Confessions of a broken heart.
Have you ever been so turned around and confused that you had a hard time finding which direction is forward? I feel like that. Every bit of me is screaming at me that he is, and we are, far too important to simply let go of, but at the same time, has he given me much choice? What else is there to say or do? If there was one magic action, one magic word I could say, that would fix it all, I'd do it in a heart beat.

Someone recently asked me if, in the end, it was all worth it. If it was worth how I'm feeling, right here, right now. I said yes, without even hesitating. Every moment that I had with him was worth it, and I'll never say otherwise.

Just... how do you let go of a dream when you've been dreaming it for so long? How do you let go of everything? I've got nothing left to lose, so I held nothing back. At one point do I throw in the towel and gracefully bow out?

There are a few things I know to be absolute certain. One, is that I love him. I love him in a way I didn't know I was capable of loving someone. It's a true, unconditional love. Even know, as my heart is breaking, there is not a single thing about him that I would change. My only wish, for a very long time, is that he is happy. So, shouldn't I be willing to let him find that happiness even if it means its without me?

It's complicated. After all, I'm certain that in him I've met my soulmate. I prayed once, asked God for a very clear sign at the hand of a very impossible task. To be honest, when I did that, I was purposefully setting myself up to fail. I was trying to give myself the comfort of walking away from him, and us, and not having to regret it later. I didn't expect that the prayer I had would be answered in an affirming way.

Here's the story, for those who are now curious. In July of 2010, we were swimming in Lake Michigan. It was 4th of July, even. Packed with thousands and thousands of people at this beach. Someone I was with, somehow, lost their glasses while we were in the water. They didn't noticed this for quite some time. Everyone tried to look for them, but to be honest, no one could pin point where they were lost, there were thousands of people swimming, and the waves were crazy -- the glasses should have been lost forever. I'd been trying to make up my mind, whether or not I should let this guy in, whether it was God leading him to me, or just another mistake (because boy, have I had poor judgement in guys before). So, I said a prayer. I told God to give me a sign. Let the glasses be found, and not by just anyone, but my me, and then I will no, without a doubt, that it was His hand involved in this.

After over a half an hour with everyone looking, it was resigned as to the glasses were lost. I decided I knew my answer. My answer was to run like hell from this boy, and never look back. I had set myself up for this exact result, so it was as expected.

Until, at least another hour passes, and I'm walking and I step on something. I take a couple more steps when I think, oh, wait, what was that? Yep, I found the glasses. When no one was looking anymore. When we all gave up and decided they were a lost cause. I picked them up and thought "surely, they could be anyone's?" Nope, they were, in fact, hers. The glasses had been found, despite all the odds, and, they were found by me when I stopped looking.

It was the very sign I prayed and demanded. It was answered.

From that moment in time, I knew that God's hand was involved. Still, here I am, December 2011 and instead of planning our forever and the happy ending (happy beginning) that we have dreamed of for so long together, I'm trying to keep my broken heart together in one piece and trying to decide just what it is that I need to do, think, and say now. How did we get from there to here? It's a long story, one I think that might be worth telling, but I guess, perhaps, I need to back up and start at the beginning.

Our story began in 2005. We're six years in the making, and it's hard to believe that these six years are leading us to be merely friends (if we can hold on to that).

In 2005 I was still pursuing my undergraduate degree. I had a toddler daughter. I was still pretending to the outside world to be okay, when really, every day I was breaking more and more on the inside and I didn't let anyone notice. In 2005, I started sleeping with a good friend of mine. Casual. No strings attached. The sort of sex you have just to help distract you from the world hurting. Said friend encouraged me to get an account on a particular website, yep, a dating website, only so I could answer questions because it was really important to him (for whatever reason) to see how compatible we were. I don't know. I did it for him. Now, he knew I was breaking more and more day by day on the inside. He was doing everything he could to help keep me together. When we hung out, he'd keep me out as long as he possibly could, knowing that home was the last place on Earth I wanted to be. I regret to say that this person and I are barely even acquaintances these days, but I know he'd been in my life for a reason -- he was there to get me through when the rest of the world was buying the fake smiles.

