Never before

When it's all over, he was changing sheets. He informed me that he had a guest over the next evening. I straightened the sheets with him. Pulling the old sheets out and putting on the new. We chitchatted in the calmness after a heated love-making session. "In France, the pillows are all in square shape. I like the feel of your pillowcases. They have small patterns in the fabrics. They reminded me of mine." I told him. The windows had been open. He left them open to air out the apartment. To let the smell of fresh sex to escape. The comforter's cover felt like the ones I had bought in my French house. That 1800 farm house was mostly decorated with white furnishings. I chose a monochromatic color scheme because the house was largely white or gray. French white with window covers painted in gray. White burgundy stone slap floor on some section of the house and dark wooden floor on others. My favorite bedroom was the third one: it overlooked at the canal and the lavender meadow. It was not a large bedroom, with tilted ceiling, but I liked it nonetheless. I imagine he would too. If he ever wanted to come with me.

Earlier.  He told me that he thought I'd break up with him. I was surprised by his comment. I asked him why. He said that I was no longer happy with him. That I wanted to move on. To form a relationship where it was more than he could ever give me. In the darkness he did not see me crying. He failed to recognize one important aspect of the equation. I couldn't move on unless he let me go. I couldn't leave him if I knew he wanted me. He said, "But I do want you." He kissed me to assure me. My love for this man, this man approaching middle age, was the only romantic love I had ever felt for another man. He represented everything I ever wanted from someone: kind, gentle, loving, passionate, intense, open, and yet, emotionally distant.

When he was getting ready to leave, I waited at a chair in the living room, sitting and waiting. I couldn't stop staring at him. He's beautiful to me. Breathtakingly beautiful regardless how old he would become.

I feared him leaving me, thus I had planned a future without him to test that scenario out, like an earthquake drill practice. He built sims for living, and it was not unlike that. In my head, during my depressive state, resulted often by his prolonged physical absence from my life, I often created a simulated environment, a mental state where he no longer existed in my world, and in that environment I experienced a life-like heart break, each time the experiment felt more real, and his eventual departure felt more imminent. In that state of being, I couldn't sleep, eat or function. I forgot how to breathe. I cried by my sorrow of losing him forever, and I wondered if there was ever a way to come out of it. I knew, no matter how strong I was, when he eventually no longer desired me, when I actually had to pick up my pieces and move on, I would not be devastated, because I'd have had enough of this drills, these simulations. I would simply cease to exist at a certain level. I would shut down that side of me permanently: passionate, funny, alive, and  in love.  I would resort back to the lifeless machine that did things to keep the engine running efficiently, but without a soul.

I had never felt this way until I met him, the words of "heart break" or "passionately in love" felt like a foreign words only used in cheesy romantic novels or coming of age movies. I laughed at those sentimentality, it was child play. I believed no grown adult could ever felt that way. That was until he came along.

He thought that I'd move on one day, to find someone else to love,  to start a complete new life with. In his imagination, the other person's presence in my world became more solidified, he took shape, he was more real than ever, and he resorted to believe I'd eventually leave him.

I asked him what his desired state was. "I want you to be happy. And I want you to be happy with me." He confessed while holding me. It was difficult for him to admit that, to admit that he wanted me to be happy, but not to be with anyone else, but to be with him.  He doubted that he could make me happy. And in a sense, he had resigned to believe that lead to my eventual departure. I moved my body so that I was ridding on top of him, with my full breasts dangling in front of his face. He sucked on my nipples as I addressed his concern. "It does not take much for me to be happy with you. I just a bit more communication. I want to know that you still care about me. That you still want me. When you stopped responding to me, I thought you no longer wanted me."

Once when I was holidaying in Ubud, Bali, every night I swam in the infinity pool. The garden was filled with plumeria flowers, night blooming jasmine and passion fruit. I often wondered, as I stared into the sky filled with twinkling stars, what he was doing, who he was with, and I wondered if one day we'd stop feel this way about one another. The insecurity we felt for each other, the permanent longing, the sense of completeness when we were with one another, would it all go away? Often I was touched by my own softness in my heart, my desperate yearning for his love, and my sadness for not able to be with him on a more regular basis, that I'd feel so much pain in my chest. Oe moment I was looking into the sky, another my face was covered with tears. I couldn't believe that after that many months and years had passed between us, I still wanted him, loved him, desired him as if I just had met him.

