What some of you may not know is that I originally started writing on another diaryland site in November of 2002, which was felicityp. That site chronicled the slow demise and ultimate break-up of my relationship with the ex-Great Love of My Life and its aftereffects. I didn�t want to write that site under sockgirlie, because that is a known nickname of mine and the other site was so personal that I wanted to keep it so it could be written by anyone. As many of you know, I tend to keep a lot of personal and emotional things off of this site. Every once in a while I throw an entry in for good measure, but I generally keep the stuff to myself. Not that I get all emotional like that all that often or that there has really been too much going on lately that I would have to tell, but still. However, in the case of my ex, the situation was so new to me and so confusing and devastating that I just felt like I needed to write the stuff down and get it out there to make me feel better. Purge out the heartbreak. It was very therapeutic, and most of the time it did help. After a while, I started to get comments and e-mails from other online writers who had been through or were going through similar situations, and I slowly started to become part of the whole online journaling community. I know Heather over at Dancing Brave was going through something similar at the time, and I also had a few other people who were just there for me, championing me on through my struggle. Actually, here�s what I said about those awesome ladies back at the time:

I feel really weak. There are some amazingly strong women who have been supportive of me and all that I'm going through - you have no idea how thankful I am for everything they say - I just wish I were that strong. I don't know if I am, and if this is just something we all go through as well. I feel like we are sisters, soldiers going through similar battles. It's nice to know there are comrades out there.

I still can�t begin to describe how much it meant to me to have these people help me through what turned out to be some of the darkest and most devastating times of my life so far. And oh, how dark it was. Don�t believe me? Check out some of these quotes from my old diary:

But it's a different life I'm living now. As much as I would like to go back to my old life where I was blissfully unaware of such love existing, I can't. My life is forever changed and I have to fight to figure out what this new path I'm heading blindly on will be all about. I haven't been really excited about anyone I've met, and there have been some pretty great guys. I hope this isn't the way it will always be. I want this new life to hold everything and more. I also want him to stop haunting me. I can't move on properly if he is still there, hiding in the corner, whispering my name. I also can't deny that I still love him and want nothing more than to be back in his arms.

I think the thing that I'm most upset about is that I'm not half as strong as I thought I was, or at least pretended to be. I feel so weak and useless, berating myself and wondering in desperation, "Why can't I get over this? What is wrong with me that I can't do what hundreds of people do every day? Why am I so weak?"
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But lately, any time my mind has been left unattended and has scampered away on its own, it seems to turn to thoughts of him. The biggest one of all that I keep coming back to is just this plain and simple: God, I miss him. It is taking every ounce of strength that I have not to call him. The phone is beckoning me. Calling out to me. Mocking me. I want to see him even more. I try to reason and bargain with myself, giving excuse after excuse of why I need to talk to him. I have to be strong and just block them out. It's so hard to do when deep in the cobwebbed crevasses in the back of my heart and mind lie wishes that haunt me. Pleas crying out to have him back. I try to mute them, but the sound is deafening.

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I am in such a battle with myself right now. His memory taunts me, thoughts of him are usurping my brain. Why is this happening all of a sudden? And why does it still hurt so much? Shouldn't this pain be getting dull by now? It's not. It just throbs.

The other night I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about him. I tried and tried to think about something, ANYTHING else and I couldn't. Then I thought that if this is really it, I'd like to at least get to say goodbye to him for real. I'd like to tell him that in the grand scheme of things, when all is said and done, it will always have been him. Then I think I'm sickening and pathetic and want to sleep. But then I stare at the phone. I want to pick it up. I want to call him. I want to hear his voice. Most of all, I want to see him. I pick up the phone and start dialing, but think better of it and hang up. Then I curl up in a ball and just let it out. I weep. Then, finally, sleep comes. Peaceful sleep. Dreamless sleep. The kind that doesn't torment me with dreams where he shows up and I wake up trembling. Just some well-deserved easy, dreamless, deadening sleep.

I feel so fortunate to have met the boy. Even after meeting him the first time and thinking I would never see him again, I knew I would never be the same. For the first time in my life I finally believed that someone like him could exist. All of this big �love� stuff that felt so overstuffed and fantastical could exist in reality and not have to be so over-the-top with all of the stars in the eyes and flying birds overhead. It could be real. Something I could hold on to and feel, with someone who could actually change my life.

And that�s what happened. I became real for the first time in my life. Bare bones, no worries about what anyone thinks, no cares � just me. And it was exhilarating. I was free. I let myself love with reckless abandon and it is the greatest thing I have ever done. I will always be so proud to have loved that boy.

...I don�t look back with regret or sorrow anymore. I look back with thankfulness. Pride. I think of our time together and I feel lucky to have had it. No words can describe the joy of being able to love like that, to feel like that, to live like that. I cherish every second of it and I look back with a smile thinking of this one thing:
For an amazing moment in time I loved him and he loved me. And it was beautiful.