I have been really struggling this last couple of weeks, and as I write this Live Moment post tonight, I’m in a bit of emotional turmoil.

There’s quite a bit of family drama going on at the moment. My mother is in failing health, and we really don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t think she is close to death, but a lot of things are catching up with her at the moment and it is frustrating her – and as such, she is lashing out in many directions.

She has the same form of dementia that Bruce Willis is currently suffering from.

What I am missing, is my rock. My Maddie.

Ordinarily I will call her and talk to her when I am feeling all messed up like this but I can’t at the moment, and I am missing her dreadfully.

Why can’t I reach out?

As is sometimes the case, Maddie is out of town for a few weeks on work business. Her job can take her away from town for weeks at a time sometimes, and the nature of her work doesn’t leave a lot of room for personal communication. She works in a sensitive space.

It’s not new to lose touch with her like this, but it really does suck when I’m feeling like shit and need her counsel. It is actually painful to not be able to reach out to her at the moment.

I’m sure we’ll have a catch-up lunch when she’s back in town – (like we always do after she’s been out of touch for work) – but tonight I’m really hurting.

So, as per usual – I am overthinking and colouring in stories in my head to just function like something resembling a human being.

I’m in the “why do I love Maddie so much, and why can’t I let her go?” space.

Why?

Why should I try?

I know a lot of reasons why I should, and a lot of reasons why I should not.

I should try, but I don’t want to.

Tonight I’m back writing again after a little time off from this journey. Maddie can be such a complicated subject in my life, that it is quite easy to get myself in quite a quandary, and need some time to sit back and untangle my brain.

These words that I have been writing here in recent months have in many ways been both therapeutic and in some ways traumatic.

I have deliberately placed my mind back in times and situations that were good and bad in my life – like talking about the mental troubles I have caused myself over the years in processing how I feel – not just about Maddie, but about life in general.

What this little break has given me is some time to reflect on what I have written. Within my last story post, I find myself in the mid-2010’s. That seems so long ago, but when I view that particularly post from the perspective of today – (January 28th, 2025) – it doesn’t seem like a decade ago at all.

It also seems that I shouldn’t have too much of the story to go – but that’s not true either. Oddly, it might not take too many more posts to reach current day, but the colour of the relationship Maddie and I have shared in the last 10 years is vibrant and full of detail.

So those are the times I have been reflecting on since I last wrote.

I’ve tried to really look into myself, and really try and understand how I feel about her.

It would be too easy to say that I love her, because of course I absolutely do – but what does that mean?

I actually begin this thought at the time of our café meeting over thirty years ago, a moment that could have been a moment of finality in my love for her. They day she slipped away forever.

If she did get married at that time, I would not have felt a sense of loss beyond how I felt in that moment. Yes, I was stung very hard that day, and initially didn’t deal with the emotion very well.

But I was happy for her. Once I gathered myself together, I knew that I was happy for her and that if I could not be with her, I wanted her to be happy. I would rather she be happy and myself be sad, than the other way around.

If her happiness didn’t contain my presence – brilliant! My first and only feeling as I look back at the immediate few days after that meeting, that’s what it was. Immense happiness for her, and whatever I felt didn’t matter.

It didn’t. Maddie was happy – she deserved it, she had found it, and I couldn’t want anything more for her.

Now, with that memory echoing in my mind, I look at her today. She is in a happy relationship once again. In the last 10 years I have ridden yet another emotional roller-coaster over her – but once again I am happy for her. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve met her man and even had dinner with them – and he’s great for her.

How do I feel about that?

Once again, immensely happy for her.

Where does that leave me?

I’m quite happy being single at the moment – as much as having someone to curl into at night and feel safe with is appealing, I don’t want to be with someone just for the sake of being with someone.

I will be her friend, like we have always been. The love we do have for each other won’t ever disappear.

And whatever she needs, if I can give it to her – I will do my very best to provide her with it. She more than deserves that love and support.

I’ve always given her that, but even as I need to sit at a distance again now – I know what I would always do anything for her.

Anything – and everything.

It would be pretty easy to be pretty negative and down on the world at this stage in my story.

I’ve been reading back over the last couple of weeks of posts, and in reminding myself of what I went through during those years, I remember some of the very dark places I existed in at those times.

There have been women in my life that have hurt me badly and many men would I suspect be bitter and angry towards women who have put them through things like that.

Not me.

With the exception of the “no-named psychopath” from my last post, I hold no malice toward any of them. Some are still in my circle of friends. April and Amber are there. Even Shannon is a “from time-to-time” acquaintance.

Others – like Jennifer and Sarah – I’m long past any anger that I felt for them, though there was a lot at the time. Despite that I have no desire to interact with them now.

I’ve seen Sarah a few times in public over the years, but we’ve never made anything but brief eye contact and continued on our way.

Why am I not angry though?

Well, really, where does anger get you?

Each of my bad romances ended, and ended for a reason.

Did I do something I shouldn’t have done? Did I not do something that I should have done?

