19 May 2003

I've just finished that book Wakana wanted me to read.

My heart broke, and I cried. A lot.

Wakana recommended I read this book because, in her opinion, it was about us, and the woman and her feelings and beliefs in the book were what Wakana felt hers were.

I've never cried so hard before.

"As much as I want you and want to be with you and part of you, I can't tear myself away from the realness of my responsibilities. If you force me, physically or mentally, to go with you, as I said earlier, I cannot fight that. I don't have the strength, given my feelings for you. In spiteof what I said about not taking the road away from you, I'd go because of my own selfish wanting of you.

"But please don't make me. Don't make me give this up, my responsibilities. I cannot do that and live with the thought of it. If I did leave now, those thoughts would turn me into something other than the woman you have come to love."

Robert Kincaid was silent. He knew what she was saying about the road and responsibilities and how the guilt could transform her. He knew she was right, in a way. Looking out the window, he fought within himself, fought to understand her feelings. She began to cry.

Then they held each other for a long time. And he whispered to her, "I have one thing to say, one thing only, I'll never say it another time, to anyone, and I ask you to remember it: In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live."

Wakana felt she was the woman in this story, and I was the man, and me reading the book would make me understand her, and why she felt she couldn't be with me even though she loved me.

I did. And my heart broke at the sadness she must be feeling, and the happiness she must have for having known me. And for how much I hurt her, and for how much I wanted to make everything right with her but was unable to.

My eyes are sore and all puffed up, and I'm afraid to look in the mirror. I'm afraid I'll hate myself.

But don't worry, I don't hate myself. I'm just terribly sad.

I decided to place a photo in here of her and I. I found one, and I just broke down again when I saw that the best one of us together was taken exactly a year ago two weeks ago. I'm not having a good time right now, but I need this. I need to go through all this, these feelings, the heartache, the sorrow and the anguish, so that I can get to the other side.

Thank you for putting up with, and being interested in, my journey of the soul.