I woke up to a dream of you telling me that it was over. My chest hurt. And then it hurt more when I realized that it wasn't just a dream, when I realized that I had to start to forget you, to unlearn my love for you. Damn you for making me wash it all away like this. Damn you for your memorial toothpaste, for "Industrial Parkway, lover's lane", for all the times you put your head on my chest, for all the times you held on tight to me in public, for all the times you told me to preserve my health, for all the times you told me I was handsome, for all the times you called me toots, for all the mementos you seemingly held precious. What does all your apparent sensitivity and sentimentality mean now? Where is the strength behind it? On the one hand, you seem to treasure the idea of us, but on the other, all you can do is angrily recite my faults.

You disagreed with me about "on the whole, I was very good to you." You said that "it doesn't work." As I have said many times, I have little defense for some of my mistakes from last year: provoked or not, some lines should not be crossed. But this year things were smoothing out. I am sorry that you didn't have the patience or energy for it, but if you can look back and say that on the whole, somebody was good to you - that is not a terrible thing.

Once again, it's strange to me how a relative stranger telling you that you were "strong" meant so much to you when I have told you the same thing many times. And yet it means little when I say it, because you choose to dwell on our bad times, instead of looking at the big picture - the exact sin of which you have accused me many times. You choose to nitpick and rehash and focus on your own misery instead of focusing on the positive facts: how much time, attention, and yes, money I devoted to you. Do you think all these things were by accident? No, I always tried to plan around us, because I loved being with you. Do you think I ate out all the time and spent extravagantly when were not together? No, I mostly spent money for our benefit.

But you choose to ignore these things. Why? I really do not understand. Because these are the true signs that despite all appearances, how much you meant to me. You pick on the disturbances in the peace and ignore what was happening EVERYDAY, even in the worst of times. We met under terrible circumstances and I have chosen, for the most part, to not judge you as you were, but you, with your faith and still retaining some good will about us, choose to resent me, to hold anger in your heart, instead of trying to forgive me so that love could prevail.

You force me to wash it all away. To forget you. Just like that. I wish it was as easy for me as it seems to be for you. But if that's your wish, it will eventually happen.

You won't destroy me. You will make me stronger. My heart is strong. Any bitterness I feel will only translate into more strength for the next relationship. Maybe I don't have the faith but I believe in the strength of my will and I believe in the strength of love. I am not so arrogant as to call myself a "catch." I don't think I'm much of a "catch" in the traditional sense, but I am a good man. I follow my heart and if I love somebody I will keep the fire stoked.


I am just as sensitive as you, except my sensitivity is more optimistic. I notice things just as you do: changes in mood, beauty, humanity. But I try to let the hurtful things flow through me and savor the positive moments. I remember you laughed before when I claimed I was just as sensitive as you were, but I believe that to be true. I have my melodramatic moments. I've cried about us - you've seen it. I've cried watching TV shows. I've cried mentioning my deceased cat. But I hold an optimism for life. I don't need to stay angry. I literally rise above it. I don't know how it happens, but it's just so hard for me to stay bitter. That's why I could keep loving you, why I could hang on and hang on. Because I loved you and that was all that mattered to me. Everything else would just fall to the side. I thought it would always be me and you, but you were always partly living in a former life, either in your rocky marriage, our rocky first go, or the recent tragedy. I realize that some things could not be helped: much of it was just bad timing but you could have tried to forgive me. Yes, you tried, in spite of everything, but the fact that a laundry list of all my past sins can still make you so angry shows that you have not forgiven me at all and with that, any effort would be more or less futile.