It was this website, however, that led me to meeting the guy in question, the love of my life. I hadn't meant to meet anyone, but when he started messaging me, and we started flirting back and fourth, I'm not sure how long it took but he eventually got my phone number, and we began texting and talking all the time. We started falling in love, even then. I still remember how he told me one day that he was going to take me to Paris and propose to me on the flight over there. Funny, the things we remember, I'm sure he doesn't remember saying it to me. It wasn't just me, though, he loved hearing all about my daughter. He called us both his princesses. He wasn't one of the guys who made it clear that they would have dated me if I hadn't had a kid. He was different. He was falling in love with me, and he wanted to love my daughter, too.

Unfortunately, I didn't open up to him. I didn't tell him what was holding me back. He didn't know that I was slowly falling to pieces on the inside and having a very hard time, as every day passed, pretending that I was okay. I remember one day he asked for my address. He wanted to send me the manuscript to the novel he was writing. This was a trigger for me, and he didn't even have a chance at knowing it, because I still hadn't come to terms with certain elements of my past. In this situation, it was the 27 year old who started stalking me when I was barely 17... Yeah, even those of you who are closest to me, probably didn't really know about that situation, I keep things to myself way too much.

Things rapidly went downhill from there, and I'm certain he had no clue what happened. I started ignoring his texts. Blocking his calls. I refused to sign online, changed my screen name and e-mails and didn't even tell him... I all but disappeared, and it was never his fault. The timing couldn't have been worse. I was just getting out of one of my communications classes (working on my Master's) and I got a text from him. He asked me if I was/would be his girlfriend.

I didn't respond. I never responded after that. It was winter when that message came. I think November/December 2006. I was in at least my second semester of Grad school, I know that much, because I know whose class I was leaving, and who was in the class with me.

The time that came and went afterward was not pleasant. Every day, I felt a little more broken, a little more dejected, a little more worthless. Every day, I let all the negativity around me win. Everyday I felt more and more like the entire world would be better off without me. I'd single-handedly pulled away from everyone who cared about me. You stop returning phone calls, e-mails, or texts and after awhile, people will give up on you. I wasn't working, so I didn't even have a job, with coworkers, to keep me sane. I had school, and I clung to it. I had my daughter, my precious and amazing daughter who forced me to be strong when I didn't want to.

Depression. If you let it get a true hold of you can become impossible to shake.

I wish it was just one of those situations where I was depressed because depression happens. I had legitimate reasons that I felt this way, but that's not as important to the story I'm telling today. Most of you reading this know them. Most of you know all to well about the hell I faced at home.

At some point, towards the end of 2008, my friend asked me to go to Chicago with her. She had to pick her mom up from the train station, we'd spend the day there, and drive her back to Michigan later. I was on a public bus, looking out at the Navy Pier, when I picked up my phone and texted the guy for the first time in a year, give or take. "Chicago is gorgeous, I'd forgotten how much I loved this city." His response: "Who is this?"

If I were him, I'd have deleted me from his phone, too. Usually if someone asks me that question, I ignore it, and never text back. Figure, if they've moved on, so should I. This is the one and only time I've made an exception to that. "Liz." I expected him to say "Liz, who?" but that wasn't his response.

"Are you in Chicago right now??" He asked.

Yes. Yes I was. But we were on our way to the Union Station to meet up with her mom and leave. "On our way home soon. Picking someone up from the Union Station."

"Oh, ok. Yes, Chicago is lovely."

Yep, that was our conversation. Why do I remember it so clearly? I don't know. Being in Chicago reminded me of him, of how he made me feel, and the next day when I got off work I went to look at his Facebook to see how he was doing. He had unfriended me, too. Hah. I deserved it, I know. I sent a request back to him. Curiosity got the best of me.

I remember how incredibly jealous I found myself feeling when his Facebook profile showed he was in a relationship with someone. I mean, really, it was entirely my fault that it wasn't with me. Still, I hated it. I never told him that. Nope. If he's reading this, then he's finding that out for the first time right now. Still, I was determined to be his friend. He made me smile. He made life seem brighter just by being in it.

We weren't even trying to be all that close, either. I'd call it more of a casual friendship. I didn't want to seem too happy when I saw his relationship status go back to being single, I wanted to be supportive, but part of me was happy -- maybe we'd have another chance someday.

I don't remember the day our casual friendship turned to flirting. It happened in the early summer of 2010, though. Because by July of 2010, we were texting constantly. I remember texting him how much he should have been there with us, on that camping trip, kayaking with us, etc... How the only thing separating us was Lake Michigan... That's where I was at, in the moment I asked God for a very specific and very clear sign. I was starting to feel the feelings I felt when I first started talking to him, before I pulled away. I was starting to envision what it would be like to have a future with him. It was exciting and scary and I didn't know if I was being a complete idiot, and ultimately, I couldn't help thinking "Why would he ever choose me??"

