“Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we’re told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we’re so focused on finding our happy ending we don’t learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don’t, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn’t include a guy, maybe… it’s you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is… just… moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope.”
In a matter of three short years, we were best friends. We knew how to make each other laugh, the painful words that would make each other cry and everything in between. Laughter became memories and along the way, we experienced the good and the bad together. It was a great relationship, with the exception of not being able to be together.
He moved away last summer to start training for his new job and deep in my heart I knew it would be the last of us. He flew me down to Jacksonville for a weekend and everything seemed so perfect. So this is what it would be like, I thought to myself, I could get used to this. But boarding that plane back to Philly was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I had to force the tears from streaming down my face. Heartache never felt so painful. That was the last weekend we were us.
The last year has been somewhat of a roller coaster between us. Just when I was able to “move on” and date someone else, he managed to push his way back into my life. I kept my distance from him but it ended up backfiring on me in the end. We emailed our final goodbyes to each other and that was that.
In that time, I decided that I really need to figure out my life. I knew I had to let him go, despite how painful it was or my selfish opinions. I needed to learn that live does go on and that I can be much happier without him. My psychic told me I am confused with my love life. No truer words have ever been spoken. Here he was, the love of my life and my best friend, and I let him slip away. But the most confusing part of it all was that I was trying to hold onto someone and something that I wasn’t able to have. It’s that whole wanting what you can’t have aspect, I guess. But while I accepted the fact that maybe we’ll never be together, I wasn’t ready to accept the fact that I had once again, lost a best friend.
About a month ago I emailed him, apologizing for the hurtful words I said and the things I did that broke his heart. I finally reached a point in my own life where I had to accept what I did. “I miss our friendship, you were my best friend…” was probably the hardest thing to write in that email. Everything between us has always been so passionate, so meaningful, so… feeling-ful. This email wasn’t an exception. It took me weeks to write it – typing out thoughts, but then deleting them because I wasn’t sure I was ready to put myself out there all over again. I sent it without any expectations of a reply. About a week and a half later, while I was sitting in the waiting room of the ER for my fractured ankle, my blackberry went off. There was his email.
Our four-year history has been anything but normal. I fell in love with a guy who, within a short amount of time, knew me better than myself. He’s my best friend, for god’s sake. And now, nearly a year after we crashed and burned, we’re finally on speaking terms again, and I want nothing more than to get that best-friend friendship back, but I know it isn’t going to be that simple. The truth is, we have a messy and complicated relationship that only makes sense to us … and even now, things are messier than they were a year ago … but forwhatever reason, there’s just something about him and our relationship that makes me hold onto that hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ll have our own happily ever after together. Forever.
“What if you meet the love of your life, are you supposed to let them pass you by?”
