She's leaving and hope goes with her

[Shattered]

I really just want to get this off my chest so feel free to respond, but I'm not looking for ground-breaking relevations or anything.

 

I'm going out with my girlfriend for 6 months. I'm 26, she's 31, we're both students and on September 1st she's leaving to study in another country for a year. Right now, she's away on holiday for three weeks. She comes home for two weeks then she goes.

 

I've known her in all nearly two years but it was only a few months ago that we finally got past the flirting and trading minor insults and ended up together. She has this standoffish edge that she says herself was put in place to keep her from meeting anyone seriously because she knew her year abroad was looming and she didn't want to get hurt. Now, looking at myself, I don't know what it was that made her revise this policy, but I was glad that she did. Having gotten past the aforementioned defences, I started seeing a side of her that surprised me. She retains a cynical world-view generally, but it's balanced by a kind of openness that I hadn't expected of her.

 

She's beautiful. Funny. Highly intelligent (again prompting the question as to what she's doing with me!). She can name obscure film stars! Basically she has this lengthy list of qualities that make me completely helpless before her.

 

We've done the whole meet the parents thing. I think hers like me. Mine are mad about her. Her friends like me and vice versa. Everyone says we're perfectly suited and I'm inclined to agree. So here's my problem and the source of my future devastation: If you haven't already gathered from my accentuation of the positive with regard to my description of this girl, I love her. If my phone rings and it's not her. I'm disappointed. If I get a text message and it turns out to be one of my friends inviting me out for a drink, I can barely bring myself to reply. I think about her all the time and the fact that our entire relationship feels like it's against the clock before she moves away, overshadows everything and absolutely breaks my heart.

 

I've talked to her at length about the possibilities of a long-distance relationship, but, as she's already had one that failed, she's unwilling to try again. I've made my case as clearly as I can, but to no avail. She insists that we'll be friends and that we'll meet if she comes home at christmas. Little comfort to me as a bit my lip to keep from screaming how in love with her I am.

As I already said, she's away now for a few weeks and I was hoping this would give me time to exorcise her from my mind to a degree, but all it's done is make me think about her more: "What's she doing now?" "Is she alright?" etc etc etc. I've never felt as bad as I do right now and I know it's making my family miserable too to see me like this, but I don't have the energy to put on a brave face.

 

Logic wants me to remember that she's coming home again. It wants me to bear in mind that I have my final year ahead and that I should just concentrate on that. It tells me that I should learn the saxophone and take my mind off her absence. It says I have a myriad of friends to look after me and take me out and keep me occupied. But for all the good sense that logic makes, my heart blows all that away with one simple reminder........she's leaving and there's nothing you can do to hang onto her.

 

Now I'm not the first person to suffer a broken-heart and I won't be the last. But the other hearts aren't mine, blinding me to everything else that I have. Despite all that my mind says I have going for me, I just feel like I'm drowning. I'm starting my final year in September and the notion of moving back to the city to finish is, right now, an overwhelming idea. I moved home to work during the summer, but now that I'm on the verge of going back I honestly can't express how terrifying a prospect it is to know that every street I walk down, every bar I drink in and every inch of the college campus contains some memory of her.

 

I just feel so alone in this, precisely because I know I am, despite what people say about "being there" to support me and get me through it. I'm alone in my own head which is where every painful emotion and paranoid delusion has its breeding ground.

 

I'm a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and I don't mind admitting that I cried like someone had died when I dropped her to her plane before she took off on holiday. I cried, she cried, which made me cry more and I just lost it completely when she boarded.

 

So I don't know if I've asked a question or not or if anyone feels I've made sense. I probably haven't. This was all a little stream of consciousness to tell the truth. What I was really just trying to get across is that I'm currently incapable of handling the reality of her departure. The idea of not being with her makes me feel sick and I'll admit it......I don't want her to meet someone else. I know there's no such thing as one person for everyone, but I can really see a life with this girl. The way she looks at me makes everything else, all the stupid crap we all have to deal with, just fade and seem smaller and even easy.

