LOVE, DANGEROUSLY
Episode VI: Out of Bloom.


In my last column I wrote about Adam, the long-distance dream guy I met on the Internet and flew to Indiana to spend time with. A few weeks is a long time, particularly without touching a person you've become accustomed to having around. Now, being able to give a first hand opinion, I can safely say it is harder to go without something after knowing what it's like to have it in your life. This was the case for my separation from Adam.

After my blissful week being in the company of someone I had lusted and dreamed about for so long, leaving that quick familiarity brought a tough emotion that was hard to shake. It was like a quick pulse of emotion that surged at full force before instantly being taken away from me before I had a chance to grasp for one last go. Never good at goodbyes, leaving was rough - I had never spilled so many tears over such a quick romance.

When my flight landed in Seattle, I had spent hours trying to sleep, but I’d only been able to cry. My friends picked me up at the airport, and I ended up staying in Seattle for a few days before heading home. I supposed at least if I couldn't spend my time with him, I had a reassurance that we were in the same country. The moments were hard, and although I spent my time well, shopping, going for meals with friends, and taking drunken trips to karaoke bars, Adam was on my mind. The day I left for Vancouver, I spoke with him for the first time since I'd left Bloomington, over Skype. Seeing him, and knowing how far away he was, felt like my heart was trying to escape my chest and fly right back. Our conversation would reflect much of what we'd talk about over the next few weeks.

Despite intense feelings for each other, we decided to 'let it be', and go back to the way things were before I'd gone on my trip. But you can never really go back to something once it's gone to a certain level, and although we've tried, the struggle has been hard. Finding a balance in knowing you feel a certain way for someone but that you can't commit and can't be together is probably the most insane feeling in the world. As I stepped off my bus into the already increasingly pre-Olympic traffic downtown, I wondered why and wished that any one of the thousands of people meandering around me could trade places with Adam. The fact that that they couldn't felt crushing and unfair.

Communication got hazy, and I found myself frustrated and confused. I would hear nothing from him for two days, and tell myself that it was time to move on, and then check my mail to find a card saying that I was his "true Valentine" and how hard it would be to spend that Hallmark holiday alone. I spent a good week being frustrated and angry and sad, before talking things out with my best friends, and also coming to a lot of realizations myself. The age old adage really is true: If you love something, you must let it be free. Although my heart yearns and pains for something it can't have, I know that we have a connection, and that will have to be enough for now. Adam and I had a very mature, albeit painful, conversation last week explaining the reality and the truths that lay between us, and how the daunting concept of distance is really the only thing holding us back. But that 'one little thing' is enough to give us a reality check and let us both pursue 'real life'. We intend to keep in touch, and obviously these feelings do not just fade away, but at this point, nothing more can be done.


//JJ Brewis
columnist


[Editor’s Note: Actually JJ, something can be done! Because here at the Courier we’re all about making people happy! That said, as you may know, the paper has set JJ up on a date with a reader, and maybe this is the exact “reality check” he needs (his words, not mine!). Please tune in next week, when he'll give you an account of this encounter.]



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