I don’t know, and I don’t believe in regrets. Are there things in my life I would do differently the second time around?

Absolutely – but that’s not regret, that’s accepting and learning the lessons that life has tossed my way. I am proud of who I am as a person, and despite a life time of struggling with depression, depression in many cases ignited by some of these personal situations – I have accepted the lessons.

Things didn’t just end for me in those relationships. Things ended for them too.

Certainly I might have taken them harder at the time, but things just have a habit of working out the way that they are meant to.

Those relationships all ended so that I could grow through the experience and be a better person the next time around.

Be ready for the right person when she appears, and make sure that I am available to her when she does. I would never want to stay in a relationship with anyone who was past wanting to be in a relationship with me.

I would want it to end.

It would be so easy to be angry with all of those who have hurt me, but I am who I am today through learning what they had to teach me, so I thank them for those lessons.

I still struggle with loneliness – but not through the pain of losing them – but through the yearning to find that person I am meant to be with.

I am still on that journey – and that time will come.

Another different kind of post tonight – something going to call a “live moment”. Instead of telling my story, my story of love for Maddie, I’m going to talk about how I feel right at this moment.

As I write.

I will probably do more of these over time – what I have found so far is that writing my story out has been extremely cathartic. I’ve always been such a shy and insular person, that very few people know this entire story. Some people know pieces of it.

Frankly, Maddie doesn’t really know how deeply it affects me – we’ve never really had a complete conversation about the whole timeline of the pieces of our lives that relate to each other.

I think it could even be dangerous for each of us to really understand – it would answers a lot of questions both of us have, and bring up others. I’m not sure how she would react to fully understanding my love for her.

Writing out this story has brought a clarity and calmness to my mind that I’ve not known for pretty much my entire adult life. I’ve been sitting here on the couch tonight – (Saturday, November 9th, 2024) – with my cat snuggled beside me, and just thinking about Maddie.

Is that unusual?

No, god no – totally normal.

Every once in a while though, I have these nights where my thoughts lead me to moments of understanding, when I hear myself talking to Maddie in my head.

It’s almost midnight.

There is nobody here of course – (my son is in his bedroom about 10 metres away, sound asleep) – but I feel that someone is here with me. I am talking to them about Maddie.

I don’t know who it is – maybe my father who died nearly five years ago, and wish so much he could have known Maddie. I think he would really have liked her – yet I never talked much about Maddie to anyone in my family.

Everyone knew bits and pieces, but the 1980’s was a long time ago, and they’ve probably long forgotten those stories.

I’ve been watching a documentary on the murder of Anita Cobby – (a Sydney nurse who was brutally murdered only a few days before I met Maddie) – but rather than being your typical true-crime documentary, it was more about the effect on the lives of the people around her – her family, her husband.

That this was happening at the time I met Maddie really linked my head back to that day I met her, and I began placing myself in their heads, to try and understand how they must have felt.

I’m quite sure that I could never understand how they truly felt.

I am so lucky that even after all this time that Maddie and I still great friends. I could pick up my phone right now and call her and talk to her. I wouldn’t because she is currently in a relationship, and wouldn’t want to insert myself into their lives at midnight on a Saturday night.

I’ve met him and he’s a great guy. Maddie hasn’t had a lot of luck in love over the years, and I’m really happy for her that she’s found someone decent.

Watching this documentary, I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to still love her, but without any possible way to communicate with her. If she were gone.

I’m explaining to whoever it is in the room with me tonight how beautiful I have always found Maddie.

How her friendship – (despite the times it has been strained) – has sustained and inspired me to be the best person I can be. To be the best version of Andrew I can possibly be, so that when we are near each other, I can be a valuable part of her life.

Maddie and I work quite nearby to each other in the city, and a few times a year catch up and have lunch together. We often send each other silly jokes and memes.

Despite it being the middle of COVID, she came with me to my father’s funeral to support me, because she knew that I was not handling it well.

Even though that was a sombre occasion, it was kind of fun to let people think this beautiful woman on my arm might have been my partner. To pretend just a little bit for a few hours.

That’s just who Maddie has always been – despite us never being together, she’s never been too far away to stop her from being there when I need her.

I would always do the same for her.

The family of Anita Cobby don’t have that chance any longer – and I genuinely cried for them watching the documentary.

I know how hard it would be to live without being able to pick up phone and call Maddie. How empty I would feel inside.

How heartbreaking that would be.

I know it would be hard – there have been times Maddie and I have been out of touch, literally for years at a time, which I will get to in the story – so I know at least part of the emptiness.

I would never claim to know the pain of Cobby’s family – that would seemingly be indescribable.

But that I could relate to their love?

It tells me that after all of this time, just how much I love Maddie.

It’s “inbuilt” into who I am – I can’t not love her.

She is the part of me that is always here. Even when she’s not, and she’s far far away. Maddie and I have “standing orders” with each other to call each other if we need each other.

It is times like these you understand yourself.