DocJohn,
I'm so sorry to hear of your relationship ending. Earlier today I was thinking of the pain of when one of my love relationships ended. I was thinking of the things I did wrong and how I could not foresee what was going to happen down the line. For quite awhile, too, I was in that "bargaining" stage of maybe it's not over and to me it really wasn't clear. To top it off he didn't always make it clear either.

In these relationships it takes two, I believe, and it's never all one person's "fault." I know we blame ourselves but sometimes there is some mysterious something we may not realize instead of someone who is at fault. I don't know if I make sense here but I'm trying to. The more I look back at my previous love relationships I see more and more that there was no way I could have seen all of these things at the time. Sometimes I acted in ways that I could not understand. I think, though, that we all respond to certain things in different ways at different times for reasons we don't know. I know I do and then think-was that me?

There's this book called "How Good Do We Have To Be?" by Harold Kushner, I believe and he makes a lot of sense. He talks about how hard life is when we have so many various choices and we can inevitably make lots of mistakes. I got it for myself because I was so down on myself that it helped me to understand more about how we just don't know the future all the time and more. I haven't finished it but will one day. Sometimes in my best efforts even things have flopped terribly. All those mysterious things in life that we just don't know will or won't occur. I don't believe that we are totally the masters of our lives, be it wrong or right. I think we are part of it but there are so many other factors that weigh in, too. And some of those things are unknown.

I could not believe how with certain people I would be one way and then with others different. Maybe there was some trigger somehow that I didn't know. I've acted in embarrassing ways at times and could not fathom why exactly. Not saying you did this, just explaining how I've been thinking of these things lately.

I'm feeling grief now, too, at moving from here and will never see someone I really fell in love with (nothing ever came of it, though). It hurts yes and I'm trying not to feel it. I will allow myself to when I get squared away, hopefully, have a good cry. I guess that's the grief process and it's a tough one for me. I know it's very hard for you, too, and so I hope you will be kind to yourself while you're going through this. Sometimes for me treating myself to movies or Chinese dinners helps. Take care and kind regards to you. CQ



<font color=purple>"If you free what is inside you,
it will make you free;
if you hold onto what is inside you
it will destroy you."

Zen Proverb
</font color=purple>