I’ve managed to do a lot of thinking these past few weeks and months. I got my heart broken twice between the time of my last post until the present. The first one was with someone I was engaged to, and on/off with for approximately 12 years. The second one was just recently with someone that I dated for about 7 months. To fortify the fortress of my unwavering want of being a hopeless romantic, I’ve found solitude in writing and running–more so, now than ever.
Back in 2013, after reading an inspirational post about running allowing me to seek solace from the heartbreak, I realize that I’ve come a long way. With the second individual that managed to break my heart, I can honestly say that he’s the only person that i’ve experienced in my dating years that really taught me to figure out characteristic traits in someone that I want to find as “the one”. The beginning of the relationship with him was like crossing the starting line of a marathon.
You experience the adrenaline running through your veins as you face the excitement of the path that lies ahead of you, knowing that the finish line will be seen soon. That’s how things were; we were long distance (him in California and I in Hawaii), and we were constantly calling and texting each other. As we eased into the relationship, we found things we were comfortable with, and uncomfortable with. I went to visit him in California in January, and then I flew back to Hawaii after a week of absolute bliss.
From there, we stayed long distance and decided to go on a vacation with each other a few months later, in May of this year. We faced a lot of good experiences on our vacation–with the exception of the fact that I blurt out the cursed ‘L’ word (ladies and gents, you all know what this word is), while we were on the Canadian portion of our trip. We planned this trip from both of us meeting in Seattle, to going to Canada, and then back to Seattle before I flew back with him to LA.
Things that I realized during that trip that made me realize that there were traits in which I realized he was NOT the one: 1) He smoked pot, at least 2 to 3 times a day. Because pot was legal in the state of Washington, he completely took advantage of the fact that he could buy it recreationally. I’m asthmatic-this doesn’t work out so well to me, and I never was one to be attracted to the smell of the Mary Jane as he was; 2) He’d never be like my friends in other relationships-the kind that would post photos with their significant others or change their social media profile pictures to the couple-y ones; 3) He would show me more affection and attention while I was physically present, and not while we would talk on the phone or Facetime/Skype; 4) The relationship was all about him.
I’ll go ahead and explain this one more in depth. Because we were both single for quite some time (Me: >3 years; Him: >5 years), we were both individual and independent spirits. The relationship was 90% me giving in, and 10% him giving in. A relationship should be fair. Because we had to face the time zone difference of Hawaii Standard Time and Pacific Standard Time, we were always 2 to 3 hours apart. This means that i’d cater MY schedule around HIS needs. It was never the other way around.
Everything was on his time/availability, would address his needs, his temperaments, and his wants. I work a career where majority of my time revolves around compassion fatigue–I spend so much of my time and day working to get indigent clients out of situations (often times, working with domestic violence victims, single moms/dads, etc), that my way of decompressing would be trying to have him as an ear to listen to and a shoulder to lean on when I felt exhausted. His career as an engineer/project manager would revolve around little human contact.
After months of him having to “deal” with my “complaints” (not decompressing, but complaints, as he so claims), he said that he was over it. We also faced the hump of a possible little human, and he emptily promised that he’d move back to Hawaii to be with me and be supportive. Instead, as soon as he found out that we weren’t going to have a little human running around, he decided to end things.
I understand the fear of that-being responsible for another person. It’s difficult taking responsibility for yourself and your actions. But, the true trait of an adult is acknowledging the fact that your actions have consequences. I was ready to face whatever life threw at me. I still am. He decided to take the easy way out and give up. He felt like things were broken, and rather than working to fix them or communicate about them, he wanted to give it up and let it go.
I realize that after going through all of the bull**** of what happened, that I am now stronger in the aspects of knowing what I want out of my future significant other. I need someone who’ll supplement my life, won’t bring me down, will be open, honest, and communicative with me, and will complement my overall personality. Someone who’ll respect me, and my career choices. That was the biggest issue: He was willing to go along with my career aspirations, just not with the current career that I have now.
I have my life slowly back on track; I’ve started the research process for my graduate programs that I’ll be applying to this Fall, and have enrolled into an expensive Kaplan graduate prep course which I’ll be starting in a few weeks. This self reflection is also a progressive point: It’s been 21 days since we broke up. But, with the support of my friends (not so much my family) I can feel the love.
Que sera, sera.
@Yooojin09 