Saturday, April 09, 2005

Saying Goodbye...

Today, I ended a five-year relationship with a great man. We had once been very happy together, but due to some growth in different directions, it has recently become apparent that we want different things out of life. For this reason, after waffling for the better part of a year about this, I finally decided that we were only hurting each other by staying together. And so we had a "talk" about things and came to the conclusion that we should no longer be together.

I have always been the type to stay in a relationship, ignoring all the signs of imminent collapse, until the truth hit be upside the head and destroyed me. So it was very unfamiliar to me to think, "This isn't working...maybe I should say something about it." I discussed it with my close friends, and to my great surprise, no one said, "What are you, nuts?" They listened to my reasoning and said that it sounded like I knew what I had to do.

It's hard to figure out, sometimes, why a relationship doesn't work out. Many, many good things were there. We loved each other (and still do). We were attracted to each other. We had a lot of fun. We came from similar backgrounds. We cared about a lot of the same things. We had similar values. However, for some reason, after five years together, it was pretty apparent that marriage was not in our future. One of us wanted to settle down and have a family, and the other did not. One of us dreams of moving away from this area, and the other has great reasons for staying here.

While we were talking, I was happy that we were able to talk about things and cry together and even laugh together a little bit. And so now I would like to offer a tribute to someone who is still so important to me...who knows me better than anyone and likes me anyway, who I know will always be there for me, and who has helped to make me the person I am today. Here's to love...and also knowing when to let go. I will never forget this amazing person...and I wish him the best of everything in life.

1 comment:

NME said...

That damn near made me teary. It sounds like you made a very hard but very wise decision. I have heard of so many people who got divorced after realizing they didn't want the same things out of life and I always wonder why they didn't have that conversation before they got married. You might be going through some pain now, but in the long run you saved yourself more heartache.