Chad

This morning, I am just so very thankful for Chad, for our life we shared for those amazing two plus years; thankful that he continues, even now, to make things safer, better, and assure me that I am loved; thankful that we love each other enough to let the other live and hope that by simply living, our paths might be drawn back together again.

Chad, I know you’re not reading these, but thank you for all you are, for all you have given me, and how much you love me. I love you and only want you to be happy and complete. I love you.

moment by moment

I am learning so much more about pain. I thought I had it all figured out before. I really could have lived without the refresher. Really. The pain I feel about missing my boyfriend and not having the man I chose by my side is so very different than the pain of loosing my best friend. While both are different, they are very equal. Sometimes, often, they happen at the same time, others they show themselves separately. For some reason, they hurt more separately. Today, while the boyfriend hurt is acute and raw, the overwhelming one has been the missing of my best friend. I have so much to tell him. I am so used to talking to him multiple times throughout the day. I keep starting to reach for my phone to text him whatever just happened, or whatever thought I just had, or what I would love for us to do this evening and then I remember that I can’t do that anymore. It’s almost more than I can stand.

laughter, screaming, and tears

Since Chad left, I have spent every day with my family. My brother is going through a really hard time too, so he has spent about half of the nights at my place. Sunday, we drove home from spending the day at mom and dad’s. It was around 10:30 or so, and it was raining. Dunkyn and Dolan were in the backseat of the car. We pull up to the house and sit in the driveway for a few minutes, both of us crying and talking about whether or not my brother should spend the night (he ended up not staying that night). While we are sitting there, Dolan begins to growl softly. I didn’t think much of this, as he has started to do that a lot lately. However, soon, his growl turned to out and out barking, which is very unusual for him. I told him to be quiet that there was no one out there. As I said that, I turned and looked out my driver-side door. Less that five feet away, in the raining darkness, a slender figure stood, staring at us, towering over the car (the driveway is sunken a bit), in a trench coat and what looked like a wet, shapeless fishing hat. Visions of getting killed by a wandering vagrant flittered through my mind. I started screaming at the top of my lungs. In response, my brother started doing the same, and yelling for me to back the car up and drive away. I knew this was what I should do, and I am ashamed to say that, just like in the movies, I was struck stupid. I couldn’t figure out how to put the care in reverse. I continued to scream and pound my window as hard as I could. I guess trying to scare the man away. In between my yells, I finally heard a small, timid voice mumble, “It’s me…” It took me a second, but the voice worked its way through. I flung open the door and saw my next door neighbor, who was on her way to her overnight shift. She had seen us pull in and said she wanted to check on Dolan because she hadn’t seen him outside lately. I simply told her I was going through what has been one of the most painful times in my life, and that the dogs and I haven’t been home very much. To which she responded, “I think you need to lay off the coffee.”
My brother, the dogs, and I rushed inside, still freaked out, slammed the door and burst out laughing for about ten minutes straight. It was the first real time I have laughed, and for a moment it was good, then it kinda made everything more painful. Chad would really have enjoyed seeing that. My brother stayed with me last night, again, and he was still a little afraid of being there.

lost

Right now, I have completely lost hope. You would think the pain would get a little better everyday, not worse. Maybe I am supposed to lose hope, maybe not. I hope not. I still want him back. He's still the one I choose. Right now, my heart can't seem to handle it. So, for those of you willing, please keep the hope (faith) for me, and pray for us while I am weak. Thank you.

hard night

How do you function when the person that holds you when you're hurting is the one person who can't hold you when you're hurting the most?

Because I need to tell someone. . .

