Affairs of the heart in Experiences

This is a long and erratic post, but it’s hard to summarise 9 months of life and portray the true depth at 2am midweek!

It’s been nearly a year since the separation, and if I’m honest… I’m not ok. I’m asked almost daily how I’m doing by someone… A friend who knows. A customer who has no idea and is asking as small talk. A customer who has no idea but genuinely cares. A customer who knows and cares. Most of the time my answer is the same.... “I’m good” or “I’m ok”. Truth is I want to spill my feelings, but I have no words. I want to hug someone, but I want to push them away. I want a relationship, but I want to be alone. I want a fling, but I want something lasting. I can’t live with K, but I can’t live without her. I tell myself my life is not bad, I have first world problems… There is so much tragedy in the world and Im sinking from a heavy heart? What have I got to complain about? Yet everything just seems so debilitating. Every feeling is a contradiction… and it’s exhausting.

We’ve started to get into a routine now with sharing the kids, everything is fairly even. It’s kind of nice to not have them some days and focus on work or ‘me’ time (mostly thats been cleaning and clearing the house, changing rooms around, reorganising things), then being really present with them the times they are with me. They are really awesome with everything actually, handling it really well. Sometimes they are at my place and say they miss mum or they want to be there. Other times they are there and say that about me. Other times they say why can’t we all just be in the same house. Those times are hard, and you know I don’t really have an answer.... I can’t really give a definitive reason why. You get married and have kids and imagine that is your life, you don’t expect it all to fall apart 10 years later. There was no cheating, no single moment of devastation, no violence, no abuse, barely any arguments.... We just lacked communication and we each gave up on the other quietly and slowly. The first few months were horrible… I wanted answers. I wanted to talk. I wanted something.... But I got nothing. Most texts were ignored, any that were responded to were usually one word answers. If I wanted to talk in person, she was exhausted. If I called, she wouldn’t answer or would be too busy. I was lonely and I was lost. I tried to just be present with myself, something I have always struggled with, but I wasn’t doing well.

Finally, after a few months of this, around Christmas time i felt really lonely and I jumped on Tinder. I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know what I wanted. I chatted with a few women but that didn’t go far, i found it very vein and people weren’t really looking for connection. But I met Maria.... A Mexican woman studying in Australia, fluent in Spanish, French, English and Japanese. In fact her PhD was related to parts of Japanese culture and I had just been planning a trip to Japan! We had a great connection right from the start. She wasn’t shallow like the other women, she had depth. She had life experience. She had soul. She was attractive. She could hold a conversation. We chatted sporadically at first, then it became daily. There were no expectations and we hadn’t met in person. She lived about 3 hours away (no idea how we matched in the first place!). We Skyped a few times, and things were good. I started to feel happy again. We laughed. We shared music. We enjoyed the virtual company.

Then things went quiet, and I didn’t hear anything for a week. I sent messages but got no response. I could see on Messenger that she had been online and had read my messages, but nothing. At first I was worried. Then I thought she had connected with someone else. I felt sad, but we had never even met so what was I missing? Turned out she had suffered from internal bleeding the next morning after we last spoke and was rushed to Hospital for emergency surgery. She had a friend checking her Facebook to keep in touch with her mother in Mexico and keep her updated on what was happening, that’s why she wasn’t returning my messages! We reconnected again after she came out of hospital, but things were different… She had had a near death experience which put life in perspective for her. She wanted commitment. A relationship. She had been single for nearly 10 years and clearly we were connecting on a deep level. I was hesitant, but I definitely felt something and didn’t want to lose it. So I commited. We spoke on the phone every day. We sent pictures to each other. We had phone/video sex. I went away to Japan, but she got paranoid that I was going to be with girls over there and said she wanted me to be single when I went so I could enjoy myself, despite me telling her I wasn’t interested in any other women. She told me the day I was going to fly out that I couldn’t give her enough, I wasn’t commited enough, I was playing with her emotions… I was so confused and sad. We had a few other arguments like that while I was over there and I was really torn… I cared about her but this was intense, did I really want this right now? We spoke every day while I was there, and she would get really worried and upset if she hadn’t hard from me for a few hours. It was very on/off, hot/cold. She would help me with the trip, places to go, things to see there, and want to talk for hours, then she would say she was busy but text me soon after to say she missed me. We had a few intense conversations and seemed to work through some things.

I went to visit her when I got back and we had a great time. A couple of weeks after that we had a weekend away in Sydney. Then we spent another 2 nights together in Sydney over the next few weeks before she flew out to Cuba and Mexico for a conference. Most of the time while she was away she had limited communication due to poor internet, which gave me time to think rationally. We had become dependent on each other, on talking with one another. We lifted each other up and inspired each other every day, but it was becoming smothering. She would want to call me and just have me on the phone for hours at a time knowing I was there even though we weren’t talking the whole time. She showed me love and cared for me in ways I had never felt before, but I just wasn’t ready for this kind of relationship. I told her how I felt, and she said that she loved me and would wait for me. She would wait 20 years for me, it didn’t matter. I felt even more smothered, and didn’t want to be responsible for her putting her life on hold for me, and truth be told I had not gotten over K and part of me still hoped we would get back together some day. I told Maria I was unsure what I wanted, but I couldn’t do this relationship like this right now. So we decided to take it slow and ‘start again’. This was ok for a couple of weeks but a bit weird after the intensity of before. I felt it wasn’t what she was wanting, and she was looking fir deeper meaning in my words. She was hurting and longing. I told her that for the first time in my life I was learning to live with myself, and that I didn’t know what I wanted in the future, I may just want to be alone. A few days later she wanted to talk, and she told me how she was hurt, how I had promised her a life and we had made plans and dreams together and that I was reckless with her expectations and my promises. I told her I was sorry but didn’t know what to say. A couple of days later she sent me a message saying not to contact her again and blocked me on Facebook. I lost a love and I lost a friend. We truly loved each other, deeply. I just wasn’t ready, and I couldn’t bare the thought of her waiting for me while my feelings were so confused. I knew right back when she asked me to commit that I wasn’t ready, I was happy with the deep friendship we had created. But she had been single for a longtime and had her near death experience and we clearly had a connection… She had convinced herself that I was the one for the rest of her life. I convinced myself I was ready for something I wasn’t. I hate that I hurt her and that I couldn’t be honest with myself or with her sooner. I hurt myself. This was painful.

It’s been about a month, and I think about her every day. I question my choices. Sometimes I feel relieved, other times I miss her presence and what we could have been together. K and I have become a bit closer over the last few months (she also had a similar short lived and intense fling around the same time funnily enough), and that brings me false hope of a future. It’s a huge factor as to why I ended things with Maria. I want to be with K, but deep down I know we can’t, at least not any time soon. I remember the pain when we were. There is still tension between us. Perhaps one day it will go, but I really can’t see us together again, not soon anyway, no matter how much I want it. So here I am… I’ve thrown away any chance of something real with Maria. I can’t live with K.... But I can’t live without her. I can’t be with anyone else while I have these feelings for her, but I am lonely and longing for company and connection. Another contradiction…

The heart is a fickle beast. This heart is tired and wounded.