I have been struck by a lightning bolt of trauma today. As I mentioned last time, Maddie has been out of town for a couple of weeks for work – which happens from time to time, and as such I have been missing her very much.
She called me on my way to work this morning, and to see her name and face on my phone made me smile so hard. Due to the nature of her work, we can’t talk when that work takes her away.
So to see her call told me she was back – and I was overjoyed.
As per usual, we caught up for our usual lunch when she is back in town, at our normal haunt just near her office. It was so good to see her today.
Then came a bombshell that almost blew me backwards off my seat – she has accepted a secondment to her company’s London office.
For two years.
I am over the moon for her – her career is massively important to her. It took her until her late 30’s to get into the field she had wanted to right from when I first knew her, so every opportunity for her to excel in that career is essential for her to take.
Completely rapt for her.
Two years though?
I won’t see her for two years?
I’ve been apart from her for longer than that before, but it’s really the last 20 years or so when we have been closest, and usually not too far from each other.
Being able to see her, and spend time with her has been the foundation of my life.
I also don’t know what this means for her relationship – is he going too? I don’t know, and I wouldn’t be so brutal as to ask. It’s not about me, and asking that would feel like cheap opportunism.
So, I have to go back to where I’ve been before. Oceans apart.
I will be the very best friend I can be – (which isn’t difficult, to be fair) – and look forward to her coming back.
She doesn’t leave for a few months, so I’m going to make the most of it.
I know what I will do, I know how I will continue to be in her life, and keep her in mine.
My brain is racing, and I’m confused. My heart is breaking tonight, and frankly I’m devastated.
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.
It is difficult for me to describe how Maddie made me feel by standing by my side and holding my hand at my father’s funeral.
The day was absolutely about him, and not about Maddie, but she made the most difficult and painful day of my life bearable. My father would have really liked Maddie – he would have appreciated her country upbringing and her kind heart.
That he never got to meet her is a shame – but obviously in looking back at all that I have written on this site, there are many reasons why that didn’t happen.
She didn’t have to come, but she did – just to look after me. It touched me when she asked, and it gave me great strength when I saw her drive into the cemetery that rainy day and park next to my car.
My son and I were still sitting in the car, keeping out of the rain. Maddie and my eyes caught each other, and she smiled a warm smile and I did my best to smile back through my pain.
We all stepped out, and I introduced Maddie to my son. Despite being autistic, he is actually good at meeting people, and he accepted her friendship at the first moment, and Maddie drew him in with her usual warmth.
It was actually the second time they had met, but he was only about two years old the first time, and had no memory of her. At this meeting he was 14, and Maddie later remarked that he was just how she remembered me at 14.
Just not as shy as I was.
As I introduced her to others, she just immediately connected with them and seemed immediately comfortable being around an entire group of people she didn’t know.
That was her superpower – drawing others into her space and making them feel welcome there, and she was very welcome in that time and in that place. She told everyone that she was there to support her friend.
Me.
Maddie is just magical like that – and though we weren’t together, she made me feel she was a partner in my pain. Her own father had died suddenly almost a decade earlier, and despite only meeting him once before at her 21st birthday party so many years before, I wanted to be there for her on her day of grief too.
They had a simple private family funeral with no guests beyond family, so I didn’t get the chance. Also, because it was so sudden, it would have been difficult to make it – but I did offer to come.
I like to think that she remembered my offer, and that that was why she asked to be at my side for my day of grief.
It was strange to feel so sad on that day, but uplifted by Maddie being there. She stood with me, but kept in the background of day, conscious of being a stranger at this gathering.
My mother and sisters asked later after she had left the wake, who Maddie was.
“You probably don’t remember me talking about her from my high school years, because it was so long ago, but she’s the one woman in my life who has always given a shit about me…and she wanted to be here and hold my hand…” was my answer.
Naturally, their next question was *who* Maddie was right now. It had been almost a decade since Nadine and I had broken up, and almost a decade since I had had someone serious in my life. I think they were all hoping I had found someone special again.
“Oh, she’s someone special, but we’re not like that. We’re way past that.”
