So Far Away

Ahhh my angel. I grieve deeply for the trials you have encountered and continue to encounter. I wish there were some magic thing I could say that would make it all better for you. I can tell you, in many ways I understand what you have experienced. Alcohol is another form of self-medication and because of my husbands attempts on his life, he too is in constant pain. So in some ways I do know your experience and understand how hard it is. You are not as hard as I am. I care for my husband when he is in a drunken stupor as best as I can but when he sobers up, I generally let him have it. I can only imagine how loving and kind you must be and I cannot help but feel this woman is very fortunate to have you but like most people who suffer in the way she does, it is very doubtful she recognizes it. For that I am sorry. I know she couldn't have a more loving or dedicated person by her side than you. I so wish I could take it away. I so wish your road had not been marred by such ugliness. As for caring for her after her accident, and for your precious mother, I too understand that. I was a CNA and I first cared for patients on the Cardiac Unit at Hendricks Hospital. My great love though was working for Abilene Convalescent. I worked on a closed, all male unit. The only residents I cared for were Psych patients or Alzheimer's patients. I adored them, absolutely, though there are stories I will one day share that may make you question why I would. When Nathan crashed the car, I went to Lubbock where he was careflighted. I was in such a state of panic I never stopped to think about my schedule and as a result I was fired for being a no-call, no show. They really didn't care what had happened though many of the nurses I worked under were FURIOUS. I was, according to them, the best thing that ever happened to those residents. The change in them was noticeable when I was there. Even the one man whom everyone hated to work with was like a little puppy dog following me around, somehow I found a way in with them all and they knew I loved them...that made all the difference. It was the hardest job I ever had but the most rewarding ever. It is the only thing I have ever done that made me feel like I was actually making a difference. Anyway, this isn't about me...This is about how truly remarkable YOU are to have done and endured all you have, yet you still love this woman. It makes me proud of you...more so than I have always been. You have such a big heart. So kind, so giving, so loving. This story you have told me proves that! You should be proud of yourself! I hope you are. Even when it falls apart again, you should have no regrets. You have given everything to this woman, you have even denied yourself an opportunity at happiness right now because of your commitment and love for her. Be proud of that. I am. It does answer a great many of my questions and you need never say more about it. As I said, this will remain safely locked in my heart. I don't know what you could possibly tell me about you that will ever change anything I think about you but since I want to know about your life all these years we have been apart I look forward to your sharing anything you want to with me.
I have a great deal I could also share with you and I will as I let down some of the walls I keep around myself at all times. Very few people see the me behind the mask. You will be and are one of the very few. It will just take me time. It is hard for me, to put myself out there and I am sure you have noticed I very regularly second guess myself. When it comes to you, I am torn so many ways because I love you so much and have for so long. It is like I am afraid if I blink you will disappear or worse yet, you won't love me anymore. So many people have screwed me over in so many ugly ways. But the worst person still lives in this house. He has made me into a creature that doubts everything, even myself. I have these tapes that he has recorded over and over in my head that tell me I am not good enough, that I am fat, and ugly, and a bitch, and worthless. I know they aren't true, I know they were forms of manipulation to make me stay...but still, I hear them and I fear them. Worse than that, I fear you will look at me, know me and feel them. It is a battle for me to try to convince myself that all his crap is wrong. That I am not some horrible excuse for a human being. I have lived in the dark for so long that the light is almost frightening. It is hard to believe something good can be in my life and not disappear or even worse not completely fail me. Does that make sense? I trust you to a degree I cannot trust others because you are you...but it will take time for my walls to come down completely. It will take time for me to cease being afraid. I will probably need to hear more often than some that I am valued, that I don't have to apologize for everything. I do that often...in case you didn't notice already. I guess I am fairly messed up now and getting that way didn't happen overnight. So changing these negative tapes and thoughts and fears won't happen overnight. I am scared to death I will lose you. I can tell you that and that is probably why I need you to affirm it so often...to tell me you want me to stay, to tell me I matter, to tell me you need me too. I hold onto it. It makes its way through the darkness and the more it comes the less I am unsure of the light. Oh I know this must all seem like gibberish to you. I just don't know how else to say it. I guess I am just saying, we all have our own forms of darkness. I don't know yet what yours have been though I know you will share them with me in time. And I hope you know that when you do, I will love you all the same.
Will write more tonight if I can. Was a long day. I still have a bad sore throat and don't feel well. I don't know how long I will be up tonight. But I will be right here tomorrow. I so hate it that you will be gone for so long...and I only thought the weekends were long without you...LOL but I hope you have a wonderful vacation. I hope you will get to smile and smile often. I hope you will know I love you and every moment you are away, you are in my thoughts and in my heart.
