the one I think I'm ready to write

***I have a few reservations about posting this. But I think it's time. And, after all the encouragement I got to my other day's acting up nerves, I say- fuck it, I'm ready for this.***

Even before I found out the news last week, I knew I needed to begin to create some distance. I didn't really want to do it, not talk as much, email as much, create that change in our relationship. But this has been going on for years. Years. This friendship, that we both know, is more than just "a friendship." There's always been a reason. You were involved with someone else, I was dating someone, I was getting over a bad relationship, you were getting over your serious thing with her. You live across the country. We see each other maybe five times a year. Always something, something that kept us apart. That never gave us the real opportunity to give the us that we had in mind a try. At least not a try beyond the constant time we'd spend together when we were both in the same city. And it was that time that we spent together, that I've been hanging on to, for years. Years.

Throughout the years, I've had other relationships, we both have. I have always put you on a pedestal. It felt good having you there. Comparing every single guy I meet, to you. No one really measured up. I have had this idealistic picture of you, or us, in my mind. For years. It wasn't the relationship that you and I once had or anything, that I was comparing to. We never have had a real anything other than this thing. It has been the idea in my head. Of what you could be to me, what we could be to each other, what we could be together, . But I never really knew. And I have based years, on the idea of what could be, an unknown potential.

And I know, as well as you, our friends, and our families, that it isn't just me that's doing this based on nothing. It's your way with me. It's our way together. The way you also compare other girls to me. The way we are when we're together, how carefree it is, how much fun we have, the chemistry we share. I began to wonder though, is what I've been hanging on to, more the idea of what could be, based actually on nothing really concrete, rather than any hard core evidence? Who's to say we would even be a right thing together? I have thought we could be good together, I have hoped we could be good together. I've prayed it and cried for it. Literally dreamt of it, wrote about it, therapied about it. But neither of us never really know. The what if thing? It can be fun, but after a while? It's no longer a game.

That was all okay, for so long, it was just what worked. What came naturally for the two of us. I look back now, and I realize, we were in a non-relationship relationship. I don't even know what we were. But it was all okay. It was fine, it worked. Until it wasn't. Until it didn't anymore. It doesn't now.

You are with someone new. Your first serious relationship. And I knew this, over the past couple of months. I knew because you did the comparison thing again. I felt sad because I felt I was getting mixed messages, but I was sending them too. I wasn't okay with hearing all about it. It wasn't easy to just go along and seem all okay with things. I was never completely okay with it, but what was my other choice? I think you've known all along how I feel about you. I have never been ambiguous about that. Everyone knew. It's out there. It just is. It radiates when we're together. It hasn't gone unnoticed. It's impossible.

So things have changed. Even before I found out the seriousness of you and her relationship, I knew I needed to make a shift. Some distance. Less refreshing my inbox for an email, less time spent thinking about a phone call here and very seldom there. More time focusing on me, and moving on. Because the way it is, the way it had been, for so many reasons it felt so very right. But it has had a hold of me for so long, I didn't think I would know myself without it. I think I was scared to actually make the break from it.

The change, the shift in our relationship, well it was something I was going to do no matter what. The time came, that I just needed to do it. I felt so torn, sad to do it, but happy about the possibility of letting the burden go a little. Finding out that you and her are even more serious than you had let on, hearing that from other people and not yet from you, well that was the push I needed. As hard as it was, and as upset and devastated that I was about it all, it was what needed to happen. Unfortunately it's a forced distance, but it's there none the less, and it's needed to happen.

I will never regret the strong hold this has all had on me. I think you are a wonderful, extraordinary person with amazing qualities, and I know that you will make someone very happy. I want you to be happy. You mean so much to me. For now, I need to make myself happy. Happy with myself. It's time. Things change, relationships change, people move on, they move forward, and sometimes backwards, and they grow. I will never for a minute, regret any of this, of all of that, of our time and our non-relationship relationship or whatever it had been. It, you, will always hold a special place in my heart. The shift now will be interesting to see pan out. How we will go from what we were to something different. We've always been us as we know, as our friends and family know. I'm not saying I'm not a little nervous. But it feels... well, it feels different than I thought it would. I feel okay. I'm more okay than I thought I'd be. I know that things change, and that change isn't a bad thing. And for us, it was time. I'm ready, for the love of sweet baby J, I'm ready.