So for the past three months, I’ve been trying to get over a relationship. I was in love (If I’m honest about it, I still am), utterly, and completely with someone I think of as the most amazing human being in the world. But life has a habit of moving in new directions, even if you don’t always want it to move with you.
I met her last year, and for a while I was happier than I’ve ever been in my life. We went on a few random adventures – I even flew her over to the UK for Valentine’s Day, to meet my parents (ok, a little soon, but it just felt so damned right). She was quite sick for a while at the end, which put a dampner on things, but that only served to remind me that I was serious about this girl – very serious. Even if the most we could do was to sit at opposite ends of a table in Starbucks, as long as I was with her…everything just seemed so right with the world. I would have done anything for her, gone anywhere. She could have asked me to drop everything and move to Timbuktu…I would have. And, truth be told, I probably still would.
My first book is dedicated to her. I don’t regret this – not in a regretful “tattoo of the ex-girlfriend won’t go away” kind of way. But I do tend to torture myself at least once a week (sometimes a lot more often) by going into Borders and looking at the dedication sitting there on the shelf. I ask myself “why?”, then ponder the dedication I would have had in my second book – more of a question than a dedication in actual fact…yes, that kind of question. So, I guess I’m lucky that it didn’t get to that point – that would be even more depressing than the situation I’m in with this whole affair now.
She ended it on March 18, approximately one week after said book was published, without a reason. I know the exact hour, minute, and second that my heart was permanently torn in two – but I’ll spare readers those details here. The point is, I just don’t know why. I can guess. I can think of reasons, things I might regret, things I’d do anything to change. But I just don’t know why, and this causes me constant pain. I failed on some fundamental level, while simultaneously, all I did – all I did – was love that girl with all my heart. Every ounce of my being loved her, and every ounce of my being still does love her. I can’t change that. She is a wonderful human being, and yes, she deserves to be happy. I just wanted that to be with me. More than anything.
Three months, and many many thousands of dollars spent pining later and I barely feel any better about the situation. Nothing has ever upset me on a level even approaching how I feel about what happened here. I’m not at all angry with her, not one bit at all, and I have now accepted that it’s over (at least, I think I have), but I still find it so very difficult to “move on”. As far as I was concerned, she was the one. Forget the book dedication, I had jewelry on my shopping list. Yes, really. I let myself fall in at the deep end, and I didn’t care one bit. I would have done anything for that girl. Any single thing would have been no trouble at all. Again, if I’m honest about it, that’s still the case now.
Recently, as I was canceling a certain online dating site for the 4th time in the space of a month – it’s not fair to think about dating other people when you’re still emotionally tied – it occurred to me that I’m going to need to take a long break from this kind of thing. Relationships only lead to bitter heartbreak in my experience. And I’m not sure I want to experience that again. A large part of me wants nothing more than to just meet a special someone and spend the rest of my life with them, but that kind of happiness is currently reserved for other people. If I’m honest about it, nothing seems to matter so much in life as having someone like that. A companion with mutual concern for the other.
I am actually ok though, and in many ways I’m upbeat and positive about the situation. I’ve made radically – drastic – changes to my life and I will continue to work on the self improvement angle. I love living in the US (I can’t imagine living in the UK) and I want to invest my time and effort into my job, and into my writing, and continue in my quest for knowledge. I’m sorely tempted to enroll for another (part time) degree in due course, as much for the academic outlet as anything else. There is so much out there in this world – science, engineering, music, culture, so much utterly amazing stuff. I love living life to the full, as much as I can, and improving myself in the process.
Project Brave New Jon started on the afternoon that things fell apart, and for the last three months I’ve devoted all of my energies at self improvement. I’ve eaten only salad, fruit, and other balanced essentials (and lost a huge amount of weight), joined a gym (I’ve been going down when they open in the mornings, at 5:30am – I don’t sleep much these days), learned to drive (and driven 3,000 miles in the first month), taken up numerous sports, revived my writing, and many many other things. But still, my thoughts all along have constantly returned to one thing. In spite of my best efforts, there’s really only one thing I seem to want in the whole world – something I’m trying my utmost to live without. I understand now so many love songs on a profound level.
Try listening to Roxette 122 times on an afternoon. I guarantee that it won’t make you feel any better. Still, I’ve got another 23 playlists here filled with only the most depressing power ballads that you could try instead. I shouldn’t have done that to myself, but misery loves it’s own company sometimes. At this point, I still spend hours at a time listening to wonderfully depressing music. Tonight, it’s Journey’s Faithfully that I’ve got on repeat. It’s a great track. But it only serves to remind me how much I wanted what we had to be eternal, perpetual, and how far that is from the reality of the situation. Self delusion. Something we’re all guilty of, from time to time anyway.
Anyway. A few weeks ago, I found myself in the middle of the Mojave desert on a Sunday afternoon. I needed to get out of town – going almost anywhere in Boston was just bringing back memories. I needed to get out to the middle of nowhere, to really pine properly to myself. Since I’m not the kind of person to do things in half measures, this was really the only way to finally try to get this out of my system. I did feel better – driving out to the middle of nowhere and sitting by myself – temporarily, but it was relatively short lived. I’ve taken pining to a whole new level. And learned a lot more about myself, too.
In summary, my apologies go out to friends who haven’t known why I’ve been a little more weird than usual lately – I don’t let this stuff get in the way of day to day activities, but it has clearly impacted elsewhere. My current book project is delayed and various other stuff was put on hold for some considerable time while I tried to deal with this stuff. I didn’t plan to write anything about it here, I don’t want to upset anyone, but I wanted to ask you for your continuing patience as I catch things up.
I’ll try not to mention this again, I just wanted to get this off my chest 
Jon.