After Europe and Finally Letting Go

 After Europe and Finally Letting Go

Heidi and me - about to go river rafting down the American River

Heidi and I had decided to move forward now that she was back from her big trip to Europe. Heidi returned to work at the Recreation Center for the Handicapped (The Rec Center). While Heidi was gone, I had found a full time position down in Silicon Valley at a start-up company called Consilium. Everything was going along pretty much like it was before. We were living in an apartment on the corner of 28^th Avenue and Cabrillo in San Francisco, just one block from Golden Gate Park. Like all my IT jobs, Consilium was located down the peninsula. They were in Santa Clara County, about a 40 minute or so commute away. It was not unusual for me to work long hours. I rarely got home before 6:00 where as Heidi got off at 4:00 and was home about 15 minutes after that. Given that I wouldn't be home for a couple of hours, Heidi started stopping by her mother's, who lived close to The Rec Center, where she usually visited with Maureen who still lived next door. It became common for Heidi to eat dinner with Maureen or her Mom. As a result I often got home first often getting dinner for just myself. Soon I started going out on some week nights down the peninsula with either my brother, who lived in Sunnyvale, or worker friends who lived in the area. On those nights I grabbed dinner down there. So I'd be down the peninsula and Heidi would be hanging out with friends up in the city. Initially Fridays I'd go straight home in order to go out with Heidi. Like most of us, when Friday evening came around, I was ready to unwind from the week. Heidi was ready to do the same, but almost 2 hours earlier before I would be home. Waiting around was not fun and so Heidi would go out with friends. As a result, when I got home there was no Heidi to hang out with and I didn't even know where she was. I didn't have an answering machine and this was before cell phones Not wanting to be stuck at home on Friday evening all by myself, I began going to my brother's place instead of heading right back to the city and we developed a pattern of going out separately on Friday evenings as well. This was a little different than the way things were before the Europe trip, although we still were spending our Saturdays and Sundays together.

Through the Fall I was so glad to have Heidi back that everything seemed 100% back to normal. The holidays came and we went to the Consilium Company party. We spent Christmas day at Jenny's. The 49ers made the playoffs. For the NFL playoff game (NY Giants vs. SF 49ers) we invited friends over and Heidi convinced me to be the token Giants fan (even though I liked the 49ers) so everyone would have someone to ride during the game. That was a typical thing we'd do. I tried to be as obnoxious as possible and Heidi tried to act aggravated with me. It was fun and it was our little secret. In January we watched the Super Bowl and then hit the streets to party with the rest of the city, going over to the Clement Street bars. The streets were full with everyone celebrating.

Heidi and me on Halloween

After the Super Bowl I began to notice that things had actually changed a little. We were moving forward but something was different even though I hadn't seen it. We still did lots of things together. We went to baseball games, out with friends, river rafting, Frisbee in the park, went to music venues and comedy clubs. We still got along famously. I don't remember having any arguments. We still joked around with each other all the time. We were best friends. But, in-spite of all that, somehow things were different. Looking back, I do feel we lost something when we stopped doing things together after work, particularly on Fridays. I think I was a little too willing to seek alternative Friday evening plans. We lost something on the romantic side of the relationship and I think a good part of this was my fault. While it wasn't intentional, I had backed off some. I don't think I ever recovered from thinking our relationship was over. I also realized later that I was still harboring feelings of disappointment about being completely excluded in the Europe trip.

We got out of town a few times. The trip I particularly remember was one where we went away together for a few days renting a cabin on the South Fork of the Eel River near Leggett that my friend Mark had told me about. We had a nice time but it was there that it became clear something was different. We weren't quite the same. The change was kind of masked by our close friendship. The romantic side of our relationship was clearly having issues and during that trip it became obvious. Our relationship was different and I was struggling with it. Clearly something needed to change. We both knew it but I was kind of in denial. Heidi made more of an effort to address it than I did. Finally Heidi and I talked. After a bit Heidi said she thought it was time for her to move out. Our relationship had changed.

The writing was on the wall and Heidi found a new place and moved out. I felt it was mostly due to me not being the same. It was difficult because I didn't just lose a girlfriend, I lost a best friend. Heidi was one of the best friends I ever had. I still fondly recall all the joking around and laughing we did. I miss that friendship. I miss the banter and I miss Heidi's perspective on life. She had a light spirit never taking herself too seriously

The Fridays along with never addressing or talking about my disappointment of being excluded from the trip and maybe more significantly, those two months of no communication where I mentally prepared myself to move on, changed things. I think I never fully recovered from that but if I am totally honest with myself I still had that other problem. I still had not completely let go of Donna. I think probably that was more the underlying problem than anything else. At some level I was still holding back because I still thought of Donna as my one true love. Heidi was my best friend and I loved her, but she wasn't my true love, at least, not like Donna was. I started to wonder if I was ever going to let myself move on?

Not too long after Heidi and I split I was attending a friend's wedding. I think it was Rita and Dan's but it might have been another couple from that group of friends. I thought Dan and Rita had a great relationship. I remember dancing with Rita and telling her what a great relationship I thought she and Dan had. After I said it I realized how much I wanted that again and I told Rita that. It was in that moment that I finally allowed myself to move on from Donna, that it was OK to let Donna go. That doing so did not diminish or in any way invalidate that relationship. It'd been 15 years since Donna and I split and it took every one of them for me to fully move on, get free, and allow myself to move forward. Thank you Dan and Rita.