Dear readers,

I would like to share my story with you, hoping that you can give me some sane advice and hopefully enjoy my story along the way. I am a relatively young teacher and I spend too much time thinking and feeling about this very strange connection I have with a beggar man I loved obssessively as a teenager - and that I love still...but can see no way to really live out this love...listen up..

As a teenager from a good family, with a good mind and education, (with many male admirers too, they say I could have my pick) I was struck by cupid's arrow one day and fell in love with a young dark eyed Scottish beggar on the streets of London , over a decade ago. He was very eloquent and had a melting manner, the connection was instant. I used to meet up with him now and again, to give him comfort and share bits his life, we used to walk and talk in the parks and doorways but more often than that I used to just dream about him, worrying for his safety out there, yearning for him, wanting to protect him, and this sometimes drove me out by foot into the town centre to his old haunts to look for him myself, as he had no phone or address. He always confirmed my love when Id finally track him down, and called me 'the best thing that had ever happened to him', surely a big ego boost...
He had a lot of spirit and fire and I found his point of view genuinely fascinating, my family were horrified when I fell in love with him, because it was maddening and besides he had a heroin problem which he supported through crime as he weaved an extremely strange path through life, winding fearlessly and cheerfully through prisons, police cells, parks and streets . When we'd finally meet up....he would tell me the vision of my face lit his darkest hours and was his total solace. We'd walk about and he would introduce me to 'his people' - he knew everone, being such a glib talker! But ironically, no one in my entourage then or even now inspired the same melting feeling of tenderness in me nor rushes of adrenalin at the thought of him. Whenever I thought or think of him, I forgot and still forget to eat - a wonderful weightloss and beautifying cure! We never consumated the relationship, but he would often kiss my hand or cuddle me and send his rays of love right through me.
Then he had a son, by another beggarwoman that was his companion. The baby was born with brain damage and all I could do was leave messages for my friend all around town, that I loved him. He went back to Scotland, reunited with his longlost mother and sisters and brought the baby up...his partner abandonned it to him. I heard he had left London for his native Scotland, and was relieved as I had always wished this for him - safety in the bosom of his family. I went to see him, and he again declared his love for me - his motheer made a fuss of me and he asked me to stay with him, but I left after a few days, with a lump in my throat and went to university far away. I didnt know how I could take up the reins of his wasteground of a life, bring up his disabled son, forget my education...I thought I must be crazy anyway...I took myself far away.
But I never felt the same drive to be with someone again as that. and the same bliss to be anyone's arms ... although I had three or so relationships since (one was with an ex-alcoholic). I sometimes wonder if meeting that homeless man had hexed my path because I never managed to have a really solid foundation under me in any relationship, endeavour of job...perhaps thats my nature as I am very artistic, when I met him I was 15 and the world was my oyster - and still is. Ever time I ever made a long pilgrimage, either Christian or Sufi I would always think of him and his big brown eyes that caught me.
About 18 months ago, I got in touch with him on facebook. He was still living near his relatives in Scotland...his son had died, as had both his sisters' sons (one was only 14) - and a shadow of darkness clung to him. He wrote me reams of angry prose, raving at life and all the terrible things he's seen, corruption, child pornography rings...I maintained my distance through emails. I could see, that never having had an education, he saw society as the enemy and could see no positive reason for joining it. He still lived as an outcast, living among thugs and junkies on a rough estate and claiming benefits. I find this lifestyle completely abhorrent. But he had stopped taking drugs he told me, and I could hear the clarity and strength in his voice which had never been there before, and he had knit his family about him. But he seemed a near-broken man, and yet he had that same gift of speech and expression - that made light of any gloom. But a few weeks ago, we started skyping one another and having conversations all night long. He has been singing me lullabyes to get to sleep and love songs where the pitch of his voice goes right through me and stirs something in the very core of my being.
I cant dismiss this as just 'sick'. Yesterday he told me that i was the only true or pure love of his life, and he never understood why I should care for him. He has hinted that he would like a relationship with me, but knows it's just a dream. I want to see him again and go and visit him in Scotland and try and make the dream a reality finally but feel afraid..Afraid that i will waste my time, more of my time, on an unhealthy obssession ... a leopard cannot change his spots, once a criminal/junkie - perhaps always...he has never travelled so I suggested we take a trip somewhere like Morocco (his father who he never met was Arabic) - he said yes and that he will apply for a passport- he hasnt even got that -its quite hopeless. Since these late night calls have started, his very voice has rekindled a an oasis of love inside me and I am better at my job than ever, feel kinder and more aroused by life. I am scared of catching a disease from him and scared of whether he might be lying to me. I asked him if he had been tested and at first he said 'yes, regularly', then a few days later he let slip 'yes, 14 years ago'. He says many conflicting things and I dont feel I can trust him, although I do love him.
It's shocking but I dont know why this feels like love. I would rather think about him then go out and meet a normal person. This is a desperate fantasy, surely, he cannot be uprooted from his life, that is his level and he will probably die by it..although there are things I could show him...things he has never seen (like the satisfaction you can have from a job, the joys of travel, health...) . How do I let him go or is this something I must follow?