Stopped in my tracks!!!!

Well last night was a night with a difference. I was just getting out of the bath when my youngest daughter called me and said ----- was here with a girl. Who is ----- I hear you ask. Well he is the love of my life and we split up three years ago in rather messy circumstances.

About a week ago I wrote him a note asking to see him for a talk. My sister dropped a note off at his flat and when I didn't hear anything I put it to the back of my mind. I had tried to contact him by phone but he has changed his number several times and I was getting nowhere.

I wasn't sure if he still lived there and what his status was so I just acted impulse....not uncommon for me.

Anyway, I came downstairs in my pyjamas with my hair all knotty and wet. I walked into the kitchen and there he was, quite drunk, with a big grin on his face. My youngest thought it was great to see him as she always liked him and missed him when we split up. My eldest said hello and carried on talking to her boyfriend on the net.

He introduced the girl as his girlfriend and opened a bottle of wine. I had a glass and we talked. His girlfriend was driving so she didn't have the wine.It didn't take long to work out that his girl had found the letter and wanted to check out the person who had sent it.....me!

How did I feel? Well, it wasn't the usual Thursday night in my house that's for sure. I think I went through several emotions during that hour. Shock, happiness, sadness, jealousy, resentment, lust!, to name but a few.

He kept asking me if we could all be friends and whether we would all be able to go out for drinks and meet up etc. After asking me this several times, I explained that it wouldn't be a very good idea. His girl said it was fine by her because she felt secure with him and knew he loved her. Fair play to her.

I told him that I would always be his friend and that didn't mean we had to meet up. He carried on and then I just came out with it as the message wasn't getting through.

I said "-----, I can't be "let's all see each other regularly" friends with you because I still love you" at which point there was a rather awkward silence.....

I told him that it was stupid of me to send the letter and that I had to move on and sort of wished him luck.

He said he forgave me for how I treated him and I felt so relieved as that was the first time he had said it. Prior to that he said I had "killed him with hurt when we split up". I have always felt really ashamed of myself for what happened and what I did to him. I was in the psychiatric hospital at the time and he came to see me every day and kept checking that the nurses were looking after me. I was so confused and ill, that I didn't think about his feelings and he was young at the time and I was older and should have been more resposible. I have no recall of a lot of that period of time but have enough to know I was wrong and hurt him badly.

He said he missed my youngest and gave her a hug and asked for a pic of her which she willingly gave him. Then he got tearful and I got restless and said to his girl that it was time to take him home as he was a bit worse for wear. Apparently she had plucked him out of the pub at 3.30p.m. that afternoon.

I did get the opportunity to say to him what I really wanted to say and why I wrote the letter in the first place... This is what I said to the lad I love...

"-----, I am better now. I no longer have a psychiatrist or psychologist, I have come off all the pills after 13 years, Diazepam and sleeping tablets, this is the best I've ever been and I can now say sorry properly with my head straight at long last. My dad died in March this year and I am free. If I hadn't had all that going on I would never have treated you so bad and I certainly wouldn't have let you go"

Another stunned silence in my kitchen!

I know it is all too little too late but I had to say it. I know I was being selfish, because he went through it all and I put him through it.

I am not too sure that went down well with the girlfriend but maybe it was my last opportunity to say those words before he settles down with her.

So how does Ellen feel now? Good question.

I don't think -----will contact me again. I didn't mean to stir up any trouble for the two of them. I won't get in touch with him either, as hard as it is. He is with someone now.

I will still think of him every day as I always do.
I will still miss him.
I still have my good memories.
I know I will never be with him again.
I will never feel the way I do with him...with another.
I trust him more than any other man.
I am sad.

The record "White Flag" by Dido is as appropriate now as it was when I first heard it. It is my message to -----.

I played it last night before I went to bed, I had a good cry, and today I have to get on with the rest of my life.

I want ----- to be happy, which is why I let him go in the first place. I have got to live with that decision as hard as it is and will be for a long while to come.

Enough of my rambling. Writing is therapy, and therapy is healing.

Over and out.
Ellen