I haven’t been online for awhile. I haven’t seen the point. I haven’t wanted to talk about why we broke up because I felt like a fool. I was holding out hope we’d work it out. Hell, I still hope that someday we will find our way back to each other. We had something good. I know that it wasn’t something that people have all the time. It was warm and sweet and filled me with a joy that I didn’t think I’d ever know. He was a dream come true. I love him with every bone under my skin. I do believe he loved me with everything he had too. So why did we break up? I’m not even sure. I didn’t want it to end but it has. I have no choice but to move on. That is why I’m writing this - for myself. I need to speak the truth about it to the world. Not to make him look like the bad guy but to heal myself and let go.

Here’s the deal. I’m 24. I have no job. I am a high school drop out. On paper, I’m a total fucking loser. I am a good person. I have a clear head. I’m kind and smart and funny but I’m also a fuck up. I’m a lot of talk. I want good things for myself but I have a hard time getting myself to go after them. I worry that I can’t do it or that it’s wrong for me. I don’t have a family to believe in me. My family is the people I let into my life. Over the past year my family has been my ex, my roommate and her child, and my friend Mike (@labspaz). I’ve had to fight my whole life to get people to not give up on me. I’ve never been able to fully count on anyone. I’ve spent my whole life feeling lonely. Don’t get me wrong though, I like myself. Everything bad that has happened, every person that has given up on me, all the things I’ve fucked up on my own got me here today. I’ve learned from it all.

I’m sad and lonely and totally fucked up. To be totally honest, I could very easily kill myself. I don’t plan to but I am just that sad. I think about it a lot. So why won’t I kill myself if its so easy and I’m such a loser? I need to prove my ex wrong. He didn’t say so in so many words but he was clear that he felt he could do better than me. That we couldn’t go anywhere because we were in different points in our lives. We could have made it work if he wanted to but he gave up on me. I can’t totally blame him. I wasn’t getting the things I wanted and needed to get done done. I wasn’t in a place to.

Moving to Georgia was a mistake in many ways. I was running away from things I needed to do for myself. I thought it would be easier here. I thought my roommate, Gwen, would be there for me and help me. To be fair, she did for me what she could. And I enjoyed the time I’ve had here. Like with my ex,  I loved Gwen and Melody more than myself. I have been willing to put my life on hold for all 3 of them. I didn’t look for a job as hard as I could because I wanted to be able to go to Boston to see my ex and I wanted to be able to be home for Melody. I felt like they needed me. Maybe they did but I should have been more worried about myself.

I moved to Georgia to learn to drive and go to school and help with Melody. Melody and I have a good relationship now. We will always be close. However, I didn’t learn to drive and I didn’t go back to school. Gwen is busy 95% of the time. There wasn’t anyone to teach me to drive. We don’t have buses or sidewalks here so I couldn’t get to or from school without a car. I was fucked from the start.

Till I met Jertronic in person for the first time. It wasn’t planned. Last minute, I had to fly with Melody to Boston so she could see her dad. I hadn’t said anything to him because I knew I had such a crush on him and was worried he wouldn’t want to see me. Or maybe that he just wouldn’t like me. I told him the night before the flight that I’d be in Boston for 5 hours before flying back to Atlanta. I think he was sad that we most likely wouldn’t get to met up. We had been talking for months on AIM for hours and hours everyday. He was already my AIMBFF. We had so many fun inside jokes and it was just a great online friendship. There was nothing dirty or sexy about it. It was just friendship.

The day of the flight, I knew I wanted to see him. I knew I had to make it happen. I had a 5 hour layover but he had work. By the time the plane had landed, I had chicken out. I felt fat and ugly and like a loser and I didn’t want to lose the fun friendship we already had. I went out to lunch with Melody’s dad and her grandparents. They then gave me a short little drive around Boston. Before they dropped me off at the blue line so I could take it back to the airport, he told me he wanted to meet up. I was already kinda near his work so he could see me on his lunch break.

The moments before I saw him felt like years. When he got there, we hugged and hand to god, I couldn’t breathe. I knew then that I had already fallen hard for him. That hug felt like everything I had been waiting for. It scared the shit out of me. I knew I had a crush on him but in my heart, in those moments, I was already in love with him. I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to ruin the friendship and I didn’t want to risk losing him.

We only got to hang out for 30 minutes. Most of that, I did the talking. He didn’t say much at all. I couldn’t help but think, “Okay, well he doesn’t like you. This sucks but whatever. I’m glad I got a hug from my crush. I can still crush on him awhile. I didn’t want a boyfriend anyway. We live so far apart.” I couldn’t tell you what the fuck we talked about. I mostly only recall wanting to kiss him and thinking that I was stupid because he wasn’t into it.

After I left and got to the airport, he was very chatty with me on aim. He couldn’t stop. I’d later find out that he was just blown away that we got to meet. He had wanted to but didn’t think it would ever happen. For a week after we had our epic meet, he had been talking to me non-stop. It was so great. Then he told me he wanted to fly down to hang out with me because he thought I was so cool and stuff. Maybe about a week or so before he came to Atlanta for the first time, he told me he had a crush on somebunny! I was that bunny!

