Small steps

Hey blog world, I'm back! Yes, I'm still alive, I'm not dead, at least not yet !

Before I go on with the blog, I would just like to take this moment to offer a few words of thanks, yes, thank you to those that sent messages, emails, texts or left comments, your messages of support, understanding and offers of friendly ears or shoulders to cry on are greatly appreciated, truly I do thank you most sincerely. Touched, I certainly was and indeed I remain.

I don't want to sound melodramatic, make a drama out of nothing, I don't want you to be reading this and hearing the violin strings vibrating a sad refrain, I'm just being honest, it's been a hard few weeks to get to a place where I can move on. That has bee the main reason I've been absent from this blog and the internet, and the world in general. I needed to reorder my mind, my soul and my life.

You see, I truly believed that in Matt I had found the future, I honestly felt, he was 'The One' The guy that I'd been waiting for, searching for, hoping for and dreaming of since I first found out it wasn't just for peeing with! I'm not stupid, I've been in love before and whilst I do like to dream, believe in romance and fate, I still think I keep my feet firmly planted on the ground - pretty much most of the time.

When that boy, that Matthew, came into my life, he didn't just creep in, slide in to play a bit part, no, when he came in, he came into it completely, like a tornado! My life was turned on it's head, everything was different, turned upside down and back again. I'd never ever felt such emotion for one person as I did for him. I would wake in the morning and he was the first thing on my mind, the last thoughts of the day were of him, and I'm sure if I could remember my dreams, he'd have been there as well! It's not an exaggeration when I say he was, my earth, my moon, my stars, my sun, my water and my food. I would have laid down my life for him, willingly, and gladly in a matter of seconds with no complaint or procrastination, such was the pure, honest and powerful love for him!

I loved him, most sincerely and completely than I have perhaps loved anyone or anything else in my life. And thus, was planning on spending the rest of my life with him, no matter where that would take me. Previously, Id considered myself pretty settled, secure, perhaps comfortable in my life, but after Matt had entered my world in a most unexpected way, everything changed. Instead of thinking in Brighton I'd be for the rest of my life, there I was planning on shifting life and location over to the relatively flat and vast expanse that is the wilds of Southern Illinois.

To be honest, home is where the heart is, and the heart was wherever Matt was, so, him having chosen to live in the States, then that is where home would be. His six months over here in England was, to me a honeymoon period of bliss, pure happiness, delight and something I will always treasure. The almost three months of him going back Stateside was for me nothing short of torture. Then, I had three months over there, laying the foundations on which to start the building that would be our lives together. Yes, we had our difficulties, out of my comfort zone, being more needy and demanding, but I firmly believed in the long term outcome would warrant any short term troubles.

Yes, I was ready to give up everything I held dear in England to go and live in the middle of small town America, where summertime temperatures dance around the 104 Fahrenheit mark thermometer. Yet in winter ice storms regularly cause havoc, bringing down power lines for days at a time. Added to that is the knowledge is that it's in a tornado belt - as I witnessed myself back in May, but hey once you've been through one, you can get through another!

I'd even searched online for properties for sale in the local area, so I wouldn't worry about Matt having to struggle to earn money to pay rent whilst studying at university, in fact, I'd find one, been sent photos and I was one month away from signing on the dotted line and handing over the deposit - well half the purchase price (things are cheaper over there! I was looking forward to surprising Matt with this news, thinking the keys to a house would out weigh any doubts about a life together and my commitment to him and America, he thought I may have.

Our lives had entwined, our future seemed sure, yes, it was going to be hard until I had a visa and could settle in American permanently, but things were moving on. I could cope with the distance, because I thought I'd found 'The one' and hey, we had the rest of our lives to spend together, so whats a month or so now? Then there was his email. Yes that email, as spoken of in the last post here on the blog.

I rushed over to America, to Carbondale as soon as I could and as soon I could get time off work. I had to go, there was no doubt in my mind. Ok, so I could ill afford the thousand pounds it was going to cost me, but if I had not raced over, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. I was excited at being able to see him again, at being close, yet scared, worried and concerned all at the same time.

He was my dream boy, my future, my everything, so when he told me on the phone that it was over, all over, without any input from me, no chance of discussion, of appeal, of reason, no second chances, no going back, no hope. The course of my future was crushed, broken, shattered. My dreams, my future aspirations of a life with the boy I loved, more than the stars in the night skies, more than the endless waves that brush and kiss the shore of Brighton, more than the my heart knew. My dreams, desires and everything I wanted was blown away, picked up and dropped from a great height, which is exactly what my heart felt when I put down the phone on Matt and what would have been, could have been our life together.

That hotel room suddenly seemed so large, and I so small! My life is not a movie and I'm no movie star, the world went on turning, there wasn't a sad soundtrack gently creeping in, there wasn't a flashback to a happier time, nope it was just me, heart beating so hard in my chest, in a shabby hotel room, small and alone. Suddenly my mind, previously so full of thoughts and so many questions was empty, shocked into nothingness, complete nothingness.

