Once Big and I finally had a chance to talk he says “I apologized, you apologized, what’s the big deal? Let’s move on.” Just like a boy. Here I had spent days agonizing, analyzing, questioning, soul-searching, and speculating about the outcome of he and I, and it hadn’t even been on his mind. He was happily resolved. Maybe it is I who has some growing up to do. Just because we have an epic fight does not mean we are over. Just because he says a few mean things and I say quite a lot of mean things, does not mean we are over. Is this what it means to be in a relationship?
Of course what follows in our conversation is much the same. I tell him that I am not sure he wants to move forward at the same speed that I do. He stumps me by asking me what does that even mean? He says, “well, you are my girlfriend, what else do you need to hear?” Fair enough, I am his girlfriend, what more do I need because I am sincerely not pushing to meet the parents or for him and I to move in together for real and become co-dependent. I guess I am content to be his girlfriend, unfortunately, calling someone your GF and feeling like someone’s GF are 2 very different things –I have 405 miles of proof.
So that’s that, I guess we are resolved. Or are we? I still can’t help but feel completely scared that I am making a big mistake. Am I holding on because I am too proud to let go? As a friend recently told me, I need to either get in the game and commit to him and try things out for real, or I need to break things off for real. I can’t waste any more of my time and my late 20s attractiveness on being unsure. As I told her, I don’t know. I thought I knew. I knew when I wrote my last several posts, I meant what I said about being his GF, so why after one fight am I ready to turn in the towel? And as it turns out, I have two very good answers to this:
1. I am terrified of getting that hurt again. I never ever want to feel that heart-broken again. Our first break up left me feeling like my soul was gone. I felt empty, alone, desperate, worthless and endlessly sad. I was only 23 at the time and this was my first break-up so I understand that many of those feelings were but a cruel consequence of inexperience. I know that and I know that I would be able to handle things much differently now, but there is still some fear of regressing to that low state of mind.
2. What if I can’t accept and love and support him for him? What if everything I love about him is outweighed by the things I don’t? What if I can’t believe his dreams and passions are achievable? What if I can’t appreciate his interest in befriending people from all walks of life? What if I can’t accept his colorful and aggressive past? What if I can’t accept his rough around the edges persona? What if I can’t accept a financially difficult future? What if I don’t love him enough?
I shared all of this with that same close friend and she reminded me that all relationships have their problems. And in her own clever way, she showed me that maybe I am being too hard on him. She did this by suggesting that in her own personal relationship, she is the Big and her partner is me. An abstract metaphor if you don’t know us personally. I love my friend dearly and I believe that her partner is very lucky to have her largely because she makes him a better man, and in turn, he helps make her a better woman. At the heart of things, I have always believed that I could make Big better and that in turn he can make me better. I believe that he and I balance each other; he is the ying to my yang.
So was that Monday night for naught? On the contrary; I think that it was a very important reminder that he and I need to learn how to be together, that it will not happen instantaneously. He and I have finally, after 6 years, come to the realization that we deeply love each other and want to be together. And now, we need to learn how. So while we will not have a typical life filled with houses and babies and puppies, we will have a life filled with love and adventure and kitties. Because I do love him enough to try to conquer my fears of rejection and I do love him enough to try accept him as him. And guess what? He loves me enough too.
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