A few months went by after my emotional crash, and I really didn’t feel much like myself.
I really had bottomed out, just as the psychologist had suggested, and had suggested was probably a good thing.
I cried a lot for probably about three or four months. So much pent up energy from loving Maddie for so long – (30 years by this point) – and not being able to properly express that energy really ripped my insides out of me.
It wasn’t different as such – there had obviously always been a distance between myself and Maddie, even though in contradiction we had always been so close. Whenever there had ever been even a slight chance that we might found ourselves together, there was always something that blocked it.
Other relationships. Geographic distance. Not being ready.
So many things had always seem to block us. Was the universe trying to tell us something?
Was it trying to say we shouldn’t be together?
Was it telling us that the time had not arrived yet?
These were questions I had spent 30 years trying to process and answer, and this emotional crash over her left me bare.
I found myself questioning my feelings for Maddie. Was I just in love with the idea of being in love with Maddie? Was I taking my feelings for her massively too seriously?
I asked myself those and many more questions and the answers I kept finding, kept upsetting me.
I would always care for Maddie – there was nothing that could change that.
However, for the very first time in those 30 years, I actually started to believe that Maddie was not, and should not be the one for me. It was very much a light-bulb moment, a new light shining into my mind and challenging me to challenge my long held love for Maddie.
Eventually, I found myself deciding to let her go.
I hadn’t convinced myself that it was the right thing to do, but allowing myself to think like that about her was in many ways soothing, albeit still confusing.
Did I get her completely out of my system?
No.
I did open my eyes to other possibilities – and while there was nobody around me that I felt I wanted to try and be in a relationship with, being able to take Maddie off that pedestal was empowering.
The idea of being with someone that wasn’t Maddie was hugely attractive to me.
I guess in many ways I was just tired of being alone.
I wasn’t walking away from the friendship with her, but I guess I had reached a point where I had run out of the energy of love that I had always felt for her.
The sounds in my head were hollow. There was so much space in there for new ideas about what the rest of my life could be.
I could still look at Maddie and smile – but it was all different.
Very different.
There was a new freedom within me, but a dream felt like it was over.