I started having a text convo with A last night, we were joking about how it rained in Santa Fe all day yesterday.  Santa Fe is out west in the desert, so it was a completely unique experience there to have a day of rain.  I asked him how it was going with his new girl, he said well.  I told him I was dating.  We began to talk about our relationship, and how we love each other but are happy for each other.  Suddenly he was calling me.

He missed me, I missed him.  But we love each other enough to want each other to be happy.  I told him I wished I’d made different choices when he was here, but then, I would have been heart-broken when he left.  He said, me too, but I’ll take a heartbreak for a real love affair…..

I was protecting myself, I guess, is what I thought.  (And now I realize that I was headed for the biggest fall, the most pain and hurt I could imagine.)  I wasn’t done with S, but am so done now, and I have missed A the last few days, when I was tired, and not feeling well,  I told him too, and he tells me.  I would have loved, when I was exhausted my first night back to have curled up next to him and gone to sleep, knowing I was safe in the arms of a man who loved me.  He also has those moments.

But he said, he’s pledged his fidelity to his new girl, and I’m just happy for him, because I know she is a great woman if he did that.  He said he has not told her he loves her….We both said that to each other last night.  He wants me to find someone who adores me, as I do him.

It’s a true, intimate, sweet, deep friendship.  His woman knows about me.  Obviously does not know the intensity of the conversations we have, but they are rare.  We have a special connection, maybe because when I first met him, and before we were seriously going out, his wife, who died 18 months ago, came to me in a dream.  I had never seen her, didn’t know at the time it was her, until I saw her picture about a week later on his FB page, and realized it was her in the dream.  He had told me he didn’t believe in God anymore, he was so devastated by her loss.  So I told him, about the dream, and told him, I think she came to me, because she knew I would tell you, and you would know she’s still around, that you didn’t lose her…

At the time he just hugged me, and in the days following, told me I gave him his spirit back.

The night before he left, when he told me he loved me, we were laying in his bed, just cuddling.  He wanted me to spend the night, and I didn’t, because of S. S and I were in one of our momentary breakups but I still loved him, so I didn’t feel right to spend the night with A.  I wish I had stayed, and had that memory.  But it was a sweet, warm, loving memory anyway.

He has repaid me, 100 times, being there for me when I was crying over S, he reminded me that I have value, and deserve to be loved.  And that he was willing to love me.

We will always be close friends.  His new woman is a lucky one, but I’m sure she knows it.  🙂

What was with S, in the end, was just pain.  And love never hurts.  And what was with A, still is, and it never hurts.