Wasted life

Well everybody has a story to tell, and I feel like I should probably put mine out there somewhere, if for nothing more than prosperity’s sake.

I guess my real story starts at age fifteen. I was a sophomore in high school. I never really had many friends, only one or two that I would call friends, and I never really had a girlfriend, even though I was always told by the girls that I was good looking, I guess my personality just wasn’t what they wanted as I tended to be quiet, and introverted. One day I found myself sitting next to a pretty girl a year younger than me, and we started talking. The conversation never stopped from there. Over the course of the next two years, we developed a friendship that astonished me. It was that kind of friendship that you can tell each other everything, spend hours talking on the phone about anything or nothing. She saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. Even though I tried to keep her at arms length like I did everyone she broke barriers and it didn’t take long for me to realize she was the best friend that I didn’t know I wanted, but had been searching for all my life.

Her caring for me was relentless, and out of that friendship grew a mutual and deep love and caring for each other.  I trusted her with everything, all of me.

In my senior year of high school at seventeen, I enlisted in the delayed entry program for the Navy and was set to head off to boot camp shortly after graduation of that year. I had all these ambitions of seeing the world, and making a career out of the military. But in January of that year I made a decision that changed my life.  Diana and I were hanging out at my parents house, and we started talking about our feelings for each other. I told her I loved her, which I had been afraid to do because I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable if she didn’t feel the same way so needless to say I was pretty scared that I was going to lose my friend. She looked at me with such passion and caring  and told me she loved me too, and she always knew she did. So our relationship changed from best friends to boyfriend and girlfriend, and we were together for a great seven months before I left for the Navy.

Before I left we talked about what would happen when I left. Did we want to break up or stay together? I wasn’t stupid, I knew it would be a tough thing at such a young age, so I told her if she didn’t think she could do it that I’d rather just break up, and stay friends, but if she decided to stay I wanted to be sure she would since I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. She said she’d stay because she couldn’t imagine wanting to be with anyone else ever.  So to left thinking everything in life was set up, I was going to have a career, Diana and I would get married once she graduated, life would be perfect.

As you probably know have figured out, it didn’t work out that way. After my schooling, I was stationed over in Spain, and things were hard being that far away from everyone I cared about. It took about a year and a half for the loneliness and separation to finally get to her, but eventually Diana broke up with me. It was fairly unexpected, I actually called her on the phone that night because I had just received a letter from her that made me feel really good, it was all about how much she loved me and all the little mushy things that make people feel loved. The mail took four days to get there, so sometime between when she wrote that letter, and my call something changed. When I called she said she wanted to break up and that I just manipulated her. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe she felt that way. I loved her with all my heart and it hurt so bad for her to think it was just a manipulation.

I woke up the next morning feeling broken, and numb. I didn’t think it could get any worse. But remember I said it took four days for mail to reach me? Three days later I received a break up letter from her. So the love of my life essentially broke up with me twice for the same break up. That drove me over the edge and I became suicidal. I worked in the weapons compound, and I had easy access to guns. So I was on watch that night by myself and I sat there with my weapon and thinking about everything.  It wasn’t until I put the gun in my mouth that I realized I had a choice. I could either die right there or I could find a way to make it right. I took the gun out and chose to fight for her. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t still love me, I knew that she was just upset and lonely. She needed me home. I still recall the date and time we broke up. September 16, 1995 6:38pm.

I spent the next eight months getting out of the Navy to get home to her.  Not an easy task. Once they have you they don’t just let you walk away. I’ve always said I should have got an Oscar for the performance I put on. It was probably the toughest thing I had done up until that time, but I was so focused on the goal of just getting home to her. I truly believed that if I just got there and gave her what she used to tell me was what she wanted most, me there with her, that we could get things back the way they were supposed to be.

In April of 1996 I was finally discharged (honorably) and came home. It took me about a week to call her, since I was so nervous. I had given up everything for her so everything was riding in what happened next. I went over to talk to her, and I hadn’t told her I was out for good. She had a new boyfriend by then, but I didn’t let that stand in my way. I told her I wanted to give her something, something she always wanted. When she asked what I handed her my discharge papers, and she started to cry. But she said we couldn’t be together anymore, and my heart broke.

I shut down emotionally, completely. I didn’t feel anything for anyone, even myself for years after that. I had a girlfriend named Krissy and we were together for three years. I never told her I loved her, and in fact I didn’t care about her at all. She just was there for sex in my opinion. I have no idea why she stayed with me, I was a cold cold person. People used to refer to me as The Terminator because that’s pretty much how I was. Because I couldn’t open myself up to the kind of hurt I felt after I had sacrificed everything for Diana and it didn’t mean anything to her.

Eventually Krissy and I did break up, which didn’t matter to me, and I drifted through several jobs, and several more girlfriends, but I eventually moved away and took a job that I didn’t really care for but I just locked myself away. I knew what I was doing, and why I couldn’t move on. I was waiting for Diana. She was the only woman I ever wanted to be with. She had gotten married to the guy she was dating when I got out of the Navy and they had a couple kids. But I never let go of my love for her. I had just resigned myself to being alone, and toiling away at a meaningless job until I died.

I waited sixteen years.

