The way we’d describe how we met is so different and yet so endearingly the same, like so much about us is. I still remember that day well. It was just over two years ago. I was enchanted with your beauty… the sound of your voice. But, despite my strong and imposing outward appearance, I was too shy to make a move. Instead, we engaged in flirting like a couple of high school freshmen, catching each other’s eye, making opportunities to be near each other, and both pretending like it wasn’t completely obvious to those around us. It maintained that way, week in and week out for most of the semester.
And then came our term project, I described my vision for an intricate and exciting project; several students were enthralled by my passion, including you. As our group worked together, I learned you had no car and were using public transportation to go all the way back into D.C. Here was my opportunity, to be a gentleman, to get to know you better, and so I offered to you a ride home. We had an engaging conversation for the entire trip, and though we lingered at your departure, nothing happened.
The next ride was different. It was Veterans Day, everyone had the day off from work, and our group gathered earlier on that Friday to get out work done and we left somewhat early. I don’t remember who first made the suggestion, but we decided to go do something else before taking you home and we ended up at a park where we could watch the planes take-off from Reagan. There was silence between us for an endless moment before you took my hand. My eyes fell to you hand, and then lifted to yours before I leaned in and kissed you for the first time. I don’t remember how long we were making out before a police officer tapped on the window. Once again, like a couple of teenagers, we’d been caught by the cops making out in a park after dark.
If I’d ever doubted the notion of love at first sight, it is certainly this sort of tale that would have changed my mind, but that’s not to say things were perfect. In fact, I think we’re both surprised we made it through the first couple of months. I hadn’t had anything more than a few dates with anyone since High School. And though I didn’t know it then, I wasn’t completely over the last girl for whom I had feelings either. You, on the other hand, were accustomed to a completely different kind of guy and a completely different kind of relationship. It took a lot of work on both of our parts to make it through that two month barrier.
And though I remember we had rough times in there, SO many of the memories I have are good ones. I remember very well our first vacation the following summer. We had a wonderful time, we relaxed, and we became a lot closer. Even with the scare, when we were preparing to go hang-gliding, where you passed out and got a concussion, I was very frightened for you, but I was happy to be by your side and take care of you. Despite that, it is one of my fondest memories.
I remember how scared you were that summer as you finished up graduate school and had no job. You were scared you’d lose your legal status and have to leave the country, and your life for the last eight or nine years behind you. I remember the trials of how difficult it was to stay positive, and how glowing you became when you found a job that you couldn’t wait to start.
I remember our first anniversary where we went to have couple pictures done. You got all dolled up, and looked absolutely, drop-dead gorgeous. The pictures taken caught the very nature of our relationship: the contrasts of our features, and let show the lightness our teenager-like love. And ever since then, not a single person has seen the picture I carry of you and not said how beautiful you are and what an amazing couple we make together.
I remember Christmas time when your mother and half-brother came to visit all the way from Bulgaria. I remember your frustrations, not having seen either of them in four years, but I also remember the revival it did for you, removing that latent home-sickness that you carry with you always. It was a glorious adventure to go on a trip with you all to tour New York. It was a pleasure to have met them, and to know that we made lasting positive impressions on each other.
It was around then that thoughts entered my mind. Yes, I loved this woman enough to spend the rest of my life with her and the thought occurred to me to use your Birthday to as cover to disguise an elaborate proposal. I planned it carefully, to include a rhyming line from a poem I wrote for you to both correlate to the associated gift and be a clue to the ultimate proposal. I remember how much fun I had setting it up for you, and how much fun you had trying to figure out each clue. There is no joy I’ve since felt that can compare with hearing the woman I love say yes to my proposal for marriage.
The following weeks were perhaps as close to perfect as I could have imagined. It was endearing how you worked with my brother and his friends to throw me a Birthday party, one of the best I’d ever had… certainly the best I’d had in years. And I remember going to look at rings, and ultimately settling on having the ring to be made completely custom. The elation of designing the perfect ring together to symbolize our love, and yet you not seeing the final product until our engagement party.
That is another of the fondest memories, if not the very greatest, of my entire life. It was hectic to plan and prepare for the engagement party, but somehow, with the grace of our friends and family, it all came together and went off perfectly. Never, in my entire life, have I ever been as proud as I was at that moment, in front of almost everyone who mattered to either of us, when I could profess my love on bended knee for them all to witness.
But somehow, in the last several months, this has just been more and more of a roller coaster. It’s easy to look at what’s going on around us, with my finishing up my PhD coursework, and changing jobs, with your job becoming more difficult and unbearable for you. My depression started to strike this summer, and I tried to hold out for our vacation to Puerto Rico in September, but it was difficult.
Two months ago, it was the weekend of my mother’s birthday and I don’t really remember why, but I felt an enormous sadness overwhelmed me. I was in bed all day to the point that I was already two hours late for the party when I called you. We had the worst fight we’d ever had that night on the way there, spoiling what was left of the party and carrying over into the next day. You were there as I cried as hard as I ever have for so many hours.
Last month, we went to Puerto Rico, and we again had a memorable time. Despite a couple run-ins with some overly aggressive natives, the vacation was a dream. We saw the gorgeous Caribbean beaches, the wondrous El Yunque Rain Forest, the caves, the fortresses. It was worth every cent and every moment we spent to prepare for the trip. And it helped relieve some of my depression for a few weeks.