I had always loved Maddie – but that was the day I really understood her. I always felt that I did, but even today, almost every time we interact she shows me more and more of herself, and more and more of who she is.
She is the guardian angel that someone sent into my life so long ago. Her spirit always uplifts me from whatever despair I am feeling at any given time in my life.
However, loving Maddie so much is a double edged sword.
I get to know her and love her, and share personal things with her. I don’t believe that the relationship we share is like any other kind of relationship either of us has ever been in.
But because we have never managed to be together – not even for a minute – the painful side of loving her is knowing that she finds the romantic love she needs from others.
I’ve always been happy for her when she is with someone, and I would never in a million years interfere with any relationship she was in, just to give myself a chance again.
I get to see her that happy, while I am often struggling with my own painful personal life. It often feels completely unfair that she gets to feel that, and I don’t.
The thing is, we both know we love each other.
We also know that we are both too special to each other to ever wreck what we do have.
That’s the dichotomy of us.
Love without love. It is so powerful, but while I understand where we stand, sometimes I need more.
My father battled with cancer for the last ten years of his life, and as a family we were devastated when he finally left this world.
At diagnosis we were given five years of life expectancy, so to get double that was a blessing that we cherished greatly. Every single day, week, month, and year after that initial five year prognosis was time we took to make sure we built as many memories and moments that we could.
It was clear for some months that the end was near – yet it was still a shock when the moment comes.
When that day finally came, the world was in the midst of the COVID pandemic, when there were restrictions on the number of people who could attend many events, including funerals.
Dad was a well-known figure in our home town, and we expected a large number of people would want to fill the limited ranks of mourners allowed to attend. Indeed, we heard from many people, and it broke our hearts to turn so many away.
We eventually settled on immediate family and as many of his closest friends we could fit into the allowed quota, and it wasn’t difficult to fill.
For my son, it was the first time he had lost a family member, and preparing him for the funeral was a difficult exercise in managing emotions.
The night before Dad’s funeral, a familiar number appeared on my phone.
Maddie.
She had already shown a great deal of love and support in the week between Dad’s passing and his funeral – because of course she did – but what she asked me during that phone call blew me away.
“Andrew, if possible I’d love to come tomorrow, to support you? I know you’re taking this pretty hard, and I just want to be there for you.”
I was frozen, briefly.
I thought about how the quota was already full, but thinking quickly – (and perhaps a little bit selfishly) – I answered.
“Maddie, the quota is full, but if you want to come, you’re coming. I’ll make sure they don’t count too carefully. I can’t wait to see you, and thank you for caring, like you always have.”
It rained a little during the funeral, good for hiding tears.
Maddie of course saw each each and every tear, and held my hand the entire time.
She had never met any of my family before that day, so I was getting a few odd looks and I would have some explaining to do later – but she was made welcome by everyone.
She looked impeccable, shining as much as one could in a black dress on a rainy day.
She stuck with me during the wake, and stayed as long as she possibly could – making sure that I was okay every step of the way.
I wasn’t, but having her there was something that I will never forget. To have her there on the saddest day of my life was immeasurably valuable to me.
I walked her to her car, and we chatted quietly for a few minutes – we hadn’t actually seen each other for almost a year, thanks to COVID. She kissed me on each cheek, and then gave me a little peck on the lips.
I shouldn’t have been happy, but I was smiling like an idiot.
I watched this magical woman drive off into the distance before heading back inside.
The entire world changed in 2020, with the onset of the COVID pandemic. Lives changed, people were artificially kept away from each other for long periods of time.
I was someone who absolutely supported the distance we were made to keep from other people – one only has to look at how the United States failed to cope in the early days of the pandemic.
Just how many people died there, and were buried in mass graves due to the sheer number of people succumbing to the virus – I didn’t need to be convinced beyond that.
While I had been holding back somewhat from Maddie for a good two-and-a-half years by this time, we were still in touch and still caught up for lunch every now and then. We still loved being around each other.
On a personal level, my employer at the time didn’t really have a specific policy on working in the office or working from home for at least six months into the pandemic. Without one, we just started following the government directive of “…if you can work from home, work from home…”
I could, and I did.
