I have never met anyone as emotionally guarded as you are.

On the outside, you were the most fun-loving and outgoing of all your friends, but after they were all gone and it was just the two of us, the walls you had in place still stood firmly.  I didn’t understand why you would open up to me; especially when being around you made me want to spill all my secrets.  

You and I were barely eighteen when we met, and our lives were both transitioning into things that would change us.  I was dealing with a home life that was slowly falling down around me, and you were…well…we both know what you were dealing with.  I think that we found solace in each other, even though I couldn’t get you to fully open up to me. 

You were such an angry person back then.  You hid it so well, but it was always bubbling under the surface, and every once in a while you would do something that would scare me.  I was scared that you were going to self destruct, and I just wanted to save you from it all, but I couldn’t.  I couldn’t get through to you; you wouldn’t let me in.

My biggest mistake with you was believing that I could change you.  I thought that if I loved you enough, if I opened up to you enough, I could get you to share your thoughts and feelings with me and I could save you from it all…like you saved me.

I was such a disillusioned teenager.  I thought that I had it all together and I was convinced that I was so mature and so grown-up.  Looking back on you and me…well, I was just a little girl looking for someone to love.  There’s that saying, “If I only knew then what I know now”…sometimes I wish I was as grown up as I thought I was. 

I can’t say that I would change anything between us.  Maybe the ending.  Maybe I would re-write our ending and make it one of those bittersweet kinds, instead of just bitter.  But I know that I wouldn’t change the time I spent with you.  Despite the blinders that I wore for the majority of our relationship, I loved being with you.

The two years that I was by your side were two of the happiest of my youth.  You had this way of making me feel so alive and so…special.  I have never been a spontaneous person, but you managed to pull me out of my shell and get me to relax.  We did nothing and everything all at the same time.

My favorite times were the movie nights at your house.  A group of us would crowd into your living room and put in some movie, usually some masculine thrasher, because the boys always out numbered the girls.  I didn’t mind though, because you and I would always claim our spot on the couch and I spent most of the movie trying to get you to make out with me.  It was young and fun and I think it was the first time that I acted my age.

It was also the most sex I’ve ever had in my life.  Once we started a sexual relationship…it gets me hot just thinking about it (and yes, that bothers me).  I remember the first time we ever had sex.  It lasted for the longest time and I thought that I was doing something wrong.  Apparently that wasn’t it at all.  As much as I hate to admit it, you were easily the best sex I’ve ever had.  I know my list of people isn’t that long, but still, being with you always made me feel beautiful and sexy.

We were inseparable, and I loved every minute that I got to spend with you. 

When we weren’t battling our own demons, we were having a great time just being.  I loved our tradition of Sunday morning breakfast.  I can’t even count the number of places we went out to eat in.  We would try and find a new place every Sunday.  Those were the best moments between us.  The simple ones.  The moments where you and I existed in each other’s world and nothing else mattered.  We were what was important, we were what mattered.

I don’t know if you realized it, but I would have done anything to make you happy.

I know it sounds so cliché, and I think I’m taking this from a song, but I would’ve walked to the ends of the earth for you, if it meant ensuring your happiness.

You were such a tortured soul, it killed me to see you in one of your down moments.  I just wanted to grab hold of you and lift you out of them.  I remember bringing you Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and gummy bears when you were having a bad day at work.  You seemed so impressed that I would go out of my way to do something like that.  I lived for those moments when you would look at me like I had just made your day turn around.  I lived for those moments when you would smile in my direction and give me that goofy face that let me know it was all going to be OK.

You probably don’t know it and I’m not sure I ever told you, but you were the most important person in my life for those two years.  I gave you everything I had and I was hoping that eventually you would return the favor.

I guess I was wrong.

I know that we were young, I know that we were both at a crossroads, but I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you.

Saying that makes me realize how young and naive I was.

But at the time, you were the only person I ever wanted to love.  I had only had one serious relationship before you, and you had had a few, but I’d decided that I was going to love you for the rest of my life.

