It all started because I'd had the flu when I booked my tickets to North Carolina for spring break. I had a fever from the horrible sickness going around those who'd been protesting at the capitol. And I booked flights without double checking dates, and there I was: with spring break flights scheduled a week after spring break. And with a $250 fee to change them... I decided to just miss class and go with it.
So what to do with spring break? Spend it at the Christine Center of course! And while there, I decided: I would move there in the next year to spend 3-4 months in the woods. My partner even visited during my trip and told me he would move there with me. Everything was falling into place.
A week later, I went to North Carolina, as I had (un)planned.
And, while there, I broke up with my partner.
You can see how I might have looked back on this and at times thought it was perhaps a rash decision. At least rushed. Not ideal. Certainly, it would have been nice to at least discuss it in person. But it hit me and I was done and discussing was beyond me in the moment. So that was it.
***
This week has been a hard week with new uncertainties in my life. I don't even know what state I'll be living in four months from now. And I realized it had been just about a year since both of these events happened in fast succession. I'm not really good with timelines and dates, so realizing this at all made me pay a little closer attention.
While talking to a friend of mine, I told him about how it was a year since I'd made this big decision to do this thing for myself: go away, live in the woods, take care of me, and see what happens. And suddenly it clicked: my first big act after decided to go take care of myself was to leave my partner. In the past I hadn't really remembered how closely in time the two events were, and even when I did realize, I thought it was funny how much things could change in a week. But never before did I see how B was clearly very much linked to A.
This has happened to me before. I'd broken up with my last boyfriend the same week I broke up with my advisor and therapist. Sometimes things just shift, and the ice cracks and breaks off, and many things change all at once. I think this is a natural response to being stuck for some time. Sometimes then the shifts are more dramatic: they have been building. But to be clear: those decisions were some of the best of my life. I have been so grateful that I made them.
And as much as I had been happy about my decision or thought it was for the best in this more recent breakup, I'd always had some nagging doubts about how I'd handled it. Should I have given him that extra chance? Did I overreact? Did I maybe mess something up? These have hung around as small doubts, but they have certainly been present, some times more than others.
Realizing now that prioritizing my journey and MY life lead to this other decision has given me a new sense of peace about the end of that relationship. Apparently, it really was guided by some kind of inner wisdom. What a surprise! (That maybe shouldn't be so astonishing?) Apparently I *was* in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.
Aren't we always? But still, it's a good thing to realize.
And perhaps that's something I can learn to trust in a little bit more.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment