Category Archives: friendship

Getting to the Other Side

Posted on by learning to live like water

NewLife

I got so much done on my house yesterday.  I think one more weekend and it will at least be ready for these people who are interested to see it.  My son promises to go at his space today, and it’s by far in the worst space in the house.  I just have the bathrooms and the garage to do.   Even if these people don’t end up buying the house, at least it will be ready to put on the market, pretty much, when I get back from Florida.  I will need to paint the deck, but I don’t think I can do that until the days are longer and warmer.  End of April maybe.  I’m going to hire someone to come in and get the yard in good shape, cut back the shrubs, etc.

I had so much fun talking to my friend in Florida last night. Old friends are so wonderful to have.  I haven’t talked to her, except FB messenger, for a long long time, but we know each other so well, we just pick up where we left off.  I just love her to death.  She’s just one of those people who never allows anything to take her joy of living from her.  I can’t wait to see her.  Having her there, where I want to live will be like instant immersion into that life.

Which will move me at light speed  away from this one, lol.  It’s time, really.  Definitely time.  It’s funny, I have had the plan to move to Florida since before I met S.  The relationship with him did not deter it.  It has always been there.  It could have worked out in many different ways, either for us, or for me.  If he had wanted a relationship, and to retire, we could have shared each other’s homes, had a place to go in the winter in Florida, a place here in New England in the summer.  And kept our independence, both owning a home.  We could have just visited each other. It turns out it became my escape route, from the devastation he wrought on my life for a time.  I’m so glad it’s one dream I never gave up.

I think at times, well he wanted a relationship, just not with me.  But then, did he want one with her, really?  If he did, why did he do what he did, knowing it would kill it.  And if it wasn’t dead, then spending January with me, certainly didn’t help breathe life back into it.  It’s not my problem any longer though.  I look so forward to loving a man who knows what he wants, and who doesn’t engage in self-destructive behaviors constantly.  There is another side of life, and I intend to experience it fully. 🙂

Lovely to have slept a good night’s sleep last night.  Today is supposed to be warm, at least warm enough to go to the cove for lunch.  It’s been so long, I am looking forward to it.

Off for my 2nd cup of coffee…..Love and light, all.

 

Looking Good…..

Posted on by learning to live like water

life is good

I’m so excited. I was out with a friend, at a local watering hole this afternoon. We were celebrating her daughter passing her nursing board exams.  It took her six years of school, because she was always working full time, but she did it and found out she passed this morning.

This is an old friend, I have known the daughter since she was 6 years old.  Now she’s 25.  And an RN.  So proud and happy for her.  Her mom, my friend, is also an RN.

But anyway, my friend said she had a friend who was looking to move from her neighborhood in a suburb, out to the town where my friend and I live. She currently lives in a development that has no privacy, no outdoor space for her 6 month old.  She is looking to spend what I want for my house.

My house sounds perfect for her.  3 bdr, 2 1/2 baths, full finished basement, a family neighborhood with lots of kids, (a 2 yr old next door), and she’s looking in my price range.  So my friend is going to tell her about my house.  There might be a chance I could sell it without having to pay a realtor!!!  OMG, that would be so cool.

It’s just a chance, but it’s a chance.  Wow.  Maybe the universe is really working in my behalf!  How awesome is that??!!

Warming me up.  Today was utterly frigid, it was -8°F when I got up at 7 AM.  Wind chills of -25°F. Brrrr.  But that news warmed me right up.  As did the 3 glasses of wine, and a band at the bar that was playing all my  music.  Neil Young, Allman Bros….it was a lot of fun, and fun to see the kids, her daughters,  all grown up.  So happy about that.

I was hoping to get out today, just to get out and get a change of scene.  I’ve been trying to un-stick myself.  It was lovely to get out with an old friend, and have fun, and see the kids and celebrate with them.  And then the added bonus that she may have a buyer for my house!!  Wow….Awesome.

Great day.  Happy.  Excited.   Life is looking good at the moment.  Really good.

 

What Makes Friendship? Some Thoughts

Posted on by learning to live like water

friendship_quote

Thinking about friends tonight. I’m so blessed with friends. I heard from my best friend in high school today. She is such a sweetie, I am so grateful we are still friends 50 years later. She just found out about my mom, she lives in Iowa. And she shares soooooo many memories with me of my mom. My God, we met when we were 12 and became instant friends. I haven’t talked to her yet, this was just messaging but it still, was a salve on my heart, she really really knew my mom, all of her life. There was a group of us, maybe 5, who were die hard friends then, and still are.

