July
In the past I have spoken about the melanoma in my eye and described the bike accident and subsequent recovery. This time I am going to talk about my heart.
Not in a medical sense, but a personally emotional one.
As some of you would know I have been involved for some time with a woman several years my junior.
It was a complicated, challenging relationship, but, despite the pressures and issues, we managed to make it work most of the time and, I believed, were very much in love with a potential future together.
Sadly, a few months ago the pressures became too much and she felt she had to end it.
Unfortunately, my expectations pressured her into making a decision I don’t believe she wanted to make – and the result has meant a lot of pain for us both. For that I am so sorry.
The impact on her I can only imagine.
Since April 5th I have been in hell.
I just managed to keep my head above water in the States, but since returning home I have been drowning.
There has not been one waking hour that I have not thought about her, reliving every aspect of our times together, what she said, what she didn’t say, what I said, what I didn’t say, what she did, what she didn’t do, what I did – and what I didn’t do, how I felt about her, how I thought she felt about me. Over and over, my imagination running riot, my feelings up and down, my thoughts of her completely dominating everything.
I haven’t felt like doing anything, going anywhere, planning anything. I have been dis-interested, de-motivated, unenthusiastic, miserable, barely surviving day to day, dreading the nights, not eating, not sleeping, moving through time as if in a fog, numb, dazed.
One thing I learned when I rode the bike under the truck 18 months ago is - life is short.
One minute you’re on your way for a swim, the next you’re lying smashed up in the road, close to death.
It can end in a heartbeat – literally. I’m not trying to dramatize the situation, but I have appreciated every day since December 14th 2016.
Life is short and we need to grab what’s good and hang on to it. Too often we take for granted what we have or miss opportunities and live to regret it.
Life is too short for regrets.
Too short to let those special opportunities slip away.
Sometimes it’s hard - changes need to be made, compromises reached, to achieve the best, to hold onto what makes us happy.
Happiness, and love, do not come along every day and when they do, we need to do everything to sustain it, nurture it, work at it.
Hopefully in time I will be able to look back on the last few years and see it with different eyes - remember the great things we did, feelings we expressed, beliefs we shared - without immense sadness.
I have lost something very, very special, someone I loved very much - and I, too, am lost.
My heart is broken, my soul diminished.
