Those Free to Play Games

I've been playing Guild Wars for a few years now. If you don't know, it's an MMORPG, and if you don't know what that is, nothing I say from here will make any sense to you! I came to Guild Wars from EverQuest and EQ2. I loved EverQuest so much I was a member of their volunteer customer service program for something like four years. I left the program because of timing, and because the things they required Guides to do changed, and because it seemed the players weren't really all that interested in those changes. It could have been really great, but I had many days with no takers and that was very discouraging.

So, I left the Guide program and became just a regular player. The problem was I didn't play very often (something happened in my guild and no one was ever around to hunt with me and it was all very annoying and you really can't solo in EQ), so I just wasted that monthly fee more times than not. I eventually cancelled my account. But I am a gamer, and I needed a game. I tried Star Wars Online, which was ok but advancement was very slow to me, and I never saw any of the storyline. I played Earth and Beyond for a time, which was a really awesome game, beautifully rendered, but with an incredibly small player base. I never tried WoW, I hated the art style and animation. Then Fox told me about Guild Wars. It was similar to EverQuest, only without the monthly fee. I started to play and I was totally hooked. And I further loved it because it was ok if life got busy and I didn't play for months at a time - I wasn't wasting money in subscription fees.

And I, like millions of others, am eagerly anticipating Guild Wars 2, but I digress.

In that time, Lord of the Rings Online came out, and Final Fantasy Online. I was told that both of these games were absolutely beautiful, but I was just so happy not paying a monthly fee that I didn't try either. It was like the console games my brother and I would play together (Secret of Mana, one of the BEST Nintendo RPGs ever!); you buy a game and play it when you want it. Sure, I advance slower in the game that way, but at least I'm not wasting money!

Just this month, EverQuest launched a free to play model, where you have limited access to the game for free, or you could subscribe to a couple tiers of membership to get even more access. I heard LOTRO did something like this as well. I would love to knock around EverQuest again, just for all the memories. I actually got an e-mail from SOE stating that with their new free to play model, my account had been "upgraded." I think by upgraded, they meant from inactive to active and free.

Now, the thing with EQ's new F2P offering is that it's limited. You only have the option to play four races (no elves) and four classes (no paladins or bards). This is a bit of a hang-up for me, as my two main characters were an Erudite Paladin and a Wood Elf Bard, even my Guide character was a Half Elf Paladin, and I can't recreate any of them! Booo!!!! I could go on and on about the awesomeness of the EverQuest Bard class, but that would be another digression.

I would like to relive my early EQ memories again, even if I can't do it with the same races and classes that I am used to. I have no desire to start playing that game with any regularity so I can totally save on that monthly fee, but just to see some places and jog some memories might be fun.

I remember watching my brother play EQ the first time (my brother and I have this fairly unique ability to get as much enjoyment out of watching someone play a video game as we do playing it ourselves- remind me to tell you about Resident Evil 2 some time!). He was a Wood Elf, and their starting city is high in the trees. He couldn't figure out how to get down to the forest floor where all the baddies were that you had to kill for experience, so he found another player and asked, "Pardon me, I am new, how does one get down from here?"

And the guy, a Barbarian, if I recall, said, "Jump! ‘Tis not far down!" and then he stood up and ran off the edge of the platform. Then my brother gingerly walked to the edge and looked down and there was our Barbarian friend, dead at the bottom. Needless to say, we did not follow his advice and asked someone else, who took us to the lift.

Yeah, I think I might have to log in and knock around a bit. Maybe tomorrow I'll share my first EQ adventure with you!

I Got Mad Skillz

One of my coworkers, Greg, was complaining to me a few weeks ago that a contact kept calling him Gary in correspondence. And one day they called him George! "Greg" isn't a hard name, but they just weren't getting it right, even though all his e-mails back to him were signed with his actual name.

So, I started calling him by a different name when he got to the office in the morning. He was really surprised! Then he decided he was going to play along too, but instead of just finding other names that begin with E, he was going to go through the alphabet. I kept with the G names.

I've used Gilligan, Giles, Gilderoy, Gilgamesh, Graham, Gulliver, Gomez, Garfield, Geordie, Gustav, Gandalf, Gawain, Galileo, Gabriel, Gershwin, and Gaston. This morning he said he was really impressed that I can find so many G names. It's cuz I got mad skillz! I told him I was sure he would run out of alphabet before I ran out of G names. We are almost to the end of the alphabet, and I still have plenty of names!

It was a fun game!

