2004-11-01 @ 3:08 p.m.....

Dear L---,

I feel like I still owe you a more cohesive explanation for this break in communication. I have always been better at writing my thoughts/feelings down than expressing them verbally. Hopefully this will serve as some solace to you:

There is no one else. I can't even think of anyone but you. You are the only one who is in pictures on my nightstands. But that doesn't mean that I am ready for a relationship.... Especially one that is long-distance. And basically, while you are in the Navy, we would have to be in a long-distance relationship. I thought that it would be easier that way - but what I realized was that a relationship like that needs a strong foundation, meaning that not only is the relationship a strong one, but that each person involved is strong in his/her own self. I know you are strong. I know that you are a wonderful, amazing person. That you are confident in your emotions and how you feel.... But I don't have that. In this case, I am the weak link. I told you when I first met you that I was on a quest to find out more about myself, that I was determined not to be distracted. Because I knew there were missing pieces of me - that I am lacking emotional maturity, I guess. I'm emotionally retarded. And I just can't relinquish myself to a totally committed relationship that will be the basis of a marriage/family knowing that I have not yet discovered who I am as an individual. Because I still ask myself this question: Who am I??

I see it like this: I have these emotional issues that I need to work on. I have growing to do. I have discoveries about myself to make. I have a lot "to-do" in order to catch up to where you are emotionally. But there's no way to put a timeline on something like that.... I can't say- oh I'll be ready in four years. I thought I was ready when I met you (only 2 months after I started searching myself....), and I had a blissful 6 months without worrying about it, but I clearly was not ready. All this talk about a future and planning for a future that has not even been designed yet - a future four years away.... As you know that really freaked me out. It's not your fault, I loved the fact that you could look ahead like that and see such beautiful things. I wanted to see what you saw. I wanted that pretty picture that you painted of us in the future: living together, happy, with beautiful children.... I still do. Eventually.

But what scared me more than ANYTHING was that I was that part of the foundation under the house that made the floor, porch, roof sag.... And it could eventually cave in. Because I need to be a solid person - I need to be strong in my sense of self in order to add to any relationship.

It's been difficult for me to really figure out who I am when I do not have a paternal family to gain insight from. All I know I have gotten from my mother and her mother. I have so much work to do in order to fulfill that missing half of me. and with you right there smiling and telling me how perfect I already am (which I loved, by the way), unfortunately that made me forget how much work I had left to do. .... I have to go back and really become more aware of who I am and where I come from. I have to gain more confidence so that I can move up and out of this job that I HATE and into a career that I will love doing for the rest of my life. I need to grow thicker skin and be able to handle questions about who I am and what I stand for - for when I eventually DO start a family and raise kids who will have never-ending questions.

All of this is on my "to-do list". meaning I have "to-do" this before I can be ready to give up half of myself to someone else and a relationship (how can I give up half, when I only have half to begin with??). because I know now that a relationship is all about compromise and putting the other person first. You were willing and able to do all of that for me, but I am still in the mode of putting myself first (because I need to right now in order to survive, in order to understand who I am).

what I think confused you was what I was focusing on before... YOU. when I questioned you out about your financial situation, the Navy way of life, the independence and ability to travel.... Those are all tangible things that we could actually work on together.... Those were on your "to-do list" and to me, they are sooooo much easier to accomplish and check off your list than mine.... They are actual THINGS and not concepts. But because I already accomplished those things, I was helping you. And because there is no way you could "teach" me how you deal with your emotions or how you inherited your characteristics from your father, or what it even feels like to have a father in the house growing up (even a silent, non-expressive one).... you couldn't help ME accomplish what you've already accomplished.... Nobody can. When I talked to my mom about it, even she agreed that she has NO IDEA what I've gone through being raised without a concept of a father, she tried but failed to replicate that experience for me. I just want to be a complete person. So I'm searching, on my own, because that's the ONLY way.

So. I hope you can understand why I had to do what I had to do. it is hurting me, if you didn't know, it is hurting me not to talk to you. I am truly able to say now that I miss you, because before I took it for granted. But I also know that in order for it not to hurt us both more in the long-run, we need this time of not talking, not being each other's sole outlet.

I said before that I wanted to start over and I mean it. I hope that we will be able to start over (very slowly) eventually. Because there is so much about you that I know I want in my life (in the future), but I'm just not ready for it now.

If it's too complicated, I understand. And like I said, I don't expect you to wait for me to get it together, because there really is no way to put a timeline on emotional growth. Meanwhile, I know and am confident that you will be able to accomplish your goals. Anyway, I thank you for taking the time to read. I just hope that it makes you understand where my focus is and that I did not give up on "us" so much as I needed to re-focus my energy on myself for the sake of my own survival.

You don't have to respond, if you don't want to. I just hope you can understand.

Love always,
Me

what had happened was.... ~ ....what comes next?