write quite well enough. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wanted to fight - hurt him because I was so miserable. So there's one more email I'll share.

I hate this. Feeling like this - being like this. It's miserably undignified. Messy. Overly dramatic even for me. I'm trying to figure out the point in all this. Largely because I was letting you go. I absolutely know we weren't going to happen and have been slowly and painfully accepting that for months. That, my dear, isn't your fault or responsibility. Things change. You were in a rather bad place when we started, and were honest about that, so it's easy to warn myself not to do this again and move on.

Until I read... I don't know if I can do this. Write it out and point to this other woman who seems to mirror my early feelings for you. Because I'm sure she's lovely and perhaps what you feel for her is real and I don't want to have bad feelings toward that. I hope you find someone amazing when you're ready for her. I think I just wanted to hold on to you as some really nice event in my memory. And I don't think I can. Because if there's someone in [state removed] who - justified or not - believes that she's dating you, is considering moving to be with you [at some point], well, as you say, I know how that goes.

That puts me in the position of considering myself just a blip in your life as you moved on to something better, or one of many women you used to feed your ego or ... I don't know - whatever it is you're trying to do. The blip is OK. I could say that something happened and while it wasn't right, it was rather lovely while it lasted. But the latter - reading someone eager for your next email, telling her friends about you? God, [name], I think that's kind of sick. How many of us are there? And why? And I think I keep thinking about it because it just doesn't fit. You're brilliant so it can't be that you don't understand what you're doing. And while you are justifiably selfish and cold to some minor degree, using someone so blatantly would require you to be some quite different than the man I thought I knew. Did I really read you so wrong? How is that possible?

You're right about much of what you said. This was always my deal and I take responsibility for it. Had hoped to retain friendly feelings toward you because I thought you were so great. But faced with evidence to the contrary, I'm just lost. I was pleased with you - I picked you at the wrong time, but had circumstances been different, I decided I was getting closer to finding what I wanted. But now? Wow. I don't want to view whatever it was that we had differently. I'll let you go, but I wanted to wish you well in doing so. End well. This is not ending well at all. Instead of a dull ache of missing you but knowing it's for the best, I'm struck with this miserable, sharp, sick regret. I don't want it. I want you to make it go away. And in the event that you can't, that much of what we had was not true, I think I want to hurt you. Which isn't something I can like or respect in myself. This is just so wrong - not at all how it was supposed to be, even in my worst case scenario preparation.

I'm sorry - I'm struggling right now and trying to make myself feel better. I can't imagine doing this again with anyone, which is the truly awful part in all this. Hopefully it will pass, and I'm sure I'll forgive you completely because there was really very little of this over which you should feel badly at all. I know that, despite recent words to the contrary. I guess I hope you don't hurt her - or anyone else - as you continue to pull yourself together and thrive. Ever since learning about transitional relationships, they've struck me as selfish to some extreme degree. Just bouncing off people, taking out past hurts on those who don't deserve it, taking comfort in the fact that you can hurt as well as be hurt. (Not that you did all those things - I'm speaking generally.) I have no interest in participating in that, and I'm unfortunately at an age where everyone has something regrettable in his/her past.

Enough, though. You're right about that. I wish I hadn't read her last night - it was a really, really bad idea. But I'll leave you alone now. It just wasn't supposed to end this badly. But there you go.

When he said there wasn’t much he could say, he was right. I was told that she misunderstood – had been informed that he didn’t return her feelings. That just because someone loved him didn’t mean he loved her back. And, oh, how well I knew that fact. Had spent painful months learning it. But it hurt terribly to hear. Then he apologized. He usually writes in long paragraphs. Mine are short - I think they're easier to read, ensure that you get my points, indicate my degree of sincerity. So when his apologies came double spaced on the screen, I believed him. I don’t stay angry at those I love - didn't want to be angry at him - so I read it and closed my eyes at the pain.

I wanted him. Was lonely and felt this connection. I thought he returned my feelings. And he said he had for a while. That it was real, just not right. So I cried when I told him I was sorry too. Asked that he take care of himself. Offered some instructions on how to do that – things I thought were important – because in my mind, I had hoped to handle some of them. But I wasn’t going to get to take care of him. This was final. He had ended it and I appreciated it. He could have taken such advantage of me - I would have offered him everything. No questions or reservations or promises necessary. So through resisting all these steps forward - the phone calls, the meetings, sex, my moving to be near him so I could dote in person - he saved me a tremendous amount of pain. I'm grateful. And as for ending it now? I didn’t know that I’d be able to do it on my own - needed him to say that it was over. But it hurt. I had doubts of what we’d had, his intentions, but I nudged them aside in favor of aching with the loss. And it hurt.

There's more. I don't know if I can get through it. I really don't. His part is over though. I haven't heard from or written to him since. Well, I have written, but I didn't send them. I swear.

The thing is that I miss him. When I think of people who could help me right now, he tops the list. Even with all of this, I want to make excuses. Offer "No, but..." to anyone who thinks this was not so great. Maybe I forced him into it? But, no, I don't see how. He appeared to have started things with her when we weren't doing well? True - and I was comforted by that, still had a tiny glimmer of hope that eventually we could be friends. (So he could fall in love with me at long last, of course). Because I didn't handle myself so well. We were not exclusive, though I really think I told him that if he decided to email other women - share something like what we had - that I wanted out. But maybe I didn't write that to him. Maybe she really was confused - had chased him and he didn't want to hurt her. So while it hurt and I was angry and confused, I think I would have still hoped for him. It was, after all, just one other woman.

Except, not so much.

But I don't know if I can get through that. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It doesn't make sense to me at all, regardless of how hard I try to figure it out. Plus, when the story ends, there's nothing left to say. You'll know what I had to get out of my head, but I'll still be sad, disappointed and lost. I don't know that this was a good idea. It was hatched out of pain and it has helped some, I think, but I don't know that I can wrap it up. Don't want to admit it. I like my entries to end with hope! With some brightness even when I'm sad. And there's nothing I can offer at the end of this. So I don't know that I can end it. Maybe this is enough.

Regardless, for now, it's all I've written.