That Is the Question

My awesome artist friend Rain wanted to play around with the colors of my tattoo image and I completely and totally love what she did with it! So, only one question remains.

To outline





Or not to outline?

(this image is a little 'outside of the lines' that the final image will not be, so don't judge on that, please!)

I'm leaning towards the outline because I worry that the yellow flame tips will get lost against my pale hide. It also makes the gradients look cleaner and gives definition to the knotwork. The not outlined one is very nice and I think will give it a more organic feel, something that just fits with the vaguely fiery theme. As always, I'm happy to hear opinions!

Public Service Announcement

If the e-mail address you have for me is from burninglakearts.com or thesaurusarcanum.com, I'm going to shut down these domains and will no longer be using those addresses. I sent an e-mail to all of my contacts (and they are few: I don’t store a lot of e-mails) for two of the three addresses I currently use from those domains. If you did not get an e-mail and you want my current e-mail address(es), let me know and I'll get them to you!

There are several factors to why I'm shutting down my .coms. The first is that I haven't updated either in some years. Something happened on my host’s end and messed ThesaurusArcanum up big time anyway, like it reverted to a previous save or something and I lost a lot of content. Another reason is that I get calls from marketing companies that contract with my host at least twice a day. As I am not a business and do not need to increase the traffic to my sites, this is really irritating. The last reason is that it's expensive to keep them around just for the e-mails (since I haven't been updating the rest of them). I may revisit the world of designing my own websites for the hellofit in the future as I did find it quite fun, but for now I don't need them.

Also, if there's anything particular you want me to save from either site, or information you want to keep, let me know and I'll get that to you as well! My contract just renewed so it will be a bit before I take them down, but it will happen!

One More Year

Happy Birthday, Bro!

Something Completely Different

If you read my FB page, you might have seen that I've decided it's time to get my first tattoo. I've wanted this design for years but a number of things held me back (honestly, one of them was someone I was dating who liked to dictate what I did with my body, and me getting a tattoo was one of those things he didn't want, but I digress). This was drawn by Sqwerl when I asked her to design a logo for my Gnome-selling business. One of the things that she came up with was this awesome Celtic knot-ish fiery thing she said was inspired by my name, which ended up in the name of my store, Fyrecreek's Bazaar.

That symbol, like the name, came to represent me- though the truth is I wanted it as a tattoo the instant she presented the first rough sketch of it to me. I've been spending a lot of time with it lately, knowing that I'm finally going to do this. I've noticed new shapes in the artwork, pieces of it started to stand for certain things. I've really been contemplating color, as that's the only thing I'm not 100% decided on at this point. I was playing around with it, and these are some of the things I've been thinking about. These are still pretty rough, and limited to what I can get Microsoft Paint to do simply because I haven't loaded the image on the computer that has my preferred image software on it yet. I also have a print out and plan to attack it with colored pencils. But, for just a rough idea, this will do.


Purple is my favorite color. Purple has to be involved. I don't think I like the full solid though.

Purple and blue go well together and I wear a lot of blue because my eyes are blue. I'm more fond of blue than I often admit. I don't think this will do, though.

Purple goes well with green, another favorite color, and blue. This isn't bad.

I initially said I don't want fiery colors like reds and oranges because I'm not all that into those colors. But I thought I'd try it with fiery colored-points, because the 'fire' is part of the point (hehe). Actually, I quite like this one. The purple highlights the vague heart shape in the center, the red and orange cover the fiery bits, and the green and blue that are still part of my favorite color palette fills in the rest.

What do you think? Any other combinations I should consider? (Yes, it’s my skin and I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life, but I’m open to suggestions! I might absolutely love what you have in mind, who knows?)

Ups and Downs

I had a low moment yesterday. I know they're going to come and go. I just have to let them in as they happen.

But for the future, so you all know:

I do believe...

... that I am wonderful.
... that I deserve happiness.
... that I was in a mutually loving relationship.
... that I was happy in that relationship.
... that I may be happy like that again.
... that I will be ok.

I do not believe...

... that I am worthless.
... that I did something wrong.
... that I'm not allowed to be happy.
... that all my happiness is based on my relationships with other people.
... that he never loved me.
... that I will never recover.


I need to feel through this, the ups and the downs, or I'll shut down and never feel anything again. One day, one step, one moment at a time. I know I'll make it. Just let me have those down moments. They won't last forever, I promise.

In fact, sometimes just writing it out here makes me feel better.