I’m working on not loving you for the rest of my life.

I’m trying to focus on the good parts of us, but I can’t stop thinking about the end.  I can’t stop remembering how much pain I went through, pain that you caused, pain that you promised I would never have to feel. 

It’s making me upset to think about it.

I’ve been told that I have to work through that pain and emotion and focus on something.  So far I’ve done really well at suppressing my emotions and pretending that I don’t feel anything, but that’s not working as well anymore.

So, I’m going to try telling a story instead.

You and I dated for three months before you thought that you needed to break up with me.  The only thing that break up accomplished was removing a title from our lives and making me realize how much I needed you, but it was what you thought you needed and I only wanted to make you happy.

We had just finished watching the original “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” with all of your friends.  You’d spent the night on the opposite end of the couch from me and no matter how hard I willed it, you wouldn’t touch me.  Things had been off for a little while, but I didn’t want to admit it.  At this moment, I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

All of your friends had left to go home and it was just the two of us on the couch.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the divide that had settled between us and I started crying.  You hate it when I cry, so of course, you didn’t leave me alone until I confessed what was wrong.

I wish I knew how you did it, how you got me to open up, because I could never get you to do the same.  Anyway…I digress.

I told you that I could feel something was wrong, that something had changed.  You confessed that you weren’t sure how you felt anymore.  At the time, you were dealing with some rough times and I think that had an affect on it, too, but you were starting to feel that you didn’t want to be with me anymore.

I remember feeling like my heart had been ripped out of my chest.

You were so good though, because you pulled me into your arms and you cried with me and you promised me that your uncertainty about our relationship had nothing to do with me.  You made me promise not to blame myself for the break up, and I was foolish enough to listen to you at the time.  Looking back now I have to wake up and realize that if you stopped loving me it was because I wasn’t loveable anymore.

I remember lying there in your arms, on that couch that we’d spent countless hours making love and spending time on.  Your shirt was soaked with my tears and both of us were choking on our emotions and snot.  It was just as gross as it sounds.

I couldn’t bring myself to leave and go home, and I don’t think you were ready to let me go.  We both knew that when I stepped out that door and drove home, it was really going to be over.  We spent the night one your living room floor, crying and talking and holding onto each other.

It was the most connected I have ever felt to any person in my life.

When the morning came and we both had to leave for work, you stopped me in the doorway and grabbed my key chain.  It was a moose.  My favorite animal is moose, and for some reason you earned the nickname.  So you grabbed that key chain and held it up and said “Remember, I will always be with you.”  And a fresh wave of tears started and I spent the day at working staring at that key chain.  You were my Moose…God, I miss that.

I think that that night was the most we had ever love each other, and it’s sad to think about because it was an ending of sorts.  I stopped being yours.  You were still my Moose and that wasn’t about to change at time soon, but I was no longer yours.  That hurt a lot.

You told me, after that first day of our official break up, that you had the worst time focusing at work.  You said that everything reminded you of us.  Every sappy love song that you had to work on made you think of me.  Someone had brought in Twizzlers for everyone and you couldn’t help but remember that I hate Twizzlers.

I think breaking up brought us closer, well, I thought that at the time.  Now, looking back, I think that it just made it easier on you, because you could still have me but you didn’t have to put in as much effort.  It’s amazing what removing a title can do for a person.

Our break up was the beginning of the end for us, even thought it took us over a year to actually admit it.  I like to think that you were holding on to me as much as I was holding on to you…but, as the theme of this story goes…I was wrong.

There is still a year and a half that I have left to cover, but to be honest, I’m too drained at the moment.  I don’t want to think about you anymore.  It’s probably futile for me to attempt to forget you, but that’s exactly what I’m going to try to do.

And…I want to put off the next section as much as I can because it’s going to be the most painful for me to relive. 

For now, I’m going to pretend we’re still in the time before I was without you.