Last Email (unedited)

ok. I don't know where this email is going to go. It's being typed as I type it, like all of my emails, total train of thought.
I know what you mean, first of all, about feeling pointy. I like to touch on things you brought up in your emails before I get to my ramblings, which I truly enjoy.
But right now I can't think about anything except for your last paragraph. Probably not what you wanted, but I think that it's good for us to talk about this.
I'm not totally sure about what all my feelings are, and I wasn't going to write back tonight, but I decided that it would be easier for me to be totally honest and quite possibly very awkward if I typed it out to you while I was trying to figure it out for myself.
I'm going all out, full honesty here. I have a lot of faith in trust in you. (and you're right, Travis is being very awesome about not having a problem with us communicating so often, and so deeply. I would probably not be okay with it if I were in his shoes. I do think though that if the person my significant other was talking to was 3,000 miles away it'd be a little bit easier to deal with than if they were in the same state.)
When you and I began talking over Myspace back in the day, I was definitely interested in you, and I thought that we could have a fulfilling relationship (but that word fulfilling doesn't really describe it correctly. I'm trying to think of a better way to describe it, but I just can't. I thought that I could be happy being with you and that I could make you happy). I guess I don't make it obvious when I'm pursuing someone, so if you didn't know that then, I understand. No biggie.
I stopped trusting Jeremy after he started pursuing you. I had talked with him about really liking you and wanting to see if I could start to make it happen, and then a week later he started talking to you behind my back. It feels juvenile to describe now, but I'm forging ahead anyways because this was what was happening at the time inside my head. There was one night when he was picking me up from work because I had decided to walk. He told me about about him taking dinner to you (man this feels so teenagey now) and because I know Jeremy I knew that that meant that he was pursuing you, so I called him on it and he said that he was. So once we got back to the apartment that we shared at the time, I told him that he could go and fuck himself. I told him "Fucking do it dude. Give it your best and I'll give it my best and we'll fucking see what happens." And then I left to take a long drive. When I got back, he was sitting there waiting on the couch and he said to me that he only told me about what he was doing behind my back to see what I would do about it, what my reaction would be. He said that he wanted to see if I would fight him for ...you. And he then said that I had passed and that he was going to back off.
I didn't believe him. I trusted Jeremy with everything about me, I trusted him implicitly, his word was stone. But when he said that, I couldn't believe him. I could tell when he was telling the truth and when he was lying, and right then he was lying. At that point I think we had about 2-3 years of seeing or talking to each other for roughly 8 hours a day and I knew the difference.
So in the moment I just decided to play along with his explanation so that we could continue living together but it was never the same between he and I. We lived together for another 2-3 years after that, but I still think about him lying to me while he was sitting there on the couch, and that's one of the reasons that I don't try too hard to reconnect with him now.
So then you moved to Jacksonville. At the time you and Travis were seperated and you didn't know for sure that you were going to stay married, but you did and that was okay, because I believe in marraige and hate when people just give up, especially when there are children involved. I moved on and actually ended up falling in love with a woman from New York online.
I've thought about that relationship a lot.
"How could I fall in love online?"
"Was it real love?"
Well, yes, I do think that it was real love. I'm somewhat removed from it now, so I've had a lot of time to think about it, and I think it was the realest love that I've found so far. At least for me. We connected solely with our minds, and she opened her heart to me after I opened mine to her. We would talk or type for hours on end, literally 6 hour phone conversations, and we would be typing messages to each other still, while on the phone. Playing word games, and writing little couplets and mostly enjoying playing and rooting around in each other's brain. I've never felt so in sync with anyone, and it was from 1200 miles away. There was nothing to distract us from who we both were at our cores. There was no sex to fill us full of endorphins that tell us that this is awesome. (I often wish that I would have not tried so hard, or at least held off for a decent amount of time before Susanna and I had sex, and started a physical relationship. Maybe if I wasn't so worried about getting laid, I could have seen the traits that ended up making me fall out of love with her. I feel that it was a mistake to begin that physical part of it so early, and it's not a mistake that I will repeat. Maybe. Things happen. I'm trying hard though.)
I didn't cry over losing love with Susanna. I cried because she didn't love me enough, early on. I could see how right we were for each other (at the time) and she was aloof. This was the reason I cried for Susanna. When I lost Jenny (New York) I cried so hard it felt like something broke inside of me. I was heaving and sobbing while sitting in my pickup truck with my brother trying to console me.
I have a female friend, her name is Dana ***** (if you want to facebook stalk to see what she looks like). She and I met while we both worked at **** ****, a doggy day care and boarding facility. She was not very talkative at first, but our friendship started on the day when her husband left her, without any warning. She needed to go out for a drink and talk and so I was there for her. We both talked about our relationships, and at this time the relationship between Susanna and I was definitely on a downhill slope. We both were able to look at ourselves and what we were both doing wrong, and we admitted a lot of our faults to each other. This is a really good way to have a platonic friend. I know how she is in a relationship, and she I, and for this reason neither of us is interested in the other in a romantic way. Even though we both left **** ****, we still talk usually at least once a week. We'll go out to a bar, or go to a movie, or eat dinner at her place and watch a movie and there's no question about whether one of us wants something more. It's pretty nice to have that kind of relationship with at least one girl.