So don't worry (well, you can worry a little if you want to). No man has so much power over me that I'm going to do something crazy like hurt myself. And I've said I've given up on finding a life partner before- heck, I obviously still haven't found him- but I've never really given up. Yes, my heart still aches. It’s not going to go away overnight. But I’ll get there. I’m sure of it.

I'll be ok. This will pass in time. I know I’m stronger than this.

Waterfall

Ah! Waterfall!

Wondering Unbidden

Do you miss me?

Do you remember fondly the time we were together?

Do you regret the time we're not together now?

Do you think of me at all?



I'm not looking for an answer to these; actually I'm pretty sure it would be "no" for each one. It's easier to do the leaving than to be the one being left. I know because I've done it. I've left someone I didn't want to be with anymore and never gave it another thought. It was easy, it did not make me sad to be without him, I rarely even thought about the good times (they were few and far between but that's neither here nor there) because it was all over.

But being on the other side of that is very different. I think about him so much. I think about the last 18 months, mostly trying to find where I messed up even though he said I didn't - there has to be something I did wrong or he wouldn't have just given up on us. I also scan my memory looking for the signs that he said should have been there. Still nothing. I feel like such an idiot for that.

And he left me with that little bit of hope and I'm an idiot for holding on to that too. He's not coming back. I'm sure of it. Why would you allow yourself to hurt this much when a simple phone call could ease that? No, the only reason has to be that he's not hurting, and he doesn't miss me, and he won't be back. It was cruel of him to say he might, like it was some way of holding on to me even though he no longer wanted me. And my heart just won't let it go.

It doesn't really matter. It's not like there is anyone in my life who was waiting for me to be single again so he could make a move. I don't expect there ever will be one again. I'm just not that special person everyone thinks I am. I am broken and not worth the effort. Easy to leave, easy to forget.

Crabtree Falls

My parents and I visited my brother and sister-in-law this weekend. She's 14 weeks pregnant and looking fabulous. We're so excited! They they really deserve this and they are going to be wonderful parents.

They took us to Crabtree Falls, which features the tallest vertical drop in a waterfall east of the Mississippi. It's a 1.7 mile hike up the mountain to get to the top. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the top on this trip. My brother and Moon stayed at the first view point, mom had had enough at .3 miles, and dad and I made it half way before the lunch we skipped caught up with us. Next time, we'll eat first and then go all the way up!

Still, it was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect and there was a surprisingly few amount of people there. It was so peaceful - amazing to just sit and listen to the music of the water and the wind through the leaves.

Afterward, they took us to Wild Wolf Brewing Company for seriously delicious food that we really needed after climbing up that mountain. It wasn't a difficult hike, but it was mostly upwards! Dad and bro spent some time in the store contemplating brewing supplies.

We were all sore, so we skipped laps in the pool this morning. Now that I'm home, it's nice to sit around and rest!

So I'll leave you with some pictures of the falls. Next time, we're going to make it to the top!

Stop It Already

I know you're trying to help, but it's not helping.

First: Thank you for thinking that I'm wonderful and talented and interesting and pretty. Stop implying that eligible men are lined up around the block waiting for me. That is not how it is in reality. I'm not saying that I'm not wonderful or talented or interesting or pretty, I'm saying those things do not equate to some special ability to have any man I wanted. Stop saying that it does. If it worked that way, I would have found someone a dozen years ago and wouldn't be in this mess.

Second: "It's his loss" sounds like such a nice thing to say. You're saying he could have had someone great and he's really missing out because he didn't see it. Thank you, that's kind. But you're also implying that I haven't lost anything when in fact I've lost a great deal. I've lost someone I love through (by his words) no fault of my own. That's a huge loss. Maybe you're trying to say his loss was greater, but my loss is also significant. And, by the way, it was not his loss, it was his choice. You tell me who lost more.

Third: Thank you for being angry on my behalf. Stop telling me I need to forget about his lame ass and find someone else. I used to think I would never give someone another chance to break my heart, but the world isn't that absolute. Sometimes people do deserve second chances. I don't know if Jack does or if he will even want one, so there's no reason to make up my mind on that right now anyway. I appreciate that you would help me hide a body if I wanted that. I don't. Let me decide if someone deserves a second chance with me or not.

Fourth: I'm glad that sites like Match and eHarmony worked for you. If you tell me to sign up one more time I'm going to reach through the computer and throttle you. I've been down that road before and despite being wonderful and talented and interesting and pretty, all I got out of those site were men who wanted to score. They worked for you and that's great, but they didn't work for me. And even if I thought I could get somewhere going that route, I'm not ready so shut up about it.

