Some Bridges Burn Themselves

This is a journal entry about a traumatic few weeks of my life, the effects of which ripple through me today, when I irreparably damaged one relationship and watched impotently as another atrophied.

This is a story of a very emotionally traumatic period of my life that left me feeling utterly alone despite having a community of friends on whom I could lean on for support. I felt like a light breeze could knock me off the cliff's edge into a river of despair in which I would simply thrash about until eventually giving up and resigning myself to drowning. Thankfully, it didn't come to that yet, but it was certainly foreseeable. I've told this story several times now, each time clarifying and digesting it a little more until, much like a practiced lecture, I've pared it down to the pertinent facts while keeping some of the key the imagery and metaphor for good measure. The names and professions have been changed.

The story technically begins as soon as I was able to comprehend words and fashion basic ideas, the meat of the drama began late in 2011 while I was in the middle of my third year of medical school. For the uninitiated, medical school in the states is a graduate program consisting of two years of pre-clinical didactics and 2 years of clinical rotations. The third year covers the core rotations of surgery, internal medicine, family medicine, psychiatry, pediatrics, and obstetrics/gynecology. From these, we try to discern what field we want to pursue and customize our fourth year rotations based on our preferred career. I chose orthopedic surgery, which is rather competitive, so I took an extra year to do some orthopedic research and electives to make me a better candidate.

Back to third year, I was in the middle of my psychiatry and, at this point, I knew it was not the career for me. Thankfully, it was a pretty relaxed rotation, so I had time to pursue my social activities. Being single at the time and having broken up a 6 month relationship the previous summer, I was back into the dating field with full force. I reactivated my online dating account (on which I had found my ex) and managed to get a few responses. At the time, I was rotating near my parents' home so I stayed there except for when I had to go to class at school, which is only one hour away from home. This meant that, in order to date successfully, I had to schedule my dates for days that I was going to be back and leave enough time to make a connection. Unfortunately, I had been reading a lot of pick up artist (PUA) literature online (thankfully, I never paid a cent for any of it) and I'm fairly sure none of it made a difference as my successes seemed independent of what I did and more likely were due to inherent attraction.

It was during this period that I met who would become the most significant relationship I'd ever had. We'll call her Mary to protect her privacy. Mary is a tall, fit, white, dirty blonde with strong legs and a sweet smile. She wouldn't be considered a babe but she was both realistic about her appearance but high self esteem. I only dated one other girl around the time that I was seeing Mary, but the other just dropped off of the radar after the third date. It didn't matter because, although I didn't realize it then, I became exclusive with Mary early into our relationship. It wasn't a relationship that started with fireworks or volcanic eruptions of passion and chemistry, either. It actually began a bit awkwardly, partly because she wasn't quite sure about her attraction to me and partly because of my beginning PUA techniques. Even the first kiss on the first date was awkward because of the sun in her eyes and our relative heights (I'm 6'3”, she's about 5'9”). Despite this, we set up a second date, then a third, and eventually continued to see each other. In the weeks that followed, I didn't consciously stop pursuing other girls, but I didn't make a concerted effort either. Eventually she popped the question about whether or not we were “dating” to which I agreed. I knew she meant “Are we exclusive?” and by that point, I hadn't been seeing anyone else. It must have been a few months in that, on a particular night together, I was wondering whether or not to tell her that I loved her but she beat me to it. She must have been waffling on whether to say it too. It was quite the turning point because she was the first girl that I've felt this level of love for. It was also different because it felt like our, attraction, passion, and intimacy had actually been ramping up compared to when we met. It struck me that this was what a more mature relationship feels like.

A married friend who seems to have the best relationship I've ever seen had mentioned a long while back that, when she met her future husband, they could just feel that they were right for each other. She said that they would discuss things about the future plans like family and living situation as if it were completely natural because they felt that level of comfort with each other. I recalled this dating Mary because we did discuss these things and we were comfortable. I imagined that we could live together, have our careers, possibly have kids, and be quite happy. At this point, I didn't know I was taking an extra year, so I anticipated matching into a residency by March 2013 then starting the following July. The relationship wasn't all sunshine and butterflies, though. The occasional stormy weather would come and bring out the worms, but never anything catastrophic that threatened to destroy the relationship. Open communication always brought us back closer together with a deeper understanding of the other's needs and expectations. There were rocky spots later on in the relationship, around the 1 year anniversary, that recurred and involved the other primary conflicting party in my life: my parents.