I think the shock has finally started to wear off. Actually, it started a couple days ago. I hadn’t realized I was in shock. If you had asked me a week ago at this time, I would have told you that Chad and I were fine. We weren’t at our very best, but that we were good. If you asked me if I thought we would end up staying together for good, I would have been 85% positive. So to find myself suddenly single and alone, completely set me off balance. I couldn’t really focus on the small or big details of the matter, just that he was gone, and it seemed impossible. After five nights alone, the shock is gone and the reality is setting in. On one hand, I am amazed at the strength and clarity that God has allowed me to have thus far. I haven’t gone of the deep end, shut myself off from everyone, or called him begging him to take me back (like that would work!). However, there are moments of such extreme pain that it is more than I have ever had in my life. To suddenly be kicked off the path leading to ‘marriage’ one day to having my entire life altered in a matter of moments is agony. Every time something happens, I start to text him, just like always. Every time I walk out of work, I start to call him, just like always. Every time I get into bed, I wait for a kiss and to say I Love You, just like always. It’s not like I had something and it got replaced with something else. Every moment of my life was filled up (which is part of what Chad needed, and I know that, less of every moment being filled up), and now I am left with gapping holes. People are telling me they are sure he’ll come back (though those are few), many are telling me to shut the door and not talk to him (that is a stupid suggestion, neither one of us deserve or want that). No one knows. I don’t. Not even Chad, at least not 100%. I miss him so much, and I have a loneliness that creeps up on me when I think I am actually ok. Not a loneliness to be with someone, just a loneliness from the absence of him, specifically. I am not making it where the earth ends if he doesn’t come back one day, but I do feel like I need to have some modicum of faith and hope. I think a wonderful relationship of over two years with your best friend deserves nothing less. I think Chad and I, separately and individually, deserve nothing less.
I have felt people’s prayers. Truly. Despite what I am describing now, I (and other people) have been amazed how I am really doing. Even I didn’t know that I was this strong. I can also feel the prayers for Chad and I, regardless if we can get back together or not. There is still such obvious care between the two of us in our continual communication—that is not the norm in a break up. In and of itself is a gift from God and proof Chad continues to be my best friend, even if he can’t be.
Please continue to keep both of us in your prayers. Of course you know what my desire is, but pray for him, that he is safe, and finds whatever he needs, even if it’s not me, and that he will know how very loved he is.

Thankful

I am thankful. It really is that simple. I am thankful for the pain I am going through. Chad is worth every throb. I am thankful for my insane kids. They know Mr. Witt is having a ‘hard day’ and somehow simultaneously try to take care of me while not following any of my directions. I am thankful for my friends. Some say he is definitely coming back, some say he most assuredly will not return, and others simply say to release the butterfly. All say I love you. I am thankful for my puppies who travel everywhere I go. Fur and licks always at my fingertips. I am thankful for my family who let me know I am safe and loved.

I am thankful that even if God and Chad don’t see fit to return home to me, that I still had his love for two years as a lover and a best friend, and that I still have his love and he has mine. I am thankful that I have learned the difference between ‘I need in order to survive’ and ‘I want and choose.’ The first of which is the love a leech and is shallow and changing, and the second the love of freedom which is pure and true. I don’t and never did need Chad’s love to survive, but I did want his love and choose his love (and still do) every day we were together.

So, Dear Father, thank you for all you have given me in my life. Thank you for the friends you have surrounded me with that show your compassion. Thank you for the angel souls in the form of dogs you have entrusted to my care that show me your unconditional tenderness and faithfulness. Thank you for my brother who shows me your desire to have us walk the path of confusion with someone who may not be in our shoes but is wearing the same brand. Thank you for my parents who show me what it means when you say you love us like your children, for they show me that you must indeed love, accept, and rather adore me, and want only to have me safe, happy, and to be a good man. Thank you for Chad who shows me your desire for me to live a full and abundant life, not based out of fear or convention, but out of freedom, and choice to love, and shows me that I can trust my heart to those I love, even if they break it, they do so out of love. So, thank you for life and the fallible yet perfect treasures you have placed to surround me.

Day Two

I just got home from spending the day with my parents and brother, and all our dogs. My brother spent the night with me last night. He slept on the sofa in the living room, so any time I needed to I just peered out of bed and saw the light coming from around the bedroom door. Just having him in the house helped so much. I think I was so exhausted from the crying that I passed out, which was wonderful—until I woke up and the crying started again.

I have been amazed by my parents. They have been so loving. Not that they aren’t normally, but I expected them to somehow at least make some comment about how this is what happens in gay relationships, but they didn’t. They cried with me, literally. They said nice things about Chad. It made it so safe to be there the past day and a half. It was so hard to come back home. I don’t know what I would have done without the three of them. And now, I have every night for the rest of the week booked up with friends that are going to be with me in the evenings so I don’t have to be alone. I truly am blessed to be surrounded by such love.

Yesterday was just agony over losing Chad and having him leave, I was lost to the pain of his absence. This has still been there today, but also continual thoughts of not really being able to trust what he told me, even though he has always been nothing but honest with me, even when it hurts. What if it wasn’t him that needed to leave to figure himself out? What if it really was me? Too needy, too boring, to dull, not enough for him to want to stay? If it is any of those, then he won’t come back.

It is the most horrible thing. We were together almost exactly two years and three months. Right now, it feels like yesterday that we started dating, like the last two years were only moments. His stuff is gone, there are a few items that prove he was here at all. It almost makes me ask if it really happened. I don’t want Chad to have been a time in my life. Although, it was the best two years of my entire life, and I wouldn’t trade them. I don’t want to have to look back and remember what was with us. I want us. Planning life, walking through all of it together. Why is that so much to ask? What if he doesn’t ever miss me or want to come back? How do you go from spending every night in the arms of your best friend who you love watching the grey creeping into their hair, to hugging a pillow? How do I have faith that he will come back without driving myself insane? How can I be sure that he truly knows how much I love him? Even if he never wants to return, it is so important to me that he knows I love him. I love him.

