Dear John, Take Two

Dear John,

I was addicted to your attention and that feeling of specialness.

I had never been pursued before. I had never been as physically involved with anyone before.

Funny enough, your attention and this feeling of specialness was also part of the reason I wanted us to stop dating.

Since it appeared that we were not on the same page in wanting certain Life Experiences (i.e. marriage and children) I ultimately felt overwhelmed and distrustful of all the attention I was receiving. I say "distrustful" because the way I saw it, let's say tomorrow I came to you and said I really did want marriage and children and then you said, "Sorry, I already told you verbally and nonverbally that my interests don't lie down that path," I would only have myself to blame. Because, after all, when I asked from the get-go you expressed your noncommital feelings on those topics.

But I didn't know how to articulate these fear based thoughts and so I said I wanted to stop dating but that I really wanted to be friends.

Thing is, you offered me the friendship that you could and I found you guilty because the friendship you offered me was not the kind I wanted. It was simply "friendship" in name and far from it in action.

So instead of making peace and letting you be the person that you could be at that point in time without holding it against you, I judged you, found you guilty and then imprisoned myself in a cage of anger, unforgiveness, sadness and more fear. I say "fear" because for some time I actually second-guessed my decision to throw in the towel in the first place.

It would have been healthier had I just let you be you and not taken it so personally.

But I did take it personally and falsely operated under that assumption for quite a long time.

I can see that now. Well, I see that today, at least.

I was attracted to how smart and articulate I thought you were. I was attracted to how gifted a writer I thought you were. I was attracted to how charming and gentlemanly you behaved towards me.

Maybe I thought my own life lacked these qualities so much that I needed someone outside of myself to give them to me--to fill me from the outside in. As opposed to seeing my own self worth and filling myself from the inside out...Was I really that starved for those qualities?...

You are not guilty.

You never were.

You interacted with me as honestly as you could and to judge you was/is unfair.

Thank you for the message of awareness that you helped to usher into my unfolding journey.

Thanks.