Please listen to what I'm saying. I know you're trying to help, but when you keep on about these things, it makes me feel like you're not listening at all and it makes me feel worse, not better.

Admission

Two days without crying, but it didn't last.

I have to admit, I'm not as fine as I'm telling everyone I am. I know this isn't something I'll get over in a few days or even a week, and probably not even a month. I wish I could fast forward to that magical day in the future when it doesn't hurt anymore.

I miss him so much, and I wish that would just go away. I know nothing is going to come of that little bit of hope that I'm holding on to. If he really loved me and really wanted things to work between us, he wouldn't have left me. My head knows this, but my heart won't let go.

And I don't want to let go yet, dammit. Right now, that hope is the only thing that's keeping me from shutting down completely. I do believe we had something wonderful, and I do believe we can work through it and be better on the other side. But it's not only up to me and now it's completely out of my hands.

I sent him and e-mail yesterday and told him to come by my house and pick up his stuff. He left some clothes and an overnight bag at my place. It's not fair that I have to have this constant reminder of him but he doesn't have anything to make him think of me. Part of me thinks that I shouldn't have done that, because now he will have no reason to come back to me for anything. But I know it's the right thing to do. I know that just having clothes at my house is not going to make him want to try again. If he arrives at that conclusion, he needs to do it on his own.

I don't really think it will happen. I hope, but I don't believe. I think he's done with me. That's why he left. I don't know why he left me with that hope, because it just hurts more not knowing if it's really over. I think it is, I hope it's not, and I'm totally in limbo for it. He knew I would be. He has created in me the very thing that he said he was struggling with himself. It's not fair, and I should be angry with him for doing it, and just let go. I'm not. I can't.


Why do I have to love you?

Progress

I didn't cry at all yesterday.

Crying is a silly thing anyway. It doesn't help, it doesn't make you feel better, in fact it makes you feel sore and achy and tired. But it happens, and that's just the way it is.

Maybe the lovely weather put me in a good mood, maybe focusing on things I have to do around the house made me not think about it, maybe acceptance is starting to set in. Nothing has changed, of course. I'm starting to not expect it to. I'm starting to get used to being on my own again. It's not a bad place that I'm finding myself at all.

Don't get me wrong, my heart still hurts. And if I think about things and let my doubts come to the front of my mind, my heart aches more.

I still have hope, but I'm to the point now where I know I'll be ok if we don't work out too. I'm still hurting now, but whatever happens, I’m going to be ok.

An Answer

"I thought I was feeling him express love, but what do I know? Having never been in a loving relationship before him, maybe I just saw what I wanted to see and called it his love for me. After all, there were times when I thought Robin was expressing love, when he was really expressing dominance. What do I know? I'm probably never going to know the answer to that either."

I think I have an answer. I think it's true that I'll never know if someone really loves me. Not really - you can't get into their head and hear their thoughts, you can't really know. But it's something I can know on faith and with trust. Do I have faith that he loved me? I want to. I used to. I want to believe that again, but the lie has made me question everything. How am I ever going to know when it's not a lie? More faith. More trust.

And that trust has been demolished.

Gods, this would be so much easier if I could just hate him. I don't. I love him still. Maybe it would hurt less if that would just go away, if I could suddenly stop loving him and just hate him. I know that's not possible. I think I'm glad of it, really. Not of the pain that I can't make go away, but I'm glad of loving him still. That, at least, I know was true.


It wasn't like that with Robin. [And before any of you start, I am NOT comparing Jack to Robin, but more the experience of the feelings of one relationship of mine to another. Jack and Robin are like apples and tires, both are round (or in this case, male) but similarities end there. And I happen to be allergic to tires.] What I thought was love was a belief that a skillful manipulator put into my head that I had better be happy with what I had, because that was all I deserved and the best I would ever get. Then I dropped him, realized I did deserve better, and sought to find it.

I thought I had found it, and I did, except for that lie that I just didn’t see. In the grand scheme of things, that little lie was nothing compared to what I have had to endure before it. Maybe that’s why I’m not angry, and I don’t hate him, and I still have hope. At the very least, I have hope for him if not for me. I hope that the man I love finds what or who makes him happy. That is completely independent of me.

