Before the Goodbye
Sat. 03.13.04 - 5:30 p.m.

Feeling:
Listening:
Quote:

From : Ethan
Sent : Saturday, March 13, 2004 6:14 AM
Subject : Long read...grab a blanket and warm baked cookies

Case... I was reviewing for my paramedic exam tomorrow, and somehow my thoughts just continued to drift away from me. You know I laugh about being a dork and a nerd, and loving numbers so much but it's largely because numbers were always the only thing I understood in life. My parents fought a lot when I was growing up, my brother and I never could get along (still really can't), and somehow I always felt out of place. So I retracted to books and numbers...many, many numbers. I hated seeing everyone mad at each other, everyone deliberately hurting each other, trying to out do each other. Just didn't make sense to me... Numbers never do that to each other. They stay where you place them; they work with their surrounding numbers and signs to draw beautiful pictures, to define something as crazy as the physical universe. They don't intrude onto the territory of their fellow numbers. They don't demand anything more than their worth. They enjoy aligning themselves and combining themselves, and helping you understand concepts that were too abstract before. They WANT us to understand; they WANT us to manipulate them, to touch them, to bring them close. Okay...maybe this metaphor has officially gone overboard into shark infested waters..but you understand what I'm saying. They make sense to me...women, love, relationships, those just don't.

That night, in that chat room, all I wanted was someone to talk to, someone slightly less mundane and obnoxious than the people around me, someone slightly less arrogant, slightly deeper and more real. What I found..Case..what I found was just so much more.

When I told you to make it loud, I was thinking of myself. I wanted you to make it loud for me, I wanted to escape boredom, loneliness, emptiness. You did so much for me Case...You really were the first person to make me happy, to make me feel alive. I'd step away from the computer, and feel like I was part of something so much greater than myself, like some infinite number line with you at the other end waiting for me. You...Case...you were more beautiful than any mathematical equation to me.

And then I'd sit down alone in my room, or lay in my bed, and you weren't there. You were somewhere on the other side of the continent sleeping in the same bed as your ex boyfriend, as your real boyfriend, as someone who you tangibly loved, who you could touch, and smell, and feel...everything that I craved with you. I never had something like I imagined that I could have with you... I never thought that I would find it. Casey... I don't know how to tell you this, or how to make you believe this, but you are the most exceptional woman I know, and would ever know because...you're just leagues above everyone else. You have this way about you...like the Billy Joel song. I've been listening to that song a lot lately, because of how much it makes me think of you...

But I digress.

So here was this image of perfection which I somehow fell completely in love with in so short a time...and I spend my time not believing that something like this could find me. That somehow love does exist in a true form, better than any movie, better than any trashy romance novel. But then I start realizing...or start convincing myself...that this is all some harsh figment of my imagination..that it was something too unprobable to ever occur. And I begin to separate my realities. Here's life on this one negative end of the number line, and there's Casey and happiness on the other side of the positive number line. Except all physicists know that the universe is constantly expanding...and that every number line is essentially stretching...so the realities become farther and farther apart...especially as the happiness keeps growing and flourishing...and the harshness of "real life" keeps getting worse as I miss you more and more. And so here I am, trying to juggle two opposite ends of an ever-expanding number line...and I feel completely useless and powerless...and damn it, Casey, so confused.

Although it's no excuse, it was my confusion that hurt you Casey. It's because I didn't know which universe I was supposed to reside in. Because my parents didn't understand why I wasn't dating, because my friends thought I was insane for trusting someone 3,000 miles away, because I didn't know what to believe, what to think, what to do with myself Case. I hope you understand on some level...

What I do want to apologize for right now, however, is for being selfish. I told myself again and again that it needed to end, that I need to start living reality, but somehow I couldn't give you up...somehow I just couldn't let go. It wasn't just a part of me that held on to you Case, it was, it is, all of me. I come back time and time again because I really can't live life without you. You're my best friend Case...you're the person I admire most, you're the only one I can spend hours and hours talking to and never get enough of. I couldn't give you up...even if I wasn't ready for you, I didn't want anyone else to be either. I'd like to say that I'm glad that you've developed feelings for someone else, because that would be the nice friend thing to say. But I'm not...even if maybe it's better for you, even if maybe you'll be happier with him, I just can't say that I'm delighted with the idea. I hate selfishness...but I also have never been selfless...maybe it's because I've always been possessive of mathematics, like those little cute numbers belonged to me...and then I found you, and automatically decided that you would belong to me too.

You're right...that we should at least try to be friends, real friends, good friends, because we both care about each other more than most other people do. I'm going to try to Case, really, I'm going to try to as best I can. But you have to understand, my relationship with you has always been so much more than friendship...it has been a life lesson, it has been confusion, frustration, more happiness than I had ever experienced before, companionship, and most of all...love. To just transform it into a simple friendship is just heartbreaking. But I'm going to try Case...because I need, want you in my life.

And maybe somehow, at some point, in some reality, in some universe, we'll finally be far more.

Thank you Case honey. Thank you for giving me the ride of my life, for making me swallow my stomach in excitement, for confusing me, for teaching me, for allowing me to thank some superior being every day for introducing us. However much I regret all the hurt I've caused you, however much I wish that things were different, that you were happier, that you were in content, that maybe somehow I could turn everything I feel for you off and let you live your life, let you move on, let you forget about me... I'm glad I met you, so glad.

And you asked me...so what now? I don't have a clear answer for you. All I know right now, as I'm listening to Billy Joel's Piano Man about a man who finds himself alone in a bar 40 years down the line with nothing to show for his life, with no love, no friend like you, nothing to make him feel whole, is that you are my everything and I depend on you more than you would ever guess. I want to keep you with me for as long as I can...in whatever form you can give me.

If you think that you would be happier with him, tell me, and I'll suck it up and be the best friend to you that I can be. If you think that you're still in love with me...not that you love me...but that you're in love with me...then please, Case, let me be selfish for a little while longer and keep you.

Always,
Ethan

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