I was raised in an Indian Muslim household in which believing in a single, all powerful god, going to masjid, praying, attending Sunday school, and being part of the Muslim community were matters of course. I never really questioned it philosophically in childhood. To me, it was more a chore, much like cleaning one's room or doing homework. I was pretty lazy about it, always putting off memorizing the Quran's verses until the night before then banging it out within an hour. I fasted during Ramadan and even prayed in middle school during lunch because I felt I may as well since I wasn't eating. At that age, I didn't really have any alternatives because none had been presented to me. I didn't really know much about the other religions other than that non-Muslims just got unlucky to have Muslim parents and hopefully they would see the light and convert or at least stick to being good people within their own monotheistic religion and get into heaven that way. It wasn't until high school that I started to push a bit against Islam, but not in a very thoughtful or sophisticated way.

This I remember very clearly, as it was when I had a turning point. Starting in the Ramadan of sophomore year, I became a little extra religious and took it seriously. I kept this attitude throughout the whole year into the next Ramadan, but after that Eid, I just felt empty when praying, like it wasn't getting me anywhere. I realized that this religion was not for me. I don't remember taking issue with any specifics, and it wasn't as though I was dating anyone at the time. I just became aware that I didn't get satisfaction out of it at all. When my dad came to pick me up from swim practice one evening, he reminded me like always to do evening prayer when I get home, to which I replied that I didn't feel like it because prayer hasn't really been doing anything for me. He prodded me a bit on it, but I don't recall exactly what I said, just that I mentioned not feeling any satisfaction. He said not to tell mother, but of course, he spilled the beans, and she came to me upset about it. She didn't so much ask about why but rather said that I have to keep praying and going to masjid, so nothing really changed, except that I began to lie about praying rather than just doing it halfheartedly. At this stage, I was no longer attending Sunday school (aged out), so I didn't have that obligation. I also finally began to hang out with my school friends more compared to my Muslim friends. At this point, I began driving so I was able to join them at different peoples houses or out loitering in the park, basketball court, or (annoyingly) at Taco Bell. I also really wanted to hang out with my peers since I wouldn't have to worry about any religious talk with them. My Muslim friends were generally not overzealous about it, but topics would come up sometimes that I really wished we could gloss over, such as how ignorant the goras (Urdu for white people) were. One time, a friend made a comment regarding how more orthodox Catholics have been indoctrinated and brainwashed but can't even tell. I laughed internally at him. Around this time, I cut away from them, blocked them on instant messenger and screened their calls in order to focus my social life with my classmates. This actually became a sore spot at the time because they could tell I was dodging them and one of them mentioned it to his parents with whom my parents are friendly with, so of course it came back to me through my mother. I was annoyed, like most teenagers, that my parents were butting into my social life, but it was definitely reasonable. Who wouldn't intervene when they see their son's behavior changing? Eventually I rejoined the fold and reined in my behavior, but not without a lot of late nights breaking curfew with my friends and causing significant grief for my parents. Then I went to college.

This being the first time I was really away from my parents, naturally they had concerns about me. Unfortunately, Ramadan started a few weeks into freshman year, so they wanted me home every weekend. My gestalt was that people who went home every weekend didn't have a good social life and wouldn't develop good friends, which was somewhat true. Also, I resented that I didn't get any choice in the matter. Eventually it came to a head when I was at home and displaced a lot my emotion on a videogame that beat me. I cried and beat the floor in anger which alarmed my parents to the point that they thought I was on drugs. Tearfully, I told them I was angry because I no longer wanted to practice Islam, no longer wanted to pray, lie about praying, or fast. My mother played the guilt cards early about it and I relented, falsely admitting that I would give religion a fair try.

I should bring up that my mother had relatively recently been diagnosed with primary pulmonary hypertension, an idiopathic, progressive, and terminal illness for which there are not great therapies. She has been and still is in clinical trials. The disease and the drugs leave her flushed, tired, nauseous and congested with no appetite to the point that eating the required 500 calories with the medication is a hardship. She did continue to work during my early college time. She's an anesthesiologist and also does pain management, so she worked as long as she could, giving away weekends and taking fewer hours until eventually she had to take disability, after which, she basically stayed at home all day watching Indian TV and movies with the occasional day or night out when invited for a visit or function. The empty nest syndrome would have been exacerbated but my older brother had already gotten a job within driving distance so he was living at home. He is smart but not a hard worker if he doesn't care enough, so he dicked around in college in computer science, dropped out, went to baking school, worked shortly, left that and returned to computer science through community college and online classes, then worked through a temp agency and got into database administration/tech support in a permanent position. He incurred a cost at least as much as my college and medical school education even though he went to a public university while I went to a private engineering college.

