2005-10-27 - 12:50 a.m.
I don't know how to start this off, should I apologize for re-starting my diary after I told everyone I was ending it? I just need to vent and get a lot of stuff out, and this is my only avenue.
I cried for the first time in what seems like forever today. I bawled my eyes out and awoke from the emotional coma I had put myself in after Chris' death. I knew the only one who would be able to affect me like this was her. Sure I have cried before when I've been dumped by a girl, but mostly they were tears of frustration and self hatred; this time it was different. The tears felt different, they weren't tears of shame, but rather real tears of sadness, something I didn't think I was capable of. As I stared into her eyes, the same eyes I have stared into hundreds of times while telling her how much I love her and could not live without her, I saw a tinge of sadness poking through the mask she had tried to wear in front of me tonight. Both of our shells were cracking in front of one another. The girl who I had shared everything with, who knew me better than even I knew myself, had finally cracked my shield and got me to cry real tears.
Life without her was unfathomable. I wasn't some lovestruck sap who dreamed of having the perfect marriage and living happily ever after, I just never imagined we would be separated; we were like a pair of plaid shoes, we went perfect with each other, but you never ever thought of us being with another shoe. We were Mike and Kate, we were never just Mike, or just Kate, people expected us to be the model for their ideal relationship. We never fought, we nearly finished each other's sentences, our chemistry together was incredible to witness, we enjoyed being around each other, and we never complained about one another. It was like we were putting on a production, but we weren't, we really were that good together.
A significant part of me died last night when she called me and told me "I need to talk to you about something..." Those are the dreaded words. I've heard them from her before. Prior to our nearly 2 year relationship, we had dated briefly twice, both times only for a few months, and not seriously. It was like a trial period, and each time the 30 days was up, I got the "We need to talk" line. But this time it was different. I cried right away, I knew what was coming, I just didn't know why. I hadn't done anything to hurt her, I never have, well, intentionally, that is. I never cheated on her, nor have I ever yelled at her or struck her, I was an easygoing, trusting boyfriend who tried my best to give her enough space and yet enough care and concern that she'd be satisfied and happy. Things weren't going bad between us, we just had incompatible work schedules, me especially, that didn't allow us to see one another more than once or twice a week. But I was still madly in love with her. If you had asked me 6 years ago when I was 18 what my ideal girlfriend would be like, I would rattle off a list of qualities that she absolutely blows out of the water. She's one of the most caring, smart, compassionate, loving persons I have ever met. She is beautiful, yet humbled, and doesn't try to fit into a female stereotype. She's confident and mature, yet there are moments when the kid in her comes out, when her smile and excitement takes you back to the innocence of your childhood. She can brighten up your entire day with just one amazing smile, and can make you feel like you are the most special person in the world. These qualities don't manifest themselves in a girl very often, in fact, the thing that hurts and kills me so much is how I know that I can search the earth high and low, and I will never find anyone in her league. She was everything to me, a lover, a best friend, a crutch that I constantly leaned on whenever life got me down. But now, life feels like shit, and I can't lean on her anymore, because she's the main reason I feel this way. She tore my heart out of my chest, told me she didn't see me as a boyfriend anymore, told me that she's afraid to be in something so serious at such a young age. What do I believe? What do I actually buy and how much is she hiding? Did she break up with me for this douchebag she's been hanging out with, or does she simply want to be single? Will I ever know? I don't know.
Sitting across from her at the diner tonight, I tried my hardest not to cry, but failed miserably. She did too. I was afraid she wouldn't cry, that she could walk away from this without feeling sad, or without second guessing herself. I now know from staring into her eyes and seeing her tears that even as I write this, the question of "Did I make the right decision" is running through her mind. Because no matter how much thinking she's done, and how much advice she's gotten about what to do, she's still undecided. No one else knew what we had, no one saw it any other way but from the outside. But as I left the diner, and we hugged and cried into each other's shoulders, I was filled with something that made me feel a little bit better. Hope. Because I knew right then and there, that whatever it was that brought us together in the first place was still alive and present in both of us. I knew that this wasn't the end, the final goodbye I had imagined and feared it would be. We still loved one another, very, very much, and nothing can ever change that. We have been through so goddamn much that nothing can ever break the special connection that is between us. We created magic with our words and our actions, with our history and everything we have been through, and that magic still exists, it can never go away.
I have alway been afraid to open up to people emotionally. I looked down on my friends who told me they were in love, or who whined and cried when their girlfriends broke up with them, I just thought that they weren't being rational. When I first told Kate that I loved her, when I absolutely knew in my heart that I loved her, and trust me, I had been scared as hell of the "L" word my entire life, it felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders, and when she said "I'm falling in love with you, Mike" back to me, I nearly cried. We were half naked on my bed in my old apartment. Reality smacked me dead in the face. Holy shit, I was opening up, I wasn't scared, I wasn't sparse with my emotions, I was open, and this was special. I still love you, Kate, nothing has changed, I'm not regressing back into my emotional cocoon, or trying to forget you, you meant that much to me, and I know that the end to our story is still far from being written.
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