recognition

My mom has been prompting me to write this for over a week, an entry about the positives and the good times so that I can etch into my mind that there was a bright side to this deep sense of loss that I'm feeling.

Noah is a wonderful man.  He is a good and intuitive friend, he is an exceptionally hard working employee, he gets his affairs taken care of and he shows an obvious sense of allegiance to his family.  He is talented in countless areas--musically, with mechanics and electronics, scientifically, and in all manner of recreational sports and activities--profoundly so.  He can fix anything, or will cheerfully attempt to.  He is generous and friendly and kind to friends and strangers.  He notices details and is a brilliant problem solver.

Noah has incorporated me into his entire social world without abandon, sharing fishing and camping trips, social parties and get-togethers, sports events, relaxing at home and doing chores or various repair projects around the house.  He has involved me in his many excursions and tales afterwards.  I've been a part of the regular events in his life, and he in mine, increasingly for the last six months.

I have gotten to do a lot of amazing things I wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity to do, like re-learn how to fish, see and camp in some beautiful areas in Arizona, and learn how to confidently shoot pistols, rifles, and shotguns.  I got to work on his old Suburban with him and never felt underestimated or incapable of offering any sort of help.

Noah stood up for me when I felt like his friend was just unnecessarily antagonistic with me.  He's been honest with me about his family, his past, his job, and his relationship preferences.  He gets my sense of humor, and respects my confidence and independence.  He has set a wonderful example of a light-hearted disposition with a high tolerance for stress and a very accepting attitude of the individuality of people...he is entirely non-judgmental.

So the unfortunate side of it is that I found this man whom I really think the world of, and he's made his mind up long before I ever found him that having a girlfriend just isn't his thing.  He told me this back in November and then again sometime in January or February, and then again in March or April, that he just doesn't want a relationship.  I really thought that I was okay with leaving it at that, and that my feelings for him could just stay where they were.  But I became much more attached and he didn't.  When I asked him a couple weeks ago what his feelings for me were, he repeated that he wasn't in this relationship on a serious level and didn't see himself really wanting a long-term girlfriend.  I tried to wrap up the conversation with my continued interest in dating him casually, but trying to re-calibrate my feelings for him to something less has been an impossible struggle and he didn't attempt to reassure me with any behavior.  In fact, I read his body language as becoming more distant and platonic.  He definitely reassures me that he things I'm so cool, which is why he bent his own rules and invited me into his life for this time.

But being an exception to someone's personal rule is not for me.  He's not enthusiastic about my company any longer, and often seems like he's avoiding my company in favor of his guy friends', and I am simply not interested in being a crumb-taker.

Naturally, I'm hurting, and trying to sort out what feels like grief and loss and what feels like anger over being dismissed.  It's a damn shame, because I think he's the very best guy I've ever dated, and other than his habit of smoking and drinking beer far more than he should, I can't seem to find fault with him.  He's my kind of man, and I'm so deeply disappointed to lose him...even though I can picture a possibly platonic friendship sometime in the future.

But here's the handful of important lessons I've learned (or am starting to learn) from this experience:

1. I finally had a healthy relationship with an emotionally healthy (and mostly baggage-free) man who treated me well
2. I attracted a good great man
3. Throughout much of this relationship, I enjoyed an unbridled sense of contentment with and respect for this man
4. I'm convinced that I did not make any mistakes, and that my feelings of love were real and well-founded.  I treated him the way I should have and I maintained my own personal and social life that did not depend on him.  I do not think that I misinterpreted his affections, either, because for a long time he embraced me passionately and--I believe--sincerely
5. As part of my own personal growth, I am more able to recognize when a relationship is not providing the things I need from it, and am able to say that I can have healthier expectations from relationships and maintain healthier boundaries
6. *This one I am still trying to internalize* There are good men out there, with whom I will have incredible compatibility and chemistry, and I will absolutely find one who falls in love with me while I am also falling in love with him....

I think this last one is a vital lesson for me to learn, because for a long time I have feared that my past experiences permanently warped my ability to be loved by someone else.  I can look at my experience with Noah as a practice round, where I got pretty good at maneuvering a relationship.  The universe is right on schedule, remember?  This is a key event in my timeline.

It was not a mistake that I loved him.  He is a good man to love.  Maybe some day his perspective of being attached and having responsibility to a partner will change, and he'll genuinely want a relationship to last.  It will likely not be me, but I hope he's learned a lot by being with me these last many months.  This is the longest romance I've had in years, the healthiest I've had in my life.

I can only see this experience as a gift, and for that I am grateful.