I could have easily given up and told myself that my life had no more meaning, that I had hurt the one person I loved more than anything beyond repair, and, therefore, I shouldn’t be allowed to live my life to the fullest. I went to therapy, I found my religion, I planned out-of –state trips to places I had never been to by myself, I started online dating, I started (and finished) my master’s degree, I gained many new friends through work and networking connections, I’ve thrived. Does that make sense? What I mean to say is that self-improvement became the only thing I focused on. Since that time, I threw myself at myself. I walked out of his apartment that night only to return two months later and tell him that this was the last time I would see him unless he called asking me to come back into his life. At least, when he loved me, I had a fighting chance. If he didn’t love me, I didn’t want to keep trying to win him back over. I knew then and there that there was nothing more I could do. It was about nine months after I’d left him. One day, I was sitting on his couch, and he told me that he didn’t love me anymore.
He had every right to feel frustrated too, hate me even. I showed up at his doorstep multiple times with food and gifts to show him how much I cared. I poured my heart out to him in a letter, made a list of everything that I would do for him if he decided to spend the rest of his life with me, signed off on the list, and left it with him. This isn’t to say that I regretted my decision multiple times and begged for him to let me come back. I would become even more codependent than I was. I knew that if I stayed with him, I would rely on him to fix everything.
I knew that if he was there, I would rely on his help, and I wouldn’t progress. If I wanted to grow and get back to the old me, I needed to throw myself to the sharks and do it alone. In my bones, I knew it was a change that I couldn’t get from being with him. Deep down, I knew that I loved him and that I didn’t want to leave him, I just needed a change. Or, should I say, Matt pleaded with me to come back and work things out, and I wouldn’t listen. Weeks passed, and we went back and forth on getting back together. I walked out, and things only headed further south. It was obvious that we weren’t spending much time together and that all of his activities were starting to annoy me. In my own stupidity, I thought that he would understand in a way. So, right before Christmas three years ago, I broke up with Matt. I wanted someone who was going to be around more often and liked some of the same activities that I did. It just became clearer to me that Matt and I would be spending more and more time a part if we continued our relationship. When he did anything without me, I became frustrated. When he would spend time at home, but not around me, it would upset me. Needless to say, at the end of the day, being around people was exhausting, so, I preferred to stay indoors. And, then, after it did, I replayed the entire conversation and scolded myself for things that I said that I thought sounded stupid. I hated myself, and I over-analyzed every sentence before it came out of my mouth. Matt had his friends and his activities, and I had the books that I liked to read, shows I liked to watch, and workouts that I liked to do. As we lived together, I realized that we were more like roommates and less like partners. And, I started to doubt if would be compatible in the long run. Near the end of our relationship, we began living together. The first time we got together, we were in high school. To begin, as my frequent readers will remember, Matt and I dated for seven years. And, from this piece, I hope my readers can understand that they’re not alone. I just want to make sure that everything has been fully processed. This isn’t to say that I haven’t moved on. And, I want to write about it so that I can reflect on what I’ve learned over the last three years, and put all of my feelings out on paper to close this chapter and move to the next. Up until that point, as my frequent readers will know, I was in a long term relationship with Matt. I carefully picked topics that I thought about on a regular basis, and I wrote with careful consideration and care, wondering how I could appeal to the masses and gain an insane amount of followers…īut, about three and a half years ago, I stopped writing. I was afraid to look back days, weeks, months, after the piece was written and think, ‘you could have done better if you had waited longer and constructed your ideas more carefully.’ But, today, I thought, ‘fuck it.’ In those three years, I’ve waited and contemplated writing this piece, and, until today, decided not to.
Three long, crazy, happy, depressing, wild years.