Sunday morning, I was checking my email, and had an offline message from yahoo messenger. It was from someone I never thought I’d hear from again. It was from a man who broke my heart in such a cruel way. He was the first one I’d dated after my divorce. I fell for him hard and fast. I felt more compatible and attracted to him than anyone I’d ever met (at the time). We’d shared the depths of our hearts to each other. He’d spent time with my family, and Rosie adored him. I thought we were in love, and we started making plans for the future.

And one day…it was over. The email he sent said he never wanted to talk to me again. He didn’t respond to my emails. He didn’t have a cell phone. He moved out of his student apartment, and his roommates told me they were forbidden to give his new number.

A few weeks later, I tried emailing him again, asking if we could get together to talk. I needed to understand why he abandoned me so suddenly. He responded with “coming back to you would be like coming back into a nightmare.”

I was devastated. I was already emotional and vulnerable and had hardly started down the road to healing from my divorce, but all I could think about was him. I didn’t understand why things went wrong, when I had no inkling that he felt any differently than I did for him. I had never been more heartbroken from a breakup. *

(*Heartbreak from a divorce is a much different feeling. It’s more of a feeling of your family ripped apart and identity as a wife stripped away. Maybe I’ll blog about that one day)

So flash forward 5 years. I get a short apologetic message, saying he’s glad that I’ve found someone whose made me happy. And it’s true…I have a husband who adores me, and I’m very very happy with him. But hearing from Tim opened up a deep Pandora’s box of emotion that was buried long ago. From a current perspective, he’s not the person I could have seen myself with now. I don’t have any pictures of him, but I still remember clearly his face and features. I sent him back an email, but of course, he didn’t respond.

I wonder if the emotional rollercoaster his message put me on this week would have been better than never hearing from him at all.

A few weeks ago I was reconnected to a bunch of my Balmoral friends’ blogs through Lia. Today I was thinking a lot about the three and a half years I lived on Archmore Court. My ex-husband Steve and I excitedly bought our first home, naively hoping that a new home may smooth over our marital problems. It was only a few blocks from work, was in our meager price range, had so much more space than the bungalow we were renting in Sugarhouse. Our ward was comprised of the townhomes, and a few streets of houses. Most people were young families, with young children, in school, or just starting their first careers. It was nice to be in a ward that had so many people in the same situation as me.

Unfortunately, not all was well in Balmoral. My nearly 5-year marriage quickly landslided into catastrophe, and I was filing for divorce (for many reasons that do not need to be mentioned in a public blog). I became a single mom, and felt so out of place. In between working two jobs, and begging for my $45 (!$%&@!) of monthly court-ordered child support, I was flat broke and took in a few roommates to be able to avoid foreclosure. I was trying to keep things together emotionally, and was grateful for the ladies who listened to my woes and offered support. Taylor came along and won my heart more quickly than I expected, and we were married less than a year after my divorce. If felt good to be a “normal” person in Balmoral again. We lived in Balmoral for 18 months before moving to California.

Taylor had ended an engagement to a girl shortly before meeting me. The relationship did not end amicably. All post-break-up communication was on her terms. For instance, she sent out an email to say she was marrying someone else, and when he responded to congratulate her, she flipped and told him to never contact her again. A few months ago, he got a Facebook friend invite from her. He cautiously accepted it, and we looked through her pictures. Imagine our surprise when I saw a picture of her in front of her Balmoral townhome, with a bunch of common friends. How awkward would it have been if we’d still lived in Balmoral?

This blog ended up being a lot more jumbled than I intended, but in closing, I’d like to thank all you Balmoral ladies for the love and support and friendship from 2003-2006. Keep up the blogging so I can know what’s going on with your families, and maybe I’ll be able to make it to one of your upcoming reunions.