Processing

A friend of mine said something very helpful. Either Jack will realize that he wants to be with me or he will realize he is fine without me, but either way is a win for me. If the first, then he may ask to try again, and I may be willing to as well (my mind is not made up on that, and it doesn't need to be. For all intents and purposes, we are done, and I'm not going to stop living on the slim chance of a 'maybe.'). If that happens, I could be certain of my place in his life, because he would choose me and be less likely to take me for granted again. If the second, then it's good for me to know now before I get any further invested.

She also mentioned that I know what a respectful, non-abusive relationship is like now and that will help me get out of the patterns that I always seem to be stuck in. I'm not entirely sold on that at this point, though. On one side, he was wonderful and I was happy. But I was happy in my ignorance. By his own admission, he lied on more than one occasion. I never saw this coming, I had no idea that he was thinking about SomeoneElse when we were together. This, of course, makes me feel like an idiot. Apparently there were signs I should have seen. When I told him I had totally missed them he said, "I guess I'm a good liar." No matter how you look at that, it means there were lies, or a lie, in the wonderful relationship I thought I had. That's not respectful. It makes me question the entire relationship. He said it was always there, but I don't know how deep it went - how often or when or how much he was wishing I was SomeoneElse.

I mentioned yesterday that I wish the last 18 months of my life didn't happen at all. I hate feeling this way, but that's why. It's because I don't know if the wonderful relationship I thought I had was really there, or if it was all built on his lie. He said it was really there, but frankly I have no reason to trust his word. After all, he said he is a good liar.

That's probably the hardest part. Did I just manage to get myself into another unhealthy relationship based on a lie that I was too stupid to see? How much of that time was he really with me? Am I doing myself a disservice by clinging to the memory of the thing that I thought was wonderful, and ignoring the fact that there was a lie underneath it? I can't answer those and probably never will. I love him, I suppose I can hold on to my part of that memory at least. He said he loved me. Well, maybe so. I don't know if that's something else he was lying about. I can't even tell you if that's what I felt. I thought I was feeling him express love, but what do I know? Having never been in a loving relationship before him, maybe I just saw what I wanted to see and called it his love for me. After all, there were times when I thought Robin was expressing love, when he was really expressing dominance. What do I know? I'm probably never going to know the answer to that either.

Do I want to think that I just spent the last year and a half not actually being loved by the man who said he loved me? Of course not. I hate that these thoughts are in my head at all. I want to believe that he loved me at least a little like I love him. I want to believe that his mind was with me when we were together (I know this part to not be true, at least not always). I want to believe that we're stronger than this. I still believe that, but a relationship isn't going to work if only one person wants it to.

He did say that sometimes he wondered if the flaw was in our relationship, since he wasn't happy in it. Nothing was missing from my end, except maybe the truth that he withheld, so I really can't help him with an answer to that one.

I have learned something. I've heard people talking about being broken-hearted, or talk about their heartache. I always thought that was a figurative description of an intangible feeling. It's not. My heart literally aches. I didn't know it was possible to feel like that organ, which really is unrelated to the feelings at hand, could just break into bitty bits at any moment. I've been hurt before, I've even been broken (in a very different sense), but nothing has ever felt like this. Add the red, sore eyes and stomach and migraine from crying too much and I'm just a ball of pain. And with the questions that I have about the relationship and what I thought it was, and not knowing if it really was, it's hard to think that it was worth this pain.

Sometimes, I think it was. In the brief moments I have of believing that I actually was in a mutually loving, respectful, non-abusive relationship. Then, yes, the joy of being loved by someone you love- if even for a moment - is worth that literal heartache that has taken me completely by surprise. Those times when I'm unsure of what my relationship really was, and the role that lie played, it wasn't worth it at all.

But I don't know what is true. Everything hurts so much.

Not Fine

I'm pretty sure no one reads this anymore. Between infrequent updates and spending so much time microblogging on Facebook, I'm pretty sure my dear readers have dispersed. And that's perfectly understandable, because I did seem to abandon this space in favor of smaller and faster and more frequent updates.

Which is why I'm here today. The rug has been pulled out from under me and I need to write about it somewhere. While I don't care who reads it, FB just isn't the place for this.

As the title suggests, dear readers who may or may not be, I am not fine. Jack and I are no more. After a year and a half of building a relationship that brought me such happiness and joy, he virtually told me it was all a lie. We had this conversation on February 21st, after a lovely weekend at a B&B that he bought for my birthday. There's never a good time to be told 'I love you but not that much,' but this was a pretty rotten time. After a lovely weekend with just the two of us, a beautiful blanket of snow on the ground, and lots of wine.

