Today is my birthday!!!

"Do whatever it takes to be happy, for it is hard to know what life will bring you." Wednesday, February 04, 2004 4:38 PM Bethany called and left me a message today at work. She sang me happy birthday. I smiled because someone in this world took a few moments out of their life to think of me, and let me know they were thinking of me. I can only hope you think of me from time to time also. You are on my mind constantly. I know that may not be a healthy thing, but what can I do? I love you and I miss you, I want so badly to work this out, I can't understand how you of all people can't feel what we had, how your feelings for me can just be silenced, shut away, gone? I didn't marry you for just "awhile" or a "few years", I married you for a lifetime. Have you been burned so bad by others that you could not/can not see that? What does it take for you to see what we had was something remarkable? That the way we loved each other is not something to just walk away from? I don't know, I am not willing to give up on you or us, it will take alot more than what has happened so far. Today's quote on "Today in History" is "No human creature can give orders to love". How appropiate for today, my birthday, when I am so far from the one that I love, who I want to love me again as you once did. I have no interest in you being "ordered" to love me. It has to come as easily as breathing air, as I stated in a previous entry. That does not mean a relationship does not take work, but when you love a person like that, it makes a person want to put in the work that the relationship requires for success. Maybe that is the problem, your love for me is not strong enough for you to want to put forth the effort needed to make the relationship succeed. I don't know. I will keep hoping. I ask myself from time to time, "Why do I try?" I mean, you said what you said, you released us from this relationship, so why try? And then, a moment after asking the question, I think about how you were when I would pick you up from work, or when we would meet at SouperSalad after work and eat together. I would remember what if felt like to have dinner waiting on you, or when we would spend a weekend at your mom's house. I could feel the joy I had when we would go somewhere together for the day. I could feel your arms around me telling me how much you love me or how I felt waking up beside you. This is why I keep trying, why I don't just give in and give up. Because you are worth me not giving up, not giving up believing in you and me and us. I was reading Dear Prudence tonight, and she finished up a response to someone by saying “When people do not exactly know what the words mean, they are, well, meaningless”. She was talking about the words “I Love You”. I know how strong my feelings for you have always been, but it was not until I left and have spent this time away that I have truly realized what the words mean. It is about unconditional love, about forgiveness, about accepting you exactly as you are. I guess it might not be the same for you, maybe you cannot, will not accept me just as I was, but I have chosen self-improvement, not in a hope to get you back, but because I lost you, and it has made me want to be all that I can be. I don’t know about a person changing, but I do believe that a person can learn new ways of doing things. I love you enough to let you go, to just be what I can be, and maybe someday you will want what I have to offer once again. The things you love about me have not left. I know what the words mean, but I cannot explain it completely in words.