26th October 1998
I've just spent the last hour reading through your site (including diary, great idea & I'll read this often). Things have certainly improved with your site, keep up the good work. Can't believe how much you've changed over the last 2 years, & now there is only a faint glimmer of my former sweetheart (i.e. the need for love & companionship; but you gave that all away. Guess sometimes you don't know what you had until you don't have it anymore). It's good to know you're happy & I wish you well. Love SOBA
Something about this moved me, and more than just a little. But I don't know why… Soba knows me better than anyone else, and I have to presume that therefore this is a true assessment. Have I really changed that much, yes I guess so. I somehow get the feeling that my maturing was somehow suspended for a while, when I was at Hawkesbury. It was like Never-Never land. Nothing changed particularly while I was there. It seems that it's only while I have been here in Canberra that my life has really become so much more…
Or maybe what rocks me is the thought that I lost Soba, maybe only now will I finally realise… there is something about the word sweetheart… I don't think anyone has ever used that in reference to me ever before. Can I ever expect anyone to use it in reference to me ever again?
I did give it all away… that is something I deeply regret. I was not mature enough to realise what I had, and now Paradise has been lost.
I think Soba is wrong in one sense, I still long for love and companionship, but I feel hopeless, there is no-one even remotely interested or interesting, and even if there was, would I subject them to the pain and endurance of knowing and trying to love me? There is no doubt that I can love intensely, but whether someone could love me is altogether another matter.
"a faint glimmer…" is that all? I think I know what she means, but it seems to say that I have faded away somehow. In another way of thinking, it could be more like shedding an old set of clothes and stepping forth in something different. I think if she were here now and could fully understand how and why I have changed the way I have, I do not think she would love me any differently than the way it used to be. These words hurt, I feel a melancholy cloud descending upon me. The thick air of nostalgia grips at my chest and an aching desire for what might have been sweeps through me…
I feel lower than a worm, for my own selfish ends I broke the trust and love which took three years to build. The curse of a broken heart I carry, and the knowledge that I broke the innocent heart of another is sufficient punishment to haunt me for many long years. I will not forget what happened in the past, it is my following conscience. Perhaps because I cannot forget the past, I will not be able to live for the future.
Let the punishment fit the crime… to break a heart is to suffer one ten times over again…