A year ago today...

Wow... A year now.  The mission reunion that changed my life happened just 365 days ago... craziness.

It's sad to consider that what had such amazing potential was cut short of even having an anniversary.  Of course how many things are worthy of something better than what they actually attain.

I figured if nothing else I would have to post, just to commemorate it beyond just another day.  I have learned a lot of things in between this 4/26 and the last.  Much about myself, much about this girl that I loved, and much about how all relationships will now be influenced because of one.  It is my challenge to make sure that it is a positive effect, which I am fairly confident I'm capable of.

I've gained confidence notwithstanding the glaring failures and prominent imperfections I find almost daily.  In a world where chances need to be taken, I am slowly learning to get outside of myself and do things that I am not necesarrily comfortable with.  I don't want to be classed with Roosevelts "cold and timid souls."  And I won't be.

A new year, perhaps a more successful year.  I intend to succeed where I have thus failed in finding someone who can't and won't live without me anymore; who will see what kind of a man I am and what kind of husband and father I will be. 

Until then...  

Happily ever after her...

I've been trying really hard to get over the most recent relationship I was in.  The girl was someone extremely important to me, and continues to be, and there in lies my problem.  How do you ever move on?  When you love someone as much as I love this girl, I can try and focus on our differences and why things shouldn't or didn't work for us, I can look at pictures of her falling in love with another guy within a month of of us, I can have busyness and success in other areas of my life and still... I want her and I miss her.

Maybe I just saw more there than there was... and this is what I have resorted to by the way, calling upon faded memories and poor excuses to convince myself that what has happened is the right thing... maybe she just didn't know how to end it earlier.  Maybe she just went along with the idea of us because I was pushing so hard.  Maybe she just  liked the attention as much as I liked the idea of giving it.  Maybe I just liked the idea of getting attention myself.

Regardless, the time of us is in the past and now I am in the process of figuring our where I am supposed to go from here.  How can I do it the most diplomatically (and not diplomatically for the sake of everyone else, but because I don't want either of us to hurt anymore than we have to.).  Then again, she seems to have found a way to move on a lot more quickly than I have...  So maybe I am just wanting to believe it's more difficult for her than has been.

I share the heartbreak of The Gabe Dixon Band's song "Ever After You".  

Easy come and easy go
Has never been the case
Dreams of you are hard to erase
Call me crazy, call me mad
Call me what you will
But I'm sane enough to know that I love you still

There is no psychology
And no amount of prayers
That can cure the pain when you're not there
Cause this is not supposed to be
How a love should look
After you have closed the storybook

They say that life goes on,
But I ve been dead since you ve been gone
I think they were wrong
So who's the fool?

I am ever after you
Always ever after you
Tell me what I have to do
Is there a way to be happy ever after you?

There are still so many questions that I have... none of which ever have a very strong liklihood of being answered.  Among the more difficult things I have done is tell her that I can't just randomly have conversations anymore ( as we tended to do) like nothing has happened... because it was too hard for me.  Probably a selfish move... or self preserving.  She destroyed me... and not because she tried, or wanted to, but because she doesn't know what she wants yet.  And now I have to try and just live happily ever after her.

"If men come unto me..."

I've had a hard time for a while with the idea of avoiding a difficult situation as a means of solving it. Did you follow that? So, basically... among other things... saying, "I'm not going (or can't go) to a bar because any time I am around alcohol, I drink."