BTW, you are such a light in the darkness. I know we have both endured so much. Your endurance and commitment is inspiring, and beautiful despite how very tragic it is. You are such a wonderful man, so incredible, so strong. I yearn to know all there is to know about you...oh, but I thank you for sharing all you have with me. I just cannot ever express to you how much you mean to me. I look at it this way, there is a tremendous love between us and it has always existed and will always exist. Though we must be apart, we share that love and are there to be a light in the darkness for the other which at times may be the one thing that gets us through. What a gift we have in one another. I am blessed by you. sooooo much more than you will ever know!
I'd like now to finish where I left off last night so abruptly...
Although it is very hard for me to trust or to feel safe, you are slowly changing that. I do trust you as I said, simply because you are Glenn. You are without question the only person that could stroll into my life that I would not believe had an ulterior motive for doing so. That being said, the lives we had lived separately left something to be desired I would say, there has been a desert in our living, a vast wasteland. I wouldn't say everything has been bad, but it has left us both parched, dried up, somehow as barren as the desert itself. But I think we bring new life to each other. I mean, tell me if I am wrong here please, (It is that nagging insecurity in me, the thing that always makes me second guess myself...that brings me to make that statement) but I feel my life, though painful for the want of you, is fuller, richer, more beautiful with you in it and I believe you feel the same way. I have always loved you. You spoke of falling for me the moment you first saw me and you know, I cannot express to you how truly that was the same for me. I will never forget that moment, when I saw you standing there...you were (and are) the most beautiful person I had ever seen...there was something about you...it spoke to me. It still speaks to me and I am beginning to believe very strongly in the fact that you speak to me in a voice only I can hear, or else there would not remain such a very strong connection between us. If someone else could hear it...I honestly think our lives would have turned out very differently and we wouldn't be standing here today...together! The thing is some things are meant to be...I always believed we were. The proof of that is staring us right in the face now. All the years that have passed us by, all the changes in us as we moved from youngster to adult, all the things we have experienced there is so much that could have made this very different but look at the one thing that has remained through it all...you and me. You are the man my soul married years ago. Soul to soul...and it has remained committed to you...that must be why nothing else ever fit. How could it, how could I ever fit anywhere else when my soul was connected to and committed to you? The only thing that I love more than loving you all these years is that I am growing to love you more and more each day as I learn about the man you have become. That amazes me. I loved you in a young girls way which is why of course I screwed everything up between us...mostly it was fear...one day I will explain that very irrational fear to you and maybe you will understand why I ran at least a little. I love you still but I am older now, and that is a different kind of love altogether and it is a growing love. I am amazed by you and proud of you. I feel so many things for you. The fact that it has lasted since the day I first saw you is just the icing on the cake, the proof in the pudding so to speak. I know very truly inside the deepest part of me that I will love you for all my life. I have always known that. You are a part of me and you always have been. I think I have struggled partly because I wasn't sure and because of my own fucked up head and partly because I was afraid like I tried very unsuccessfully to tell you earlier tonight. I cannot bear the thought of losing you and I tell you quite truthfully, I am not at all prepared to let you go. Stay out of your day to day life, yes, I must and will...but to be without you...NO! I cannot. Not now! Too much has happened to turn back. I can't and won't. I will never hide my love or my face from you again. If you ever have the chance to look in my eyes, though we are apart, you will see all those things I feel...and I will see in yours all those things you feel. I am not sure either of us will be able to turn away or deny those feelings or that awareness once it is seen. Do you have the strength to turn away from me? I don't think you do any more than I. So, here we are separated only by a screen because we cannot be close and do what we must...that would be the worst kind of torture. For you and for me. More than anything I want to see you. I want to see you so badly it eats me alive. I want to sit with you anywhere, have lunch, have a beer I don't care...but I know as well as you do, that this fire between us is a raging inferno and it would consume us both to be so close and know we have to walk away. I wouldn't mind it, being consumed by you...if it wouldn't break your heart to be so consumed by me. So I must force myself to stay away from you although there is not one part of me that wants to. Even though that is the last thing in this world I want to do...but for the sake of a heart I cherish above all others, YOURS, I do it. There have been times all I wanted to do was go to you, go to you and have you look at me, see me...have you look into my heart and soul...because I so badly want you in my life. But there is not room for me in your life yet and I know I will be a much happier woman when there is, it makes waiting worthwhile despite how hard it is. Is it as hard for you as it is for me? I think somehow it must be in some ways, to want something so much and know it is right there in front of you but your hands are tied and you cannot reach for it until they are free. I will not wish for your ties to be broken for I wish you no pain...but I cannot help but to wish it was I that held you so! Goodnight Love
♥Nan