With her disease and disappointment that my brother did not achieve higher, she really laid in the guilt about how much they've done for me and that they didn't expect this from me. She also emphasized how she would die soon and didn't want to see her son go to hell and not be able to stop him. A metaphor she uses is watching a child about to grab a hot pan. To comfort her, I lied. To me it was just another lie among many I'd already told and knew I would eventually keep telling.

Fast forward into medical school into the late fall of fourth year. I've had one short term relationship, one for six months, and the current with one, with Mary, for about a year, none of which my parents knew about. They had been more recently pushing me to talk to girls who were in medical school or other professionals that they felt were from good families. I kept pushing it off with the reason that I had no idea where I'd end up for residency so it was unreasonable to build a relationship just to end it due to geography. Mary and her parents were not very happy with my deceptive arrangement and this affected Mary's long term view for us to the point that we had a serious fight about it. Our fights were never impassioned, angry, or violent. I become very stoic and thoughtful and she quietly cries as we force out our words. These fights were infrequent and often about more trivial things such as who was right about what and whether or not she should have yelled “Watch out!” on a winding road with oncoming traffic when a small frog was crossing the road then pouting when I said it was dangerous. This issue had much more gravity, concerning our future as a couple. She wanted me to come clean and become financially independent if I needed to be using loans and her parents were very supportive and even offered me a place to stay if I became homeless. I faced, for the first time, the possibility of losing my parents' financial backing and emotional support, as well as a home to return to. Mary's conflict, however, was that she wanted me to be honest for my own sake, not for her, but it was pretty impossible to separate it since part of being honest was trying to maintain and improve our relationship.

I began putting the gears in motion, slowly and reluctantly, towards acquiring a loan I may not need. I had planned on telling my parents the truth over winter break and leaving if I needed to, but thanks to several months of a lack of core exercise, a cold morning football game threw my low back into spasm and severe disabling pain. I got home with the help of my friends, Mary came and helped me but left soon because I called my parents and they were on the way to pick me up. I spent the first few days of break mostly bed ridden but progressively improving as these problems resolve pretty quickly. By the end of break, I had physically recovered but communications with Mary were impaired. She was angry with me for not pursuing PT earlier than I did, which she was right about, but me admitting such did not make her any less upset. Our phone conversations, which I had to keep secret and hidden from my family, were strained, but when I returned to school, being together brought us back closer together emotionally and all felt well. She understood that I didn't want to tell my parents the truth while in such a vulnerable position, so that issue fell to the back of our minds as Mary's career choices took over her thoughts.

Mary's career has not been what she had always imagined. She majored in anthropology in college and interned in archeology but worked in retail afterward. She then started a tech job involving QA for mobile app development at the same time that we met. This job started out with a lot of learning, but eventually the toxic environment and clients began to suck her soul. She looked into anthropology programs around the country and found 7 in the north east and south, as close as Boston and as far as Virgina. We had both said as our relationship grew that we would be better off taking care of our careers first so that we don't regret the other if it doesn't workout. We also felt that long distance would not work because the odds of ending up with each other are slim. I knew that my residency location would be a crapshoot given the competitiveness and my breadth of application, so if she ended up anywhere outside of Boston and NYC and I stayed in Massachusetts, that would be the end.

A career hurdle came up in early February 2013 when her work offered her a position in San Francisco for several months, potentially permanent, which would be great for her career and a chance to enjoy California for the first time. I encouraged it as we are young and should take these opportunities, even if it meant we'd be apart. I still wanted to pursue a long distance relationship because she was still waiting on schools and she may decide to return home after the work ends if she doesn't get a graduate position anywhere. She was worried that it would be difficult for me and that I'd regret it if I met someone else that I wanted to date but felt locked into a relationship. I was also concerned about this so, idiotically, I broached the idea of an open relationship so that we could still feel close to each other but also not push away potential relationships and lose opportunities. She said it might work so we tried it, but on one of our weekend Skype sessions, I said that I didn't want that and that it was a stupid idea, that I wanted to be in an exclusive distance relationship and that we could make it work if we communicated a little bit on a regular basis rather than just once a week calling.

