Did I say success? Oh, I did. Just not in the traditional sense. I’d love to say my muse and I ran off to the land of eternal bliss, lovingly and thoroughly completing each other in all that we do.

That’s not our story. Ours is two broken people joining together in a virtual sense, and finding success amid failure.

(All identifying details have been altered)

Britney posted here, seeking career guidance and companionship, among other things. It was articulate, full of this dizzying sense of charisma. She is beautiful and broken. Soulful, playful and dizzyingly charming. Sandy blonde hair, glasses and a softness that melts the heart like ice in July.

There’s a quiet sense of humility behind her shining eyes. They radiate an earnestness and vulnerability that, combined with her physical appearance, transforms me into a pool of jelly and affection with one glance.

It seemed I evoked similar feelings in her.

A child of alcoholic parents, she chooses fewer words to speak in her Midwestern/southern accent when she’s nervous, and she’s an expert at dipping her toes in the water for a while before jumping.

A diamond in the rough would be cliche, but perhaps fitting, being the diamond doesn’t know what it is.

Maybe she was just trying to get some relief from first-job-out-of-school burnout. I mentored her as best I could, not so subtly falling victim to her charm. Our conversation turned romantic very quickly, and we embraced it fully.

I often said to myself “she has no idea what she has.”

Britney’s upbringing is tragic. Emotionally distant parents would have done less harm. She was ignored, literally, and a lack of parental and sibling support built up a lack of confidence.

Everything about her made sense to me, and I’ve never felt so simply understood. Grocery store trips with her on the phone lasted five times as long as they needed to, yielding half the targeted items.

For who she was, and what she had been through, I would have run through walls for her. Except…

For as powerfully as I was drawn toward her, an equally strong force advised against meeting up with her. Fear of getting even more attached, knowing it won’t be long until she gets a handle on the insecurities ingrained in her. That I’m walking into my own heartbreak and castration.

Uh oh.

I slowly backed away, kicking myself each time (still am, in fact). Despite beautiful domestic fantasies of walking in paired costumes for Halloween, advancing careers, living life Americana, I found it extremely difficult to show her that vulnerability within increasing life stress. We talked a little less and a little less. Our intimacy became less frequent.

It was too late by the time I got my head around it. I knew what was coming. Women like her, they don’t wait for you to fix your bullshit. They find someone else.

My heart was already broken over what I couldn’t do, and her pulling away had followed me doing the same.

Maybe that was always our destiny. I played my role. Nothing lasts forever.

She apologizes for hurting me. I said repeatedly it’s ok, and it is. It hurts, my inaction as well as her moving on, but that can’t be a factor in anything. I’m grateful to my core. What we had helped heal two broken people. Or one, at least.

I’m sure we’ll keep talking. We said we would. I’m sure we also won’t. I’m only in the way.

You don’t put a saddle on a mustang, anyway, and that’s the only Britney I know.

I’m so excited about what she’s going to find in life. The diamond might not know today she’s a diamond. But she will. It won’t be mine to see, but it’ll be even more beautiful than the version of her I’ll hold dearly in my heart.

She did a lot more for me than she knows. To me, that’s a blessing. That’s success.