I hit a wall today that I am trying to decide to break through it or not.  I know that once I break it - its finally gone - 8 years of being in love with one person will be gone. 

The only way I can make my head feel better is to write - its therapy for me. 

The new year is coming on Sunday and so much of my life is starting new.  I'll be spending my new year with one of my oldest friends in Chicago who is going through some of her own life changing experiences.  I come back on my birthday - Jan.2nd which will start the last year of my 20's.  The next day I start my first session of my swim lessons for my new swim school.  In two weeks after that point - I will be starting my new job, my sister will be starting HER new job, my brother in law will be starting HIS new job, and my brother will be starting HIS first semester back in college.  My entire world around me is changing and I am excited by it - but I have a deadline in my head to determine if I want to leave my ex behind me or not by Dec.31.  My head (the VERY rational part of me) says that I have SOOOO much going on and so many good things in my life starting - do I really want to bring with me baggage of his life, his drama, his drug problems, his infidelity (which I dont know he ever did cheat on me), his craziness, his instability?  My heart wants to hold onto the hope that the love I know we have for each other will bring us back together and make everything work again - like it has over and over and over again for the last 8 years.

BUT - the more I think and think and think about my life - about what I have done for myself over the past 8 years - the more I realize he may have held me back from many things and never realized he did.  My ex had a very chaotic life - but HE made it chaotic.  We started having feelings for each other 8 years ago - and 2 months after we started hanging out - we just stopped.  We saw each other once more 6 months later and then stopped talking for 4 years.  4 years later - my friend reunited us and we started hanging out as friends (I had a boyfriend, he had a girlfriend and 1 year old son).  He wanted out of his relationship - and I was "happy" in mine.  A year later we broke up and I ran straight to him - and this was the first time we ever had sex - he cheated on his girlfriend at the time with me - it lasted a few months and then we just stopped talking over the summer - no anger, it just wasnt the right time.  A year later - he contacted me after he broke up with his girlfriend and moved out and we started more seriously dating - then 4 months later he went back to his ex because she was addicted to drugs, suicidal and was keeping him from seeing his son.  I angrily told him he was stupid and couldnt fix her and never to call me again - he was hurt so was I and he still went back to her.  4 months later - I got the phone call apologizing profusely that he made the wrong decision and never should have gone back to her - and we started a real relationship for the last year.  Until I found out about his drugs - things were perfect and neither of us had ever been so happy in a relationship.  But I had to walk away for my own emotional well being. Now look where I am - no better than I really was with him 8 years ago - and the only thing I have left are great memories of us together as always.

So for 8 years we both held onto this love we had for each other - and he couldnt hold up his end of the bargain at any point in time.  I always could - but he always had some reason he couldnt and some reason to come begging for me back.  So for 8 years - I held myself back from maybe meeting another person in my life who I could have had a more stable relationship with.  I dont EVER doubt that my ex loved me - even though my mother wants to tell me everyday he never did.  I could see it in the way he looked at me - he even would climb out of bed in the middle of the night to smoke a cigarette and stand in the room and stare at me - sometimes telling me he loved me when he thought I was sleeping.  But I cant have the fairytale - I wish I could.  Even if tomorrow he promised me he would never do drugs again - it would never last and I dont want to marry someone (as romantic as I pictured our wedding to be - and our marriage to be) who I will worry if he is buying weed or other drugs with the money needed for our kids daycare, or the mortgage or the car insurance. 

Its done - the perfection of it all is gone.  The sweet mornings where we spent them curled up together in bed, the great fantastic mindblowing sex, the being fully attracted to someone that it makes you tingle inside, the intimacy, the hours long conversations on the phone, the fantastic trips taking pictures of sunsets and mountains and beaches and fall colors, the midafternoon phone calls from work just to say hello, the excited feeling knowing I was going to go see him or pick him up from the train station - it is all done.

If it were my choice I would never have changed it - but it wasnt my choice.  He made it for me by turning to drugs.  And I cant change that.

My choice is to finally close this book and put it away.  So my heart is saddened - so saddened right now. 

Its time to let go and be free from it.  Its time to allow myself to let another person love me and love them back - and that includes loving myself. 

So as of 1-1-06 - my life will start new - and I am putting 8 years behind me....