She mentioned being extremely busy right from the start of working there and also going out on weekend trips to explore the area, so she didn't have time to talk or message at all. She also started a blog to keep people updated on the goings on without directly talking to friends and family all the time. She updated maybe once a week and included lengthy posts about things she found the area and many photos of her travels. The 3 hour time difference also meant that her best times to talk were when I was heading to bed and she would already be tired by then too. This perturbed me greatly as I wanted to make it work and knew that communication was the key to us feeling close enough to make the relationship worth having.

Over the course of the first four weeks that she was away, I could feel her slipping away. Even after the conversation in which she agreed to try more to message a little here and there, she ended up mostly ignoring me to the point that a weekend went by and we didn't talk and I got no messages. I started to think that she was just purposely ignoring me to send me a message that it was over, but I wanted to do everything I could to save it. She had said on the most recent call that if she had been rejected from all but two graduate programs and that, if the last two rejected, she would like to stay out west and find a more lucrative job at a better company there, which was a feasible option.

When she said this, I was shocked, and I think I showed it. This was the first time that I felt true heartache, that I could lose her permanently and that there was nothing I could do about it. My mind raced to think of solutions to try to make her want to stay with me. Clearly she had lost her attraction for me and since I still had not told my parents anything, she lost her vision of our future. This was also the first time that I cried so severely of grief. I laid my head on the floor and wept, moaning like a widowered beast, curled into a fetal position until I ran out of tears. I got up with severe thirst but I was afraid that any hydration would just cause the tears to flow again. Later in the week, I was doing yoga in my room and, in the downward dog position, I triggered the lump in my throat that brought on another pathetic crying session. I've never been very good at getting myself to cry, so to have two episodes within a week was unprecedented. I knew I needed help and that's when I got some advice.

My friends were supportive during this time, listening to my woes and keeping me from going too crazy. One advised sending a care package which was exactly the type of thing Mary loves. She always loved hand written notes and customized care packages, both sending and receiving, so I got to work assembling a package of candy, chocolate, and a magazine that her mother sometimes gets her for light reading. I even consulted her mother about what I ought to give. My goal was to spark the feelings in her that would make her think of me and miss me the way I miss her so we could talk more. I also sent some decongestant and cough drops since she was having a recurring cough/cold whenever we talked. My friends thought my gift was adorable, sweet and caring. The girls felt that they would love to get a gift like that. Through a little tribulation of finding a post office open late at night when I could send the package through the automated service, I eventually had it sent mailed by Tuesday. I think I looked at the tracking info every hour or so until Thursday when it was confirmed to have reached. I didn't tell Mary I was sending it so it would be a surprise and I figured I'd get some confirmation from her when she got it. Thursday evening rolled around with no message so I called the extended stay hotel to see if she received it. They told me she was notified of it. On Friday, I called again and they said she picked it up. I sent her a message to see how she was doing, but didn't get a reply. I then called her parents to see if they'd heard from her and they said she was doing well but very busy. Nothing mentioned about me or the package and I mentioned that I hadn't heard from her in so long and that the package was picked up so I didn't know what was going on. They noted that it was rather rude of her but that they'd let me know if they heard anything.

That same week prior to our week of spring break, it was also match week, so all medical students around the country found out that they had matched into a residency, and those that didn't had the chance to scramble into open spots somewhere. I knew it was coming that the majority of my classmates and all of my closest friends were going off onto the next stage of their lives, but it wasn't until that week that it really hit me just how alone I was going to be. I went to the match ceremony on the Thursday to find out where everyone ended up, and the vast majority got first choices and almost all of the couples got residencies near each other so they were ecstatic. For every ounce of happiness I had for each of my friends, I felt a pound of isolation. I dared not share it during the celebrations or the lunch we got after since this was not the time for sadness and I knew I had to deal with it myself for the moment.

