For every step I take forward, I seem to take two steps backward

This week marks the one year anniversary of my ex-girlfriend telling me she was finally "unloading her emotional baggage" and moving on. Over the year since, I've really really tried to put things in the past and get on with my life. A couple times I actually thought I had succeeded in doing so. This morning, I find myself right back to where I was a year ago. I freaking hate my life.

Time is supposed to heal my wounds. It's supposed to get easier. It's not. Every morning I wake up, and the pain feels new. It's not pain from a relationship that ended badly. The pain is from the mountains of regret from my part in the whole breakup. There were so many times when I could have saved the relationship. Neither of us wanted it to end. I should never have let it get as far as it did. My words and actions are pretty much the only reason we're not together right now.

She asked me point blank a couple months after our initial breakup, "Is this it? Do you never see us being together again."

I answered, "I just don't feel like I can trust you anymore, and right now, I can't see us being together again."

She paused then said with a quivering voice, "that's sad.... It's really sad."

"Why are you sad? You're the one that broke up with me," I responded.

The whole discussion was bullshit. I still loved her, but I was just being difficult for no reason, which is the fucking stupidest thing you can do when the girl of your dreams is basically trying to tell you she loves you and wants to work things out. The next day, I tried to take back a little of what I said by telling her I was just being a jackass the night before. I thought she understood because I had a history of doing that from time to time. I was wrong.

After that conversation, things went the same as before. We still hung out all the time. We still went out to dinner. We still went to the movies. She still called me every day. I assumed everything was OK between us. I didn't know that she used that conversation as a turning point in her life. That conversation made her believe that I was a lost cause, and she better try her best to move on.

She applied for an internship in Washington DC. She was accepted, which meant she'd have to live in Washington DC for 4 months. The night before she left, I took her out to dinner at the restaurant we had our first date. It was probably the most enjoyable dinner I ever had with her. We had our favorite dishes and ordered a great bottle of wine. We finished our meals and stayed in the restaurant for over an hour later finishing the wine. We talked, laughed, reminisced, and even held hands for a little bit. It all felt so natural as it should have after spending close to 6 years together as a couple.

That night, I wanted her more than any time in our relationship. However, I knew she'd be going away the next day, so the timing was just horrible. I dropped her off at her house and drove away.

That night, she wrote me a long email telling me that she still loved me and wished she didn't have to go to Washington. She laid it all out there for me telling me about how she wanted to move on, but couldn't. She told me how she valued our relationship more than anything and hoped that someday we'd be able to work things out.

I never responded to the email. Well, at least not right away. I actually let it sit in my inbox for 3 months before finally figuring out what I wanted to say to her. By that time, it was too late. See, she had taken the internship in Washington DC in an attempt to get away from me and her past. Right before she left, she realized that she didn't want to run away from me anymore, but she was already committed to going. She sent me that last email to see if I felt the same as her. I never responded. I broke her heart. She moved on from me forever.

Three months later, something finally clicked in my head, and I realized what I was losing. By that time it was too late. She had already started seeing other people. I hurt her too badly for her to come back to me. She committed to going in a new direction. I had thrown away the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

That's why this is just so damn hard for me to cope with. If she just didn't love me anymore, I could handle it. If we simply grew apart, I'd accept it. However, I simply cannot accept the fact that we should be together right now, but the only reason we're not is because of my own stupidity. All I had to do was tell her how I felt. After 6 years together, it shouldn't have been that hard. I don't know why I didn't. I really have no explanation. Maybe she hurt my pride when she initially broke up with me. Maybe it was out of spite. It most certainly was because I never in a million years thought she'd actually leave me for good.

Now I'm here, a year later, typing my sob story to the virtual masses because I literally don't have any other outlet. I'm trying to make sense in all of this and figure out where I should go from here, but nothing has changed since last February. I haven't seen her in over a year. She still sends me the occasional short email to say hi. We don't talk about the past anymore. We don't mention our personal lives. I don't know if she's dating anyone now. I'm afraid to ask anyone. In fact, I know it's best for me if I don't know.

She's going to be retaking the Bar exam in July (she failed it in 2 states the first time). She's taking a bar exam in another state first. If she passes that, she'll likely move to that new state to get a job there. This complicates things for me. I'd really like to follow my heart and make one last attempt to pour out my soul to her. However, she knows that she's likely to be moving away soon, and I think even if she'd like to perhaps try to start over again, she wouldn't allow herself.

The heart is just an inexplicable thing. I wish I could just choose to stop feeling this way. I don't want to be in love with her anymore. It's almost too painful to stand. However, the heart just doesn't work that way. It has a will of its own, and right now, mine is tied to her. I don't know what I'm going to do. I guess my only plan right now is to keep surviving. Against all odds, I keep a glimmer of hope that we'll find each other somehow, some way, in the future. That glimmer of hope is just about all I have left. It's the reason I keep trudging along day after day.