Back To The Future
To my younger self on the morning of June 16th 1974,
Your world is about to be turned upside down. Later this afternoon, Sean the man of your dreams, who you have spent the last few blissfully happy months with, is going to call on you and he will end your relationship. He will tell you that he thinks it is for the best, now that you've been accepted at the teacher's training college in Bristol and he is starting his teaching career at the opposite side of the country in Norwich. He thinks it will be too difficult to continue a long distance relationship.
What he won't tell you is, that he still loves you, but can't cope with the thought of your relationship ending in the same way as that of his first love, who went away to college and despite swearing her undying love to him, met someone else within weeks. He was devastated and can't bear the thought of the same thing happening again. You will wonder if he is finishing with you because he still loves her and when you ask him, he will mutely nod because it is easier to give you that impression.
Since meeting him again after 30 years of being apart, I now know that wasn't true! Despite what he is telling you, he loves you and when he walks away this afternoon he will wonder if he is making the biggest mistake of his life. So, don't passively accept his walking out of your life like I did. Tell him you love him, can't live without him and convince him that it doesn't have to end; that your relationship can work.
The memory of what happened on that day has remained with me. I thought my life had come to an end when Sean left me. When he searched me out and found me so many years later and told me what his feelings really had been back then, I wish I'd known and behaved differently. That's why I want you to have the chance I never had. It would have saved so much heartache. Not just the feeling of utter devastation after he left, (I’ve never experienced the heart wrenching sobs robbing me of breath since,) but the years of loneliness and unhappiness and a failed marriage for each of us.
Meeting again and regaining the love we lost has recaptured the golden moments of the time we had together when we first met; dreamy afternoons punting on the river and stolen moments in his student room under the eaves experiencing the first delights of love ~ special times which have made you so happy. How much better it would have been if we could have shared more of our lives together.
Your older self urges you to grab the chance of happiness for both of you.