God gave me the sign in July of 2010. It took me until November to start opening up to him. It was silly, actually. Because all my friends were working on Nano's and I was taking the month, instead, to write him every day and pour my heart to him. I let the walls crumble down. I opened up to him in a way that I've never opened up to anyone - not a single person on this planet, right now, knows me better than he does.

In May of 2011 he surprised me by coming up to Michigan. I'd been telling him, despite me opening up to him, that he really deserved better. I was convinced that one of these days he was going to realize that I wasn't who he remembered, and that I was right. Or, he'd realize that I was no longer the girl he fell in love with back then - I was no longer nearly as good as she was. I wasn't as pretty, I weight significantly more, and financially, I was in a much worse situation. I wasn't ready to face that sort of disappointment from him when he realized this. He surprised me. He surprised me more when he grabbed my hand, when he placed his hand on my arm during the movie, when he asked me to kiss him in the pub. Or, when he raced down the stairs in the parking garage ahead of me, so when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he turned around, blocking my path forward, and kissed me, right there, in the stairwell of the parking garage. All I could think was how happy I could be if I spent the rest of my life kissing those lips. I did spend quite a bit of that night kissing him in my car, outside his hotel, taking all the restraint in the world not going up to his room. I was trying to be good and make responsible decisions, and I knew that I'd have no ability to be good if I went in with him -- not the way I was feeling.

"Leaving you is so hard! I can still smell you right now." That's the text I got from him when he was on his way home to Illinois the next day.

In July, I gave in and let my heart feel exactly what it wanted to. I gave in and surrendered to how I felt. I let the rest of the walls crumble away. I let myself get swept up in us, in the moment, in our emotions, in our dreams. In July he met two of my best friends, both of whom approved. This was important.

In August, he told me we should move down there, his lease was up in September. I thought it was too soon. I thought I should be responsible and do the responsible thing and take time with it. I don't think I regret that, but, how long did I expect one boy to wait on me? I had put him through hell and made him fight for all he's got to get me to where I was... Labor Day weekend he met those I live with, my brother & his wife, and our friends. No one had anything bad to say. Nope, I wasn't used to this, because when I say I've had bad taste in guys, I'm not exaggerating. Later September we went down and visited him. Skye and I both cried when we were on the train as it was pulling away. It was so, so hard to leave him. In October, he spent more time around my brother & his wife, and our friends. My brother still approved. In fact, they approved so much, they were going to help me tell my parents about him, how much he meant to me, and the fact that in June of 2012, Skye & I were moving down there, and eventually, he & I were going to be married.

After all, we'd been talking about it. We both agreed that an indoor wedding was what we wanted - that is if we didn't elope. We'd talked about "Come what may" being our first dance song. I'd picked out my wedding dress (but needed to save up a lot for it.) I have an entire folder saved of potential bridesmaid dresses. I'd sent him a bunch of links to what I liked and what I hated for engagement rings. He'd sent me a picture of an advertisement for a two bedroom apartment down there. When I told him how much I missed him once, he told me five hours could change my life, all I had to do is get in the car and leave. He told me we could figure it all out when I got down there, but I wanted to figure out some of the details first.. He told me if he got benefits and we eloped, I could use his until I found a job down there. He told me we could try to survive on one car when mine started proving to have issues. He made me feel like we were unstoppable. He told me I should never worry about anyone else, because there was no one else like me. He told me I was meant for him. He told me if soul mates were real then he'd have to believe that I was his. He told me that I was made especially for him.

He told me he loved me.

In fact, when he told me he was thinking about choosing a different future than the one we planned, he still told me he loved me. He still told me I was amazing and had been amazing to him in every way possible.

It was hard not to think that, once again, someone was realizing that I just wasn't enough.

There are things I don't want to admit here, but in retrospect, I know why and how our relationship deteriorated. We stopped communicating as openly and honestly as we always had. We didn't deal with certain issues head on, actually, we ignored said issues entirely. Until it drove an emotional wedge between us. A wedge that made the long distance impossible.

Still. He had told me once that he didn't think we'd ever break up. That we'd have a love to last a lifetime. Because it was worth fighting for, and as long as we were both committed to fighting for it, nothing would stop us.