Thirty six months and counting, the butterfly in my stomach never went away. That evening I wrote "Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind," a short story about him and me, because I couldn't believe that any relationship could last this long and still feel brand new, yet there I was.

As I once again laid next to him, I told him, "I don't care that I don't know much about you. I don't know where you grew up. What you did when you were young. Did you grow up in corn fields? What was your childhood like? I never asked you any of these things. I don't care that I don't know you at all. I know enough to know that you love me. Do you still love me?" I  asked.

He hugged me tightly, "I love you so much." He had not changed, alas, I had worried for nothing.

Like he feared of me breaking up with him, I feared that he'd abandon me and move on. I couldn't believe that he could love me the way he did when we first met. I couldn't believe that he had not gotten bored of me. I couldn't believe that my love could be returned.

How could I tell him that he ought not to fear? I would never be with another, as long as he desired me.

He looked tired. He looked like he had a long day. He changed his flight to be with me. He wanted to see me, no matter how limited time he had. Time, always stood still when I was with him. Time, or lack thereof, always separated us. Time, was fleeting. Time, the true commodity he had very little of.

As he prepared to leave, he cracked more windows open, the bathroom window that faced the backyards of the other houses and the bay in the distance.

We parted ways. He said that he'd be busy next week, after being gone for two weeks, he needed to be doing some child care duties. I wondered idly if those duties involving going out to eat or having a break in the park, or if he could slot me in, but I did not want an answer I already knew.  "Could I see you?" I asked. "I'm busy. But I'm sure I'll find some time." He said.

I knew better to ask if he really meant it.

A very long road ahead, indeed. I'd been on it for the last many years. I did not know if I could handle that level of absence. How he could be one moment excited to see me and another moment radio silent? I knew what I always knew. I had never loved another like I did him. I did not have a choice in this road. I chose him and the whole him. He was perfect for me, as I was perfect for him.

In a road that filled with uncertainties,  love was the only thing that ever mattered. I was stumped. Finally.

Rewrite the story

He told me that he had read my blogs, about my trip to Harbin and whether I fucked the person I went with. He had been reading my blog, to my surprise, and it made me uneasy. Still, I should write how I feel because I tell him everything anyway.

He just arrived from Boston, he traveled a lot lately and he's been gone and I'd not seen him. I was upset with him because he made a plan with me and then he forgot all about it.

He said that I want to break up with him. I think I am afraid of him leaving me. So in that mode we stuck, each thinking the other would leave us and in that mode we reunited, feeling intense for each other, three years later, passion runs so deep and so original, nothing has ever changed between us.

He said that he's not been in a relationship like this, so passionate, so connected, that my body and my temperament suited him. I have never felt this much in love with a man. He could be penniless and I would not give a shit.

I have never taken him for granted. I feel that I love him more than anyone I've ever met.

But I don't know how to move this story forward. He will never change. No marriage or happily ever after for us.

I don't want to be stuck in a situation where this stalls out andI have no idea how to finish the story.

But I can't do any other relationships. I can't get excited about anyone else.

It turns out, the curse of being in love is that you cannot love another person.

Booty Call

A relationship is defined not necessarily by the extent by which one connect with another but by how lengthy, how in-depth the connection is, even though the act itself seemed like a booty call to ordinary people. She has known him for years. He’d say that they’ve passed the dating stage. He’s married, in his early 30s, extremely call, Swedish, hipster, and a professional. The years they had spent together, it was at first going out, then just staying in, and from time to time, they may find an opportunity to grab a drink but for the most part they focused on one thing and one thing only: fucking. When his wife is away, when her family is away, they’d text each other on a very sporadical basis and they’d find time to meet and fuck. When he bought his new house, she went for an early morning visit and a late evening visit, and when his wife was out of town, he texted her to come over. They did not exchange emails or call each other on other days, yet their connection was real. She found sex with him deeply satisfying. He was always a great lover and he was one of the only ones who knew how to get her to come.

