I should probably have been a mess inside at this point, but I was actually doing okay.
I had never been great at being alone, despite most of my need to be with someone being related to how I’ve felt about Maddie over the years. By that I mean that, yes, I had always wanted to be with her, but I was always interested in being close to someone, even when there was not an opportunity to be closer to Maddie.
If I had to choose, I would choose her every time, but I’ve never really had the chance to choose her. We were always either struggling with our friendship in the early days, in different parts of the world in later years, or in different stages in our lives.
I never felt as if there wasn’t a possibility for us, just that there was rarely the opportunity. Circumstances rarely brought us together at the right time.
The break up with Nadine was difficult, but by the time I had written the Facebook post I described in my last post, I had reset my head.
This was the time I figured out that I really didn’t need to be with someone to be happy. Being with someone would still have been amazing, but the overwhelming need I had always felt just wasn’t with me any longer.
Maddie was an amazing support through this period. It wasn’t that there was any doubt that she would be – and indeed, she always had been, but she was a massive part of me finding the inner peace I had found by this time.
I was focused on myself, and on my son.
That was all that mattered – yet Maddie was always there to listen. Despite being largely at peace and happy in life, there were definitely still days and nights – especially the nights – where sitting alone was hard work.
All it took was a phone call to Maddie – (who by this time was a bit over relationships too) – to hear her friendly voice, and sometimes just have a long silly chat about nothing at all to help me feel not alone.
We were like this for about two and a half years. The person each other would call when life was feeling a bit dark – the closest we had ever been, yet still not the closest we would ever be.
That would come some years later still.
Maddie allowed me to find a calmness and clearness that I had probably never felt before.
Was I about to fall in love with her again?
Yes, I was about to – but it would take me back to a mental space I had not been in since I first met her so many years earlier.
I loved her, but didn’t have the courage to tell her.
Again.