What a story.

I've had a somewhat similar experience with trying too hard to win someone over, only to end up pushing them away and damaging our friendship. Nothing mean was said, it was simply a case where my actions were too direct, scared her away, and she shut me out of her life. It was unfortunate, but I couldn't honestly say that I would change how it all went down. Even though it cost me a friendship, it was a very valuable learning experience, giving me the ability to read a situation or action from both sides.

So even though your ex may have shut you out of her life, you are aware of your shortcomings and are now making changes to improve, which in itself is a major feat. Congratulations. Now, the best thing you could do is continue on your current path of self-improvement. Maybe some day in the future you two will cross paths and she will see a new version of you. Maybe you'll get back together, maybe not. The important thing is to take care of yourself and don't get hung up on missing her. It's not an easy thing to do, but her breaking things off with you in the past was her way of taking care of herself. She didn't want your old-self behavior dragging her down, so she had to let go. The important thing is to not focus on her leaving, but on why she left and fixing that, which you have already acknowledged and started.

I could probably write a book on my life with just the last year and half. My family had two deaths within a couple months, both unexpected, and that really took its toll on my family. But it's like you said, death has a way of changing our perspectives and bringing people together. My family has done more together last year than we did in the last 10 years. It's crazy. But, for me, I've also been dealing with the loss of a number of my favorite local businesses. One in particular hit me pretty hard, knowing that the only reason it closed was due to neglect. So, I let that drag me down and let grief from our current environmental crisis drag me down even further. In two weeks' time, I went from being a semi-grumpy IT guy to thinking at any moment I was going to keel over from a heart attack. So, I changed my perspective, because it felt that my life depended on it. Instead of being annoyed by my job, I am making a conscious effort to be more cheerful. Instead of just being annoyed at the companies that write the software, I changed my perspective back to the trouble tickets being like a game...outsmart the code. I've gotten over the losses in my life, choosing to embrace what I do have instead of focusing on what I've lost. Neglect isn't what caused the downfall of Century III Mall, it was an effect from the downfall that ended up closing the mall two months ago. Instead of feeling guilty about my environmental impact and letting perfect be the enemy, I changed my perspective to "I should feel good about my accomplishments. I've done so much more than most people to reduce my impact." And now, I feel much better mentally and physically. I took one last trip out to the former mall to bid my farewell, and the pain went away (yes, we as humans need closure).

We're all in this together. Hang in there.