That weekend, I went home since it was the end of one rotation, but I never told my parents I was on spring break because of what I had planned. I had resolved in the previous week or so to tell my parents about Mary, about my lack of religion and about my years of lying, so I wanted a week to myself to deal with the fallout. With my brother's help, I had secured a loan should I need it, so I knew I had a chance to be financially independent, even if I'd take a hit later on. The advantage of starting residency without debt cannot be overemphasized, as the salary is about 45-55 starting depending on location and saving is tough given the hectic schedule and fees associated with being a resident and working at hospital on top of loan interest. This is why I've been reluctant to start accumulating loans and telling my parents anything. But I made the decision for that weekend so, on the Sunday morning before leaving, I got my brother and his wife out of the house (they were in on it, although they discouraged me) and when my parents brought up the recurring topic of marriage and looking for girls, I told them they should stop looking. When they asked why, I said because no Muslim girl is going to want to marry me because I'm not a practicing Muslim. To keep it short, they argued that it was just a phase that young people go through, that I don't need to be religious, just nominally Muslim, that my cousins are not very religious and are fine with it. I countered that it would feel hypocritical not to be fully Muslim so it was all or nothing, but they could not grasp that it has to be a personal decision and that it would be unfair to my future wife if she expected something I couldn't give. They had even said previously that conditions of them providing for me were that I marry a Muslim girl, to which I had reluctantly agreed. They also gave me the conditions that as long as I didn't drink alcohol, eat pork, or chase girls (and presumably have sex), then I could still be part of the family, even if I didn't pray, fast, or go to the masjid. They also didn't believe that I am atheist, but that I somehow wanted to pick a different religion. They refused to accept that I saw religion differently then they do because I have a mixed American and Indian Muslim culture. I mentioned that I'd had alcohol, but backtracked about still drinking so I just said it was briefly in college, and that hit them like a garbage truck. I'd never seen them so upset and disappointed, as though this were the most severe moral failing they could imagine. I didn't have the heart to tell them I'd broken the other two rules as well, although I think my mother inferred them.

When the dust settled a little, I told them about Mary. I didn't open the conversation with Mary because I didn't want it to seem like I was doing this for her. I also told her that Mary and I had broken up because I could sense that it going to happen soon enough, but that didn't change the fact that I do not want a Muslim girl. For the purposes of this conversation, arranged and semi-arranged means that the family finds a potential match and the kids would talk to see if they liked each other enough to go forward with the marriage. Love marriage is the traditional western style of dating and falling in love before engagement. I actually got the same arguments I was prepared for: that I was young, that my parents know better, that so many people get into failed relationships or become single parents all because the partner was not properly vetted, people get STDs and pregnancy out of wedlock when looking for a love-marriage, that my cousins all chose to marry the girls their parents found and were still happy after years. They also said that I was such an eligible bachelor that many women would love to take advantage of me and people will tell me I'm smart and good-looking but won't be there for me in tougher times like my parents and a good wife will be. I didn't point out this time like I have in the past at the relatively failed marriage that my parents keep up, that the stigma of separation rather than a lack of unhappiness prevents divorce, that research shows that semi-arranged marriages and love-marriages have similar rates of happiness and satisfaction, and that for every story of a love-marriage failing, I can point to a story of an arranged marriage failing. Heck, she even knows of an arranged marriage of a family friend's daughter to a doctor who is in a nephrology fellowship who is a great guy on paper and in person but he does no work at home so she was working full time and managing the home and then stopped her work to take care of their newborn baby. Is that a good example of success?

She also pulled out the traditional religious arguments that I was prepared for: Pascal's wager, that it's safer to be religious than not, to which I countered that you can't possibly know which religion is right and that being religious in one way could possibly incite the ire of a god who wants the opposite, so there's no way of knowing and that your religion is a product of chance being born into a particular family in a particular environment. She said that there's nothing wrong with the morals of the religion so I should follow them, but I countered that morals can exist outside of religion and that there are good and bad people with and without religion all over the world, so the religion has no bearing. I said that fear of god is not good enough and does not equate love for me. In all these arguments, I struggled to keep the argument about me rather than proselytizing my beliefs on her.

