Help!

I think I made the biggest mistake of my life.

But I made it 2 years ago, so is it too late to take it back?

Lets start at the beginning...

When I was a junior in college (so the end of 2002) I went to Canada with a group of my friends. My birthday is in August, so I'm a late bloomer of sorts and wasn't going to turn 21 until right before my senior year. Most of my friends were already 21 and this trip was a chance for us to all hang out and drink together. Cheaply:) Plus Canada had casinos and Niagara Falls and Molson XXX (which, for those of you who don't know, is a pretty ok beer with a very large alcohol content...you can find it at most liquor stores these days).

My weekend in Canada was pretty much a drunk fest. No worries about driving or drinking underage and everyone had saved enough money to have a stress-free good time. I had a crush who had stayed behind to do something for school but I wasn't going to let me down. I talked to him throughout the trip, but I was determined to have a great time no matter what.

Somewhere along the way I realized that I didn't care whether my crush was there or not. There was someone else who had all of my attention. A friend who, up until that point, had been nothing but that...a friend. We had both just gotten out of pretty serious relationships and comforted each other through them (his girlfriend had cheated and my boyfriend and I had just been trying to force something that really wasn't there). I had never even considered the idea that this guy might actually be the guy for me...until one drunken night we spent together from beginning to end. When creepy dudes would sneak up on me at the dance clubs, he would come up and dance even closer. When my friend split her pants by accident (yeah, I guess that does actually happen sometimes...) he went behind a bush and took off his boxers so she would have a pair of shorts to cover herself on the ride home. And somehow we ended up in a bed together passed out drunk, only to find ourselves with our arms around each other in the morning. Our connection surprised both of us, and from that moment on we each considered the idea that had never crossed our minds before.

After the weekend was over, we went our separate ways like we always did. But that night, at a Canada reunion (we all had so much fun we couldn't bear a night away from each other), a party that my crush had attended so we could finally be together again, I found myself thinking about and talking about my friend more than I had expected. I knew that somehow our connection had grow so much stronger and I wanted to be with him instead.

We told each other that we didn't like the idea of spending the night alone after being together for so many nights in a row, and he came home with me for the first time. He borrowed a pair of my pajamas (the red and black plaid ones ones my grandparents bought for me that always made me feel like a lumberjack, so they were pretty appropriate for a guy to wear:)) and we got into bed together and....FINALLY...kissed for the first time. After all that time together our lips had never even touched and I can honestly say the wait was very, very worth it.

Over the course of three years we went through a lot together. He graduated a semester after that, but I still had a year to go, so we spent a lot of time apart. Our visits occurred every two weeks and they were always some of the best times of my life. He traveled for his job, so we always got to stay in nice hotels and see different cities. I went to Texas for the first time...but I didn't notice much of it because we were in the hotel room so much of the time.

When I finally graduated I followed his best friend and my best friend (the two are married now) to Massachusetts, hoping that Jameson would follow me once his travelling job ended. It seemed like the perfect situation. We would buy houses next to each other, raise our kids together, grow old together...two perfect couples. Jameson and I rarely ever fought and, if we did, it was a heated political debate when we were drunk that was forgotten about in the morning. Our temperaments were perfectly suited for each other and we had grown to enjoy every minute we were lucky enough to spend together so we never took each other for granted.

Until I panicked. Only 23 and in the second serious relationship of my life, I wondered what else was out there. He became a permanent employee of a well known governmental agency in Baltimore and bought a house thinking that I would go be with him. And I started to go, little by little. I moved a few things, bought us some dishes, thought about what I would do to the house when it became mine too.

And then I couldn't do it. Twice I tried to go, put in my notice at my job and began to pack, and twice I backed out. I really panicked. And our relationship stopped there. Where else could it go if I wasn't willing to follow it?

Two years have passed. Our friends got married and he was the best man and I was a bridesmaid. I walked down the aisle, eyes glued to my feet because I was terrified to look at the man I thought was going to be my future husband. How could I look at him, and imagine the life that I had let go, without regret? But, somehow, I managed to look up and I saw him smiling at me with the biggest smile he had ever shown me and I realized that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. And I promised myself that I would figure out a way to fix it.

But I haven't. We are still very close. We talk on the phone about once a week and there have been a few times where I have told him how I feel. But he is in another relationship now. I never ask about it because I am so afraid to hear him tell me that he is in love again. It will break my heart the second I see him with her and notice him treating her the same way he used to treat me. I want to know if he is as confident about his future with her as he once was of his future with me, but the second I find out that he is I know I will be broken forever.

Maybe I pushed him away knowing that we were never meant to work out. Maybe my life will somehow get on track and I will meet the person meant for me and everyone will live happily ever after.

Or maybe I lost the one person I was really meant to be with because I was afraid to take a chance on love.