Maybe

One of the things Vi and I talked about, (among many others!!) was of course DM. And one of the things I realised is that it's so hard to sum up over a year and a half of relationship, break up, vague reconciliation, departure and then continuing contact in a small enough amount of time to stop innocent listeners eyes glazing over with boredom. It's difficult to remember all the ups and downs, and it's difficult to explain or justify both my own behaviour, and also his.

So Sunday I decided to go back to the beginning and get it all together in one place, to get it all in order for prosperity and safekeeping. I was planning to sit down, make myself comfortable, go back to the beginning (which unfortunately didn't cover the first year of the events in real time), and try to reread it all in chronological order and with an objective mind. To view it as somebody not involved would view it, and to see how both our actions are reflected here. In the end I ordered it but I didn't read it. I think I need a bit of distance to be able to give it all justice, and when I feel I want to then it will all be there.

On top of this, and maybe due to this, as well as other events, in the early hours of Monday morning I pretty much lost the plot.

On Saturday teatime, I read the email from DM telling me he wouldn't be coming home for at least 5 years,and despite successfully pushing it away Saturday night and Sunday, a conversation on Sunday night with DB brought the whole thing to an emotional head.

I have been emailing DB since he got back in contact with me in January. Very inane chatty emails, regularly but not constantly, and it's been nice to catch up with him, disregarding the pointless content of our contact. By the end of last week the emails had gotten more frequent and slightly more flirty and on Sunday night we began chatting on MSN for the first time in almost 3 years. The conversation started as drivel, progressed briefly on to sexual content and then wove it's way into some pretty deep emotional stuff, especially about him, his past and his current life.

I am grateful for his depth of sharing, which I know is difficult for him, and although some of the experiences of his life I already knew, if vaguely, some of the events in more recent years I had no idea about.

As we talked, I began to realise that the similarities between him and DM are remarkable; same type of childhood, same type of career path, same kind of previous relationship history, same kind of marriage and children difficulties, and the same kind of issues. So similar that he even offered to email DM about some stuff, which I'm sure would not have been appreciated! It was strangely comforting, yet also disconcerting to discuss things with someone so close in nature to DM, without knowing him at all, and who also knows me from a time when I couldn't even have imagined the last year or so. I guess it was helpful to unload, when I wasn't expecting it. Although I also wasn't expecting it to affect me quite so much, and in short I had a bit of an emotional meltdown.

Having dwelled for a few days, I think what affected me so strongly was that now, due to different ways of dealing with fairly recent things, their lives have followed very different paths, and this disparity amongst all the similarity made me sad, really really sad. Sad for opportunites lost in the past and opportunities lost in the future and sad that loving someone isn't always enough to make things right for them.

I love DM, I know I do and I want him to believe I do, but I don't think there is anything else I can do to prove it, at least not without him being willing to take some steps towards me. I know I've called it a day in the past, as has he, and I also know that we both still seem to have some kind of connection. But perhaps I'm just misled in feeling that, perhaps to him I really am just another girl from the past that he can happily walk away from. I don't know.

Maybe one day he will sit down, make himself comfortable and go back to the beginning. Maybe one day he'll come back. Maybe one day I'll move on to someone and something new. Maybe one day the only memories I'll have of this time will be those I've recorded. In the meantime, whatever maybe's may be out there waiting, I guess I'll just get on with my life and try in the main not to think too much about it.