Now here in New England, I have another wonderful group of friends. We mostly met when our kids were in elementary school, and bonded through endless birthday parties, sleepovers, Little League games. Our kids are still friends, but not close, but this small group of us, still are.

I’m just thinking what makes good friends, beside sharing common experiences and memories. I have to say that it’s the non-judgmental acceptance we have of each other. We all have different lives now. I was married for 32 years, and my bff from high school has never been married, was engaged 5 times, and has no kids. She’s an RN. Totally different lives…but we still accept each other without question. All of that group do…one lives in the Adirondacks, and taught music there for 35 years. One was a merchant marine. One stayed in our small town, was married twice, and when I went to our 45th reunion last year, I stayed at her mother’s house, the same one she lived in when we were in high school.

None of us have to be someone else when we’re together. It’s unconditional love, really. The people to whom you feel closest should always just accept who you are. I mean, we all have quirks, bad habits, a view of life that might be skewed in one direction or the other. So what? Are you the same person every day when you wake up? Is your core centered, do you have a way of life that you believe in, and can’t be shaken from? Are you kind? Compassionate? Idk..these are the things that mean something to me in my friends.

My ex….OMG. He loved to say he was “grooming” me. For what? Idk, to be the perfect Stepford Wife. But it so angered me….why was I not good enough as I was? Grooming me, my ass. Groom yourself, lol. It’s probably why, even though we can speak now, and it’s better than it used to be, we are not close now. I never could meet his standard, which changed on a regular basis. And God forbid, I should try to groom him, lol.

But really…that’s the key for me. To just be accepted for who you are. My bff here sometimes asks me to come over and watch a movie with her, she dislikes being alone too much. If it’s night I will say, who else is coming because I want to put my pajamas on first…..

Friends, good friends. Who listen when you cry, whose eyes sparkle with yours when you laugh. Who keep your secrets, and you keep theirs. Who put marbles in your jar all the time. People who, because they know they are accepted without judgment, are the same person every time you are with them.

Why We Can Never Be Friends

Posted on by learning to live like water

Friends and enemies

It seems crazy, I mean really mind-bending crazy, to say I miss him at all. Because every thing I think about that I miss about him, is now tainted with the deception and the lies.

I miss sitting outside, on my deck, and talking till the wee hours or in the wee hours of the morning. About anything….and just talking, and laughing. And flirting. Flirting until we wanted to go back upstairs to my room…..

I miss that.

But now I know that a lot of those nights last summer, he had come to me from her, or was going from me to her. So it’s tainted, and now it hurts to remember. Or makes me angry. Or some of both. And I’d just rather not feel any of that, so I just shut the door.

I miss our intimate sexual conversations. But they too are tainted. When Betty found out, he tried to say we were just kidding around, that he wasn’t serious.

But he was. Then. But now he denies it. He dishonors it. He makes me feel dirty, and stupid. He says it meant nothing to him.

But it did. Then.

I remember quickly, that he denied her to me. Just exactly as he denied me to her. So it’s just who he is. The narcissist who plays women for all he can personally get from them.

He used to say, in general, why can’t people remain friends when they break up? So they had some bad stuff, they couldn’t make it together. Does that have to negate all the good times they had.

I think, that in this case…. Yes. It does mean that. Because when lies and deception undercut a relationship enough to destroy it, it also undercuts everything about that relationship. All the things you valued, all the things that made you excited to see each other, that made you want each other, that made you enjoy each others company, that made you laugh til you couldn’t breathe, and then make love the same way, are all undercut by the lies, by the deceit. None of it seems real anymore. It seems like it was all a lie. It was all just a deception on someone’s part.

Not mine.

So, we have to let it all go. We can’t just let go the actual incidents that caused the break-up, we can’t just let go of the pain that caused our hearts to stop beating, at least for the seconds around the moment when we realized the truth.

We can’t keep the parts we wanted to remember forever. I can’t remember being on the beach in Matunuck or driving around in the car, or Watch Hill, or East Beach, not my deck or his or my bed or his, or any of it, not one second, without a question mark at the end of my memory. Was he playing me then? I wonder. Then? What about then?  Why did he take me there, and tell me it was his special place….and make me feel so honored he took me there. Why did he share so much of himself?  Was it even true, or just a ploy to make an empathetic loving soul have one more reason to love him?  So that now, I have a beautiful, tainted memory that I have to let go of. That I’m not sure of.

