The next morning I decided to work from home. I was still in no mindset to go into the office and my face was still swollen and I looked like a bus hit me. I sat in my home office in my purple bathrobe with Law & Order on quietly in the background, a candle lit and my computer light shining towards me. I was a giant emotional mess and I could not fathom how I let this happen to myself. Not the break up itself, but the way I was handling it. I had no idea who this pitiful woman was, sobbing every so often alone sitting in her bathrobe surrounded by her cats and dogs. I had instantly become a stereotype and I never saw it coming. I felt sick to my stomach and had waves of nausea on and off all day.

I was emailing throughout the day with my girlfriends and explaining the events of the last day or so when an email popped up with a note from Dimples. I almost didn’t read it, but anyone who knows me knows I’m an instant reader/responder to all things techy. I opened it slowly, if you can even do that with an email. I read it. Then I read it again. Then I read it one more time. I couldn’t wrap my head around the words that were written on the page in black and white. I kept thinking I was being punked. Maybe he didn’t mean what he was saying. Maybe he wrote it while he was drunk? It was only 11:30 am and I was pretty sure he was at work so the likelihood of him being drunk at that hour and at work was slim to none.

The email gave a litany of things about me that if I could just change or alter then he and I could live happily ever after. Maybe he was trying to say that he needed a few things different from the way they were, maybe he was trying to say what he could and couldn’t handle/manage, maybe he was saying something completely different than I was reading. What I was reading was a point by point list of things about me; my personality, the people in my life, how I reacted to things, my ability to speak freely about certain topics, my affection, my non-affection and the list, for me, seemed to go on and on about how all these things about me needed to change and then and only then would he be able to be happy.

I was floored.

This is not the man I fell in love with. Who was I with all this time? Where’s the funny, outgoing, non threatened, secure man who I fell head over heels for? God, where the hell did he go? I wanted him back so badly. This guy, the guy that was writing these words, I didn’t know him and I certainly didn’t like anything he was saying.

The man I fell in love with loved my personality, he loved my writing, he was proud of me, he loved how I saw the world, my insight, my ability to let things go. He loved touching me, holding me, having sex with me and how I responded to his touch. He loved that I could speak my mind and communicate well both written and verbally. He loved that I was over the top sometimes and made people laugh. He was secure with my success and pushed me to go after my dreams. He loved, honored and cherished me just the way I was….or did he?