I was talking to Jamie, a... well.. friend I guess last night. I had the re-emergence of an emotion that I am not accustomed to: Thank God things never worked out between she and I.

I used to have very strong feelings for her. Very strong. And enduring. She was thirteen and I was sixteen when we first met. Throughout the years we've footed this dance of moving around each other, always available when the other wasn't. Something always happening to keep it from happening. Sometimes it was her (relationship, health problems), sometimes it was me (relationship, emotional unavailability). There were a couple times when things were all coming together and then something would happen at the last concievable minute.

In February, after months of talking her through a relationship that had collapsed, I went up there to talk about it. While up there I met a friend of a friend of hers that I would later date instead. That was probably the apex and we'll probably never be that close again.

Whew.

None of this is to say that I dislike her or even that I don't care for her a great deal. I do. That's part of the problem. I would have gone to Hell and back for her... and she would have taken me there.

We talk almost on a daily basis about various things. Well, she mostly talks and I mostly listen. I hear all about the dramatic house that she lives in with six other college students. It almost feels like I'm watching WWF wrestling. This week so-and-so is the good guy and this-other-person is the bad one. Then this-other-person turns into a face and so-and-so into a heal. Alliances are set and broken again as problems are confronted day by day. Highs, lows, and I'm there for it all. I'm not there like I used to be. I used to try to talk her through the problems and deal with them one at a time, but I got worn out on doing that. She (and her roommates, for that matter) were always more interested in being right than in getting along.

I've never lost sight of what I saw in her. I still see it. She's extremely ambitious, smart, and loyal. She's going to be rich some day and will have earned every penny. We also have a lot in common. We're both right-leaning, headstrong, private, INTJs, and know what INTJ means. It's just not enough anymore, I guess. I can see now that we can never make it and, as importantly, that we never would have even if we had gotten together at our apex. We would have tried, though. We probably would have never given up trying. It's almost scary to think about. It's like the impending train collision was hidden from me all of these years and then suddenly the spell was broken and now it's all too apparent.

I'd like to think I knew it all along in the back of my mind. That's why it never worked out... because we both knew. I remember at one point when she was in a collapsing relationship, there was someone else waiting on the sidelines, too. I remember hoping that if we ever both pursued her at the same time that the other guy would win. It was a strange thought at the time, but it seems to make a lot more sense now.

No matter what we have in common and all the things I admire in her, we have irreparably different philosphies. Someday, I want to start a family and be happy. I want my kids to be happy. I want my wife to be happy.

I don't know that she's ever been really happy a day in her life.

Despite my delusions to the contrary, I never would have been able to change that. Thankfully, I didn't have to find out the hard way.