 

Maybe I am looking for advice afterall. I just wish I knew what the question was!

[uriel]

Give this time. It may be that she will change her mind about a LDR once she's away and misses you. If she feels as strongly as you do, she won't want to see you with anyone else either.

 

You can't go with her, and you're not asking her to marry you just yet, so there's nothing else you can do. Keep the connection to her open. Keep it positive. Be supportive. But don't hide that you miss her, love her, and wish it were otherwise.

 

Hang in there. If the feeling's mutual, things will work out.

 

-- uriel

[ringo]

I love the way you write BTW.... just had to get that in there...

 

Anyhow.... you LOVE her - so quit biting your lip and come out and tell her. Maybe she loves you too and is just waiting for you to tell her first. Keep the communication lines open and honest and go from there.

 

I feel for you though... LDR are sooooo hard.... but with faith in each other, trust and honesty - it is possible to suceed together. You'll have to stay busy with work, and other activities ..... anything to keep your spirits up.

 

Best wishes to you and yours.... again, I love your style of writing... It reminds me of an old friend....

[Shattered]

Appreciate the pep talk. I've been alright for the past few days, but today the idea of saying goodbye to her again kinda crept up and smacked me in the back of the head.

 

I'm working in this rubbish summer job that gives me way too much time to think and all I can do is think about her, the fact she's leaving and how I feel so totally hollowed out without her.

 

I swear it's as if everyone is conspiring to keep my mind on her. I turn on a radio and it's nothing but songs about someone leaving someone or someone begging someone not to leave or someone left and they stole my heart and my cat blah blah blah

 

And to top it all I can't even be sure of my senses anymore. I keep thinking I can pick up her smell and it's just really faint, but when I try to a second time it's just gone. Her hair always smells like someone set fire to an orange grove or something. It's a really sweet smokey kind of smell, but kind of thick. It's the most amazing cure for insomnia ever.

 

I dunno what to do. It hurts me to think about my life without her...

 

Thanks for the compliment on my writing style by the way. I always try to entertain while I depress

[ringo]

Find out what type of shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotions that she uses and abuy them.... that why you always have her smell around you.... she can do the same....

 

Make sure you each have lots of pictures of each other seperate and together that you put up around your room... not just in some book... that way you see them always..

 

Hide notes in her books and such that she will pack with her on her travels as she can find them every so often as a constant reminder of you...

 

Also, I don't know if you two are religious or not... buy buy one of those wrist bands that say "WWJD" (What would Jesus do) that will remind each of you to not allow the Devil to tempt you.... to keep the faith and trust in each other. Don't do anything you wouldn't want her to go out and do.... and vice versa....

 

But point blank... let her know how you truely feel before she leaves.... you may regret it if you don't.... IMO

[Shattered]

I dunno about the religious bracelets to be honest. Firstly, I'm not that religious anyway and I'd probably just end up attributing exceptionally loose morals to Jesus to justify my own behaviour! Nah. I have no intention of being with anyone once she's gone. I just don't have the heart to be with someone else.

 

But secondly, I'm pretty sure that our break up is a foregone conclusion at this stage. I just got another e-mail from her on holidays and she's looking forward to seeing me and everything, but I get the impression that it's just that she's glad she can spend some time with me before we break up.

And in case as I was coming across as some kind of emotional neanderthal, I don't want to tell her I love her coz I don't want to make things harder for her than they need to be. As I said before, we were both crying at the airport when she left and that was only because we wouldn't see each other for a few weeks. If I bring love into the mix at this stage I'm only going to hurt her more........and I don't want to do that.

Believe me, if I thought she was waiting to hear it I'd have said it long before now, but she's got this tough veneer that I don't want to crack and leave her vulnerable. So if I have to bite my lip for the time we're together and suffer the consequences myself after.........well........better than the two of us being miserable I suppose