It was not a logical choice of a relationship, but it’s one that works. In those nights and days they spent together doing nothing but fucking, they have perfected many others have failed, the art of pleasuring each other.

Fear

I had never ever talked to him on the phone like this. We had never talked on the phone ever before this. I called him this morning after realizing that my flight would be delayed that I won't be able to see him after all.

He answered right away and he seemed a bit disappointed.

When I landed he was already boarding the plane. Boston bound.

He promised to talk tonight. So he called. I missed his call initially but then I called him back and then he called me back again.

We chatted nearly 40 minutes. We've never spoken like this before. Somehow he sensed my panic. My manic depression was setting in. I did not know that he feared that I was changing. I did not know that that because it felt that he was worried about me changing. Getting divorced and remarried. That's what he worried.

I would never remarry. I would never be with anyone like I have with him. He does not know that of course. His behavior affects me. When he does not see me or respond to my emails, I fear that he no longer wants me. While I understand that when he truly stops wanting me, I can then be set free, I also understand that my biggest fear is that he no longer wants me. The thought of him no longer wanting me makes me cry. I cannot imagine a world without him. I fear he'd leave me, abandon me, he'd never want to be with me any more.

Does it make sense?

I fear that he no longer wants me.

That thought makes me cry.

Let's just fuck

Can we skip all the messy stuff and go right to fucking? I don't want a relationship. I don't even want the word of "love" uttered. I just want to fuck. I don't want to be your girlfriend. I don't want to have all the messy stuff of meeting your friends or family. I just want to fuck you. Keep it straight and simple, with no emotional shit. I can't handle it. You can't fake it. It's just a pretense for fucking.

Why bother with it? I think we should go back to the basics. Let's fuck.

Nothing else really is important.

Nothing else will work.

Let's fuck.

Can we do that?

I don't to pretend that we need anything more.

I just want to have sex with you.

Addiction

I heard from him. Then I did not. He wanted to see me. He does not want to see me. I wanted to be with him in a way that I couldn't explain. I find it to be instinctual. I have never wanted him as much I have wanted anyone else. It's not logical. I would like to tell him that I feel this conflicted. I am scared of my emotional side of him. I am also able to shut it down just enjoy the pure sexual aspect of it.

He is my addiction. 

Cluttered thoughts

In a not so surprising move, he contacted me and wanted to see me when he landed, at midnight, on a Friday. For a couple of hours. He did not even have a full evening for me, only a couple of hours. I'm more like a call girl than his girlfriend, which, quite frankly is something I could handle. If I did not love him, and if he did not claim that he loved me back.

The inconsistency in our relationships baffles me. In part I feel in m gut that he loves me. But I want more. When you become someone's girlfriend, when the words of "I love you"s are exchanged, when you are lost in each others eyes, when you have created an illusion that the relationship could and should advance, because you love someone, and you respect them, and instead you are treated like you did not exist when a previous plan is made, and he resort back to this asshole who treats you like you were just some cheap piece of meat, and pretend everything was alright, you are conflicted.

Does he love you? Does he want to be with you? Did he just play with your head and get what he wants and leave you when he feels like it? Does he want this relationship to turn into something substantial? The real truth is somewhere in between never and possible.

But when I am in this relationship with him, I can't help but want more. Unlike my younger lover who is married and is not always available, I do not feel that I could expect the same from him. I want him to be mine and all mine. I want him to be with me and no one else. I want a future. I want to meet his friends. His family. I want to be part of him. I want to become part of him. I simply want a traditional relationship with modern twists, but I want a real relationship, like I mattered. Like I can count on him.