And then came the very last time I saw you earlier this month. I got violently sick with food poisoning, and yet I still went to the Ballet Folklorico with you, and you kept careful watch over me and stayed with me and encouraged me to go to the hospital to get taken care of, as I had with you once before. You took good care of me that weekend, and it made me feel as loved and as cherished as I ever had with you. But then, for whatever reason, you didn’t want to come stay the night with me and get a ride to work on Monday morning like we’d been doing for some time by then.
The next weekend, you had plans to have tea with my mom. I wanted to see you Friday night, after my raid, but I fell asleep and didn’t awake until late the next afternoon, long after you must have gone to have tea, and I again felt an enormous depression and remained in bed half-asleep the rest of the weekend, barely having the energy to make a brief appearance at my Dad’s Birthday party, before ending up half-asleep again on the couch.
Not one call, one e-mail, nothing to find out what happened to me, why I never showed up, or even to see if I was okay. You always said I never called you enough, but never seemed to show the initiative to call me if I didn’t call you, which only ever happened when I was very busy and distracted, or I was depressed. I finally worked up the energy after a reasonably uplifting day to call you the next Sunday and leave you a message… but it took you three days to send me an e-mail saying you’d gotten my message. Through e-mail, I’d expressed how I’d felt, that I know my recurring depression needs some outside help, and I thought we were on the right track. We had what I thought was a very good conversation Friday and we were on the right track. We ended with my believing that we would call each other when we woke up and that you knew I was going through a difficult time and that I needed your help.
I was exhausted apparently, as I woke up in the afternoon and remained in a half-asleep state for an hour or two until my brother called. He told me he’d just heard what happened between the two of us, and he was there if I needed to talk to him. I was confused, partially by my weariness, and partially because I couldn’t imagine her calling him upset that I hadn’t called her when I’d woken up, when I hadn’t even really woken up. And thus, I remained in that state for the entire weekend. I got no call when you’d woken up or any call to make sure I was okay.
Strangely, come Monday, after spending the entire weekend in a haze in bed, I was refreshed and ready to face the week after several weeks at the office with little to no productivity. And then my Mom calls to make sure I’m okay. It isn’t strange at first, as she was aware, as the rest of my family was, that I’ve been in a depression for a few weeks now… but that isn’t why she was calling to make sure I was okay. Apparently, you and I had broken up, but you hadn’t bothered to tell me. You called and told my step-mother on Friday, before we had our conversation where I thought things were okay, you’d told my brother and her on Saturday. You told them each that I’d been emotionally abusive and that you’d given me back the ring.
You failed to tell any of them that I didn’t know. You failed to tell any of them that you had FedExed the ring to me. I only found out by virtue of my Mom wanting to see how I was dealing with it. I cried for a good forty-five minutes at work, before I’d calmed down enough to speak intelligibly and call you. And all you could say was you were sorry for involving my family and you were scared to speak to me. You say I don’t know one tenth of the pain I’m putting you through, yet I am the one without the energy to get myself out of bed for the whole weekend. I am the one who was practically begging for you to help me through my depression, and after two years, where I stood by you through thick and thin, in the time when I need you most, you turn your back on me because it’s too hard for you. You reluctantly agree it’s worth seeing a counselor, which I’d been saying since before we got engaged, but yet you recant that decision a matter of hours later in one of the most callous e-mails I’ve ever read because you “…felt pressured because it was sad to hear [me] cry”. I cried the rest of the day, while here at the office, at home in my father’s arms, and even at the bloody gym where I was trying to NOT think about it.
Today, I made one more attempt to reach out to you and understand what was going on. I’m will to do whatever it takes, see whatever therapist you’re comfortable with and even pay for it. And all you say is, if this had come a month earlier, we could have worked on it… the very same month in which I’ve been so thoroughly depressed and in need of your help.
Instead, you choose to throw away TWO YEARS of our lives together rather than be there when I’m in my time of need? You choose to do it so cowardly as to use my FAMILY to break up with me, because you couldn’t bear to do it to my face? You don’t have the courtesy to at least call me to end a two year relationship? How could you POSSIBLY justify that as being even a remotely reasonable way to go about things?
And yet, somehow it’s all my fault. All you kept saying was “everyone says you’re being emotionally abusive to me.” How? YOU are the one that demanded we speak every day via phone, and got upset if we didn’t speak, yet you refused to ever pick up the phone and call me. YOU are the one who said I’m not emotionally there for you, but I stood by you with your difficulties at work, with your mom, with possibly moving, yet you can’t be here for me right now when I need you most? YOU keep saying that I don’t treat you like a boyfriend or fiancé should, but not a moment later admit I’ve improved by leaps and bounds since we got together. YOU say I need to see a counselor to work on my issues, when I fully intend to and have been working on them through other methods all along, yet where’s the work that you need to do to improve the relationship from your side? YOU say I’ve taken you and your patience for granted for all this time, and yet I’ve done the very best I could.
That’s not to say I haven’t made mistakes. I’ve made LOTS of them. But that’s just what they are… mistakes. I never hurt you on purpose. I’m not being miserable and depressed now on purpose either. It was NEVER my intention to hurt you. I wouldn’t have proposed to you if I wasn’t serious about wanting to spend the rest of my life with you and put forth all the effort it would take to make it work. And I thought that meant the same thing for you. If we had gotten married this summer, like you originally wanted to, would you still be leaving me now?
For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. I’m sorry I didn’t make my effort more obvious to you. I’m sorry I didn’t have the strength to pull us through together. Despite my pain and my anger, I would still only wish for you the best, and I hope we each find the resolution we need with our own issues, even if you’re unwilling to work on it together. I hope you find the happiness you deserve. As for me, I’m losing the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had, my best friend, the love of my life… my heart is broken. I will miss you.