The story was that he was dating someone, whom I do not know by name or person, almost two years ago and he was still "hung up" on her. Their relationship ended 6ish months before mine began. But he knew he wasn't over her then, and started something with me anyway. We had a conversation about halfway through our not-quite-18 month relationship where he mentioned a bad break-up that he took very hard. Still, I had no idea it meant that he sometimes wished I was her.

So, in that Tuesday conversation a few weeks ago, he told me that he did love me, but that he couldn't love me with all of his heart because part of him still wanted SomeoneElse and he felt guilty about it. I asked him what he needed and he said he wasn't sure - he wasn't sure if he just needed me to know and we could keep on with our relationship while he worked out his lingering feelings for SomeoneElse, or if we needed to take a break while he worked out his lingering feelings for SomeoneElse, or if he needed to break up with me altogether to figure out what he really wanted. He told me I was wonderful, beautiful, awesome, and perfect and he didn't know why that wasn't enough. He said that he wished that he could just flip a switch and make the feelings for SomeoneElse go away, especially because he was certain there was no chance with her. I told him I loved him, and I wanted him to be happy even if that happiness was not with me, and that he needed to tell me what he needed and I would do it. We parted that day with the intent to keep on while he worked things out.

And then I cried for three days.

He checked up on me via text on Wednesday and Thursday and Sunday and we had another conversation over the phone Sunday night. I told him I didn't think this had to end us, but I would have to hold back to protect myself in the event that he did finally decide his happiness was not with me. I told him I didn't want him out of my life, but I couldn't promise that I could be reduced to just being his friend. I told him part of what I was thinking and feeling - wondering what I did wrong ("you didn't do anything wrong. I know it's a cliche, but it really is not you, it's me" "ok, but I didn't do enough right either."), wondering what more I could have done, wondering why I was so blind that I didn't see this happening, wondering if the happiness and love that I thought I had ever really existed at all ("it did"). We agreed to continue to date, but with the breaks on. We saw each other again the following Sunday. We just watched some movies, had dinner, and didn't talk at all. When we parted that day, he said "I'll see you this weekend."

And then I missed him.

I missed spending entire weekends with him. I missed him coming over during the week for an evening or two. I missed texting him "good morning" every day. I realized that no amount of distance I put between us would prevent me from hurting if he decided not to stay with me. And I realized this was the first test our relationship had faced. I thought that we could survive it, that I could continue to support him and be by him while he worked through what he was feeling and figured out what he wanted. I was sure we could do that together, and I was confident that he would (eventually) realize what he had and I would be happy again. So I told him on Wednesday, that's March 7th if you're keeping track, that I wanted to talk with him some more, and I rehearsed telling him exactly those things that I had been thinking.

Due to several factors, we couldn't get together until Sunday, yesterday. I started to worry and I started to doubt, but hope springs annoyingly eternal and I still had hope that he loved me and missed me and would be willing to work through this. So I drove the hour or so out to his place, we talked for 30 or 40 minutes, and then I drove home. I said what I wanted to say. I told him I missed him, and I loved him, and I didn't think we had to end. Then he told me we had to end. He said he needed to be alone to work things out, maybe date other people to find out what he really wanted or who he really missed. I felt like I was punched in the stomach. In what world does 'I need to date someone else to find out how much I really love you' make sense? He said he wanted to get in touch with me again in "a month or so" to see if he's made any progress or if he really misses me or whatever. He understands that I'm not going to wait around for that month or so, though I have nowhere to go at the moment, so I may or may not still be available by then. He said he understood that I couldn't promise that I could be his friend - and one day have to see him happy with someone new and wonder anew about what I did wrong ("it really is not you. This is all me.").

So that was it. Just like that, in less than three weeks, it's all over. The first test of our relationship and it failed, thoroughly and miserably. I gave him back his key, he gave me mine. He still has clothes at my house that he's going to have to come and get at some point because I don't have any out of the way place to stash them. Now that I've had a little time to think on things, I wish I hated him. I've never really been the dumpee before and offering my heart and watching him fling it to the floor and stomp on it is really hard to take. I wish I didn't love him, because it would be easier to let go if I hated him. He left me with a shred of hope and I'm clinging to it like a life line. If I didn't love him, I think I could let that go. I'm sure anger will come with some more time and maybe I'll give up on that feeble hope, and then anger will fade again. I'm mostly in shock still. There's nothing like thinking you have everything and then suddenly realizing you never had anything.

It makes me wish I never got together with him in the first place. Then he never would have been able to hurt me like this.