What I think I did wrong was that I am very good at managing expectations. I usually do not expect him to come through with things. Then he does, and he seems to be on his best behavior, like he actually does love me, and then he disappear and does not answer me when he is supposed to see me on that day, and then not want to commit on when to see me again. Meanwhile I have again in my head grown to be close to him and wanted to see him on a regular basis. The expectation is difficult to manage not because I should not have set one, but the extent of our relationship has grown from just a casual thing to a fake couplehood. Like I'm his girlfriend. If that's the case the dynamic has to change. But I know he does not want it to change. He still wants to do whatever he wants and wants me whenever he wants me and does not want me to be part of his other world, which I want desperately to enter. I want to get to know him and not just the limited bedroom side of him.

I don't know how. I think from time to time that I can manage it, but I can't.

I think from time to time that I deserve that but then he shows me just how undeserving I'm.

I don't know if I'm able to talk to him about it. I don't eve know where to start. I am so filled with sadness. I feel that my needs will never be met. And to go back to the sexual relationship is only going to work if we no longer love each other. 

No looking back

Just when I was done telling N8 about my entire past and told him that I'd never go back to BF, and that my swedish lover is still around and maybe it's time to go back to him, My phone beeped. It wass the Swede who informed me that his wife is out of town and wanted me for a visit of his second and new house.

I have not been.

I saw him just yesterday.

I never get his text.

I enjoy having fun with him.

I will never love him.

He will never tell me shit like he loves me.

I responded.

I cannot be in an emotionally distant sexless marriage, and also be in an emotionally distant sexless relationship with my BF.

Some has to give.

I am not moving on, but I can longer be that helpless person waiting for BF to love me again.

He has moved on. Or not.

But I do know that he no longer wants or desire me.

And I must move on.

I have not decided to write to him or not. But I know I have cried way too many times for him. I can longer forgive myself.

I don't know if I have strength to move on.

But I must not look back.

I cry

 cry for a past that cannot be changed, a present cannot be realized, and a future that is unattainable. I say goodbye to my past, my pain, and I say goodbye to my illusion. How do I move on? I have been stuck in this rot for the past three years, and I’ve been unable to move on. He has not changed. I fell in love with a man who cannot and will not love me back the way I deserve to be loved. A man who declares that he loves me so much that I’m his love, yet unable to make time to see me, and cannot form a relationship with me that entails any sense of normalcy. I see him every few weeks, randomly, he wants me and he does not. He does not want me more often now. I therefore do not feel desired or loved or adored. I therefore sink into depression. Yet I’m drawn to the pain, the longing, the love I have felt for no one but him, and I cannot change the fact, the reality is that I wanted to will a different outcome, and that sad abandoned little girl would be able to find a different future, and she’d be rescued. But that would never happen. When you suffer from multiple PTSD and develop multiple personality to cope with it, the scared abandoned little girl is the one you cannot wake up. When you wake up her, you lose the other persons, and you will forever feel the sorrow, eating you alive, one bite at a time. I must cry. But I must leave.

N8 said that most abuse victim cannot make a real change until they leave everything behind. And leave the person that is causing the pain. If there is anything I have learned is that my BF has caused nothing but pain. The endorphins I experienced when I’m with him is offset by the constant longing and broken promises.

There is no future with him. It’s a delusional for me to think that there could be a future. Because he had changed for me. There is none. He is no longer just a figment of my imagination. He gave me words like I love you, you are mine. He calls me his girlfriend and “my love”, but he cannot even bring himself to see me. 

No matter what his reasons are, I need to leave. i can’t say that I can’t leave I cannot return. This time is different. I must leave. I must leave when I still love him. I must leave before my world ends and the little girl is forever trapped inside of me. I must let the little girl die. I must dissolve her and start my life again. Without her this time. Without her wanting to come out and play. Without her wanting him, and hoping a future with him. 

So I cry. Each time I cry, I feel a bit of me coming back, and each time I cry, I say goodbye to the little lost girl who will never find her way home. 

travel

I caught the travel bug when I was merely three years old. We took the train from Changsha to Wuhan, from there we boarded the ship sailing up north on Yangzi river, through the three gorges and arrived in Hefei, An Hui. An Hui is to close to Shanghai, and we often visited the surrounding cities. When I was four I was sent to live with my uncle in Haerbin, the most glamorous European styled city in Manchuria. We had family in Qiqihaer, another city in Manchuria. When I was 7 I started to spend summers in Beijing and Shanghai. By the time I arrived in America at age 15, on my own, I had already felt a well seasoned traveler. My first city to visit during the spring break was New York City. I fell in love in Chinatown, Little Italy and the subway to Queens. I loved the smell, the chaos, the darkness of the sky, the different ethnicities. I thought I'd one day move there, I still think that. There are very few cities and states I've not been since then, having chosen a field that allowed me to travel.

