I'm so tired. I'm tired of being tossed back and forth between my soft emotional side and my cold indifferent side. I'm tired of fighting myself, tired of lying to myself, tired of feeling like I'm the victim.
We were together for about 10 months. It was a long distance relationship. It had its ups and downs like any other, but it was just more difficult because of the distance. Still, we were happy. Then, this summer she went to vist the Philippines for 2 months. She never really had a lot of family in the the states, so she loved being surrounded by family. She loved it so much, that when she came back she told me that she was going to move there a few months later. A Toronto-Houston relationship is one thing; theres only a 1 hour time difference and visiting each other isn't extremely difficult. A Toronto-Phillipines relationship is a whole different story. So we broke up.
I loved her, and continue to do so, more than anything else. I considered her family. I loved her so much that more than anything, I just wanted her to be happy. For that reason, when she told me that she was going to move to the Phillipines, I didn't hate her...I couldn't hate her. I knew how happy she was during the 2 months that whe was there, and so I had no choice to but to accept her decision. We decided to still be best friends, and be there for each other, and all that jazz.
What became so painful was not the break up. It was the change I noticed in her. Ever since she came back, she seemed to get more and more distant from me. Granted we were no longer together, but even from a point of view of just a best friend, it seemed like she cared less and less. After a couple of talks, we came to some kind of an agreement: we'd both try to make the effort to keep talking every now and then, excluding certain topics that were no longer appropriate, and other basic ground rules. Things seemed rather mild for a couple of weeks until one day, she did something of which I'd rather not get into the details of. I told her that I was not upset by what she did, but that it was my opinion that a certain aspect of it was a stupid idea. She responded, quite bluntly, that she never accused me of being upset, that if I had been upset she didn't care, and to keep my opinions to myself.
That response struck a chord with me. It filled me with rage; rage directed at two different places. One at her, and another at myself. The rage directed at her was the usual "how dare she" caused by pride, ego, and whatever else. The one directed at myself was a bit more complicated. I was angry because 1. She was right; she no longer was my girlfriend and I should mind my own business, and 2. I had no right getting angry at her when really it was just me who didn't seem to understand the situation. So I turned really cold. Until I noticed something she did on Facebook that made me think "Maybe she's not alright". Almost immediately, the the indifference went away and I messaged her asking if she was ok.
Therein lies the problem. I am torn between the side of me that wants me to move on and get over the whole thing, and the side that still cares and loves her like family. There are times when I wish that she would just leave for the Philippines already so that I can finally get over it now once and for all. Other times I feel cold and angry; angry that I am so affected by all this, angry that I continue to hope for something that I know will never happen, angry that I continue to wish for a conversation with her the way we used to have them, even before we got together. And then, at other times, I lose my cold, indifferent exterior and wonder if she's happy, worry about her, pray that her plan to move works, and hope she doesn't forget who I am and who I was to her.
No matter what my state of mind is though, I can never ever hate her, nor do I ever regret getting into a relationship with her. In spite of all the pain and tears, my relationship with her showed me what I was truly capable of. It showed me how much I could truly love, what lengths I would go to to protect and maintain that love, what I would be willing to do for her happiness. I really can't hate her, even though at times I wish I could. I wish I could just take the easy (but obviously wrong) path of just getting angry at her for putting me through this. But I really can't. She's had a hard life, she's been though her own pain and suffering, she's finally doing something that she wants to do, and she's doing it herself. She deserves to be happy and she does not deserve me constantly on her back asking for attention
I wish I could just get it through my head that I can be there for her, but I also need to let her go. I need to find a balance between the emotional side where I would lay my life down to protect her, and the indiffernet side where I know it's time to start moving on. I want to be her friend. I don't want to lose her from my life, but I also need to understand the difference between what we had, and what we have now.
I hope I don't lose her entirely. Her friendship and my relationship with her changed me in ways that I could never have even dreamed of. I hope one day she looks back and smiles when she thinks of what we had. I hope she realizes just how much she means to me.