you can't stay here with every single hope you have shattered

after my political posts of late, i decided to get back to my favorite topic: my love life, or lack thereof. right after i got back from my mission i met a really hot guy & starting dating him. after a few months i realized i liked him for more than his desire to buy me food & things got pretty serious. about a year ago we started to have problems, all centered around some of his personal issues. eventually our relationship crashed & burned, leaving me utterly devastated. i dealt with my sorrow by pretending like he no longer existed & moving across the country. he would try to contact me about once a month & i never responded. eventually he gave up & i got over him. last time i heard from him it was my birthday & i did email him back then to say i forgave him & have a nice life. i assumed that he was looking for that closure b/c i hadn't heard from him since.

until yesterday when i got a long email going into more detail about why he broke up with me & how much he regretted, as it was perhaps the biggest mistake of his life. he told me all about how he'd been heartbroken for months, how he wished i was still there, and how much he missed me. i really don't know how to deal with this development. is he really having this much trouble moving on or is he trying to manipulate me again? is he saying he wants to get back together or was this email just to give him closure? does he realize it has been almost a year since we've spoken to each other and all his apologies are a bit late in coming?

the one thing that i am happy about is that this is the first time since we broke up that hearing from him hasn't caused me undue anxiety/depression/panic. whatever happens, at least he's lost the bizarre emotional control he had over me for so long. and it only took a year!