I’m letting it all go, I’m almost done. Really. It doesn’t hurt much anymore, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t keep any of it, and think it’s real. It all is pretty meaningless now. I didn’t want it that way, but he did. Or he wouldn’t have…..done what he did.

So I’ll live like water, I’ll go with the flow, and I’ll let it all go. Because that’s the way it has to be, to move on.

Christmas Eve Morning Musings

Posted on by learning to live like water

love and belonging

Before I went to bed last night I used my very unscientific method of confirming my feelings about knowing him from a past life, I asked my pendulum, both of them.  LOL.  They both said, yes, we have known each other in past lives.  They both said yes, I was supposed to remind him of who he was.  But no, I was not supposed to bring him back from the darkness.

Which is a relief…..Because I did my best, while we were together, to tell him that he had a beautiful soul, and that I could see it.  The darkness, the things that have happened to him in his life, have obscured it, in his own mind.  I always saw it, and even now, I know that it was his insatiable need to be loved that made him deceive.  I know his holes are so deep that he just couldn’t let go.  Such erroneous thinking.

Ruin is a gift, S.  It is the only way to begin transformation. I know he’s saying “bullshit” to that, lol.  But it’s true.  The trip back from the darkness is his to undertake, when he’s sick of having his life go wrong.

I saw him, I still see him…I forgive his inability to believe enough in himself to tell the truth.  I do know that the person the most hurt by all he did was himself.  So, the fact that I made sure she knew the truth is secondary.  If there had been nothing to tell, he wouldn’t be there.

The fact that I’m sure he blames me for the misery he’s in now….well, honestly, what he thinks of me is none of my business.

My ex has the same issues, of not believing anyone could love him based on his own merit.  And blaming me. He never was with another woman, but he lied about finances, about what he was doing, about his life, about his successes and failures, and blamed everyone else for everything.  In the end, everything was my fault, and still is, I know.  I really want to take him some Christmas food today.  I will try, but honestly, I don’t even know if he’s even living in the same place.  I’ll try, as long as I can do it without running into him.  I haven’t seen him in about 2 years, though I’ve talked to him during that time.  But I just don’t want to come face to face and have to talk to him.  It would be uncomfortable for us both.

I have considered inviting him over for the holiday.  But first, my son and he have no relationship.  My son is content that way, even though I know he’s avoiding feeling all the stuff that he had to deal with with his father.  I could not do that to my son. He’s made a lot of progress, and is a great kid, but he’s not ready to deal with his father’s abuse.

I also know that my ex believes everything we had together, all of the money and possessions, were his, not ours….so the fact that I have a lovely home while he lost everything he had because he borrowed so much money and thought he’d never have to pay it back, would just anger him.  He really thought he could lie his way out of of having to pay the money back.  He would look at me and think this house is really his, that it was bought with his money.  The fact that I worked side by side with him for 25 years, and then for 10 more ran his business while he descended into severe alcoholism, means nothing to him. I was there to serve him, not to partner with him.  I’m just so grateful that I got out before he threw it all away and was able to salvage enough to have a nice life for my son and myself.

So I have to leave him alone.  But I’d still like to bring him something, so he’d know we were thinking of him.  He can use that information however he wants, to build his ego or to regret his actions that caused him to lose us.

I got a message from a guy on a dating site this morning.  His profile just made me laugh, it was so obviously a spoof on profiles.  It’s too bad he lives a little too far outside my geographic area, about an hour and a half or so from me.  But God, I hope I actually find someone who has a sense of humor like that.  It would be so much fun.

It seems I mostly get messages from men who live in California, Arizona, Texas….lol.  One this morning from Manitoba Canada, lol.  I live on the east coast, it’s pretty densely populated here.  But most of the profiles I come across are so boring!  Where are all the funny, alive men?  That was the attraction with S, he made me laugh and he was never boring.  If he just could have been honest, geez….

Well time to wrap gifts.  Make cakes. Clean up the kitchen, the house.  My son is working all day, so won’t be home til this evening.  It will be a nice low-key evening and I’m looking forward to it.

