If I ask you nicely, will you please stop occupying my mind? Please? I know you don't mean to be there. In fact, you don't even KNOW that you're there, but you are, and you shouldn't be.

I am so happily married. You are married too, although from the way you talked about it, I'm not sure how happy you are. I have no voids in my life to fill, I am not lonely, I am not lacking at all in friendships or love or companionship. So then why, WHY do I feel this need to talk to you? Why can't I just let you go? It was easy enough for me to push you away all those years ago when I was just a confused kid, not yet ready for the kind of relationship you wanted to have. Yeah, I know we had everything in common, and nothing to argue about. I know we couldn't stand to let one night go by without talking on the phone for hours. But then I ruined everything, by being a coward. I didn't want to ruin our friendship by making it a romance, because at that point in my life, I felt like all romances ended, and never nicely. I honestly didn't want that to happen. You meant too much to me for that, but of course, by trying to save our friendship, I lost you forever.

When I called you in 1992, I just had to know how you were doing. It had been, what, over a year since we had talked by then? And it was so nice to hear your voice. We laughed like old times, and it was as if we had never been apart. If your girlfriend had not been so upset that I called, would we have stayed in touch better afterward? My heart says yes, but my brain thinks I'm just trying to make myself feel better. When you never called me again, I told myself it was because I had moved and you didn't know where to find me. But you could have found me, if you wanted to. I wasn't trying to steal you away from Susan, I didn't want anything at all from you really, except some of your time because I missed you so damn much. But I didn't want to cause conflict between you two either, so I decided not to call you again. I decided to let you call me next time. We were old friends, and we had an undeniable bond. I thought you would call eventually.

And I waited, for 7 long years. I wondered about you, checked cars in traffic for your face, looked for you in the malls, at restaurants, at gas stations. I had no idea where you lived, so I figured I could run into somewhere strange at any time. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't an obsessed freak or anything. I moved on as scheduled with my life, got married, etc. When I'm with my husband I don't really think about you at all. But when I'm alone with my thoughts, that's when you visit me. That's when I feel like I need to talk to you.

So, 6 months ago, I tracked you down. It wasn't easy, since your number is unlisted, but I called your family and finally found you. I was so scared to call you. So scared that you had forgotten me. Scared that I was not as special to you anymore as you were to me. I had your number for a week before I finally got enough courage to dial it. And when we finally talked, for 3 hours, it was wonderful. It was just as I knew it would be. Our lives had so many parallels that I was amazed, and reassured that we really were as alike as I had remembered. 7 years can skew perspectives, and I had begun to wonder if the friendship I remembered so fondly was really as strong as I had wanted it to be. So, we talked, got caught up about marriage, and jobs and life and common friends. We exchanged addresses, said we would keep in touch, etc. And we sounded like we really meant it, which made me so happy. But now, 6 months later, I realize that I was the only one who meant it. I emailed you twice, with no response, even when I told you that Tony had passed away.

I tried to convince myself that talking to you then was enough for me. I knew you were fine, I knew where you were, I knew you didn't need me at all. And I was happy about all of that, honestly I was. But, it wasn't long before I started to think of you again. I wanted to talk to you more often, but I could never pinpoint why it was so important to me. What is it I am looking for that I think I will find by staying in touch with you? Trouble is what I will find, with my husband and your wife, if I don't just forget about you and hold the memories of you close in my heart instead.

I have tried and tried to figure out what I want from you. I put myself in different scenarios with you to see if they would make me happy. Still, I just don't know. I think I just love you, so much, and always will, but that's not the same as being IN LOVE with you. I think I want your companionship, but I know I can't have it, so maybe that makes me want it even more? I think maybe sometimes you seem like the one that I let get away, but that can't be it, because my husband is my soul-mate. Maybe I just want something to want, something to fantasize about, since everything else in my life is so much the way that I want it to be. Maybe I am too happy and am trying to find a way to make myself unhappy. But why would I do that?

Who knows what it is in my head that makes me need to keep you there, but I wish I could make you leave. So please, go away. Leave my head and my heart. Leave me with the good memories of what we had, and not with a longing for more of it. We have changed, our lives have changed, and we don't need each other anymore. So I need to be free of you, I need to free myself of you. And I need your help, because I can't free myself alone. I need you to tell me goodbye, forever.

Waiting for Goodbye,

Lisa