I met an amazing man at work. He was funny, we had a lot in common with our upbringings, interest and work. But it was a mess. He had recently (six months prior) gotten out of a 5 year relationship. In my heart I knew he wasn’t ready to date, but I was so worried about missing the opportunity to be with him, that I ignored the signs. So we were together. As together as two people who rarely saw each other and mostly communicated via text and email could be. He stayed the night a couple of times a week and during those few hours we were together, I was happy and convinced that this was going to work. But then he would leave and I wouldn’t hear from him, as he had his own life and his own things to deal with. But that scared me. It scared me because I wasn’t invited in to be part of those things. And, in a way, I didn’t invite him to be a part of my things. Or, if I did, I gave him an out. And out to protect myself from what I assumed would be rejection. And, I suppose, an out as a test for him to prove he cared about me as much as I wanted him to, a silly hope that he would ignore my option of saying “no.” But the truth is, I wasn’t being honest with him. As most everyone I’ve told this story to has said, I also wasn’t being honest with myself. So a few months later, we are to today. An email and brief phone conversation earlier this week set the stage for an impending conversation I’ve been afraid to would come. The one I thought I would avoid by giving up my needs to show him that I was the girl he needed. That I would heal all his wounds and we would live happily ever after, like a romance novel. What I didn’t realize was the whole time I was trying to be his healer, I was destroying myself. This is a pattern I see a lot in my life. I care-take those around me, often times at my own expense. I want desperately to have a purpose, a meaning, a reason for people to want to be with me and around me, and I thought giving so much of myself would create that reality for me. But it didn’t. All it’s done is bring me to this day. To this website. To this Breakup Diary. And to this story. A story that I’m telling a million strangers because I want someone to say something to me that will make this better. That will bring me to the place of change and hope and happiness. I don’t know what he is going to tell me tomorrow, but I assume I know the end. And I fear I won’t get out all the things I want him to know. That I will forget something that might be the one thing that changes his mind and brings him back to me. Realistically I know that’s not possible. Realistically I know that I don’t have that power over people, and the only reason they have that power over me is because I let them. So I’m sending all my hope and faith out into the universe and to all the people who have written before me that good will come from this. That I will heal quickly, that we all will heal quickly, and we will be better for it. The little tears in our souls will be replaced with slight scars that will tell our story and remind us that we deserve the best.