What are you most worried about for the future?

One off the reasons that my beautiful girl destroyed me is that we affected each other with our secrets to an absolutely enormous degree, so over time she’d forgotten how deep our rabbit hole went. We went deep enough that in order for me to move on, we needed to start managing practical consequences and she told me she wasn’t interested. What didn’t mean anything to her might have ruined me for anyone else in terms of priority, and she didn’t think of that, I guarantee it. I’d met “The One” in a very roundabout way, because it wasn’t an affair I had to manage. It was off the wall feelings on both sides. She had to protect what I knew and vice versa. It was mutually assured destruction because she asked me to forget an impossible amount of shit.

I thought it was better to love each other through it, she thought it was better to tell me that I thought she was a bad person. That was never an issue, ever. At issue was “if you’re going to tell me something like this, love me the way I love you. I won’t accept less.” It wasn’t that I was goading and provoking. I had a genuine issue in talking about an issue because she had a genuine talent in avoidance.

I shouldn’t have settled, and I didn’t. But we’re still managing each other’s secrets and lies without our refuge in the cloud. It would never be worth that kind of devotion without that kind of love. I do have to forget, and not because I wanted to. Because she thought I couldn’t handle it. I could, as long as she could take it as easily as she could dish.

That’s what ruined our relationship. If I said something negative, she’d rip me a new one. If I said something positive, I’d never hear from her. My emotions frightened her, always, and they should have. She helped make them that intense without recognizing me, ever, so whether she appreciated my willingness to be hers or not, it was a stone cold fact.

If I say I would have done anything for her, I mean it. I got brownie points for an e-mail about busting my ass at her house after a storm, because we live close enough that it wouldn’t be a weird offer at all. It would have been a weird offer from Houston or Portland, but the move was a coincidence because I didn’t want to just pick up and start over in a new city, and I lived here 20 years ago from the time I made the decision to move back. If Minneapolis had been my hometown, I would have moved there. The first is that because our relationship was virtual, we could be anywhere. The second is that planes exist. I would have eaten it up if she’d come to Portland or Houston. I would have shown her on a platonic date in either city, and I only say that because that’s what it would look like now. In the beginning, we could have been a threesome if Dana hadn’t decided to be jealous. Polyamory is a thing, not that I’m necessarily that in practice, but if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in new relationship energy, I think she would have easily forgiven me and I would have gotten over it and the negative aspects of our relationship would have smoothed over in time.

New relationship energy ate my lunch because it was so different for me and so normal for her. Getting into a relationship with her hits different and because she’s already her, she’s not so aware of it.

Which scares me about the future.