After the first night, that was it. I was totally his. He was totally mine. It broke my heart when he had to go back to Boston. I cried so hard. I was knew that I loved him yet I was so worried about what would happen next. We planned another trip soon after. The next trip, I told him I was in love with him. Well, I called it being “in heart” with him. I was still worried to let myself go totally. I knew once I started in on this that I was going to be in it forever. Everything about him was good. I don’t really know why. It wasn’t like I thought he was perfect. I knew that he had been hurt before. I knew that he was worried to love again. I knew he won’t want to get married or have kids or that we’d have that picture perfect relationship that you see in movies or tv. Being around him was more than enough for me. He was fun and funny and sweet. He made me want to try new things. It was easy to be with him. It was easy to have fun with him. It was easy for me to love him. I never wanted to change him. I loved him fully for who he was and what he made me feel when I was with him.

I still feel that way. I’d give anything to have him in my life. I’d follow him anywhere. I’d do whatever to make his life happy and all that he’d want it to be. I pretty much give anything to have him in my life. I never wanted to change him and I still don’t. He doesn’t want me. He thinks he can do better. He has moved on.

Our last trip was hard. He had told me he wanted to end it a week before Christmas via email after I called him out on pulling away from me. It had been that way pretty much as soon as he lost his job 4 months before. I should have seen it coming but I really didn’t. Even after a year and a half, I was falling more and more in love with him. I thought he’d change his mind once we were together. I wanted him to. I still feel like he made a mistake and that he will wake up one day and see he fucked up. Only he knows the real reasons why he dumped me but I feel like he is having a little midlife crisis. I would also if I turned 30, had a girlfriend that loved me and wanted to live with me soon, lost my job and had a hard time finding a new one. I do think his life at the moment isn’t what he wanted for himself. He wanted more. I can’t blame him. He could have more. 

The thing that hit me the most was when I found out that less than a week after I left Boston, he went to Canada to see a girl he met on tumblr. My understanding is that they had only been talking for about a month and he went to stay with her for 2 weeks. He knew he was going when I was there in Boston but he never said a thing. I think he didn’t want to hurt my feelings but he should have told me. I don’t know if he really dumped me for her but it kills me. I wonder if she is better than me. Does she have a real job? Does she know how to drive? Is she better looking? What makes her worth it? 2 weeks is a long time to spend with someone you don’t know. Our first trip was 4 days. Maybe she is the one for him. I have no idea. It isn’t about her really. What really kills me is that he gave up on me. I didn’t get the chance I should have.

He shut the door on us. I won’t say the door is locked but he slammed that shit shut. I don’t know if he can really let himself be loved and love someone for too long. I think he gets freaked out. Maybe he wants to end things before I could have ended them. I have no clue. His reasons are his own. All I know now is that he was wrong. He would have been lucky to keep me. All I can do with myself is keep going. I didn’t do the things I wanted because of him. He didn’t hold me back but the love I had for him was so much that it was all I did. I spent my days loving him. I couldn’t think about myself. All my thoughts were about our love. Even now that he has hurt me and made it clear that he doesn’t love me anymore, it is the love I felt from him that keeps me going. The person he is has made me see that I need to go after my dreams. He was a dream that I didn’t get to keep but I do feel lucky to have had it for the time I did.

Losing him has lit a fire under me. Or maybe I’ve just gone insane. I’m moving back to San Francisco to work on my dream of becoming a photographer. Like him, it is something that I have loved from the first time I touched it. I have no idea if I will make it but I have to go after my own dreams. I have to put myself first. He is able to put all of himself into the things he loves and I love that about him. I want that passion in my own life. I won’t lie to you guys or myself, I still want him. I’d take him in my life whatever way I could have him. However, I will not wait for him. I have to put myself first. I don’t know how we’d be able to make it work being on different coasts. I am worried that maybe I’m the one locking the door on us by moving. It just doesn’t matter though. I have to live my life for myself. I don’t believe that love just happens. Both people have to want it and work for it. Even if he changed his mind today, I’d still be moving to San Francisco next week. I have to love myself as much as I love him.

The sad fact of it all is I know that he’ll always kinda be the one that got away to me. I’ll always wonder what I could have done different. Even if I became some great photographer and was able to make a good living at it and all my other dreams came true, I’d be tempted to trade it all for him. I don’t think I’m so stupid as to really do it but I’d sure as fuck be tempted. I know I could find another love. I know it could be good or even better. It doesn’t make it easier to lose this love though. I may very well find someone even better than him. A man that is willing to try and make things work. A man that wouldn’t just give up on me or us. Someone that’s 100% willing to be loved by me and isn’t willing to risk losing me for someone better that might be out there. What gets me by day to day is that I know I loved him with everything I had. I didn’t hold back one bit as soon as I let go to my fears. By loving him, I learned how I should be loving myself. Now I’m ready to let go of my own fears about myself and go for the things I want and should have.