Kristin… That is a good question. With many answers.

First she was the girl I could never date in high school. Really out of my league. I admired her many talents. Plus I was wildly attracted to her. So I felt lucky I had found someone so compatible. We had so much in common. And she believed in me and was in love with my potential.

She was 14 years younger and we fit together well. She made me forget I was much older than her. I felt I was her age.

She knew how to live in the present. Too much I think because she makes no plans for the future and has zero nostalgia for the past.

I’d go back in a second and try again if she asked me. I’d try to do a beter job. I learned a lot in my nine years of living single.

I loved going out together. An afternoon pushing a shopping cart through the grocery store was blissful. She taught me how to travel internationally. She introduced me to new music and new places. She taught me, too late I am afraid, to say “yes” to life.

While I never realized it at the time, statements like “How would you like to celebrate your birthday in Cuba? were not actually questions. It took me years after she left to realize that was a statement not a question.

If we would have communicated better she would have said “I’m going to Cuba. Here are my flights. I’d love to have you join me.” See, not a question because I always put up roadblocks to her questions. So answered too often in the negative. “Americans can’t go to Cuba. It isn’t possible” Not only was it possible she had already figured out how to do it.

Ultimately I felt loved at first. I used to ask her what it was she loved about me. Her answer was I made her feel safe. Anything else I asked. She said no. I could have written a long list.

We didn’t know about the 5 love languages and which two each of us used to communicate and needed to feel truly loved.

I didn’t understand our individual yet sinilar childhood trauma. We were both unwanted only children raised by a single mother. She became a little narcissistic and I tended toward co-dependency.

But when I made a horrendously stupid business decision it led to having to sell the business in the middle of the recession. She lost a lot of respect for me at that point.

I said and did some very hurtful things because I was angry and scared.

But there are no instant replays in relationships. I mean nothing to her. She has a new boyfriend and a very successful life. I am just someone she used to know.

She predicted many things that came to be. One of her last predictions was that I would die alone.

After nine years with no romance and no partner, I am convinced that is exactly what will come to pass.

I am a better more humble and grateful human being after losing everything that was dear to me but the cost of my education was a heavy price to pay.