Don't get me wrong... I am very much of the opinion that you do whatever it takes to stop such a habit... but what I am saying is that I have never really felt it to be the most plausible solution. I have long felt that saying a statement like the alcoholic above is avoiding accountability. Do I think he should seek out the corner tavern as part of a daily routine to test his resolve? No. In fact, I respect a great deal the people who can discipline themselves enough to just completely abstain from something when they realize it's such a great temptation. But how can one truly consider themselves healed or recovered or rehabilitated if they are just never in the situations where they are weakest? Perhaps the alcohol example is a poor one for this discussion because avoidance, in this matter, may be the best... but say maybe you may have injured yourself with a hammer, does that mean you should then avoid hammers to avoid future injury? Certainly not! If you can use it effectively, you can effectively misuse it. The best course of action would then be to realize how you misused it, and use more caution or develop more skill when dealing with it in the future. So back to the alcoholic example for a second, the man who avoids the bar is not solving his problem... ideally, a man beset by his greatest temptation would still resist... because eventually he is going to walk by a bar, or attend a party, or have a weak moment and unless he has cultivated a stronger resolve, or a more articulate understanding, he is right back where he began.

So here's the thing... I'm thankfully not an alcoholic but I think there are countless, loosely comparable, circumstances where I've been told to run away from problems; only in more flowery or candy coated terms. But I say, we must face with courage the difficulties in life. It may seem reasonable or ideal to just leave things alone, but the greater benefit will come when we address with boldness the challenges we face and take full advantage of, and responsibility for, the agency we have. None of us are ever forced to sin... and even under the most miserable and unfailing coercion, we are only responsible for the things we knowingly choose to do or not to do.

I will make one concession, however. Time is sometimes an essential asset that must be considered in various circumstances... not all things will immediately be solved by immediately addressing them. It's been appropriately said that "time heals all wounds." But like with a wound to the body, there are generally important treatments and considerations given before covering it with bandages and "giving it time."

Moroni said that God himself shows us our weaknesses. Should we then be afraid of them? No, we should want to discover them... not to indulge in them or become discouraged, but in order to address them. To withstand them. NOT to run away from them.

Waiting...

She's finally decided that we're through unless something changes...

Yes... that means I am supposed to be looking for someone else. So in the mean time... while I am waiting for Sarah to figure things out or for some other girl who is miraculously better to come along, I'll cry every time I sit down to play the piano... I'll have to charge my phone half as often... I'll sleep more... I'll change my cell phone plan... I'll spend less time in the hammock... I'll try to figure out how to live without her again.

Something Worth Crying Over...

I'm in the lull period after an unbearable sob. For whatever reason some things will well up inside only to burst forth in machine gun sniffles and alligator tears. I think it tends to be my white flag. When I was young, when something hurt, or was just wrong in any way, I could cry and things would be better. Not because I just needed to drain the eyes... but because someone, often my mother or father, would come and love me through it. Something about that embrace made it so nothing needed to be said; because I could feel, and literally feel, loved.

I don't live where anyone hears me cry and comes to console. I cry until I realize that I am actually getting nowhere and wasting time feeling sorry for myself.

I cried just now because I realized that the opposite of what I want to do is what I have to. I'm in love someone, finally. But that love is unrequited. Because she is likely reading this, I will tell you for her sake that she disagrees. She adores me and admits aloud, to me, that she will not find anyone better; but in the end, without choice, it is not right and nothing can be done to make it that right. How trite and true is the phrase, "It's not you, It's me." I wonder how many people in the world hate that phrase and use it anyway.

I have, until maybe just moments ago, refused to accept the conclusion of failure. I don't invest my heart in people this way, and this is why. In a childish inner dialogue of unspoken 'No, YOU go first''s I finally decided to go first. It was a miscue. And this sick feeling inside is evidence of it. So in my attempt to remedy it all I have to do is, as I mentioned earlier, what goes against every feeling in my heart and relevant thought in my mind: look for someone else.

"How can you just do that if you are really in love? Doesn't love mean you won't ever give up?" Well... I can't invest my emotions this way in someone who can't love me in return. Notice "can't" instead of "won't"... it's careful wording like that which i hope she notices. The sad thing is how willing she is to help me lose contact... not because she wants it to end, but because she feels it will be better for me in the long run.

She longs to be able to have me understand how she feels and what she means... and I long for the same... to know how it can feel right without being right. I just hope that it becomes right for her before I manage to forget how in love with her I am.