The one that got away. To Scotland.

So over the last year me and HR continued to talk regularly, continued to see each other, continued to sleep with each other. He came to see me for a weekend in my new house in my new city in August. We talked about him moving to Liverpool next year. We talked about him coming to my Hallowe'en party. I wasn't really sure what was going on with "us" but I was quite happy for the status quo to continue.

And then, quite suddenly, he changed his mind. He wasn't going to apply to Liverpool for his job any more. He was going to apply to Scotland.


Scotland.


Fucking SCOTLAND.  COULD YOU GET ANY FURTHER AWAY.

The only reason he would come to Liverpool would be for me, and he'd feel foolish if when he got here I was with someone else. And actually, he'd visited Edinburgh recently and quite liked it.


And so, in the period of nine months, he broke my fucking heart into pieces for the second time.

We haven't spoken since. He got disinvited to the Halloween party.

And for the last month I have been up and down like a roller coaster. I've tried to tell myself that I need to get out there and meet someone new. I've downloaded all the dating apps, and have really tried to put some effort into them. But it's not really getting anywhere, I start talking to guys but inevitably it peters out, and not by me! Literally all the last messages sent are from me, not the other way around, so not really sure what's going wrong or why these men are getting bored of me. I go through a flurry of activity, it dries up, I think what is the bloody point, none of these men are
HR anyway, - I think NO - persevere, repeat, rinse, ad nauseum.

Being super busy at work helps, I go through the entire day without thinking about him, and can be generally pretty happy and on top of things but it's the mornings or the evenings or the long weekends alone where I cry myself to sleep/burst into tears in the middle of exercise workouts because I've lost the love of my life. Like, if our circumstances were different and we'd been at the same stage of life we'd still be together. Without one shred of doubt. And I rage against the unfairness, against the sheer bad luck of it all. Because that's the only thing that's kept us apart. We didn't have a single argument.  No one did anything shitty. We fancied the pants off each other. We had so many common interests. We went on two amazing holidays (I can now never go back to either Bruges or Iceland). He made me laugh. He was generous. He let me rant about feminism. He fucking dressed up as a Game of thrones character with me. He made 2014 the best year of my life. He knew me. He got me. He loved me.


And now I'm crying again.


Because now, and for the rest of my life, I'll have A One That Got Away.

Because I have someone that I'll probably never truly 100% get over.

Because we'll always have unfinished business.

Because there will always be a part of me that will ask, "What if?"


And whether I want it to happen or not, every man I meet will be measured up against him and he's set the bar fucking high. And I'm not optimistic currently that anyone will even come near to the impossibly high standard that he's set, let alone surpass it.

On heartache

So. I am, once more, back blogging. And using my anonymous Twitter account.

The use of both of these things generally corresponds to myself being "without a boyfriend and/or sad." Both of which are currently true.


Just over a month ago, HR broke up with me. (Weirdly, an exact year that I wrote the last blog post, you know, the one where I gush about how UHMAZING he is. Just reading it over upsets me.)


It was completely out of the blue. We'd been at our regular pub quiz, our team had won, we'd come all the way back to mine (40mins away from the pub/his house), got into bed, into PYJAMAS, when he dropped this bombshell on me:


"So...what's going to happen in 3 months time?"

My heart sank. In 3 months time I will have finished my final university exams, I go away for two months travelling on elective, then I start my job (most likely in Liverpool) in August. He is in London for at least another year.


Now, when I applied for my job (which I had to do back in October), we'd chatted about it and I'd said I wanted to go for Liverpool. He didn't want to stay in London either, and got excited about Liverpool, started looking at jobs, starting talking about joining the coastguard, started LOOKING AT HOW MUCH HOUSES COST. Like opening the Rightmove app and looking at stuff. So I took this as a pretty good sign that this was all fine and dandy.


So my answer to "what's going to happen in 3 months?" was that we'd continue, and that yes, it would be a bit more work but I'd assumed we'd stay together. (Never assume. Never).


