So... About me... Recent history...
I went to a state university after high school. Had the wrong major, and not enough determination. So I didn't make it there. Made some good friends, and came out of my shell a bit... but academically not so much... I dropped out and went back home for a summer. It was during this summer that I met a new group of friends. Some of them I knew, others I knew of. But that summer, We became great friends. It was a fun summer full of careless nights and misadventures. I met my girlfriend that summer. She was one of my new friends, one that I'd known from before in life, but had gotten to know much better over the summer.
We flirted back and forth and the tension grew during the summer, and on the fourth of July, we finally kissed, admitting to ourselves and each other that there was something between us. It was just about this time when I was called by the recruiter and decided to join the Army. The rest of the summer was spent happily, and as i left to go to training we had a discussion, about each other and the possibility of us. At that time, both of us having just come out of our last relationships, long distance each of them, we decided that another long distance relationship was not what we needed at the time...
However a month into training, and several letters back and forth, we decided that fate was putting us together, regardless of what we had previously decided. So it was then, that we became a couple. She joined the army as well, delayed entry. We were together all through that winter, and the spring of the next year when I came home from training at the end of March. We couldn't have been happier together at that point. We could finally be a real couple and go out on dates and things like normal people did. And thats what happened. For the next three months life was great. Our relationship blossomed and bloomed and we were so happy together. Then it was her turn to leave for training.
The letters started all over again. Things were good. I put an extra line on my cell phone plan when the one she had with her family broke, and everything was great... It was during this time that my parents started to get Divorced. And then i got the call. I was going to be deployed. 365 days on the other side of the country... So when i went down to see her at her graduation from basic, i had to tell her that the plans we'd made, of being together finally when she got home from training would have to wait, because I'd be deployed when she got home.
It was a big blow, but nothing new for us, being away from each other... So that was that. I went out to the coast, and she kept training down south. We talked on the phone as much as possible, flew back and forth to see each other on holidays and things... It was going to be ok.
We made it through the next winter and new years, and into the spring before things started to change. She got home from training... started working and going to school... Busy was the word. My responsibilities on the deployment began to get larger around the same time. Suddenly we found ourselves struggling to find the time to talk to each other like we used to.
On top of it all, The new crew of Medics i was working with started inviting me out with them. I turned 21... started going out to party and drinking... i started to change. And as i changed, and As I got busier, she changed, and she got busier too. But i didn't know... I wasn't home... I didn't understand what she was going through... I took the fact that she wasn't calling me, or texting me for the opposite of what it was... I thought she didn't care about me as much... thought she was ignoring me... when in all reality she was just swamped... Someone from my past started talking to me again... Talking to me when i needed someone to talk to, and i got confused... i'd had a thing for this person before... and now she was here... when my girlfriend apparently wasn't... and suddenly i had feelings for this other girl... it scared me...
I couldn't understand it. My girlfriend was my everything. two whole years of being everything for each other, and i was having feelings for this other perosn... so as i tried to understand this... i did the absolute worst thing i could have done... I stopped talking to my girlfiredn... i stopped answering her calls and texts, because i was ashamed of what i was feeling, and i was afraid that she wouldn't love me anymore if she knew i was having these feeligns. I should have known better... I should have told her what was happening, right away. She would have talked to me abotu it.. would have understood... But, I didn't. I did the dumb thing, and left her hanging for five whole days, while i tried to figure out what was happening to me...
Finally i broke down, and i answered her call. we talked. I told her what i was feeling, what i was going through. we talked about it.. we talked about us. we went through all the ropes. and came to the understanding... That i was experiencing feelings of lust... and that was something that happens... we were going to work thigns out... we were going to be ok...
And thats what we did... for the last three or four months of my deployment we went through the motions... worked to put things back together. but we'd changed. things weren't the same, little things were becoming big things. we weren't connecting quite right... but we were apart... we'd been apart for so long... I believed things would get better... when i got home, and we could be together, things would get better. We'd be able to work the thigns out.
But I didn't know. I didn't know what those five days had truly done... I didn't know how much she was hurting, how much she had been hurt. how much damage i'd done. My deployment came to an end at the begining of this month... She flew out to meet me on the coast, so that we could drive home together. I met her at the airport. But Something was off. She didn't seem to want to hug. We didn't kiss. We started to drive home, but things werent' the same. There was a lot of silence... hands weren't held. Small talk was just that, small talk. We stayed at a hotel about halfway home... and there was more tension... The kisses that I got i felt like i was stealing... We got all the way home and i stayed at her place that next night, before i finally went home to my mothers place... I wanted to speak with her about it. I wanted to ask her what was going on... why thigns were this way... but i had jsut gotten home... I didn't want to do that just yet...
That was a msitake too. I found out at the end of that first week that i was home, exactly what was going on. We were over. She was too hurt to be my girlfriend.. The damage, the extensive damage that i didn't quite know i had caused, had taken its toll... and now that i was home, the whole ordeal was too real. It was too 'in her face' as it were... just being my girlfriend anymore, was hurting her.
And so after learnign this, we had another talk... Two years of our lives together, we love each other tremendously. we care about each other, completely. We were so much a part of each others lives... We had to be friends...
At that point, i was just so shocked and confused about the fact that our relationship was over, that I agreed to being friends and got off the phone... The next day it actually hit me. I spent the next day and a half begging, more or less, trying to plead with her that there would be any other way... any way to maintain our relationship and work on things... there was no way. After those days of me fighting, I stopped. and it was then, that I decided i wanted to be upset. I wanted to be hurt. I wanted to be a victim.
I told myself, she didn't tell me. She didn't give me the chance to make her understand how i felt about her. she didn't give us enough of a chance once i got home to get any better. I started to have these anxiety attacks. I stopped sleeping, stopped eating... my stomach hurt, i was short of breath... just miserable... I spent some time thinking about everything... since i jsut got back, i have no job and i'm not enrolled in school, so i had little else to do but think. So, laying in my bed all day and night, thinking and thinking about everything.
And I realized. It was me. I did this, because of my actions. It was me. And I couldn't be upset at her... i couldn't justify her being the hurter. I couldn't make myself a victim. She was the victim. I hurt her... So we talked... We talked again. I told her how i felt... That i wanted to be friends. That i understood what she had said.. That she needed to be alone... by herself so that she could re-build... and she felt that I needed to be alone, on my own, to figrue out who i am and where i'm going... so thats where we left things. We need to be friends. We've been around each other and there for each other too much to let our friendship die...
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