I moved hotels, different town, yet ask me about those intervening hours now, what I did, or where I went, I couldn't say for sure. I was in a daze, a mental limbo, a dull dark and lonely place, I could talk and walk, I could answer questions and order taxi's but I couldn't think, not deep thought, not about anything important. It was as if my mind wasn't mine, that it belonged to someone else.

That new hotel room was less shabby, more spacious, cleaner, more comfortable, yet I didn't wanna be there, but then again, I didn't want to be anywhere. It sounds so funny, hearing the words in my head now and seeing them in black and white on the page that I type, but I truly was empty, my heart and head was pretty much an empty void, I was only just functioning. Leaving my cash card in the ATM, packed one of a pair of shoes, broke my phone and tried to cross an 8 lane highway with my eyes closed, was indicative of how and what state my mind was in.

I was alone, numb, lost and in a strange town in a different country. My heart experienced a dull ache, as if each beat was suddenly 50% harder to complete. I sat on the window ledge in that room, gazing out to the parking lot, without really seeing anything, I hugged my knees to my chest and slowly rocked back and forth.

If this were a story written by Anne, or a movie, then tears would fall from my eyes as a metaphoric storm would rage outside. I'd sob away, water would streak down my checks as the rain followed suit upon the windowpane outside. But, this isn't fiction, Ms Brooke didn't create this, a film or TV drama it was not, nope this was my life, my fate and my heart break, and tears, they didn't fall, they stung the back of my eyes yes, but fall they didn't, I think I was way too numb for them to create rivers down my sullen face.

I have to admit, that while I sat there in that hotel, lost, lonely, confused and empty that I wished not to be around any more. I felt utterly foolish, a guy my age feeling like this, I'm the one that's supposed to be in control of my feelings, I'm supposed to be stronger than that. If anyone was going to dump anyone, it should have been me, I should have been the one to boot him out of my life forever for being too selfish, being insensitive fool, for being too immature, for being unfaithful - which he was, but I didn't, I loved him so much that those things, cope with I could, would and did. So when he broke that love, when he ended everything, my heart, soul and very being was shattered. I felt I could not carry on, actually that's not quite right, I could carry on, but more to the point - I didn't want to!

Honestly, I was breathing, I was looking out the window and the American rain splashing down on the ground, my eyes looking, but not really seeing. My mind struggling to retain a single thought of anything other than Matt for more than a few seconds. I tried to go on with things, I even did a little shopping, walked to the mall but it held little interest for me. I sat and choked back the tears that stung the back of my eyes as I drank a cappuccino. I walked back to the hotel in the pouring rain, yet I didn't much notice, , but I couldn't think, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink all I did was gaze out of the window, drink coffee.

I had the TV on, it was the local news, yet it was little more than background noise, I sat in the window, gazing out on the human race and not feeling part of it, I wasn't sure of the passage of time, just every now and then I would make some more coffee or make use of the bathroom. Day became dusk which turned into night which gave way to dawn and then another day, could it really have been a whole 24 hours I'd been sitting there? It could and it was. My whole being ached, getting over Matt was not going to be easy.

Now, we're a few weeks on, I can't honestly say what has been the hardest part, telling people that Matt and I were over? That he dumped me, without any good reason, coming to realise that I was single again, or that all those dreams were never going to come to fruition. Everything has been difficult, many times, I've wanted it all to disappear, or perhaps I just wanted to disappear myself, to just vanish into the darkness that engulfed my heart. I withdrew from life, life in general, online life, blogging and everything. I needed to rebuild, rebuild my life, rebuild myself.

I've gone to work, gone through the motions, painted on the smile and been the funny foolish gay one by the window, quick with a joke, or an ego stroke, but inside I'm as empty as the vacuous black hole this planet will one day fall in to. I suppose this has something to do with the complete lack of contact with Matt, the way he suddenly went all cold and callouse, the relationship may have died, but he could have still kept in a little contact. I've had to grieve as if he were dead, at least that's what I've told myself. I think I've had to behave that way in order for some resemblance of normality to find it's way back in to my life and soul. I've been angry with him, hated him, felt sorry for him, I've cried for him, for the ending, for the future I will now no longer enjoy. I've tried to remember and also forget those dreams. Memories of things we'd done, places we'd been or silly things we had said or done or experienced have rapidly passed before my minds eye as does a movie in the cinema.

It's been a while, I think I'm finally on the other side, yes, it hurts a great deal, but I'm over the worst. I can now get out of bed without wishing I were dead, without my heart aching painfully at Matt's absence from my life. I can now get through a day without thinking, too much about him, of the life we could of had, that we should have had. I can now go about my daily business without the dull ache in my heart causing tears to sting the back of my eyes at every turn. I can now remember the silly things that were Matt and I without my whole body breaking down.

I've started to make little changes to my world, to my life, to face the future, that I can't look too deeply at. So, here we are, that's it, we're now at this present moment in my life. This is where life begins again, a rebirth if you will, it's another start. Another road on life's highway, I have no idea where it will lead, what will become of me, of what will happen or where this path will lead me. I know that I will never forget Matthew, I know I will never fall in love like that again, nor will I allow myself to be hurt like that ever again.

I'm proud to write for and