a broken heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln8Sj_BDUrs

Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?

i tend to be tentative with relationships. i've been around the block a few times, seen many things, done many things, experienced many things. in equal parts good and bad, depending on how i'm feeling on any given day. i've played this game for many years. and it's left me guarded, cautious, hesitant, knowing all the things that i know can happen and remembering all the memories of the ways they did happen. let's just say there's a few too many wounds that i can't forget, and that i've lost my faith in love, and i find it very hard to believe.

i never intended my relationship with her to have turned out like this.

i knew she was new, and just starting school, and looking to explore and learn about her life and find her place in this world. just like anyone else wants to do...and just like the rest of us are doing now.

but she spoke to me, and sought my answers, and laughed at my jokes, and hung out after classes. and as much as i tried to not think about it, i found i liked it. and as much as i tried to keep myself away, i always thought about her smile.

and she was kind, and she was gentle, and soft as the whisper of the evening breeze. and her spirit resonated with life and with art and with hope and with truth. all things i had dreamed about and come to long for but had lost my faith that i would ever find.

she grew on me.

she was like my dreams.

i kept asking her if we really worked. even when we were holding hands. and she said yes. and pretty soon, as much as i was afraid to, i began to allow myself to believe in us. and i finally decided that i did believe, when on a quiet autumn morning as we drove the streets to school, in a moment that opened like the petals of a flower unfolding in the stillness of the bloom of the early dawn's silent sun, she looked at me and sighed and said that she liked the way the colors of our skin contrasted against each other, and that they looked like they belonged together, and that she wished this moment would last forever.

the emotions of that moment crashed over me like the coming of the tides...and it was then that i was lost, and then that i knew that whatever she wished for, i would do. whatever she dreamed of, i would do. whatever she wanted, i would do. because she asked.

You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.

that was why it was such a shock when she came back from a weekend home after a stressful midterm exam and said that she needed to leave our relationship because she was struggling in school. she needed space, she said. she needed a friend.

and as much as i was hurt, and confused, and lost, and felt like i'd been blindsided by a freight train at 100 mph, i did what she wanted. because she'd asked.

and so i found myself packing for Ironman New Zealand in a state of sorrow and grief, on a trip that originally had been planned as a triumphant end to school but suddenly had become one of dejection and loss. and i found myself in a foreign country, directionless, aimless, numb, holding nothing but the pieces of a broken heart, with emotions that i struggled to hide from and ignore.

and on race day, as they always do and as much as i did not want them to, my emotions finally found me. and that day become a horror. with a storm as freakish and harsh and severe as the chaos of her decision. and the waves of my pain and my tears flowed like the rain. and the wind was the only companion to my utter despair.

it was everything i could do just to finish. it was only because of the presence of my parents that my spirit held together.

but not even they could fix what had really happened...my dreams. my dreams had been taken away. my dreams were gone.

and so was my faith.

I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.

when i came back, i committed myself to being the most loyal friend that i could be. i gave her my support, and my concern, and words of comfort and thoughts of care, and things of interest that i knew we shared. and when i saw that she was sad, or hurt, or tired, or weak, i did all i could do to offer help. i set all my feelings aside, and i endeavored to be the best friend a girl could ever have. i did this, because she'd asked.

even when i found out that 2 days after leaving me she had entered into a relationship with someone else. and that he'd been reading her e-mails, and had read everything i'd been writing to her, and had told her to stop talking to me. and she did, because he'd asked.

and then he sent a message to me claiming to be writing on her behalf. in the message, he berated me for being a "pathetic loser" for being interested in her, and told me i knew nothing about love, and threatened me with what he'd do if i interfered in their relationship. it was a nasty, angry, vindictive, venal message, the kind whose venom poisons you long after you've read it.

i don't know if his message were her real thoughts. i don't know.

in my life, i've tried to be a good man. and if not be one, at least try to become one. i've put myself through graduate school to earn 2 doctorates, with a JD from law school and a PhD in international relations. i've worked myself to earn 3 Ironman finishes. i've read and trained and studied about the arts, and letters, and humanity and culture and divinity and life. i've traveled the world to learn what there is to learn.

and i've done all of it, in no small part, to try and make myself the kind of man that could make a woman happy; who could show her respect and kindness and compassion and beauty and all the things that make our lives a work of art in the glory of the supreme mystery that is this creation, and to help her know the freedom to discover for herself the person, the soul, the art that she was meant to be.

but now, i'm starting to wonder. i'm starting to wonder if i was wrong. maybe i am a pathetic loser. and maybe i don't know anything about love.

i'm not the only person he's done this to. i've found out from others that he's done this before. in fact, he has a proven track record of threats and violence and aggression and intimidation against people. he seeks to control and dominate and pressure and manipulate. he's not the kind of person who knows love as being freedom, discovery, or person or soul or art that anyone was meant to be.

i've seen his kind before. many times before. and sooner or later, his behavior towards others invariably translates into his behavior at home. he's already read her emails. he's already written notes on her behalf. and now he's choosing her friends.

she's no longer talking to me. because he asked.

and there's nothing i can do. because she asked.

the good guys lost this one.

i feel like i'm mourning the loss of a soul to the darkness...if asked, i would have sacrificed mine own to save it.

And I will bear my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.

i'm alone.

and there's a few too many wounds that i can't forget, and i've lost my faith in love, and i find it very hard to believe.

my heart feels like it's been broken twice. by the same person. and the second time i didn't even think there was anything left to break. but i guess there was.

i'm lost. i can't sleep. i don't want to eat. i keep listening to the same sad song over and over again, because i don't want to hear anything else. and i keep thinking about her.

my coaches have noticed. they're telling me that my movements look empty, that my actions seem to lack substance. i don't feel like training. i don't feel like racing. i don't even really feel like living. and they keep asking me "dude, what's going on? is something wrong?"

and i don't know what to tell them. what can i tell them? everything is wrong...i'm training, racing, living on a broken heart. and there's nothing left for it to give.

friends of mine in the military tell me that a Dear John letter is the equivalent of setting off a hand grenade. one officer told me that he's seen entire units fall apart from the effects of a single letter, and he suspects that entire armies have risen and fallen on the basis of love alone.

i don't know if he's right. but i know that for me, right now, i feel like i've been broken, beaten, destroyed, crushed. like my life has been taken away from me. like there's nothing inside. nothing anywhere.

our lives are a work of art in the glory of the supreme mystery that is this creation.

that's what i keep telling myself.

our lives are a work of art in the glory of the supreme mystery that is this creation.

that's all i can tell myself.

our lives are a work of art in the glory of the supreme mystery that is this creation.

i don't know what else i can do.

except write this and make some record of events and try to make sense of what's happened somehow. even though i know i can't. because things just don't work out that way. they didn't work out that way.

i lost a love. and worse, i lost a friend.

i lost my dreams.

i'm so empty.

I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow...

Did I disappoint you or let you down?
Should I be feeling guilty or let the judges frown?
'Cause I saw the end before we'd begun,
Yes I saw you were blinded and I knew I had won.
So I took what's mine by eternal right.
Took your soul out into the night.
It may be over but it won't stop there,
I am here for you if you'd only care.
You touched my heart you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals.
And love is blind and that I knew when,
My heart was blinded by you.
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell.
I've been addicted to you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bear my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow...

-James Blunt, Goodbye My Lover