In 2011, I started seeing a counselor because I decided that I couldn’t live like that any longer, not being able to form relationships with people. I had also started feeling hopeless and meaningless, and that old call of suicide had started to trickle back in my head again. I was diagnosed as having a depersonalization disorder, and going through counseling wasn’t really helping since I always talked about things like I was talking about someone else, not myself. We talked mainly about Diana, and my counselor, Erica, would ask if I loved her. I would say yes but it was just an automatic response. I didn’t say it like I felt it. So she asked me to do something unique. I’ve always been creative so she asked me to create something that would tell my story to her. I made a movie using a video program I had, and brought it in and showed her.

I guess I did a good job on it because it made Erica cry, but I sat there stone faced. So she asked me how I could make something so heart wrenching and not feel anything. I said I don’t know, so she asked me, if Diana were to walk in right then and ask me what I wanted most how would I reply? I answered, “I want my best friend back” and then I lost it. I cried. It was the first time in sixteen years that I had shed a tear for anything. She asked me why I didn’t ever try contacting Diana again, and I said I didn’t want to be that creepy ex boyfriend who tries to weasel back into her life. She was married, had kids. She’d probably forgotten all about me by then.

But that was a suggestion that stuck on my mind, and after a couple weeks I decided to try finding her. Due to the internet I didn’t think it would be, but it was a little harder than I thought. She wasn’t on Facebook or anything, and it dawned on me I didn’t even know what her last name was after she got married. So I finally tried one last site, a class reunion site, and there she was. So I sent her a friend request. I didn’t really believe shed even see it since it was such an obscure site, and even if she did I doubted she’d accept it. But a couple days later, I received an email from her, and so began the last phase of my life.

I just wanted my friend back but it doesn’t seem like things are ever what I want them to be. In fact, I started my reply email to her, the first words I’d said to her in over a decade and a half with “Hello, old friend”.  She thought that was funny, she was like “what’s this old friend? We were a bit more than that!” So we started talking again, and it was so nice. But then she said she wanted to come see me. I told Erica about that and she thought that would be dangerous for me, but I guess I thought I knew better, so I gave her my address. I was living on the other side of the state from where I used to live, and she came over one morning (I worked nights) and I remember standing inside  my apartment door with my heart thudding in my chest listening to her come up the stairs.  I thought I was going to have a heart attack. When I opened the door, I swept her up in my arms and just hugged her for about ten minutes, we didn’t say anything we just hugged and cried. Then we started to talk and it was like no time had passed. We talked for hours, and we sat in each other’s arms and I lost myself in her again. I kissed her. And then I apologized because after all she was married, but she kissed me again. I loved her so much. We kept talking, and she told me how she was never really happy in her marriage, and that they stayed together because of the kids. I asked her why she wasn’t happy and she said because she knew she had married the wrong person.

So after sixteen years, the impossible had happened I finally had my love back. She finally moved out and filed for divorce, and then we only had one problem. I still lived across the state. So I did what I always did for her. I walked away from a job and life I had had for ten years, and moved back to be with her. I took a job as a salesman, and things went well for awhile. But I started to shut down again. I didn’t know why but I was so afraid to open up to her, I guess I was scared she would leave me again, and I didn’t think I would be able to handle that and I ended up pushing her away.  So we broke up again.

i was devastated. The love of my life had given me a second chance and I blew it because I couldn’t let go of the past. That’s when I decided that I was going to kill myself. Everything I had held into for so long was for nothing because I was still so damaged that I couldn’t show her how much she meant to me. I had decided on a ******** exit bag, quick and painless. This wasn’t an impulse decision by any means it took me about four months before I decided on it, and I set a date for myself to go.

I felt at peace. Finally my struggle would be over. Then one night about six months after we broke up she texted me. She told me she had a dream about me and it unsettled her. I didn’t tell her what my plans were. But we kept talking and one night she invited me over and we talked about everything, I told her I had planned to kill myself, and she said that’s what she dreamed about. We started our relationship again, and everything was going just fine I thought.

I had pretty much lived with her over the winter, and we had started to make plans to get married once her divorce was final, and we were excited because we wanted to have a kid as soon as we got married. But the winter was tough at my job, I was full commission and with the winter we had in Michigan, selling jobs was tough because I sold roofs, and siding and such, so money got tight. I started really worrying about being able to pay for a wedding, much less supporting a family and it depressed me. Then one morning she was going to help some friends move. She kissed me goodbye, and told me she loved me. I had went back to my house for the night and I got a text message that night with her telling me our relationship was overwhelming her. I didn’t know what to say. I thought things between us were better than they’d been in forever, and a couple days later she said my job was affecting us, and that I didn’t show her I loved her enough. So I quit my job the next day. I wasn’t going to let that tear us apart, but it didn’t matter, everything I said or did she had some reason it wasn’t going to work. So we broke up again.  She told me she didn’t have any more love to give me.

I got my job back and tried to move on, but I couldn’t focus on it. That was about four months ago. I quit my job at the beginning if July because they weren’t paying me, I’d spend $200 in gas a week and get a $100 paycheck and I’ve decided this is the end. I gave up everything again, and I have nothing. No job, my car is destroyed from all the miles I put on it at that job, no money, but worst of all I’ve lost my love again, and this time for good. I have no skills so I would just have to start over at some entry level job that wouldn’t pay me anything, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, but none of that matters. All I see everyday is things that remind my of my broken dreams, I see a child and I think about how I will never see my own child smile at me. So I’m using the money my job still owes me to purchase the components I need to make my exit bag, and when I have them all, I’m checking out. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t face a lifetime of what I went through those sixteen years. I don’t want to. I should’ve died nineteen years ago, and I’m finally ready. I just wanted to tell my story once before I go, maybe in the hopes someone else will learn from my mistakes.