White flag

There was a time when I couldnt bear to listen to that song, that time has gone, but there is still some discomfort associated with it. During my abortive return the land of my birth, Dido took on some sort of almost mystical significance, then after my return it became as painful to me as a knife straight to my heart.
The trip home was a lesson....and like most of the really important lessons, it was an incredibly painful one. The lesson I learned was that no matter how hard a person tries, and no matter how long a dream has been held as holy and almost sacrosanct, it is no guarantee of success..
There was a woman, I loved her, I loved her for a very long time and I pined and I wished and dreamed.......then after 6 years, I thought I had finally won her. I was wrong...we got close, but within sight of the line, she changed her mind, I guess I changed mine too. Once I was back there with her, we had fun, but there was a huge price to be paid, and pay it we both did. She isnt a bad person, she isnt spiteful or cruel, but she is unsure of her needs and desires, for a while she thought it was me and while she thought that way, I was incredibly happy in fact I thought my longest held dream had come true.....dreams dont come true, at least not for me.
I was back home with her for only 3 weeks....in that time 7 years of healing was torn apart, I was destroyed, and it is only now some 6 months later that I can bear to reexamine those events with enough detachment to actually evaluate what went wrong. When I have come to some conlusions I will post them here. Right now there are a few certainties...
I did love the person I believed her to be.
I was devastated when it didnt work out.
During my time there I began to realise that there were some very serious differences between our views of the world. I think we could have made it work between us, but I couldnt do it alone and she didnt want to work at it.
The conclusions so far are:
I have survived the biggest disappointment I have faced and I have moved beyond it and grown stronger from the experience. I am finally over her, I no longer hold dear the dream that one day her and I will be back together....in fact I am able to accept that I probably wont ever see or speak with her again, and that doesnt trouble me anymore.
I suppose the biggest conclusion is that all of this happened for a reason.... I had to get over her to allow me to be the person I needed to be in order for the momentous events that happened upon my return to the USA. The USA is home now....it is where I belong, and where I plan to spend the rest of my life, and if I am really,really lucky I will get to spend that time with my favourite EMT partner.
I love you Beth, thanks for being there.