HR did not want to do long distance. Never mind that we could still see each other at weekends, never mind that Liverpool is only 2 hours and 15 minutes on a train, never mind that we'd not even given it a go, never mind anything (and I literally threw every argument in the book at him, for 90 minutes) he was adamant he didn't want it.


Now, although this was a complete and utter shock for me, looking back: it's not out of character for him. He's been on antidepressants for nearly 18 months, and by his own admission is "needy," so I can kinda understand why he doesn't think he could do it. But it was a fucking earthquake of a revelation and I sobbed. And wailed. So loudly it work my flatmate up and he came into my room to see what had happened. I don't think I've ever been reduced to something so animal, so visceral. The noise coming out of me just wasn't human, I was shaking, I was moaning, I just didn't want to acknowledge what he was saying to me.


HR left (also in floods of tears). At 12.30 midnight, into the night, despite me begging him not to, and literally hanging onto him. He turned his phone off, which I then proceeded to sketch out about ALL NIGHT, because I was scared he was dead in a ditch somewhere. I barely slept. I called him pretty much every hour until 9 when I eventually fell asleep having texted him begging him to let me know he was alive.


He was, obviously. I then went through the painful process of telling people, my mum, my friends, (twitter!) and to be fair, they rallied round marvellously. I'm truely thankful to all of them. Especially given the fact it was my birthday 6 days later (yeah cheers for that HR).

Literally the worst birthday I've ever had. I just kept comparing it to the one last year (which was the best I've ever had, mainly due to HR) so yeah.

****

We met up a week later, (my request) because I wasn't leaving it like that, I had more questions. It did make me feel a bit better afterwards. I asked him why he'd not brought this up earlier, he told me it had "dawned" on him over Christmas. Why now? Well there was never going to be a "good" time. (True). 

He explained it was just shit, because we weren't breaking up because someone had cheated, or we'd grown apart, or anything like that. We still fucking love each other but we can't be together. He still wants to be friends, he still wants to talk (and we have, a tiny amount), and I suggested maybe meeting up and doing something before I go travelling, which he wants to do. I asked him, crucially, if he was still going to apply for Liverpool for his job? - maybe. Maybe Manchester, maybe Newcastle. Not London. He did say he'd tell me where he applied when it comes to it...

Part (most) of me really really wants him to come to Liverpool and just pick up things where we left off, (which really could happen.) A smaller part of me wants to be realistic and say, "Do NOT get your hopes up for this, don't be stupid, do not wait around for him," etc etc lots of people have said, "You'll find someone new in Liverpool." And yeah, maybe I will. 

But you know what? Maybe I won't. Maybe I don't want to. I have had literally zero interest in any other men. "Best way to get over someone is to get under someone else," is a shit phrase I've heard a lot of recently, and I can't think of anything I'd like to do less. I don't want to, and I also don't because I know it would hurt him (just like if I found out about him sleeping with anyone else it would c-r-u-s-h me).

It's just right now, no one even comes close to being as amazing as he is. Men are generally shit, let's be honest, and it's taken me 27 goddamn years to find one that I could consider spending the rest of my life with, chances of me finding another one like that in the next year are, quite frankly, minimal. 

Who knows, maybe in 6 months I'll be over all of this, and look back at him and just feel nothing, like my other ex-boyfriends. But none of my other exes came anywhere near making me as happy, None of my other relationships have been as easy, or a patch on this one. This is why it's hurting me so much. Normally when you break up you can say, "but remember all the fights you had, all the times he hurt you, the disagreements." But we DIDN'T HAVE ANY. I have no negatives to fix on. All I have is the knowledge that I had one of the best, happiest years of my life with him. I'm not sure if I believe in "The One," but goddammit he basically was. (Is?)

Maybe I'm just fooling myself, maybe I'm just completely wrong, but right now, I just don't want to, (can't?) believe that's this is The End for us.