So a few weeks ago, she took me out to a bar for my birthday, so she could buy me a couple beers. I started to tell her about you, and pen-palling, and how excited I was to get your next email and she said "Uh-oh".
"What do you mean uh-oh?"
I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was something to the effect of "You've got feelings for her if you're that excited about hearing from her."
I have thought about it. I have thought about where us talking like this will lead. I am very susceptible to falling in love with smart women who think that I am interesting and/or funny.
At the time when Dana raised that point to me, I said to her that I hope I don't have any feelings for you that way. I couldn't say for sure what my feelings were. I was trying not to think about it. I wanted to just let things keep going the way that they were, and have it never come up.
I have an empty heart. I can't love anybody right now. In all honesty, you are the person that I am closest to being able to love. The feeling is there, way down deep. I wish it weren't because then I wouldn't have to say it. I guess it has been there, for I don't know how long. When I wrote to you a little while back that I wanted to know something about Travis because I didn't know anything about him, it wasn't just that I didn't know anything about him, it was a need to have a person attached. If I allowed myself to think of just you, alone, then it would be easier for me to ....do what I'm doing right now, blowing up a friendship because feelings got involved.
Fuck.
I really meant what I said at the beginning of this email. That I wasn't sure where it was going to go, because I've been thinking about this today. And if we hadn't already built up the level of trust we have now, then I wouldn't be writing this, wouldn't be sending this, and I would just bottle it up and pretend like everything's cool and laugh it off.
I don't want to love you. I don't want to throw away (like I feel I'm doing now) what it is that we have going with writing to each other. I hope that you know how much I enjoy writing to you and having you write back to me. I don't really feel like I have someone that I can confide in, someone that understands me; or if they don't understand what I'm talking about, then they are willing to hold off judgment and try to hear what it is I'm saying. That doesn't come along often. I have learned a lot about myself through writing to you. It makes such a difference to feel like someone is involved in how your life turns out, and not because they have to be; but simply because they think you're valuable. Your life means something to the world, in their eyes.
Maybe it could be unhealthy, spending my time with you when I could be doing something else, here, where I live. I have thought about that. When I sit down to write you an email, I do feel like I'm spending time with you. Maybe that's crazy. No, that's not crazy. I picture you sitting across from me, looking me in the eye and digesting the words. I make facial expressions and shrug my shoulders when I write, as if they add something to what I'm trying to get across.
So I just don't know. I just ruined how it was before. I have to be honest with myself before anything else. I really would like to keep this, I just don't know if we can. Because of me.
You are unattainable. You are happily married.
So, you will have to talk to Travis about this. Maybe we can't keep talking.
I hope you don't think that I have been thinking this all along, or for a while. I haven't. I sat down to write back to you tonight because I didn't want to leave you hanging in the breeze, bringing up that kind of conversation and not getting anything back and having to wonder. I'm not signed in to fb right now, and what I'm scared of, the reason I'm not signed in right now, is that you will have posted something really nice on my wall without any idea of what I'm writing, hoping that this isn't the email that I'm sending to you.
So I'm not logging in to fb after this. I'm going to send this to you and (I feel like such a huge asshole saying this right now) let you decide what you do with it. I wish I didn't have feelings for you. And after I'm done typing this, I'm going to go lay in bed and read, and think that I made a mistake, I don't really feel that way and I wish that I could take it back. And then if I was somehow able to magically delete it without you being the wiser, the very next time we talked I would feel the same way again and have to supress it or say it in an even more desperate way because I didn't say it when I first had the chance.
I'm glad that you brought it up.
I hate that it came up.
I don't hate that I feel the way I do, because it is absolutely life-affirming for me. There are people out there that are worth my mind and my time (if I can sound like a totally full of himself egotistic prick for just a sec). I don't actually feel like I'm some super intellect or some very special person who deserves ... everything that I ever wanted.
I don't know how to end this email. I don't want to end this email. I soon as I end it, that means that I have to send it. That really really terrifies me. It may mean that we don't talk anymore. That we can't be friends on fb. That I won't get another card, and that I won't get the chance to send you anything. I won't be checking my fb until after I get your next email, because ..... I don't know what's going to happen.
I went to trivia tonight, with Vig. I haven't really talked to him about pen-palling because that's just not the kind of thing that he and I talk about. We talk a lot about music, and cars, and guy stuff. I said to him something that I hope isn't true. I was thinking about how I felt and I said that I wasn't going to stay out late tonight because I had to write the most important email of my life. The only way that's true is if we don't talk after this. You and I aren't going to be together. You're with Travis and you have two beautiful children together and you may adopt another which I think is amazing. You love him and are so in love with him. I'm not in love with you as the end-all be-all person that's perfect and made for me. I think I could. But I don't, because of my heart and because I keep myself from getting hurt, especially since I have with experience with very long distance things (I'm tired of typing relationship) and how hard they are to actually make happen, unless someone wins the lottery. I don't know how you nag. Not to say you're a nagger, but everyone does in some way. I don't know how you argue. I don't know how you kiss. I don't know if you'd hold my hand whenever I wanted to, or if you'd want to do it all the time because that's how you are.
I've surpassed my own record for longest email. I'm going to be very sad as I go to bed tonight, because I feel like I've probably just closed a chapter on an absolutely great time in my life. It won't be the same after this. Innocence is lost.

Love always,

JJ