Oh, today it hurts.

[ForeverRestless]

I feel like I've been on the up and up for a couple months now, I haven't been posting here as much, I've been much happier in my own life, and I haven't been feeling the "pull" of TF. But today it feels like there's a gaping hole that cannot be filled. A lot has happened in a few days.

On Friday I went over to hang out with an old boyfriend. We broke up like six years ago but have always stayed close. We have a weird relationship, mostly because he is nostalgic like me. We drank wine and listened to music, and ended up making out. It didn't get particularly sexual, mostly because I don't feel comfortable getting sexual with people anymore after TF. But it was weird in several ways. I was definitely drunk and kind of in a daze from the wine and the energy of making out. I wasn't actively thinking about anything, but twice in the night I had this sharp pain when I felt the presence of my TF and it hurt. I almost cried a couple times and had to hold it in because I was with someone I wouldn't be able to explain the pain to. It's not that I was thinking of and missing TF, it was like I could FEEL him. Or that I was supposed to be intimate with him instead of my ex-boyfriend. It feels so wrong being with anyone else, and after something like 9 months of not being touched in an intimate way, it was strange. There was something familiar about the experience but foreign. I feel like I've grown beyond so much after knowing my TF and it's impossible to go backward. Nothing feels the same as it used to. Making out with any other guys feels empty. I keep trying to move on but it seems impossible.

Which brings me to another incident from this weekend. On Saturday I was home and trying to nurse my hangover, and I was watching Netflix. I started watching one program and got bored, so I started clicking around to see what other movies I had not completed watching. One was a documentary, and not 10 minutes into my viewing, this documentary mentioned the very film my TF and I watched together on one of our first nights in each other's company. As I've told on the forum before, we didn't really watch the movie because we couldn't stop talking to each other. We looked up and it was 4 a.m. I've never watched the movie again since then, but feel like I will one day. I turn over in my head whether I'd tell him when I finally watched it or not. Fear grips me, wondering about if he'd even answer my message. I get freaked out and retreat again.

So I start poking around on Instagram and I make a discovery than really messed with me pretty bad for the rest of Saturday. Apparently back in March, TF launched a new music project. This means a lot, because he was in a very bad place, mentally/emotionally/psychologically when we ceased talking, and he said he couldn't even play his instruments correctly. I remember one of the things him saying to me near the end is how I inspired him to finally take up music again (we are both big creatives and music enthusiasts) and how excited he was to start again, how it would be good for him. He said he planned to restart the band with his best friend. That apparently didn't come to fruition, but a year after we last talked, he apparently launched this new project. An album, basically. A solo project. His own outlet for creative expression. While I'm so proud of him and happy for him, it hurt me deeply that I was not able to be there for him during this journey. His girlfriend has been. She's the one he's bouncing ideas off of and coming to for support. It cuts me to the core.

It was hard also not to draw conclusions and try to read into what he is doing with this album. His bio says he cannot sleep at night so he plays music. It says that he wrote all of the songs in 2015 (the year he and i met and obviously the hardest time for me in separation). The album cover is in English (my language), rather than in the language of his own country. It's hard to explain this without giving too much away, but the album title is a reference to a unit of measurement not typically used in his own country (but used in mine), and it suggests things like travel, things foreign. The album cover art is an airplane flying through the sky (and he's afraid of flying). I sort of broke down seeing all of this, also seeing that he DEBUTED the songs—in an acoustic capacity—on the 1-year anniversary of the last time he and I communicated. It was freaky. Why all the coincidences? Why is it so easy for me to make it about ME? Am I being egotistic?

He plays under an alias (not his real name), and it's an alias that he claims his friends use for him, but I've never heard it. That made me feel isolated and in the dark about who he is or what his life is really about. That hurt. It also drove home the point of why I never react to his name (and it is moderately common), although I react to everything else. He does not identify with his name. He said he felt like he was supposed to be born with a different name, and honestly I cannot argue. Maybe this alias is his way of taking on a new identity. His true identity.

The music on the solo album is also the kind I listen to. That floored me a bit. He doesn't typically listen to the same kind of music as me. It made me realize we are more alike than I've been thinking. I don't know if I can hear these songs. What if they're just made-up stories, about pretend relationships. What if they're about me? What if they're about his girlfriend? What if I cannot handle it? What if his girlfriend feels like some of the songs are about another woman, but he doesn't say who, he just says it's a made up character? I can't imagine what she thinks or what I would feel if I heard these songs, but what if I NEED to to know what's going on in his heart? I'm confused. The album comes out this month apparently, although I only just now learned about it.

Then Sunday I went on a very long walk with one of my friends who I hadn't seen in a while. She just broke up with her boyfriend of two years and when I was going through my trauma with TF after the separation last year, she was too caught up in her relationship to really hear me or understand. I finally told her the story (without saying anything about TFs, of course), and she felt so strongly that I needed to talk to him (TF). That what we had was extraordinary and there's no way he can't think of me every day and love me. It's hard. Because I still feel like I'm not ready. To face the rejection he might offer. Or to be confronted with the possibility of some relationship and not be ready to pursue it, because of money, maturity, issues, logistics, etc. To be right back where TF and I started with having too many impediments to move forward.

But I want so much to know him, to talk to him, to support him. But he has a girlfriend, and it's not my place. And my mind swirls with concerns and worries. What if he hates me? What if he never wants to talk to me again? What if he forgot I exist? Could he ever forget that I exist? Could he ever forget what we had? I told my friend about this album and how it's basically impossible for a human to have an experience like we did, then write an album afterward and not have it influence the lyrics at least a little. Something on that album is going to be about me, and I don't know if I can handle hearing what he thinks. What if he had a single night of anger and wrote an angry song about me? Things like that. It's just very overwhelming. I go so back and forth in my mind that I'm overcome with fear of all the possible outcomes of talking to him or admitting to him how much I still love him and want to be there for him. My fear paralyzes me and makes me stay silent. And he's not contacting me either, so we're stuck in this stalemate.

I realize I need to overcome the fear. The need to have him react positively. Any expectation. I talk to myself about this and then I realize how far I have to go before I won't fear his response, maybe three or four years of personal growth. That thought in itself confirms I'll remain silent for at least several years. And what if he gets married during that time? Which is another fear. My fears are a self-fulfilling prophecy. I want to overcome this, but when I think about the time needed to overcome this, I just shut down. I pull away even more. And I was the one who spoke the last words... the ball was in his court. He obviously didn't want to reestablish contact with me, and after all, did he have anything new to offer? No. He still didn't have the means or the will to start a relationship across continents. He told me he preferred to pursue things in his old life, close to home, and he let us go. I let him let me go. When he no longer pursued me, I gave him what he wanted, despondently, tragically. I let him go because he didn't want me anymore. And now he's gone, but never truly gone. I can keep trying to date but it just feels empty. The only thing that makes me feel better is spending more time loving myself.

I worried about him for so long, that I was doing so much self growth while he was standing still, looking miserable in every photo. Apparently he is moving forward, doing something for himself, developing a creative outlet for his self expression, becoming alive again. Maybe we really are helping each other in our growth, and I just didn't see it. I don't know anything. Except I feel so much today and I want him, almost need him. I know i'm not supposed to need him, but today it feels like a pain in my chest that only he can heal. It's so hard to accept that you can find something so beautiful and harmonious and earth shattering with someone, to the point where you can't imagine a life that they weren't in, and then they're the one person you don't communicate with at all. Ever. How does this happen? How can two people who found such pure love between each other spurn each other like this? Why does it hurt so much?