My dad handled it worse. He could not sit down and take it, he was constantly pacing the kitchen yelling about which religion I would choose, whether I wanted to have sex with a white girl and get her pregnant and get STDs. I said that there is a middle ground, but he wouldn't hear it. It's pertinent to say that my father has psychiatric problems including what seems like schizophrenia with disconnected thoughts, paranoia, and mood swings. He used to be medicated, according to my brother, but they were too sedating for him to remain adherent, so we just bear with it. He was an orthopedic surgeon but stopped working when he had to recertify but failed an exam and decided to retire with his pension. He enjoyed being home and taking care of household things anyway. Because of his psychosis and general irritability, he kept interrupting the conversation with my mother, which didn't help, but he couldn't hold a steady argument. He explicitly mentioned that I'd be kicked out and on my own if I drank or pursued girls. They guilted me about saying that my desire to be independent is equivalent to cutting them out of my life totally and that I am incapable of standing on my own two feet. They didn't even care that I was broken up about having lost an 18 month relationship. In fact, they were relieved it was over. The final guilt laid down was what my mother told me in private. She said that, because I was supposed to be the successful son that became a professional (a doctor, in my case), get married and have kids (my brother and his wife aren't interested in children but I've always been), she had put all of her hope into me and she loved me more than she loved my brother even though he was generally a more loving son. She said I am the most severe disappointment she could have experienced. I never expected to hear any of this even though I was gearing up for this conversation for weeks. The shock of it actually silenced me for a while. She also lamented that my brother and I aren't close and don't talk. She didn't know and may not yet know that he's been a partial confidant for the last several months.

In the end, I left relatively amicably with the agreement that I would toe the line as a nominal Muslim and wouldn't spread the word that I was not religious. I also A little late because my friends in school all know but the Muslims from the community, barring one who also broke from the religion, are unaware.

Early that afternoon, I was hoping Mary and I could Skype but she didn't call so I left a voicemail saying that we needed to talk when she had a moment. I was on Facebook and saw that, sometime after leaving her the voicemail, she posted an update on her blog with several pictures of the previous weekend's travel and probably a few hundred words. Clearly she had time to put that together, but not talk to me at all. That settled it for me. I was furious. I felt betrayed and heartbroken. I actually felt some pain in my chest, a tightness that squeezed a bit of breath from me. I called again, left a voicemail saying that clearly she has time to write a blog but no time for short messages or any communication with me, so her feelings are clear that she has no interest in a relationship with me, so that's it, we're broken up. I called her parents shortly after but they were not home, so I waited until Monday evening to call when I figured they'd be around.

On Monday, I had the privilege of working with rising third year students who were about to start their clinical rotations so they were having a simulation using a lifelike mannequin that tested their abilities to focus and function effectively as a team in times of stress with the beeping monitors and patient in respiratory distress. Half the time I acted as the “intern” who would help facilitate their problem solving without giving anything away while the other half I was giving the patient's voice over the microphone and playing with the vital signs. It was very fulfilling to both have a distraction and teach the next generation about teamwork, focus, and appropriate patient-centered discussion.

I called late that afternoon and talked to her parents and basically thanked them for all of their support and that I felt really grateful to have had them in my life, but that Mary and I were no longer maintaining a relationship. I poorly fought back tears during the conversation but I just wanted to get the words out. Her parents were as gracious as ever and reiterated how much they loved getting to know me and that I was always welcome to contact them if I felt like it or join them for a dinner despite the awkwardness that might follow, but they would welcome me if I felt like I needed family. I said it was unlikely, but I'd keep it mind. At this point, I was as alone as I've ever been. My parents did not want to hear the truth from me, my girlfriend was gone, and my friends have their futures to start managing. It was like my tie was on too tight and I had an ever tightening ring around my chest and abdomen, squeezing the air from my lungs while simultaneously pushing my stomach up into my diaphragm. I really didn't think it could get worse until I got an email on Tuesday during the simulation. It was actually during the time I was giving voice to the patient, so when the students were asking me questions, I didn't hear them and my partner had to nudge me to answer.

Mary decided to make the time to send the two paragraph email that follows:

Subject: A conversation

Dear Adam,

I haven't been in a position to call you lately, and frankly, I've been too angry to want to. 

At first, I was just very busy, and I didn't have the time to talk. Last weekend I talked with my parents and they mentioned that they had been talking with you. Honestly, I was kind of weirded out that you were talking with my mom. I was embarrassed. I can't quite put my finger on why I was upset about it, but I wouldn't have called your parents, even if I had any sort of relationship with them. So I didn't call you because I didn't know what to say to you.

When I got your voicemail, then heard you had called my mom AGAIN, I just threw up my hands. 

I don't want to be in a relationship with you- I have said before that I don't want to be in a long distance relationship, and I stand by that now. There are several reasons that I feel this way. The first and most important is that I don't feel the way I should feel about you to go through with a long-term, long distance relationship. You don't deserve that, you deserve something better. 