Please Pray

Today, Saturday, April 18, at 3:10 PM, Chad moved out. I have wept for a little over two days straight and at the moment, I feel somewhat removed and numb. Almost. I just got back from my folk’s house, I couldn’t be alone here. My brother is staying the night on the couch outside my bedroom, and then we are going back up to mom and dad’s tomorrow.

I will leave most of the details out, because Chad’s reasons are Chad’s reasons and they don’t need to be shared with the world, unless he is doing the sharing. Long story short, I could tell something has been bothering him for a couple weeks, and Thursday night, I asked him to tell me what was going on. That started the conversation that led to us packing and him moving today. He isn’t sure if he is able to be in a relationship and still be Chad. He is hurting, torn, and upset too. There wasn’t a fight or argument, just the opposite, in fact. We spent the last twenty-four hours crying with each other, holding each other, and simply loving each other.

Although slightly removed at the moment, I am devastated, thoroughly and completely. Not only have I lost my boyfriend, but I don’t have my best friend with me anymore either. I don’t have him here to hold me as I cry and to rest my head on his chest and feel safe and at home. Ok, since I am now crying, I must not be as removed as I thought. If two nearly perfect years are all we get, I am thankful for them. However, part of me is holding on to hope that he will figure out whatever it is he needs to figure out, and will come back and we can continue our life. Together. He is the man I love. He is the man I have chosen, the one I want to spend my life with, as long as he will have me. That doesn’t change just because he is questioning and not here. I have never met a better man, who treated me as wonderful as he does, who always makes me laugh, and automatically makes me feel that everything is going to be alright simply by his very presence in the room.

For those of you who are willing, I would ask that you keep both of us in your prayers. That Chad will know he is loved completely and that he will find what he is looking for. That I will not loose control and can stop crying soon, and I that I will be able to have faith. And, that God will do His will. And that God’s will could possibly be that Chad and I get back together. I will be praying the same, and also give thanks for the privilege of being with such a phenomenal man for as long as I have, either way this turns out. Thank you for your love, friendship, support, and prayers for both of us.

8 hours and 45 minutes

It’s eleven at night, I just got back from dropping Chad off at a club where Kaskade is the DJ. We had just gone to see Duplicity. It was great to see Julia again, but I was rather bored and disappointed with the movie. Chad will be home somewhere between two and three in the morning. Since I can’t fall asleep without him, I will be up till then too. Joy! I just sat down on the couch for a long evening of TV (I was going to watch Last Cake Standing that I had recorded earlier on the Food Network), when I heard a loud pop from my fuse box, and the entire house went dark. I sat there stunned for a couple seconds and then rushed to the door and flung it open for some light. Thank God I was in the living room and not downstairs. I would still be down there in the dark, long past trying to find my way upstairs and curled in the corner crying. I opened the front door in just enough time to see a huge spark over the tree line maybe a fourth of a mile southwest from here and to hear another really loud pop. The entire neighborhood is in blackness. I stood there, hearing nothing but distance sirens. Then, I heard one of my neighbor’s doors creak open. I couldn’t see them or tell which house it was coming from, so I got freaked out, and closed and locked the door. I grabbed my computer, which had been sitting beside me on the couch, opened it up and used it for a light to find my phone, which I then used to text Chad and use as light to find my candle lighter. I am now surrounded by seven different candles. However, I realized that they are casting a light from the edges of my windows, which makes me nervous that someone will know I was home during the power outage. So, I then used one of the candles to find my way into the kitchen (with Dolan growling at my heels and really not helping the situation) and got my large butcher knife. So, now I am in the living room with my computer, dogs, candles, and a big knife. I don’t know why having the power out makes me feel less safe, but it does. I think it has something to do with the prehistoric silence that falls in a house mixed with the darkness. Not even the hum of the air conditioner fan… Of course one of my first thoughts was that having no electricity would mean that alarm systems would not work; people could break in anywhere (thus the knife). Half a moment later, I remembered that I don’t have an alarm system anyway, so I’m not sure how this situation is more dangerous, but I am sure it is. I just got a text back from Chad, he is fine, and, of course, the club has power. He said he good luck with my big knife and that he loves me. Pretty sure the correct response included something along the lines of rushing right home to make sure that when I dropped him off a bit ago wouldn’t be the last time he saw me alive. Apparently, not.