When the email came announcing the BBVD show, I immediately thought of you. We’ve seen them play twice together, and I can still remember the feel of the energy in the air the first time, almost three years ago. I remember us both dancing in our seats. Watching the bass player with giddy awe. Playing our air horns. Laughing and smiling at each other.

You told me afterwards that it was one of the Top Five shows you’d ever seen, and I was pretty proud of myself for dragging you along to see a band I loved in High School. Before we left, you grabbed a set list which had been left on stage and gave it to me. I still have it. I keep it because whenever I find it among my mementos, it reminds me of the way you kissed me when you dropped me off that night…

You had come inside the apartment, but didn’t stay long. It was late, we both had to be up for work in the morning, and we were exhausted, the evening’s high wearing off. You hugged me close and long, as you often do, but as we pulled away you put your hands on either side of my face and you kissed me like you had never done before (or since). It was sweet and passionate and though we had kissed several times before, it was the first time you really kissed me.

And…then you left.

I stood there in my apartment thinking “Holy shit he’s never kissed me like that before… What does this mean?? I can’t let him leave!”. So I opened my front door, called you back from the elevator, and all but threw myself at you. I don’t even remember the sex.

To this day you still reference me calling you back from the elevator for sex as a way to share the blame for this mess we’re in. I can only recall ever doing it that one time…but it doesn’t make your point any less valid. I’ve asked myself a million times since then why I couldn’t just have left well enough alone. Why I couldn’t have let you leave, with the memory of that one amazing kiss fresh on my mind. If I could edit the memory to end with me watching you walking away towards the elevator – well, that would be something. Instead, it runs just a few minutes longer, and becomes tainted by my selfish and greedy behavior, and all that has plagued me since.

But that’s not enough for me to stop hoping that, maybe someday, you’ll kiss me like that again. It’s not enough for me to pass up the chance to have two tickets in hand, almost in the same seats as that first show, even if I didn’t really have the $126 to spend. It isn’t until the end of May, and I don’t know what we’ll be then. I don’t know if we’ll be speaking again. I don’t know if I’ll have had enough time to sort myself out. I don’t know where you’ll be, mentally, emotionally. I don’t know if you’ll be interested in going. I don’t know if you’ll be interested in going with me.

I hope we will. I hope you will. I miss you.

This decision to have zero contact with you will either be the best thing that we’ve ever survived, or the decision I’ll look back on with earnest sorrow 40 years from now. It’s been less than eight hours, but I miss you more than I’ve missed you all month – and despite my behavior or what you may think, I’ve been missing you intensely. Every day.

I wish I saw another way. More than that – I wish I could skip this part altogether. I thought I was past the days of crying silently at my desk, brushing away my tears hoping that my co-workers have the couth to ignore it instead of drawing attention to it. But honestly…that thing my therapist said to me years ago has been in the back of my mind ever since. And now more than ever it’s screaming at the top of its lungs for me to fucking listen up already and do what I need to do: “You two need to start over.”

That, unfortunately, I don’t know how to do. I don’t know how to fall out of love with you. I don’t know how to not think of you, or not worry about you, or not daydream about a life that we’re not yet living…I don’t know how to not do those things 24/7/365. I’ve been doing them for so long that I’ve forgotten how not to – which is ironic, because not doing something is literally the default option. But even worse than that has been the constant companion of self-doubt, insecurity, jealousy, and passive-aggressive thoughts and behaviors that has been riding on my back. And for this reason, my love, am I finally willing to give Sarah’s comment a serious shot: all of that internal shit has turned me into the ugliest version of myself I could have ever imagined. And I can’t be this person anymore. I won’t be. So I will attempt to start over, but with myself.

Bear with me, as my month of silence may well turn into the six that you offered me. I’ll do my best to stay strong, to make progress, and to tell you everything that’s going on with me…even if only in a written form that you may never read. Regardless – know that I love you. I’m thinking about you. I’m missing you.

…And I’m praying for us.

I’ve been up since 3am, and despite the betrayal and anger and devastation of the past two days, all I want is to reach out to you…but I absolutely cannot do that. I can’t stop thinking about the coffee “non-date” you’ll have tomorrow. I know that you’ll charm her like you do. She’ll walk away feeling that she’s special and pretty and funny. That’s how you always makes us all feel. Except when you don’t.

The hardest part will be when I walk away…and you let me go. I know you will. You’ll let me walk right out of your life and you’ll say that you’re respecting my wishes by letting me leave. By never again dialing my number. By never again sending a text. By never seeing me again. I’ll walk away and struggle to get through the days, struggle to get through the nights, and you won’t know any of that. You won’t see me on social media. Won’t hear my name from your friends’ lips. And you sure as hell won’t try to find me. Won’t ask me to come back. Won’t ever recognize how deeply this hurt. But you’ll call it abandonment and build the wall around your heart a little higher.

You told me you won’t allow yourself to be in a situation again where something suddenly can jolt your life. There is nothing I could do that would make you feel the way I’m feeling now. And the reality that four years of emotional and physical intimacy amounts to so little is what I might never overcome. Because you are my life.

…this isn’t Heartbroken, it’s just plain Broken.