I've written before that I believe that people come into your life for a reason. Some are meant to stick around long-term and others serve their purpose and leave and you both move on with your lives. I've also written (a lot) about a certain person in my life with whom I've had a complicated three year journey with. It has never been an easy journey. She has problems with commitment and she makes you force things out of her rather than straight up telling you when something's wrong. But for the bad qualities, there are also good ones. She makes me laugh and she calls me on my crap and she doesn't let me get away with anything. We both had our chances to walk away and say it was done for good but neither of us ever did. So we became each other's crutch. If I'm single and need some kind of pick-me-up, I give her a call. If she's single and needs to vent, she calls me. And it's a weird sort of security blanket knowing that we're always just on the other end of the line. She was there for me when my father died and I supported her recently when she lost a close family member. And that is when things started to change.
Not long before I got the call about her loss, I'd written a long, rambling blog about how I felt torn about the state of our relationship. I knew deep down that the best thing was for me to end our relationship entirely but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. In the weeks after that I found myself settling back into a 'what's the harm' kind of attitude about continuing the way we were. I spent about a week with her while she coped with her loss and I could feel something changing between us, though I couldn't tell you what. At first I thought it was just that semi-awkwardness that had occurred when I saw her family at the funeral (ah the irony - half of them have liked me from the start, the other half didn't for religious reasons but all have been on board with us getting back together since I showed up for the funeral). Then I thought about her the entire plane ride home and it crossed my mind that I may have just seen her for the last time but I convinced myself I was overreacting and let it go. We have seen each other off and on the past month or so but not in a dating kind of way (you know the kind of way I mean) and it was fantastic. It felt like we were at this crossroads where anything could happen; she could finally commit and we could try again or this was gonna be the last hurrah (why do people say that anyway?) and we were gonna be done. Like we were gambling with house money, nothing to lose even though there was seemingly a lot at stake. Well...you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em kids. Know when to pick up your marbles and go home, as a friend would say.
I know now why I couldn't cut her out of my life a few months back. We weren't done yet. Part of me felt like I didn't need her anymore but it turns out that she needed me one last time. Funny how that stuff works out. Last night we talked and, in a matter of about twenty minutes, our entire three year story came to close. It wasn't a total shock, I've felt like something was irretrievably lost between us for about a week now. But the way it went down, her showing up and saying she wasn't feeling it anymore and me agreeing, was not what I would have expected. And yet I don't feel like we deserved anything more, any kind of "better" ending (if there is such a thing for this situation). I've never fallen out of love before and I'm not sure if that's what this is now. Maybe I fell out a long time ago when she couldn't commit for the umpteenth time. It's kind of a weird feeling right now. I'm kinda sad but not really. I'm not upset at all. I don't really hurt at all. I'm oddly at peace with it all.
So what have I learned...I guess this situation has re-enforced my belief in the 'everything happens for a reason' philosophy. I think I learned a lot about myself during the course of our relationship. In some strange way, she brought me closer to my faith or at least made me realize that I'm more spiritual than I'm willing to admit. She changed my mind about some things for the better. She helped me with the realization that I probably will never want the marriage thing and may not want anymore kids and that that's alright. She helped me stop the giant ticking clock I had in my head about having to be "settled" by a certain point in time. She helped me make peace with the word 'beautiful'. Because of her, I learned what I do and don't want in any future relationships. I learned that maybe I'm getting too old for the friends with benefits situation. It was a hell of a ride and it didn't end the way either of us expected it to but for me it's not about what went wrong right now. It's about what went right and how this went exactly as it was supposed to. And it's about how I am coping fantastically well (and more importantly in a healthy way) with the end of an important relationship, something I haven't done in YEARS. And that feels awesome.
