It is the very essence of love to want the best for your loved one, even when that best is no longer you.

Have no idea where the line above originates from; it was part of a readers' comments section to an article in the New York Times. The article was about how some Alzheimer's sufferers can forget their spouses and family to the point that some patients start up relationships with other patients (albeit in limited capacity due to the circumstances of the illness.)

The line has got double meaning for me.

I never said I loved Mr. W. I wasn't going to and it wasn't even an option. His problems prevented me from ever seriously entertaining any chance of a serious relationship ever getting off the ground. BUT that's not to say that I wasn't happy to see him, to be with him, that I allowed myself the occasional flicker of hope that things could change for the better. I told him that I liked him, tried to express the relief from loneliness that was worth everything. We seemed to get along well and all. Having him just cut me off has been so hurtful. I feel so diminished because the rejection is so frustrating and final. I can feel stirrings of bitterness at how it turned out; more than 2 months and I'm still suffering. I have the notion to even return that giftcard he gave me last year. I never used it: there's really nothing that I need to buy using his money, whatever thing I bought would remind me more of him. In fact, I've still the original doubts that he even bought it for ME so who wants a secondhand gift? It's not the milestone "first gift from a guy that likes me" item I would want to keep now anyways.

Yet I do still care enough to want him to get an OCD book that I picked up for him and to forward him health insurance information and other paperwork that I had researched online for him. Even if there's the chance that I'm completely wrong and all his symptoms are really just drug problems, I'd do it because there's the chance I am right. It could potentially help him and there was always that desire in me to help, to fix him (even if I knew that "fixing" could mean that I'd done it for someone else's benefit, i.e. some unknown woman whom he could potentially take up with.) I miss him, I miss talking with him, even with his stupid banter that could make no sense at times!

I could send it all by mail, but I don't have the apartment information, if any, and I'm OCD enough myself to not want the package to get lost in the mail. It's tempting to think that I could go in person to the address I found (and held in reserve months ago.) Yes, I have his address: the Internet has fully enabled me to be a low-level online stalker. Sending it could just cement any idea he may have that I am some kind of pest, and I don't think I could bear to experience any kind of negative reception on his part. Ranging from verbal to body language to potentially outright abuse. Still, I had warned him that I wasn't stupid, at least about some things...

I could also justify it with my battered faith in Karma to make things balance out in the world. It might help me to let go.

The other meaning to the quotation above is that it just occurred to me that today is the three year anniversary of my encounter with Mr. P. Three years! I completely forgot it! I'm absolutely unaffected by thinking of it - I can clearly recall the year and a half of utter misery that ensued from that terrible realization how foolish I'd been to even consider Mr. P. as a person to know. In fact, the only thing I felt was, huh, how ironically stupid it is to be in virtually the same position today as I was then. Guess I didn't learn a lesson. It hurts less, but it's also a deeper wound.

hehheh...just about the only thinking I ever do about Mr. P. these days is to sometimes entertain idle thoughts of sending him "mystery gifts from NY" that would make him sweat. Nothing crazy, just stupid tourist tchotchkes showing up in his mail that would rattle him. That or I think of sending him a postcard that calls him an old fart when his birthday rolls around.

So my wishing for the past pain to fade really did just come true with time. Or I can chalk it up to incipent Alzheimers - worry if I can't find my keys now!