Stuart...Meet Loneliness. Again.

Loneliness is something I've dealt with many times in my life. After high school, I had one meaningful relationship before I came out of the closet. I came out in 1999 and since then I've had fewer relationships than the fingers on one hand. Little did I know I've been in a meaningful relationship this whole time...with loneliness. Its been my partner far long than anyone...no matter how many times I've tried to break it off.

Jason was the first man I've ever connected with on a deeper level. He got me almost more than I get myself. I got him, too. More than he wanted at times. We could read each others minds and finish each others sentences. I knew from our very first conversation online that he was different than any other man I'd chatted with.

I remember it so well. I was laying on the floor of my living room chatting away on gay.com. I was fairly new to Dallas, so I was still considered "new meat". I saw Jason's picture pop up in the chat room and was instantly attracted. I sent him an instant message completely expecting to be ignored like many others had done to me that night. He didn't though. He said hi right back. We chatted for about two hours that night. We continued to chat for about two months on the computer then on the phone before we decided it was time to meet.

It was gay pride weekend and we both realized we'd be out at the same time and place. We texted at the bar and he made his way into the room I was in. I saw him before he saw me...and I was immediately smitten. I had a big dipey smile on my face by the time he made it over to say hi. We chatted for a few minutes before he left to return to his friends. I texted him a few minutes later and asked him to dinner. The following week, we had our first date at PF Changs...my favorite restaurant.

From that moment on, I was hooked. Jason wasn't quite sure, though. It took a few more months of convincing before he would call me his boyfriend...though we were practically together from that very first date. I fell so madly in love with him. I fell harder than I've ever fallen before. But in February of '08, things had grown cold between us physically, and we both decided it was over. We remained friends, though, and quite honestly, I never stopped loving him.

That's why when he was diagnosed with that monster three months later I went head over heels again to help him. I loved him like I've never loved anything else in this life. It was my duty, my job, my honor, and my pleasure to help him...to do whatever it took to see that he was taken care of. He resisted for a while at first...just like he had at the beginning of our relationship. But, like that, he relaxed some and let me in. That's when we got back together in my mind...though it wasn't official for several more months. Several weeks before he died, he was hospitalized for pain management. The nurse one night asked us how long we'd been together. Without skipping a beat, he said two years. I knew then that he disregarded our time "apart"...just as I had.

In the nearly two years since we met, I never once felt lonely. The second I met him...the loneliness I had always felt disappeared. I suppose that only happens when you're standing in front of your soulmate...the person who makes your life complete. Jason was that man for me. He killed loneliness from my life, but the second he died loneliness was reborn. Just like a newborn baby, it grows bigger every day...nursed by emptiness & pain.

I am now a wounded soul. I'm incomplete. My other half is gone...and I'm not entirely sure if the missing half will ever be filled back in. I know no man will ever be able to replace Jason in my life. No man will ever be able to take his place in my heart. But, I'm afraid there's no man who will even want to try. Can my wounded soul ever be mended? If so, is there a man on this earth who possesses the tools to fix it?

I guess its a good sign that there is still a very small part of me that answered those questions "I hope so". Hope exists somewhere in my soul. I feel it there. I just hope I can remember to feed that sometimes...instead of the loneliness.

Until next time...
Stuart