...wir müssen geduldig sein...

Some things never change...

I was on the phone with an old friend today - an ex, to be exact - and it occured to me that change comes slowly.

In spite of the way things may come across in this blog, I'm not a very emotional person. I'm such a freakin' boy when it comes to feelings and tears and all that jazz. I hate crying, I hate having those conversations where you talk about how you feel, I hate that kind of vulnerability. I run from it. Seriously. And this is where what I'm thinking of comes in.

Two people like this can't have a real relationship, right? You can't have two people who don't want to discuss feelings ever work out a real relationship, can you? It might work for a while, but it will soon fall apart. I know this.

The thing is that I fell in love when I was about 19. Maybe it happened before then - I mean, I met him when I was 14, and I had a crush on him for the next three years. I confessed this to him, like, two weeks before I moved across the Atlantic. Goodness, I was young. It was ages ago; I've known him for eleven plus years.

He's still a part of my life. The only man I've ever really really loved. I'm a stupid girl, I know. Anyway, after my teenaged confession, we talked occassionally on the phone. I went off to college, and we kept talking. Only now it was something more regular. It got to the point where it was every night for hours. I was in love. He was the first man I ever said that to, the first time I meant it with everything in me, the man I thought I would marry. I was young. When we broke things off - badly, I might add - I was only twenty; he was twenty-one. It hurt to lose him.

I'll be honest, most of the break up was my fault. Yes, there were some things he could've done, but I'll take the bulk of the blame. It is what it is, and the truth is that I put that final nail in the coffin.

We didn't talk for a year. One long year. I thought about him all the time - wondered what he was doing, if he'd found someone else, if he thought of me.... When I couldn't stand it any longer, I sent him an email, gave him my phone number, told him to call me.

The miracle is that he did. And we settled back into this comfortable conversation. Not the five hours a night of yesteryear, but still considerable conversation. I remembered how much I'd loved him. I said it then, and I'll say it again: I think I'll always love him. Even if it could never work between us, there will always be a part of me that loves him.

There are things we never talk about, subjects that we hint at as we tip-toe around our vulnerabilities. I would've given everything for him. Really. Things fell apart then; they kind of imploded. Since then, we've almost confessed these residual feelings without ever really really clearing the air. I'm not going to open that can of worms and neither will he; we'd lose control of our carefully controlled emotions. When things get too intense, someone's phone magically dies or suddenly I'm interested in football, or he has things to do. We're not going to touch it.

Maybe we're still in love? Maybe it's hard to let go. Eleven years. Eleven years he's been in my life - an important part. I think about him. I think he thinks about me.

This kind of hurts my heart. I don't know what prompted me to write all this, to tell this story, except that I'm realizing how much I miss him. Five plus years later and I'm realizing how much I still miss him. Is there something wrong here? I'm sure I could write a list.

We almost talked about things today, again. Tip toed around the ruins of what once was, remembering the beauty and the pain of it. Then I tried to switch the subject to football.

He makes me painfully aware of my shortcomings, but at the same time, I want to make them better.... Cliche, I know.

Anyway, the point is that I don't know what the point of this entry is. I haven't resolved anything, though that wasn't my intention. I haven't somehow gotten over him, though that might be impossible. It's still the same confusing mess it's always been. But it's okay, I think. We'll muddle through it and come up with one of our confusing agreements.

Nur wir müssen geduldig sein... *

(I stole the title and the last line from the following song. It means "we have to be patient")