I could mostly only related to men who traveled, no doubt it had to do with my father being away a lot when i was little, he was rarely home and he seemed to enjoy his business trips. 

Leopard print bras

I have a pair of bras leopard prints, and stockings. Black garter belt. I left in your place a year and half ago, when I returned from India, we stopped seeing each other for a bit. I wanted them back and then we got back together and I never did.

May I please have them back? I would like to take them back from you. This time for good.

I would like to have them back. I want the las piece of me, back. away from you.

I cried but really what is the next step

I wrote you a long email in my head. I wrote it while I was getting a sports massage. I have crafted a letter with such careful words, emotions and it was filled with tears. I cried for an hour and forty minutes, the entire massage session I cried.

I did not cry because I blamed you for anything. I blamed me for everything. For creating a dream that was based on nothing, for wanting him to love me back so much so that all I could see was this little girl, holding her knees, bending down in a corner. She cried and cried, wanting to be loved back and she was not. She never was. She was beaten. Abused, molested, tormented, and she was left alone. I loved the feeling of sadness and longing unfulfilled by him. I love the constant on my best behavior to bring sunshine love and adoration to a man who cared very little about me but went along with the game. One moment he behaved like a real boyfriend who loved me one moment he disappeared like I never existed. I liked that. I wanted to will a different outcome from my relationship with him than the one I did live for so long. I wanted affirmation. I wanted someone to love me. I wanted someone to not love me back to treat me right because that's the only way I knew love was. He has not changed at all. I wanted something else. I wanted his love I wanted him to change I wanted him to love me back so that I could stop feeling the pain I always did since I was very little.

Once my therapist said that I had multitude of PDSD, untreated and somehow I managed to survive it all. I did not think I could. I wanted him to heal me. I loved him with so much intensity it evens cared me. I loved him because I knew he would go unaffected by my love. He was unable to feel like others did. So I practiced true love. Once I sent "Waiting" to a man whom I turned down. He said, "That's true love. It should have lasted forever. I'm sorry it did not. I don't know what to say." I love love loved loved you.

I loved like I have never loved before. I felt every breathe you took, I remembered every word uttered out of your mouth, I remember how I saw you from a distance and close by, I remembered how the world felt like a more complete place when I was with you. I remembered the last sunset I caught by your window, across the bay, the disappearing fog, the rouge, the every inch of my body filled with warmth from your touch, and the melancholy for I did not know if I'd ever see you again.

No, I never knew when 'd see you again. Even when you promised that you'd see me again the following week, I could not count on it. I never kew because I knew that was always your pattern. Your desire for me was hinged on the separation. Your love for me was conditioned on how you lusted me, if at all. You always had other women. I imagined that you lived with them when you were not with me. I imagined that your world was filled with lies and you told me very little about you so I made up the rest of your world with my imagination.

I wondered if you ever wanted to see me but I then realized that you did not, because if you did, you would have asked to see me.

So I wondered a lot of things, when I worked near you, I never saw you. When I worked away from you, I never saw you.

I lived in my own imagined bubbles because I wanted to feel again. I wanted to feel the powerful, magical, heart pounding feeling that I had only once felt when I was 22. I wanted to know what that was like. To love someone so completely that I was no longer me. To love someone because I knew he could never be accessible. For a true returned love would scare me away forever. I could not feel the real intimacy because I could not let myself be filled with anything but sorrow.

I am addicted to pain. The pain of losing you. The pain of feeling unreciprocated love. You never did love me. You lusted me and you wanted to do as you pleased with me.

