breaking up is hard to do

There was a man.
For a while, it was great.
Then something changed. I think he stopped being himself. Upon reflection, during our mammoth two-week breakup conversations, he mentioned something that I've since realised (potentially) meant that he was overanalyzing things that I've said. Maybe, to a small extent, he was trying to conform to what I wanted, or rather, what he thought I wanted.

He couldn't have been happy.

Thing is, *I* was happiest when *he* was happy. Maybe he was never happy, who knows. Maybe he just felt sorry for me. Who knows. I surely don't. Anything is better than this anti-explanation I got. When he was himself, it was all about the little things he did. In fact, it was always about the little things he did. He didn't have to tell me he loved me, I saw it and felt it in the way he was always, ALWAYS there for me.

Maybe he just had a greater sense of duty and it wasn't love at all.

I can't wrap my head around it, all I know is that it still hurts. When people ask, and I tell them, they say that he was cheating, or wanted someone else. I tell them not to say that because I choose to believe that he would never do anything like that. But then I think, if that's true, then my time with him was spent for whatever growth we both had to do and I hope he's with the woman who can make him happy in ways I apparently never can.

It's still sad, and it still hurts. It hurts having a man tell you that you're not enough, and that he couldn't feel your love. I'm not sure I'll get over that... not in a week anyway.

He said once, "do you want to hit me?" and he in effect gave me permission, and how do you tell the person "why would you think I'd want to hit you when all I want to do is go back to three days ago and kiss you and hold you and be held?"

How can I hit you? How can you suggest that?

So in the end, that's my mystery, my karma, to never know what I did to make him leave. And here I was, thinking, finally, someone to break it.

But instead, somehow, I did something to break *it*.

So he's gone, and there's supposed to be some long line of suitors, but I don't see one. What there is, is a man who is going through basically the same heartache I am (albeit on a MUCH grander scale) who I can confide in, and who gives me attention, effectively bringing me out of this funk when he's around.

I guess I'm working out my tantrums now, I've already been vicious on my blog, when I really had no right being that way, I suppose.

I just miss my friend, even at the friend level (which I'm completely not prepared for yet)... I just miss him. I miss my sounding board of logic. I miss the man who protected me verbally. Who said "you're the kind of girl that if people don't like, there's something wrong with THEM," who gave me two beautiful bouquets... One when I was in the hospital, and the other, my second favourite, when I made the comment that it'd been a while since I'd received flowers, and by the time I saw him, he'd pulled off some tree blossoms & fashioned them into a makeshift bouquet... rather, I think the correct term would be nosegay.

I loved it. Still do. And that singular gesture was so romantic... Which is why it stung when he said romance was fake, and a way to game up women.

Fast forward to the breakup, when I make the (ill-fated) comment that through all the talking, I'm not getting the impression he's trying to win me back.

The next day, I have roses at work.

I don't like roses. They're pedestrian. And they're not him. They're not me, and they're not him. They were a shut-up gesture. And it backfired on his part, because it was more of a slap to the face, to receive flowers in such creative fashion, when he was happy (if ever) or at least when I didn't stress him out so much... to the gesture of "here. This is typical. I'm sorry."

Anyways, I hope he doesn't read this, because the range when I write about him is so varied... One day I'm mega-strong, the other I'm pensive and refliecting. I hope he doesn't take any thing I write here personally if he does (which I hope he doesn't... I can't bring myself to read his, because I'm not over him yet... if he reads mine it's almost as if he can because he's over me... which is fine, to each his own, and who knows maybe he already has moved on with a new someone special. I wish I was that lucky) because I'm still working through my pain.
It's not personal, it's just painful, and since this is where I let stuff out, there you have it.

He's a wonderful person. I wish I could have been more of what he needed.

I'm not.

b