What, now, though, if I'm left the only one still willing to fight? What if I'm the only one keeping up my promise? Am I breaking my promise if I let it go? How do you let go of someone you believe, honestly, to be the one person God put on this planet to make your entire existence make more sense?

He told me once, that one day I was going to accept his love as easily as I accept love from my daughter. It's ironic how I didn't get to that point until he'd already begun walking away from us. It clicked. It just clicked a little too late. It's not true that better late than never, because sometimes, if it's late, it just won't do.

I really harbor no ill feelings towards him. I wish, so much I could hate him. I do. I wish more than anything I could lump him in with the other exes and mistakes. He's not like them though. He's so much better than that. He saved me from myself. He pulled me back up to solid ground again. He put me back together. He taught me how to live again, instead of going through the motions. He taught me to open up. He taught me that life is full of endless possibilities. He taught me that I'm worth much more than I've ever given myself credit. He's shown me how blessed I am. How much I mean to so many people. He's helped me realize that I am not a burden, and those that are helping me are only doing so because they love me. He's taught me that I can achieve whatever it is I want to achieve. He taught me to believe in myself. He taught me that happiness isn't something that happens to us, it's a choice. We have to choose to be happy. We have to choose to hold on to all the blessings and positive things in our lives, and let the negative roll off our backs. He taught me how to live life in a fuller way, embracing all the emotions, and just being passionate and living in the moment.

I only hope that I did even half of that for him. I also hope that I can manage to walk away from this, broken heart and all, still together in one piece. He told me once, that part of him wished I had gotten pregnant, because then he could have kept me forever. I wish that he could realize that he still can keep me forever, all he needs to do now is ask.


I honestly believe that if I hadn't pulled away from him in 2006, he and I would have been married by now. We probably would have had a kid together, too. I honestly believe, that had I followed my heart and moved to Chicago when I got my undergraduate degree, I never would have gotten to the point of depression I had, I would never have given up on myself and everyone around me. I never would have allowed myself to gain this much weight (weight that I'm now gonna work my ass off to, uh, literally work my ass off LOL). However, I also wouldn't know some of the people that mean the world to me. People I would want at my wedding and in my wedding. Had I gone down there then, there's more people than I can count on my fingers that, today, I wouldn't know, and somehow, I can't help but thinking it couldn't have been the entirely wrong choice...

I honestly believe we were meant to be together. I believe it so strongly it makes this entire situation crazy. How I can still smile no matter what text he sends me. How hearing his voice makes everything else seem insignificant. How he speaks to my heart. How do I walk away from that?

I don't want to lose him as a best friend. But if I try to hold on too tightly, I probably will. This is what I mean. I'm so turned around I don't know which way is up. I really just wish I could see him in person. Have our goodbye, even if it's a good bye for now, in person. Maybe because until I get that, I'll always be convinced he can walk away from me now because it's been too long since he's seen me, and if he had me to hold, kiss, touch, then his heart would remember in a moment what I mean to him. I think it would be easier to walk away from this if I knew I was wrong about that.

But I also know that he's not convinced that seeing me is a good idea. So I might not get that option.

I thought to myself the other day, if he and I were a Nicholas Sparks novel, where would we go from here? How would Nicholas Sparks get us from where we are now, to where we need to be by the end of the novel. I refuse to believe this is how he'd end our story...

But the difference between real life and fiction is that sometimes love doesn't conquer all. Sometimes it's not enough. Even when the love in question, the love being offered, is a true, unconditional, forever sort of love. Sometimes, even that isn't enough.

Sometimes, all we're left with are the what ifs, the should haves, could haves, and would haves. He gave it his all. I spent too much guarded and hesitant. Almost doesn't count. In the end, we're both to blame for the fact that we've made a mess of things. In the end, though, I know exactly what I could have done different to have led us to our happy ending. Who knows, maybe we'll still get it. Truth is, if he meant everything he's ever told me, or even half of what he told me, he's going to realize eventually that walking away is a mistake. I realized it. However, just because we're meant to be (and I truly believe that we are) doesn't mean we will be -- things don't just work out because fate deems them so. We're human. We have free will. We make messes of even the best gifts we're given. It will only work out, not because it's meant to be, but because we choose to make it work out -- but it will take both of us.

Why can't we get the timing right?

Where is a Time Turner when you need one?