As my previous post might thave led some to belive, I've been a little on the "unstable" side for a few days. Truth be told, I've been crying every day. But I'm beginning to realize that might just be an honest, normal reaction to the trauma I've been through in the last six weeks. And, truly, it makes me feel better to cry. I know that for a long time I was with a man who felt uncomfortable with emotion, and emotional displays. For chrissake's people, the only time I ever even heard him cry (that's right, I never saw him, only heard him) was when his childhood dog died. And my honest reaction to hearing him cry was to cry myself. It's just that raw -- When a person you've known (and loved) for many years calls you, and for the first time you actually hear them sobbing, and I mean sobbing, maybe it's just me, but I couldn't help but have that sympathetic reaction. And I didn't even get to be there when the dog was put down. Maybe I should've taken that as a warning sign...

Maybe I'm just a "woman" in the emotional sense of the word, but I'm a cry-er. Even four weeks ago, when I was around the ex and we were talking about emotional things, and I got a little misty-eyed, he had to say "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this." I wasn't actively crying, I was just tearing up, because I'm an emtional being. Yet, he was uncomfortable with that. Can I just tell you? I'm a HUMAN BEING. I have FEELINGS. Yes, they're ugly, sometimes. Yes, they're messy, sometimes. But I can't help but feel them. And succumb to them, often. I wish I were the type of person who could hold the tears back. They were never a personal affront, they were just my way of coping.

I'm so fragile right now. My brain says one thing, but my heart says another. Here's a brief illustration of the daily exchange:

Heart (H): I hurt.
Brain (B): Stop it.
(H): But I miss him.
(B): You're not allowed to miss him.
(H): But we were together for four years.
(B): It doesn't matter, you chose to break up with him. Get over it.
(H): But I still love him.
(B): You're not allowed to love him -- you broke up with him.
(H): What sense does that make?
(B): It's not about sense. Get over it.

And then it gets even worse... I try to be a friend, try to talk to him like there's no baggage or issues. I'll have a brief phone conversation with him, and things will be light at first, and then, inevitably, we'll get into a realm of conversation where things get difficult. Have I been dating? Well, yes, of course I've been dating. Have you been dating? Yes. And it's like a fucking knife through my heart. Not because I don't want him to be happy, but because I want, like I wanted for so long, to be the only one to make him happy. How do I deal with this? I really, honestly, don't fucking want to know if he's been dating, but I feel compelled to ask the question. And when he says yes it's like someone is killing me slowly... My stomach burns, and I can't breathe. But I want, I so badly want him to find someone to make him happy. I just still wish it could be me, I want it so badly to be me...

I feel so fucking pathetic. I'm just hoping that with each day it will get better, that I'll miss him less, that I'll love him less. But I can't help but love him as much as I do. In kind of a masochistic way, I'm enjoying the pain that I'm in, because it lets me know that I'm alive, that I'm capable of loving another human being in such a way that I feel pain when that love is taken away from me. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not enjoying this is any way, and as I've said before, I feel so selfish for feeling this pain. To be honest, I wish that I had any indication that he is feeling as hurt as I am. In some way, it would validate the pain that I feel, I think. Maybe that's the biggest problem.

Every time I communicate with him he seems to be coping so well, seems to be so happy with my accompishments and little bits of happiness. But god damn it, I want him to hurt. I want him to cry like I do, I want him to lay in bed at night and miss me the way I miss him. I want him to feel the ache in his belly every day the way I feel it, and I want to know that he misses me in all the little, stupid ways that I miss him. Because it's those little stupid ways that hurt the most -- the way he would have to prod me awake in the morning, the feel of his lips on mine, his arms around me at night, his smell on the sheets in the morning, the way we would hold hands everywhere we went, the way he drove his car, the way he would kiss me if he left and I was still in his bed. And countless other things. Those are what I miss. But then again, I suppose that's some of what everyone misses after a long-term relationship, those little comforts, those little conveniences.

It's been a very difficult adjustment to the single life. I want to be the cool girl, the one who can adjust to everything, the one who can be a "friend" right after being the girlfriend. But I've realized in the last few weeks that that was a naive assumption. I can't just slip into the friend role, after being the girlfriend for so long. It's not an easy transition, much as I would love to pretend it is... I don't want to know if he's been dating. I ask because it seems the right question to ask, but the problem is, I don't want to know the answer. He is so right for pretecting me from that. And I feign anger at his lack of response. The truth is, I'm not angry that he won't share things with me. I'm really angry at myself for knowing that I can't handle whatever it is that he might choose to share with me. I'm angry at myself for feeling so sad that he's moving on, when the truth is that I want him to move on. He claim sthat I'm moving on to "bigger and better," but honestly I'm just distracting myself from my own feelings because I don't want to face them.

To be completely honest, there was a lot of hurt and anger that existed in our relationship for a very long time. Why else would we have "broken up" when we were in Dublin two years ago? That vacation was supposed to be fun and a great adventure -- which it was -- but it brought to a head so many of our other problems. Why did we ignore them after that? I finally had the strength to voice many things, in the last six months, that I was too much of a coward to admit to before then. I'm just sorry I couldn't find a voice for them sooner. I wish I'd been so much more honest with him, and honest with myself, to realize, well before four years had passed, that we were not meant to be together. I also wish that he had had the courage to say that to me that he didn't want to be with me. He used to say "I just want to be your best friend," but I knew that was all he wanted. He didn't want to be my lover anymore. I know it was evident to him well before the final end.

I want him to be my best friend. I want to share my life with him. I want him to be a big part of my life. I honestly know that he loves me. I love him. I really, truly, love him. I'm trying to cope with him not being an integral of my everyday existence, and after four years that's a pretty difficult adjustment to make.