"This sort of certainty comes but once in a lifetime"
1:43 p.m. x January 21, 2004
Two years! God, it doesn't seem like that long. Then again, it seems like lifetimes ago that were lived in a haze. This perfect dream that I should have just woken up from and yet, I couldn't. With every bad thing and every good thing that happened in that dream, I wanted you more and more. I was addicted to you.
I didn't see it in the same light you did. Neither of us were wrong. We just had a different perception.
It hurt like hell at times and every night I would go to bed and think "Maybe she'll change her mind. I'd run to her if she just gave me one clue." I knew the truth of what we had, or didn't have, but my heart was too stubborn to listen and my head was... God only knows where.
I told you in the beginning that I'd have no regrets, and I've kept my word. I might have had temporary ones where I wished I'd grabbed your hand at the mall sooner, or made my intent clear when I said "don't" at the bar. My biggest one was probably being at that restaurant when you came to the hotel. A part of me will always believe that eating those pork chops sent my life on a totally different path. Still, I don't regret it. Life goes on and things happen for a reason. The friendship we have surpasses any past hope I had with you in that haze from a million lifetimes ago.
There's other things that I remember like yesterday, like how my legs shook and the keyboard kept falling on the floor when I told you I had a crush on you. I remember when you made fruit salad to take to work. All of these little, insignifigant things that built up into something important. You were my first in a lot of ways other than the obvious and a person never forgets their first. That's probably 50% of why I had such a hard time getting over you. Maybe I never did get over you. Maybe I just moved on. Maybe I just couldn't take the pain anymore, and I don't really think it's pain you caused me. I think it's pain I caused myself because I knew how things would turn out after the first time we broke it off. I couldn't stop going back for more. I loved you with all I had. I suppose I still love you. I went through hell for you, and if it meant we'd be where we are right now, I'd do it all again.
There are promises that I made that I still intend to keep. There is nothing or nobody that could prevent me from following through if I'm needed. We'll still grow old together, even if it isn't in the conventional sense, and if you die before I do, I won't let you die alone. I'm still here to hold your hand when you need it and I'm still here to try to make you feel good when you have a bad day.
So many people just told me to figuratively slam the door in your face and not look back, but I couldn't and I wouldn't. I walked on egg shells at times and sometimes I felt like I was walking on hot nails, but those times were insignifigant when things went right and there was some hope that maybe, just maybe, we stood a chance together.
What I saw as the simplest way to communicate with the person I loved is what you saw as this huge barrier. I didn't think of it as internet love. I saw it as "This is how I met you but everything from here on out is totally real." Maybe that was my problem. Maybe we didn't compromise enough on that one thing to have a mutual understanding. Then again, maybe we both knew it all along. I don't think it really matters anymore. Now I see you as my best friend that lives too far away to go see, so I just hop on the internet and wait if I want to "see" you. You're more than an online buddy to me. You're like the sister I never had that moved away when you grew up even though you didn't.
(And for anyone else reading this, there's a few other people that I see as real friends with internet. I don't want to sound harsh to anyone else while writing this.)
Anyway, it happens very rarely now, but once in a blue moon when I'm feeling vulnerable, I go back to that cabin. You know which one I'm talking about. I close my eyes and wish, just for a minute that you're standing there with your arms out, waiting for me. I know it can't happen (in reality, I don't want it to) and I know it's all pretend but it's mine.. ours.. and it's my safe place.
Today marks not one, but two anniversaries. It's two years since I confessed that I liked you, but it's a year since the last time you were convinced that you wanted to try to make things work enough to come to me with it. I think that one was doomed from the first day, since I wasn't around for you to tell me. Maybe we should have taken that as a cue but we didn't. I think, for once, I was pretty good at taking things at your pace, but it proved to me when it was over that it just wasn't in the cards for us. It proved to me that I needed to move on, and I still had times when I couldn't. Well, I could, but I was too stubborn. I didn't dare let go back then and I can't really explain why, not even to myself.
When we were together (in person) you drove me crazy, in the best way imaginable, but I realized that last time that we tried it (not in person) that my love for you was something I was going to have to keep to myself as best as I could and work through until I could honestly, completely be the friend that you needed me to be and the friend that I needed myself to be to you. I couldn't ever allow myself to be driven crazy by you again because it wasn't what you wanted and it wasn't what either of us needed.
You were the first woman I kissed, had a relationship with, had sex with. You were the first person that showed me that a relationship was more than sex. You were the first person that I would have died for (and still would, but not in that sense) and most of all, you were the first person that I ever fell in love with. I know that you understand that those things are things that I couldn't just walk away from immediately. I had to see the proof for myself that a relationship wouldn't work and I had to believe it because somewhere inside myself, I was convinced that it was too important to pretend like it never happened.
It did happen in those million lifetimes ago that just happened yesterday, but we needed that to make us who we are today. Sure, I've fallen in love with my best friend, but I did it in reverse order and I'm damn proud of it because I don't think we'd be where we are today if it started off as the friendship we have now and turned into something more. Maybe for someone else it might work, but when it comes down to "us" there's just no way and I'm glad that we went through what we went through because all of the pain in the world doesn't overshadow what I feel for you in this very moment. Yes, I get so angry with you at times that I could spit, but when it comes down to it, it isn't important enough to dismiss what we've had for the last two years - friendship.
Speaking of that, I think that was one of our setbacks. We couldn't just get into a spat like normal people in relationships do. When times got hard, we cut off contact and had to start from the very beginning. Yet, had we had a "normal" relationship (friendship or romantic) we wouldn't have bothered to start from the beginning so many times. You're my magnet. No matter how bad things get or how much space and time comes between us, I'm drawn right back to you, and vice versa.
It doesn't matter what got us to where we are today, and yet it matters more than anything else in the world. We are what we are because of it, and yet, we won't ever go back to it. On days like today, that's bittersweet to say the least.
Today, I'm going to turn on "our song" and close my eyes and think of "us" for four minutes and nine seconds, and when the song is over, I'm going to open my eyes and thank God for giving me the best friend I've ever had.
So, on a day that means nothing and everything at the same time, Happy Anniversary.