For once I have no plan. I wanted to tell you that please never ever respond to any emails I sent to you. Please never ever tell me that you missed me or loved me again. Please never ever suggest to see me. Please never ever agree with me that you too wanted to see me. I'm an addict. I'm addicted to you. I have to break free. I therefore need you to disappear. Please never respond to me again. Please don't talk to me even I begged. Please never ever see me again.

I need this to end to stop my suffering. I need to be me again.

Please let this be the end. Let us say goodbye when we still loved for each other. Let us leave one another when we still remember how much we adored each other. Let me go please. Please let me go this time. For good.

This feels like dying - the End

He has not responded to any of my emails. My plead went unanswered. My hopes are faltering and it was those moments of despair created the clarity that I always wanted.

I have created a world of lies. A web of unreal expectations. I have met so many men in an attempt to forget or balance my feelings for him. It had not worked.

I fell in love despite the fact that I thought that I should not.

He told me that he loved me. I wanted to love him back and I did. And he just simply disappeared. It's one thing to have only gone down the path for a few months or a few years but it's another to have been through this so many times, and have definitively know that I have loved him so  and for him to treat me as if I never existed.

He left me the same way he left others. He did not care if he loved or not loved me. If our parting words were I love you's, then why could he not show me that he loved me, or at least to speak to me? 

I wondered about it. I do not have an answer. I certainly am not going to try to find an answer for him either. I want to cry. I have been crying. He knows that I cry. He does not nothing. He simply disappeared. Like I never existed, like he never existed.

Like we just met and we fucked and now it's over. Not a lengthy relationship that could stand the test of time, the challenges, the love I have felt for him. the people I have left behind for not wanting me to love him. The friends who thought that I was crazy for having loved him. Every one of them have left me. Or stopped asking questions.

So this is what's like. To feel that you are dying. Your soul has ceased to burn. Your love for someone, your hope, your dreams. 

Perhaps this is what I have always anticipated. The end that will erase it all. The end that will take me away from the dreams and hopes and passion that had kept me alive, kept my eyes bright and my thoughts lurid. You could see how I have never loved one like I have loved him. You could see that I have meant every word I said, I would have given up everything for him. Reputation family children people who loved me. Everything. 

Suppose this is what's like to feel like dying.

Suppose I need this. Suppose I should cry for a long while.

Suppose I should write to him that I must quit him. I must stop loving him and move on and live in a world without him. Without his affection, his love for me, and he will no longer be part of me.

I should live the lies I have for the rest of my life. This is the end of my journey. This is the end of my journey with him. This is the end of my life with him. 

I have nothing but pain. I can't breathe. I can't speak. I'm sinking in my sorrows. I am afraid of the world. Where is the other person the confident, successful, funny, imaginative, happy, loving person go? Would I have her back? 

Nothing is changed but why the overreaction

I read the story I last wrote in April, and I realized why I should not be so worked up about all this. This happened each and every time. I stopped writing. So I stopped remember. This was the original story.

Nothing is changed. He is still the same. The only way I could continue receiving his affection, as little as it may be, is for me to stay the same, demand nothing, and complain about nothing. He would always be the same.

I would always be the same. Going back and forth and for no good reason at all, asking for things that he will never give me. I would make a concession and he'd miss me and we'd reconnect and pretend nothing has ever happened.

I created a trail running log, so that I could keep on writing, keep on remembering.

I don't have anything else to add today, other than perhaps I don't just think that the end is near, the end is the end.

I'm tired of hiding.

I need help.

And I'm tired of pretending everything will be alright. It's not at all alright.

I love a man who will never give me the love I deserve. I still love him.

I don't think I can love someone who loves me back. Part of childhood issues.

Nothing is changed. Overreaction was my way to wanting things to change. But I know it won't. Then what?

I have to find a way to break free from him or try to live with it. He will want to continue having sex with me, for as long as he could, just like he does with all of his other women. What he says about how he feels is not important, he probably says the same thing to a bunch of women. Occasionally I get rotated to the center of attention, but mostly I'm just one of the few women he tucked away for sexual gratification.

