Unavoidable

I have tried to look to different outlets in order to avoid pouring myself out here but it is pointless.  This is where I can be honest with myself.  The last few months have been a lot of smoke and mirrors and unexplainable emotion.  When I think about who I have been it is a shadow of how I truly feel but more of me pretending to be what I want to be... Which at the moment is happy.  I think the best I have heard it put was by one of my friends that was remarking on how I have been handling the stress and pain I have been through of late.  He said talking about my life, "Most people ride a roller coaster when it comes to their lives but you, you have the 'fun one' that everyone tries to avoid."

I have done everything that I can do to stay true to who I am.  I have done everything to keep my covenants and be worthy of them and the priesthood I hold.  I have worked hard and studied hard.  I have tried to focus on other people and be grateful for what I have.  I have served. I have loved. I have been doing my best.  Yet I still am not happy.  And it isn't that I am just sad.  I wish it was only sadness.  I feel broken... discarded... forgotten... torn... passed by.  I feel like to the person I love the most, I represent all the mistakes that were made and all the dreams she thought she could never have but was for a time in her reach but no longer deserves.  And because of this, I feel like the only thing I can do is continue to move forward and do the best that I can understanding that what my best is varies day to day.  Yet there is some days that the tears are only inches below the surface and when they finally come they don't feel like they will ever stop.

So I begin to rethink my life and try to see when I was happy and what was different, where did I go wrong, where do I need to improve?  I want to change and repent and be happy again.  My mind goes back a little less than a year ago when I was with Tatiana.  When I was physically with her and we were together, I have never been happier.  I was the best I had been and yet, I wanted and was becoming better.  She made me want to change.  She made me want to shoot for the stars.  She made me feel loved and complete and confident in who I was and yet I needed to be better!  I have never loved someone so much before... I thought about her all the time, I wanted her to be happy, I wanted to surprise her and be with her, I wanted to see her smile, I wanted to hear her voice, and no matter what was going on she made things right again.

Now... I don't see how to get from where I am to where I want to be.  It doesn't matter if it is grad school, career, a future family... It all feels empty without her by my side as if I lost my soul when I lost her.  The hardest thing about how things ended was that we had made mistakes in the past and we had worked them through, we were willing to talk about the hard things and confront them, and even though our relationship was far from perfect, we were willing to continue to move forward, but the hardest thing was I don't think we broke things off because either one of us no longer loved each other.  I feel like we both legitimately wanted it to work and were willing to make it work.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that I loved her... That I love her still.  And in despite of my mind telling me to let go and that there is no chance it could still possibly work, my heart screams out to continue to hold on even for just one more day.  Let go of what though?  The feelings?  The memories?  The lessons and experiences?  Don't let go of her?  I love her!  I forgive her for her mistakes as I hope that she will forgive me of mine.  I want to start over and fall in love all over again.  I still can see a future with her.  I still want what's best for her... her dreams, her happiness, everything.  But the unavoidable question is in what she wants, where do I fit in?  And the answer to that is I don't know.  I have no idea if I ever even cross her mind when I just feel in every possible way tortured in not being with her and being able to help her.  Some nights I am woken up because my body is shaking with the tears that are coming from having my heart and soul torn in two.  It is hard to explain or even put this kind of pain into words, similar to how the numberless amounts of texts or messages I have written only to delete before sending them.  The words that have gone unsaid are because I have learned from this relationship in particular that if only one person is talking then it begs the question of whom is the other person relying on to listen.  I need to listen.  I need to be ready and I need to wait for that conversation to begin.  I have to be patient.  If I am going to wait then I need to see if she will want to come back to me.

Yes, I have lost a lot and I am in a lot of pain, but the amount of growth and the kind of things I have learned... I would willingly go through this emotional hell and purgatory all over again to feel that happiness and love even if it could only be for one more moment.  I will never think of her as the girl that got away or the relationship that failed because it was the one that worked.  She was everything that I could have ever asked for, wanted, wished for, and the best thing that had ever happened to me.  I have no idea what is ahead of me any more... But I have never once lost a sense of direction to keep moving forward, however that doesn't mean that I have moved on.  I am still wanting, wishing, waiting and praying that she might realize like I have that we are worth fighting for.  But faith propels me forward and I am hoping that this new Tatiana will be there as part of my future.  If not, then I hope that I will recognize and be open to whatever God has planned for me because although this lesson was invaluable I only ever want to learn it once.