I am sorry to have to write you an email like this, but I don't know when I will be able to talk.

I was completely stunned. It was only due to having done this simulation for the whole day prior and that morning that I had the whole sequence memorized, as well as the debriefing discussion, but my mind was no longer there. All I could think about was what the whole email meant. Why was she angry with me that she couldn't call before? Why did she agree to be more open in communication in our last Skype session? Why didn't she tell me that she didn't feel enough for me to tell me that she wasn't interested in distance? Why didn't she say it from the start rather than keeping me at a distance but never resolving the issue? Why couldn't she call and say this or leave a voicemail? Did she have any opinion about the care package?

These questions and more whorled in my mind so quickly I couldn't catch up to answer them. I was still in the middle of the simulation. I got through the first part and went in for the debrief, but the strangest sensation overtook me. I could hear all of the words the doctors in the room were saying, but I couldn't absorb them or comprehend fully. I was able to answer questions and repeat my spiel about how to discuss end of life care because it was rote, but I could hardly hear myself talk. It was as though my brain had split into an internal though cycle while my basal functions and practiced speech and expressions acted automatically for me. For the rest of the afternoon, all I could think of was what whether I should respond and, if so, how? Should I leave a voicemail or send an email? Should I contact her parents again? When should I respond?

I ended up waiting a day and put all of my thoughts down, digested them, reorganized them and replied with the following message:

Dear Mary,

I understand that you've been too busy to call or Skype. It did feel weird calling your mom but the first time it was for advice on the gift (Good &Plenty was all her) and the second was to see if you were completely off the radar or were just ignoring me. I don't think my actions were unreasonable because, like you said, I deserved better and I felt I deserved some response or acknowledgement from you, especially regarding the package.

I know you said that you didn't think long distance would work. I initially thought it was because of me, that I couldn't handle it, so when I told you that I wanted to pursue our relationship the weekend before last, it sounded like you agreed. I actually thought your suggestion that we take a break was for my sake, not because you were not willing to make it work. I even suggested that we talk during the week or message a little during the day just to catch up a little at a time, and you agreed to it, so I thought you were in it all the way as well. As I said, I'd have been happy with even just an "I miss you too, and I've been doing XYZ so I'm really busy" every so often.

I did feel enough love for your to want to maintain it at distance and I thought the feeling was mutual, but I can understand that, at a year and a half, it didn't develop that way. I don't know if you could tell that I was shocked to hear that you might stay out there if you don't end up pursuing grad school, and frankly every time I thought about that, I cried. I can't tell if I drove you away by not telling my parents about you and about myself or if you would have gone no matter what, not that it matters.

I was also really offended that you found time to put together a blog update then post it online but said you were too busy to send a message or call. That was what prompted my second voicemail this weekend. I'm offended that you would say that you're too busy when the real reason was that you were upset with me and I felt really disrespected.

I did end up telling my parents last Sunday about me, then about you and how our relationship ended. They didn't exile me or cut me off, but it was painful and there's a definite rift there now. I'm glad for it now, since I can be more honest, so I do thank you for that.

Despite all the tears, heartache, bitterness, misery, and emptiness I've felt this last month, I don't regret trying to make it work between us because I think I would have regretted not trying much more. Now at least I feel like I fully understand what we had. It wouldn't have worked when we both got busy, even when together.

I hope that, as time goes on, you'll remember the great times we've had and smile when you think of me, because I'm hoping that's how I'll feel with time. Knowing and loving you has been the best and most intoxicating experience I have ever imagined, so I thank you for that too. You've helped me change and improve myself more than anyone else ever did even if you didn't realize. I can only hope I was able to return the favor.

Take care of yourself. I do hope we cross paths again.

Adam

As of this writing, this was the last correspondence I had with her. I don't expect to hear from her again even if she does come back. I assume she watched the bridge smolder but didn't feel like extinguishing it. It was actually the best thing I could hope for. If we had stayed together for longer, it would have been something else that broke us up, maybe a different strain on the relationship or career move. At least now, I can try to make sure that there is potential for longevity in the next relationship.  

Author's Note

This a pretty raw version and is very quickly informally written. Looking a review of the writing and assessment of flow, storytelling, the wrap up, timeline and clarifications needed for people who are not familiar with the story.