A better question is then why I allow myself to stoop to that level. I'm a successful, smart and attractive person, not some overweight, subdued, dead end job holding woman.

That's one of the things I must explore.

A perfect path, a perfect relationship, A Perfect Dream

I fell asleep crying. I knew that the end was near. I shall never see you again. I don't know why but it felt that it's a finale this time.

At 5:10 AM I woke up for a perfect dream. This was my dream.

My girlfriend, someone I've not seen for a long time, who lived in the South Bay came for a visit. We decided to go for a run. I was living in Berkeley Hills somehow. We wanted to find a path, to run from Tilden Park to Marin Headland's Tennessee Valley trailhead. I told her, "Once you get to the trailhead, you can practically go anywhere."  There she was, reading a map and told me that she knew how. We started running. The direction told us, "Get down the hill, and run away from the freeway." So we did, and soon we pass by these gorgeous shops in a place like I've never been. I had no idea where I was but I kept on running. I told her running heals all wound. Nothing in the world can compare to running. We ran pass by a house. I knew the owner. We said hi, we used their bathroom, and walked out from the patio, carefully not stepping on rocks and fishes in the pond. We kept on running. It started to rain. It was getting dark, I told her we must head back because I forgot the headlamp. She brought umbrella so we kept on running.

We found a 8 mile path straight from Tilden Park to Tennessee Valley Trailhead.

On the way home I turned on my phone and there were lots of emails coming into the inbox. There were three emails from you.

One was a picture of some old sheets of music, a guitar and a guitar case. They were all in a pile, neatly tucked into each other's fold. In the email you wrote, "Look what I found today in San Francisco. They were just sitting on the sidewalk."

Another was an older picture, taken a few months ago. In the picture, you were in a hospital bed, you seemed to have had a surgery. You were sitting on the bed, leaning against a frame. Your son playing by the windowsill at the further end of the hospital room. There was a neat drawing by your bed: What appeared to be piece of half eaten macaroon, and a clamshell pastry. The macaroon had words on it, and it says "An almost perfect macaroon." I looked at the picture and started to laugh. I told my girlfriend why. "This is from a friend. He had his surgery today. I brought some pastry to drop off at the hospital. It was not a macaroon, it was a puff pastry like item. His son must thought that it was a macaroon that has gone awry. I left at the front desk, because I didn't want his family to see me."

Finally, it was a more recent email, came in a few hours ago. It says, "There is this movie I wanted to see. Do you want to catch the September 9th showing?"

I woke up, and I realized that I had always wanted this relationship with you. You to share your life with me. Like I often did with mine. Via some form of a communication. I meant everything I said: I want to take care of you when you are sick and frail. I want to be there for you. I don't know why I chose you but that's not for me to decide.

It was a perfect dream. In my dream, I was able to run to Marin Headlands without driving, in 8 miles I'd be there. crossing the bay, from one hill to another. In my dream, there was a man I love, who shared his life with me, by telling me small and mundane things in his day, by letting me into his life,  and by wanting to spend time with me. I realized all of that was just a dream but it was so representative of how I felt and what I felt, that I thought I'd better write them down before the dawn cracks.

Perhaps it finally hit home with me. I could never run from Tilden Park to Marin Headlands with a straight line, in 8 miles, I could never be let into your life, in the way I'd wish to be. Those were the three things I wanted from you most: To tell me something mundane but interesting about your life, to let me take care of you, and to want to spend time with me.

I don't think those were extraordinary things. I think that's what love is all about. And I find streams of tears coming down. Sometimes, we fail not for lack of trying, sometimes, we gave affection and love to the wrong person. It's just life, it's out of our control, and it's how illusions became formed and one day they will all tumble down.

I think of the mirage I had let myself live in, and at that moment I realized perhaps I should never have given up writing, not for you, not for anyone. I mustn't stop listening to my head, I mustn't let the better, rational self become delusional. I must heal my heart.

As for the run, it'll happen. It won't be with this girlfriend of mine, it won't be a straight 8 mile path from Tilden to Tennessee Valley. But it will happen.