Aside from grocery shopping and visits to the doctor, I didn’t leave the house for basically three months. Despite my employer not having a policy, my department started running with its own policy and after those first three months, I started going into the office once a week.
It was nice to escape a little bit, because being at home was hard work – even for an introvert like me.
For Maddie, she was in a similar boat – mostly able to work from home, but coming into the office a fair bit more than I was.
But because of all the restrictions, catching up for lunch was – (technically) – against the law, and it had been nearly six months since we had. Her work sometimes takes her away from the city for even weeks at a time, but even when she wasn’t away we still couldn’t.
The lock-downs also broke down her relationship. He apparently wasn’t a believer in those lock-downs, and got really upset that Maddie wouldn’t allow him to come over to her house.
Like me, Maddie was a believer in the policies of social isolation.
All of a sudden, we found ourselves talking online…a lot.
She didn’t have to be sensitive to a partner since that had ended, and I was emotionally very drained from being home so much and not connecting with anyone.
As such, as much as I was still in the “hold back from Maddie” space, that chance to connect with anyone was just what I needed. That it was Maddie wasn’t necessarily the best choice for me at the time, but it wasn’t a problem either.
It was fantastic to connect again, and we probably chatted on Zoom at least a couple of times a week for months and months – even when the restrictions began to ease a little.
Maddie was back in my heart, and later that year when my father died – (despite not actually needing convincing) – she showed me once and for all just how wonderful she was.
Part of deciding to step away from Maddie a little was the need to find a way to fill that gap in my life that she had always filled.
I was still happy being single, but at times we were almost a surrogate partner for each other. We would talk about things that were personal – (not intimate necessarily) – to give each other something of a sounding board for things going on in our lives.
Having decided to take my romantic focus away from her, it was difficult to adjust to not having that regular connection.
I didn’t tell her that I was pulling back – the friendship was as strong as it had ever been, but for my own sake, I had to communicate a little less.
There was no way at all that I was going to cut her off, and there were still text messages and phone calls from time to time. I just deliberately did it less.
We still did our catch up lunches from time to time, but even those I tried to organise less regularly.
I never sensed that she was worried for our friendship or concerned that I was contacting her somewhat less often – but the dynamic did change a little. The things we talked about were less personal than before, but we both knew that the other would always be there when needed.
Maddie did enter a relationship with a guy – (I never met this one) – and she did talk about him from time to time – however I never got the feeling from her that she thought he would be the “forever guy” – it just sounded like companionship rather than love.
I wished for more than that for her – she deserved a “forever guy”.
I just couldn’t put myself in that position again, I couldn’t give her the feeling that that was what I was interested in – and at that time I wasn’t.
My decision to step back from her romantically was a decision I was completely comfortable with, and I didn’t want to compromise the process I was going through within myself by complicating it with feelings for Maddie again.
I still watched her with some envy, but I was feeling better about life than I had for a long time.
There were a few women drifting in and out of my view, but nobody really caught my eye enough to push anything serious with them.
I was completely okay with that.
Maddie and I never lost contact, but this was the most distant we had been for some time. I was happy for me for her to have some time to look the other way too.
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.
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?
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.
A new Musical Moment for you today, and a song I’ve only discovered in the last couple of weeks – it’s amazing the rabbit holes that YouTube can take you down when it builds a music play list of things you’ve played a lot, but it throws in things it thinks you might like.
It got this one right!
I’d never heard of the band, let alone the song – but it was the lyrics that got me here, and it’s brought a true Maddie vibe to life for me.
Lately I have felt very down, and I’ve been craving Maddie’s company more than usual, but as she is in a relationship at the moment? Well, I’d like to call it unrequited love, but Maddie and I are more complicated than that.
We do love each other.
But reaching out to each other right now?
“…but I could call your phone just to hear your voice…” – it would be so easy!
“…I could drive to you yeah but what’s the point…” – it would be a journey of the heart!
“…I still think of you cause I’ve got no choice…” – completely true!
“…I could run away but I won’t get far…” – I always try and move on, but I can’t!
“…meet somebody new let her break my heart…” – that always happens!