Happy Christmas Eve to all.

 

Non-Monogamy?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Another weirdly warm December day today. Yesterday it was in the mid-60’s, today will be similar, but cloudy not sunny.  We are all loving it.  Our heat doesn’t go on, we don’t have to wear 5 layers of clothes to stay warm, my winter coat has not come out of the closet yet this year!

Awesome, just awesome.

I don’t know what’s going on with A, he was acting weird last night.  He did finally text me, and quickly said “goodnight sweetie” then began to talk about his date Friday night.  How she’s nicer than the last woman he dated, and how she’d invited him and his son to Christmas.  I said, “Wow, on the first date….”  because that actually seems a little weird to me, to ask someone on the first date to come to your home for Christmas.  I will say he exudes kindness and love, but still…just seems a little needy on her part or something to me.  And on his, to accept that quickly.  To me, coming to someone’s home on Christmas speaks to a closer level of connection than a single date.

But then I began to think how he’s going to meet the Michigan woman in a month…and this one wants him for Christmas, and I wondered…and asked… “Did you tell her about Michigan?”   Because, really…someone who is asking you to Christmas on the first date obviously likes you and I would guess she’s not thinking about being one of many partners.

He didn’t answer.  At all.  I have not heard since I asked the question.

Maybe he feels it’s none of my business, but we are close friends, I can ask him anything, I thought, or tell him anything.  And if he’s going to get chummy with this new woman, she should know his plans.  I will always advocate having the truth on the table.  Anything else is just self-serving.

I’m thinking I don’t really like this new thing he’s doing, deciding that he doesn’t want to be monogamous.  He said he wants to learn to share better. ??? I think it’s an idea he picked up from the Michigan woman, who last week, was “off with her other boyfriend.”   Speaking from experience, it’s a recipe for disaster.  When he told me that a week or so ago, I said,  “I can’t do that, Addie.  Scott would have loved it if I could, but I can’t.”  Reminding him of the pain it caused me.   It is incongruous with the man I have known for the better part of a year, for him to not be monogamous, for him not to be forthcoming about his intentions with others.  I’m not jealous, I’d love for him to find someone who loves him madly.   I can’t love him that way, and lord knows I tried, but it wasn’t there.

I’m afraid he’s a mess.  And I still know if I wanted to be in a relationship with him, he’d give it all up….  I don’t know if he’s more hurt than he will admit by my not wanting him to come here, by my not wanting to have an intimate relationship with him and is trying to fill the hole.  I’m not tuned into him like I am/was (hopefully was) to Scott. So I can’t read it that well from 2000 miles.

Well, I’m not going to obsess over it.  Things change, and it seems he is too.  If this path continues, we won’t be so close anymore, because I can’t admire what he’s doing at the moment.  I’ll miss him, but it is what it is. I’m still grateful to have him, to have had him in my life, he’s never treated me with anything but love and respect, except for his little anomaly yesterday asking to come see me after he’s been with the MI woman.  But it does show where he’s headed….not a good thing.

 

Reiki, Gongs and Kokopelli

Posted on by learning to live like water

the cove

There were some other notable things that happened yesterday, but I didn’t want to mix them in with my realizations about grief and loss last night.  That was such a big deal for me, because I was able to accept that I will feel it, I was able to release some of that and feel free to let my self cry if I need to.  I’ve been refusing to cry over him any more.  Now I realize that what is left is not about him, but about the emptiness left after the destruction was cleared away from my psyche.

Yesterday I went to lunch at the cove.  It was an incredible day for December, it was in the low 60’s, much more like October, or April, than December.  The sun was out and I had the windows down on my car, breathing in the fresh clean air.  The picture above is one I took while I was there.

But when I got there I felt unsettled, nervous, really out of nowhere.  I suspected it was an energy cord from S.  I sat with it as best I could.  I ate my lunch, I read for a little bit. Finally, I put on some meditation music, lifted my face to the sun with my eyes closed, and decided to send him some reiki.  Again, it can’t ever hurt, it’s God-energy and if he doesn’t want it, he won’t get it, but it’s there if he’s open to it.  Giving it calms me down, because the same energy that I send, passes through me and works it’s magic.  It worked for me, I didn’t feel it any longer after sending it for about 15 minutes.  In fact, I was really in a much better space all afternoon at work.  I’ve kind of decided whenever I get these cords from him, this is how I’ll deal with it.  It is a loving thing to do, which doesn’t attach me to him.  And it always helps me.