The end is near

Sometimes we have to let the time pass to feel that we could write again. Sometimes time passing was simply a way to avoid feeling, or the capturing of the feelings. For several months now I had stopped writing. I did not want to write down anything because I did not want to feel. But instead I felt like I've never felt before, rather than letting feelings be expressed through words I felt them in my heart, in that process, rather than logically processing it in my head, I had started to feel it in my heart.  What do you know? I fell in love with this man again.

And again.

And again...

Yet the problem remains that when he lets me in, he lets me partially, and then words are spoken about a future trip, a place to be together and then he does not let it happen. By failing to follow up. He suggested to come with me to Vegas and then when the dates were given to him he says nothing. He suggested for me to visit him for his birthday and then he says nothing back and told me later on that he can't accommodate that. It is as if nothing works. He wants what he wants, he says whatever he says to get me want him back and then he recoils like he often did.

And even though I understand that's his normal M.O., I keep on falling for it because I keep on thinking perhaps this time it's going to be different. But it is not.

I wrote to him this last night:

"You know me well enough to know that I'll make time and I don't care where and when to see you. I can even meet you on Friday over lunch or after work, if Wed or Thursday evening no longer works. I don't care if it's hotel or not (I don't like you spending money on hotels just to see me). I like the idea of spending more time with you, even just for coffee, or hang out with you and your son, like friends do, I don't like seeing you every few weeks on a random basis. 

I'm the world least real "girlfriend": I have never met any of your friends, spent a weekend together, gone to an event or a party together, taken off with you to anywhere, or known you outside of a restaurant or a bed. I speak to you once a year on the phone, on your birthday. Vegas, for instance, you said you wanted to go but when I give you details (several times), you do not get back to me. You know how I feel about all of this. I tell you how I feel every time I see you.

Maybe that's what you always wanted. I don't. I don't like to be the phantom girlfriend. I I want something more substantial. Unless you prefer to call me the "call girl," "the mistress," a "side relationship", a "friend with benefit." In which case I'm okay with our arrangement. 

But as long as I'm your "girlfriend", even as the world least real girlfriend, I still have feelings, and little sad face does not even begin to describe it.

Therefore, I believe a title change is warranted. "

But he does what he does, which is to tell me that I was right. He has little flexibility, his plan changes all the time, and this is what he wrote back "You're right. I have limited flexibility and frequently need to change plans and am generally unavailable and that's unfair to you. I really have very little flexibility and I wish I had more but I don't."

He knows that it's unfair, he does not give a shit. He has no time for me, and he needs to change plans generally unavailable. Like a true asshole he reveals his card. I read this message and I get chills. Like I don't know him any more. I can't believe what I was reading. There is a sense of loss, like he no longer liked me. He no longer wanted me. So I did all that I could. By asking him to forgive me and take me back.

But my heart stopped loving at that instant. It just felt hurt. Like someone squeezed the air out of my lungs, the heart stopped pumping oxygen. It starts to bleed. I start to throw up. I start to feel sick. I have never ever seen his asshole side until today. And when I did it felt a bit like he has finally won the war, the war of winning my heart. When I stopped analyzing and started falling with my head, I started to feel with my heart and just like that he came in with a knife and cut it right open.

So this is how it feels (again) to lose hope, to be lost in love, to love and to have lost.

Why is this that I could have a three year long relationship with a man who I loved so much and yet every day it felt that we are on the brink of breaking up. Why is that he never could provide me with the security I need? Why am I still hoping that he could one day change and love the way that I deserve to be loved?

Perhaps I am afraid of looking under the hood. Perhaps like most women I want a good conquest. Perhaps I have to let him go this time, once for all. 

Is this how we say goodbyes? Is this how the end is written? Is this how life ought to be? When all hopes are lost and one must pick up her pieces and start anew as if this never happened?

What about gut wrenching love? What if I could never feel this way again? What then? 

Is this really the end? Should I stop trying? Should I finally learn my lesson and leave this man once for all? 

Yes to all of the above.

Yes to everything. 

Yes to an end. Yes to a new beginning that will not be filled with romance. But I don't want to feel the pain any more.