“…no matter what I try to do I never get away from you…” – nothing I try changes my heart!
“…and even if I wanted to the only other choice is you…” – Maddie is my only choice!
It was a strange time – still reveling in the love and support from Maddie, yet still healing from the pain of Nadine.
Things between Nadine and I were still fine – as I’ve previously talked about, we didn’t hate each other, we had just run out of steam. We still had a wonderful son to somehow raise together, and we were making that work, even when he spent most of his time with me.
As per my last post – (and shall I be honest, also per pretty much my entire life) – Maddie was the person I was leaning on. She was there when I needed her, never more than a phone call away.
In many ways, it felt like the support she gave me when Shannon had ripped up my heart 20 years beforehand. The warmth and the kindness she showed reminded me very much of that time.
The difference this time around was that I knew Maddie was seeing someone, and quite seriously at that. As such, I was very conscious of not calling her too often and not sending her too many text messages.
The very last thing I wanted to do was to cause her any pain and anguish by being responsible in even a small way towards her relationship failing.
When we did talk, she was brilliant – as always.
There was no doubt in my mind after so very many years that Maddie loved me, and that perhaps at times that that love may even have been a romantic love.
This just wasn’t one of those times, and as I always found myself when she was with someone, I was so very happy for her.
There wasn’t a single specific thing she did for me or said to me during this time that was any more or less significantly helpful to me. She was loving and supportive, consistent and kind.
In the initial few months, I leant on her more than I did later on, but nothing ever changed. She of course knew about my mental health battles, and how important it was for me to be heard and encouraged. She never strayed from that understanding.
As I said, as her relationship grew stronger, I kept a comfortable distance to show her that I cared that she had found someone special again – (and I absolutely did!) – and be respectful of both Maddie and her man.
The trouble for me was that I started to desperately miss her. I shouldn’t have, as it wasn’t as if we were talking every single day. Far from it in fact.
Yet my heart was aching terribly. I missed her every day, and wanted to talk to her every day.
So many times over the years she had been there for me, and she was doing it again. We loved each other very much – but I couldn’t be with her.
It was agonising. It was constant. It was a physical pain.
I loved Maddie, and I couldn’t see anything else – but like the good best friend, I was determined not to interfere with her relationship. I wouldn’t be much of a friend if I did.
This process in my head went on for about two years – yes, two years.
It was like the old days – loving her from a distance, and not being able to do anything about it – but this time I was sure I was in love with her, when back then I probably only thought I was.
It was not good for my mental state. So many of the those same thought patterns I had when I was 12 and 13, trying to understand how I felt about her, were back and really affecting me in a deeply complex and emotional way.
I crashed.
I didn’t completely break down, but one morning I woke up so confused within myself, that I called in sick to work and went to see my doctor.
He took one look at me and asked me what the hell was going on. He told me he’d never known me like this before, and that he was concerned for me. I was rambling, incoherent, and not making sense to myself – so I wasn’t going to be making sense to him.
I told him as much as I was comfortable with explaining to him, and that I was able to explain. My blood pressure – (which is normally low) – was off the scale.
I was about a week and a half away from two weeks of annual leave from work, so he signed a medical certificate off to cover up until that day, therefore effectively giving me a month off work. I was upfront with my employer, and they were very supportive.
The doctor had sent me for a psych consult, and I was given some anti-depressants.
I was so happy that I had Maddie in my life as the beautiful friend she had almost always been, but I was desperately sad because I knew I was so in love with her by this stage, yet had no way to be with her.
The month away from work, someone to talk to, and that short course of medication lifted me off the floor.
The psychologist gave me some advice which appeared a bit negative on the surface, but turned out to be completely correct.
“…sometimes you have to bottom out completely before you can get better…”
I was completely bottomed out, and could completely feel it in almost every waking moment.
I felt so close to Maddie – closer than ever before. Yet, as usually seemed to happen, the timing was all wrong, and the distance between us could have been a thousand miles.
Oceans apart, day after day.
That song still held true.
Maddie still doesn’t know that I went through all of this, and I don’t know if I could ever tell her about it.
