This is going to be tough to write. You can stop reading now if you're looking for poker content. I really need an avenue to vent these emotions pent up inside of me, and this is going to be it.

I met Aniuta at PCA in the Bahamas this year. She was a charming, fun-loving, and somewhat quirky poker girl who always just wanted to be "one of the guys". Though never graceful, she was always the first to laugh at herself while encouraging us to join in. She was quite the character, and we shared many commonalities; for these (and a few other) reasons, we started seeing each other casually in the weeks after returning home to Illinois.

I was living in Chicago, and she was a senior at U of I about two hours south of me. Since the relationship was casual, I was up-front about the fact that I was very likely to leave Chicago at the end of the coming summer in hopes of living with another internet poker pro. She was OK with this, so we decided to continue on.

Over the summer, things got more serious. She was living in another poker house (arranged prior to us really getting together) not too far from mine in Vegas for the month of June, so we saw each other a lot. We spent lots of time together and our relationship eventually turned into a boyfriend/girlfriend scenario. All the while, though, I'd been planning on moving into a poker house in another part of the country when my lease expired in Chicago on Sept 1, so we made sure to treasure our time together before that impending date.

Sept 1 has come and gone, I moved back down to Texas to pursue my career in poker with a new poker roommate, and the relationship ended. Aniuta was obviously very saddened and broke down a few times during our final days together, but we both knew it wasn't meant to be. Unfortunately, she had fallen in love with me and although I really liked her, I simply couldn't see myself being with her for the rest of my life; we were just too similar, and I need someone who completes me more than mirrors me. She understood.

Long story short, Aniuta wrote me a very long goodbye letter on Monday night and/or Tuesday morning, then emailed it to me on a time-delay (so I'd receive it around 9pm last night) before taking her own life by oxygen deprivation. I immediately called her cell after reading the first line of the email, and her mom picked up to tell me that Aniuta was gone forever.

I've been devastated ever since; words cannot describe the gut-wrenching emotions I felt speaking to her mother and reading her goodbye letter to me. This girl fell in love with me, I broke her heart, and she killed herself. She was living at home with her parents at the time, so I'm assuming they found her. That is something I cannot imagine experiencing myself.

Aniuta swears multiple times in the letter that it wasn't my fault, blaming other issues more than anything else, but it's really hard for me to dismiss my contributions to her demise. I've been a mess since hearing of her suicide; I couldn't sleep last night and she's been on my mind ever since.

She really didn't seem like the type to do such a thing...she was always smiling and laughing the loudest. To those of you who read this entire thing, thanks for taking the time. Suicide is NEVER the answer to your problems; she and I talked about it once when it was brought up on a TV show we were watching, and we both agreed how stupid it is. She admitted her own hypocrisy but claimed it was better than the alternative, which is absolutely NOT true. TALK to the important people in life about your issues -- that's what they are there for! Sigh...

This is obviously a very difficult time for me, but it is even more so for her family. In memory of Aniuta, I'll end this depressing blog entry with one of her favorite songs: "Fantastic Place" by Marillion. RIP Aniuta, you will be missed.

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