Then last night when I got home from the gongs at about 9, I stopped at my mailbox and there was a thick padded envelope from Addie. (“A”).  I smiled, to see his handwriting on the envelope.  He calls me Deborah often, not Deb, and addressed it that way.  Inside was a small box, on which he’d drawn a couple of red hearts.  Inside was a pendant of Kokopelli in southwestern colors.  I love it so much.  Kokopelli is such a happy god, and that’s the way I feel often.

But what a wonderful thing to find, and receive, after that rather intense gong bath.  Here’s a guy who can love with his whole heart, knowing that the outcome won’t be what he wants, but happy to love anyway.  I do love him, so much, because he asks nothing except for me to care about him, which I do.  I am so grateful to have him in my life, he is such a contrast to those who would play games, and wreak havoc on people’s lives and their own.  He owns his story, he stands in it.  He is such a blessing in my life.  I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but his friendship is a gift from the universe.

I guess yesterday was a day of growth, and understanding, and love….I figured out a way to deal with S’s energy spikes that is loving and helps me, I understand why it is so hard to get over this relationship, and then as a reward, had Addie’s unconditional love at the end of the day.

Blessed.  Just blessed.

To The Shore, Or Not….

Posted on by learning to live like water

Sleep did not evade me last night!  I got about 8 hours, albeit broken by waking up every couple of hours.  But I got back to sleep pretty easily without Ambien.  Yay!

My energy is my own this morning, and that feels good.  No angst, except about how I’m going to do everything I want to do and still maybe get to the shoreline, lol.  Grocery shopping first, my fridge is so bare! And putting the outside lights up, which shouldn’t take all that long.  I promised my son I’d make cookies too.

The shore is about 45 minutes from me, which means an hour and a half drive time.  Maybe an hour there.  Maybe take a pad of paper and my kindle, read and write.  Or just use my phone to write.  I think I need to go.  Need those negative ions that blow off the water and connect to my soul.  The endless sky and water, and the islands, the places of my dreams that are also places I have some warm memories of.

I have some memories of S at the place I would go.  (That’s a pic of it at the top of the page.)  Our first date, which ended because the park closed.  We spent the whole day together there by the water, just walking and talking.  It is also the place where he first told me he wanted to be alone, it was last spring, and figure out what he needed to do with his life. He said, “I think I’m gonna break your heart again.”  I answered with a smile, “Again?” We walked on the beach, we sat at a picnic table, we walked around the park and talked.  I didn’t get upset, at all.  I remember he was turned around as to where he was in relation to the water and the islands, and insisted that one island was another.  These were the waters I lived on, on my boat, for 30 years, so I told him when we walked up on a ridge he’d see I was right.  And of course I was.  I laughed and said, “See….here you have a woman who knows the waters around here like the back of her hand and you don’t want her…”  He looked at me and said, “It’s never been a question of not wanting you.”

I asked if it was a temporary or a permanent break, he said “I didn’t think temporary  was an option.”  I told him that I think he probably needs to do it, and if he wanted he could just check in with me when he felt like it, let me know how he’s doing.

Obviously, that was all because Betty was back in his life, I know now.  Why he didn’t want to tell me the truth I don’t know.  But at any rate, when I didn’t get upset and just was a friend to him, he asked me if I wanted to come over for dinner (which never meant just dinner).  So much for not seeing me anymore.  I said to him, “you just said you wanted to be alone….” He said, “but I like you so much when you’re like this….”  Lol.

I do think he had a soft spot for me, and in some warped way wanted to keep me in his life, while he kept her.  It’s just too bad that he couldn’t own the truth with me.  He could have kept me in his life if he had, as a friend.  If he could own what he’s done now, we might be friends again.  I never could hold a serious grudge.  Even for this, if he’s learned his lesson and can stop lying to me. I would never be intimate with him again, but we could at least talk, he could still make me laugh.  Maybe.  If he could own his story, and stand up and be counted.

Of course, he may be holding a grudge with me, for making him tell her, for bringing the truth out.  But I think, really, he knows that it’s his own actions that caused the situation.  Not the fact that I insisted the truth be on the table.

At any rate, I don’t feel like I’d be triggered into anything if I go there.  I feel like it’s all a story of my past now.  Distance and time have given me back my own life.

