Is it humanly possible to drop the rope?

[AntoniaB]

"The guy I knew is dead, but has this twin that is a mirror image of him, the opposite in every way but appearance who keeps showing up. There is no closure."

Oh wow, is that ever a striking way to put it, Hopper! And I'm glad my posts have helped you or articulated something you're feeling.

Gosh I feel like that would make a really great story, a mirror image twin. (wheels turning in my head, ha ha...)

Anyway I don't remember if I brought this example up on the board before, but it concerns the only person I know who can SORT of understand where I'm coming from, who is my long-term colleague and friend, my mentor at my job. She lost her husband to a massive heart attack suddenly--I mentioned her above. She was so blindsided. He'd had one apt. with a doctor for slightly high blood pressure, but this was just out of nowhere. He got up to make coffee one morning and she called down to him, didn't hear him, went downstairs and he had died. He was sitting a chair, peacefully.

Three years later, she met a man and he pursued her and she rejected him over and over. Eventually, though, they got together, and they married.

Two things: she has looked me in the eye and said "if John had lived, I'd have been with him the rest of my life. He is the man I was supposed to be with for life and I know it. My new husband is wonderful, but he will never be John."

She's also said that while she went through something awful and her life is broken down into "before" John died vs. "after", that she still (and I'm paraphrasing her) "can't imagine what it is like to have had to face what I've had to face because at least she knows there is no blame to be placed for her husband's death; it was just chance, and she has closure on it, but to know that my XH suddenly transformed into this other person and still walks the earth, that has to be brutal beyond imagining."

I think sometimes I fear that I will end up like her, that I'll never be able to see anyone else as equal to or better than my XH in terms of a relationship. I think this is why I am not dating anyone. I don't think it would be fair to make someone compete with a ghost, so to speak.

There was an innocence to the love I felt for him. I never knew a person could betray another in such a way when I met him and spent all those years with him that were good. Now that I know what can happen, I can't unlearn what I know. My life experience has taught me that ANYTHING can happen, and I don't know if I'm capable of believing in "true love" ever again.

It's almost like my belief in true love exists in the time frame of 1987-2009, and I think that's why I keep trying to write a novel of that time frame in my life--to record it for posterity as "real" because it doesn't exist anymore. It's kind of bittersweet.

I hope this all isn't depressing anyone ;-) Just trying to come to terms with some things I guess.