Que sera sera

Greetings all.

And so it is, the fourth week of January. This has been a long long winter. I miss the sun! I miss the shorts! I miss the patios and white wines! I miss warm. I miss happy.

Fortunately, my somber and flat mood of the past few months has been lifting. I am starting to feel a little better in work and in life. Obviously the stress of the pending major decisions I would be facing came into play. The thought of choosing, and the consequences of those choices, led to a lot of anxiety and self-initiated drama. I just couldn't go on. And so, with the helpful advice of a friend, and some fish oil, I have decided to not make any decisions. I have decided to just let life life happen and what shall be, shall be. This is not to say that I won't actively try to better myself and my position, it just means that I will wait out any relationship or geographic decision rather than make a decision that could be hurtful or wrong. As I have said in the past, I have a very keen and accurate sense of intuition, and I will know when I know.

Truthfully, what I have put off is breaking things off for real w/ Big. I have dodged and avoided any relationship question, changed the subject when it came to any future-speak, and flat out repelled any questioning of whether or not I was seeing anyone else. I have done my best to not face this elephant, but due to pressures from Big, that grace period has come to an end. He is demanding answers or commitments or promises, and silence doesn't seem to be appeasing him.

As I have said, I don't think I want to be in a relationship w/ Big. I find his financial instability too stressful and I cannot find peace with the idea of opening myself up to hardships. Does that mean I don't love him? It seems obvious to me that if I am not willing to try, to take a chance, then maybe I don't love him. But what if he is worth the risk? What if the problem is not him, but it is me? What if it is my pathetic need to "look" a certain way or to meet a certain societal class standard that has me turning my back on the love of my life? Am I too proud?

Then there is the real fear that I have. I am afraid of saying goodbye to Danny. I am afraid of losing him and in turn losing everything he has helped me gain and become over the last 8 months. He has helped me to grow, ask questions, eat healthier, open-up, inquire, gain new skills and become curious. He has made an effort to make me a more capable, interesting, informed, and better me. Can Big make me a better me?

To put it a different way, I feel Danny is like driving an electric hybrid while Big is like taking the bus. Sure, Danny is new and shiny and environmentally responsible, but, just as with a Hybrid, eventually that electricity will run out, our time together will run out and he will stop showing up. The slightly rusted, but still powerfully running bus, however, will always come, it will always be there to pick you up.

I know that it is hard for you hopeful romantics out there to understand, but Danny is not a real part of my life. Yes, I talk to him every single day, and he has met my parents and my best friends, and he is the first person I call for pretty much any reason ranging from job advice to bladder infections, but he is not someone who I can count on to be there for me. To him, I am a diversion from his complicated, isolated, intense life. I am his recess, a break, an activity that releases him briefly from his personal obligations and incessant needs. He is real to me, but I am not nor will I ever be, real for him in any larger capacity. That fact is very hard on me, but I knew it going in. And as I have said, I feel that with him, the benefits to knowing him, far outweigh the costs of being a recreation. The awful thing is that I may have fallen in love.

The reason why my friend's advice was so helpful to me is because she logically broke it down for me. She explained that I cannot make a decision about Big based on Danny. Danny cannot be a factor because he is not offering any long-term commitments. Therefore he is irrelevant in my decision making. The second issue I have w/ Big is monetary. She said that because I am not going to pay for Big, because I will set the expectation that he pays and contributes half to our future, money is also not a factor.

So I have decided that the right course of action is to take no action. I have committed to Big that if he can find a job in Chi, he can move in with me and we will try to make a relationship work. After all, after seven years, we do owe that much to each other. The catch is that he will need to move to Chi, and he will need to get a job. Now it's on him to prove he wants to be with me, and my job is to encourage and support him as he tries to make it happen. And in the meantime, it is business as usual in the Chi.