Time for me to get my day underway, if I really want to get everything done today.

 

 

Soothed

Posted on by learning to live like water

My lovely weekend had a little blip last night.  But it didn’t last, it didn’t hurt. It just triggered some anger, some negative emotion.

It was soothed by a long intimate conversation with A, until way past my bedtime.  At times I wish A was here with me that way.  I love him too.  Our relationship is close, deep, intimate, a human connection. Telling secrets, being honest, and non-judgmental.  It is so good for me, right now, to have a man in my life I can trust completely, implicitly.

He asked me to send a pic of S, he wanted to visualize the devil.  I obliged, I only have one picture on my phone still.  The rest are on the computer that crashed.

A tells me a woman invited him to her hot tub.  He tells me he doesn’t trust her. But he’s going to go anyway, lol.  I said, go….but does she know about the one in MI you are going to see?  No….but he said he wasn’t going to get intimate with the hot tub woman.

We watch out for each other, we love each other more than friends, not like lovers, but deeply.  We are a blessing to each other.  He tells me I saved his life.  I tell him, he saved mine when S tried to crush my soul.  A has always been there for me, to pick me up, to make me look in the mirror, and see that I am still a beautiful person, worthy of love and belonging.  Even with the faults that the mirror shines back at me.  He offers his shoulder, he offers his heart.  He gives me a soft place to land. I hope I do that for him too.

Lucky, so lucky to have him in my life.  It’s no coincidence that we met the day after Scott told me about doing the prison whore, when I was so down, so miserable, so broken.  He was and is a gift from the universe.

I told him, I can be such a shit…and he said, yes, and I love that about you too.

It’s a love like the sun has for the earth….he never says I owe him.  I never say he owes me.

Blessed.

 

 

Voice Mails

Posted on by learning to live like water

I finally looked to see if S had left me a voice mail.  I didn’t so much as mean to, but I got a couple of voice mails I needed to listen to and saw there were 13 blocked voice mails, which were from him.  It makes me sad, but resigned to how it is.

I have no anger, no animosity.  He wants to talk.

As he said, in that lovely poem he wrote (which he is or was angry with me for publishing, tho when he gave it to me he told me I could put it up here or I wouldn’t have) “fate has determined that nothing will grow between us.”  I believe this is true, in this moment, the present moment.  We have talked about our issues dozens of times, on my deck, in  his living room, at the park where we met.  There is no resolution, now.  I want something he doesn’t.  I want a relationship where I am part of my lovers life, in all ways.  I don’t want a superficial sexual relationship with a friend.  He wants to be free, to see the world through his own eyes, without anyone else’s input.

I get that, I do.  But we have to go our separate ways for now.  If he gets tired of that journey, maybe then we’ll have something to talk about..  Right now, there is nothing more to say, and seeing and talking to him will not change it.  Our paths came together for awhile, we found comfort with each other, but that fragile tie was stretched to the breaking point this summer.  By me wanting more, by him wanting less.  It snapped, it broke.  It’s over, as it was.  It’s over for now, unless one of us does some major changing regarding what we want in life, and that won’t be me.  I know what I want, have known for a long time, years. One of my constant prayers is that I will know the love of a good man before I die.   I’m not going to change, I’m going to be who I am, and continue on the journey to find and create the life I want.  I know there is someone out there who will join me in that.

I am not going to unblock him.  I don’t want to have even one more conversation about this, about being friends, about how he wants to be free, about how he misses me, etc.  I am not going to commit to any of that right now.  Being friends with him in the past has always left me open to sexual innuendo, flirting, and it sucks me right back in.  So no, for now, no.  Maybe time and distance will change that.  Maybe not.

We can only live in this moment, and for now..the way things are at this moment, the door has to remain closed.

I don’t know what the future holds for anyone.  I can say, yes, I’m going to sell my house and move to Florida.  That’s all I really know right now.  I hope S will take this time to be free, to find himself, to figure out how he wants to live his life out and try to be happy.  I hope he does not get angry with me, but I am standing my ground for my own protection.  Maybe a time will come when I don’t feel I need to, but for now I just want to get away from the memories, the dreams I had for us.  They were only my dreams, not shared by him, not even shared with him because I knew they would push him even farther away.  Now….I think we need to have that space and distance and time, before we can really be friends, not looking for anything but friendship.