You were in my dream

I know you deserved better than what ultimately happened. The person I was two years ago wasn’t mature enough to say no to you; to walk away from you after those first few nights. You were so kind and sweet, but I think I knew that it wouldn’t be forever. You were different from every other person I had dated up until that point…You weren’t hiding behind a vail of trickery or manipulation. You seemed as unsure of the future–and of yourself–as I was, which was comforting to both of us to say the least. I’m certain we both knew it wasn’t forever, but for the time being it felt safe. We both were so different from one another, and I  know I was different from anyone you’d ever dated that it seemed like a risk worth taking.

So we did.

We shared what we could,  but aside from our music and game interests I don’t really know what we had in common. You’re friends felt stiff and problematic, my friends made both of us feel like we didn’t belong and were equally problematic. We had enough outside forces pushing us together….then Covid happened. So who else would we bunk together with to maintain some type of human connection? You weren’t from around the area, you were from another state altogether, you only virtually had connections with people.

Suddenly a few weeks turned into months, which turned into a year, and Covid had destroyed so much; including your income. You had no choice but to go back home, to leave whatever you tried to illicit in a career behind. After a year being together, it was the first time I saw you cry, telling me I was the only good thing to happen to you since moving here. My heart suddenly broke for you, there was nothing I could do but just try to tell you everything was going to be okay…even though I could sense the end looming over us, something I tried to never see.

I believe under the right circumstances long distance relationships do work but we didn’t love each other, we weren’t in love no matter how hard we tried to fit in that box.

In the 6 months you were gone up until I had to end things; I was becoming closer and closer with my best friend. He let me move into his home with his other roommates and now ex girlfriend.

He and I were always close, and we almost immediately loved each other with an intensity that is hard to describe. When we first met 3 years ago, we were both seeing someone and far along in relationships. It was the safest thing for us to open up to one another with no strings attached, no ulterior motives to seek the other out. We were just allowing each other the room to grow and breathe, we cultivated a safe place between each other to be unapologetically ourselves.

I didn’t realize how important that was to me until I moved into that house. The only days our schedules lined up was Mondays so….Mondays become our days, we usually just watched movies and drunk together to discuss the movie later. No roommates, and his girlfriend never wanted to be a part of it because she knew she didn’t belong with us. She was cynical, immature, lazy, and the most hateful/spiteful person I have ever met in my entire life. She absolutely couldn’t stand being vulnerable, and she was a malicious person because of it. She never realized she drove him to me further and further, and with you gone it suddenly made me realize that my feelings towards him weren’t as platonic as I had once thought.

During one movie night, I had drunken too much and it just happened. The movie we were watching broke me down to tears, I was sobbing for the man on the screen who just so desperately wanted to be with the woman he loved that he was willing to sacrifice anything. He comforted me, held me, asked me what was happening and I told him this, then professed my guilt and confessed. I wasn’t entirely certain of this until in the moment, but I confessed that I loved him more than I had meant to, I was sorry, I didn’t mean for it to happen but it did, I was in love with him. I broke up with you the next day.

Being drunk isn’t an excuse to commit acts of betrayal, I think in a different circumstance I still would have ultimately confessed. It’s liquid courage, most certainly, but not a right of passage. I emotionally cheated on you, and that wasn’t something I could admit to you directly and I’m sorry for not allowing you the proper closure. I was emotionally immature for the majority of my life and I wasn’t ever in the right place to correct it on my own, without any guidance or help that he ended up providing for me. We were not right for one another, we came from two completely different world views and it made it difficult for us to authentically grow with one another. I couldn’t be what you needed, and you couldn’t be what I needed. We stunted one another in a time warp, we allowed each other to survive in a bubble…a vacuum.

You were in my dream last night, and I told you everything. You were understanding, you were happy back home, and we just got to talk about everything that I wasn’t able to  say when I should have. It’s a guilt I still hold with me, and I just wish things could have gone differently….however I think through everything there is an opportunity for growth, and this allowed us to both grow more into ourselves. You do seem well, the little bit I bothered to try and look up.

I’m sorry for lying to you, and to myself. I’m sorry I wasn’t aware of what I wanted enough to save you the pain of enduring another break up. Life is messy, and while I never thought I’d be on this end of something like this; I know enough to say life is just one big grey area of nuanced meanings.

I hope you’re well.