On a different note...

I am in love.
With a memory, sadly.
Nothing new.

He was my best friend. My soul mate. The love of my life. The father of my child. MY BEST FRIEND.

He wrote me a poem once.  I haven't thought of it in years.  I can't remember the words, but I wish I'd memorized it.  I wish I'd kept it.  I wish I'd appreciated it, way back then.  Because what I do remember is the love it conveyed.

He may have been the one person I've ever known who accepted me, for me, and loved it.  I didn't try to change him, he didn't try to change me.  But when we lay down at night, we fit perfectly in each others arms.

Life changed. I changed, he changed.  Things happened that hardened his heart, or didn't happen, but were said to have.  I don't even know anymore.  Meanwhile, I got healthier and he got sicker.  For a while, I thought he was getting healthier without me, and I was thrilled.

We made a go at fixing it.  Or at least, I made a go at fixing it.  But I had to fix me, and I didn't know that.  He made a go at loving someone else.  And let me go completely.

No contact. No friendship. No acknowledgement.  An entire life - family, love, friendship - gone.  In a couple minutes on the phone, every dream I held so dear disappeared.  Not just *HIM*, although thats what hurt the most for the longest.  But his family, who had become mine.  I doubt they knew how much I loved them, but I miss them all the time.  And I hate him for doing that.  For just going on, like it never happened.  Like our love and our plans and our hopes and our dreams, our friendship and the family we'd built together, never happened.

My little girl, who looks perfectly like a mix of the best parts of us both, asking me why we can't just be together kills me.  Her exact words... "If it was my world, you and daddy would still be together, and we'd all live happy". How do you explain it, when over 5 years later, your heart still breaks at the thought that you'll never again hear him say he loves you?  When you can't even tell him hello, for the fear in your throat eating you alive.  If I could just tell her that we no longer loved each other, that that's why we walked away, at least it'd be an end.  But he's still the only man I've ever wanted.

I KNOW we'd never work out now.  We're two very different people.  And I see him hurting - the woman he left me for left him for being him... the same him i love so desperately (although if i had to bet, they'll be back together soon) - and I don't want him back. I want him happy.

When he's happy, then I can afford to be selfish enough to admit that I'd spend every minute of the rest of my life trying to make him happy if he'd let me.

There's nothing in the world that can bring tears to my eyes this honestly.  This freely.  Its hard to breath sometimes.  And there's nothing to do with it, except replay "You were mine" and "like we never loved at all" over and over again (youtube is my only friend) in my empty apartment, and try not to think too much about my empty life.  The life i built to replace him.  The life that only has the bright spot of my son (and yes, he burns like the sun on a dark night. i wouldn't trade him for anything).  The life, that, from all outward appearances is better than it ever was before.  I've got the toys (well, some of them anyway, we're still poor but not nearly as poor as I was before), and the home, and I hate it all.

All I want, everyday, is our dirty basement, futon mattress on the floor, that opal-diamond ring that meant we'd be together forever, and the poem I can no longer remember the words too.  and to fall asleep in the only arms i've ever fit in.

Tonight, its breaking my heart.
Tomorrow, I'll get up and go on with my life.
But please just let me have tonight.