He just wasn't that into me.

Let me start this by saying that my intention is not to spend my time bashing my Ex or our past relationship. I am not going to reveal the innermost details of the time we spent together. I told him that I was saving all the juicy moments for the book so he had better not piss me off...haha. Seriously, it is truly because that is no one's business but ours. I am sure some events and certainly some emotions will come out because they have shaped the new direction my life has taken. Anyone who reads this needs to keep in mind that obviously there is subjectivity when emotions are involved so at times it may seem that there is blame placed, but it takes 2 people to create and sustain a relationship and it takes 2 to let it slip away.

September was our 4th anniversary. We had some rough patches in our relationship and as that date approached, I was so glad we had made it through those times. I thought we were finally on the right track and by the time the date had arrived my feelings were affirmed. It was short lived however. Just 2 weeks after our anniversary I felt things changing. I felt him pulling away from me and I couldn't understand why. Part of me said I was just imagining things. He had made me feel so loved and wanted that I had to be reading into things. I was so busy at work because the Walks were approaching and I was under stress and on top of all that I had been experiencing alternating pain, tingling, and numbness in my right side. No time to see a doctor and no time to focus on the nagging feeling that was growing inside of me, I just looked forward to when I could breathe again. October 12th was when I could come up for air, just in time to look forward to the wedding and my first of many vacations.

There was one week between my last Walk and the wedding and it was one of the most stress free times I had all year. I was making plans and enjoying my time home with my kitties and the person I loved more than anyone. He will never know the things I thought that week or the plans I saw in my head, but all that while I still had this nagging feeling. I pushed it aside. I had time to relax and if I was less stressed than maybe the environment would be less stressed. But then the day of the wedding came and it was like a switch had been flipped. From the moment he woke up, he was different. We ran errands and the man that used to walk beside me and hold my hand walked 10 feet in front of me, occassionally turning to see if I was still there. The man that would smile and give me a kiss and call me baby was hardly seeing me at all. I chalked it up to being preoccupied. I just had to wait... in 2 weeks we would be in Jamaica... things would get better once we spent time together.

It got worse at the wedding. He enjoyed being in the wedding party, being the best man. He will never admit it, but it was hard too. He was happy for his best friend, the only person he could ever consider family without actually being related, but I think he felt like he was loosing him too. He was so caught up in the day and his friend's life I didn't exist anymore. I sat watching the ceremony and at one point the groom held his bride's head in his hands and kissed her forehead. In that moment, I knew that the person I loved didn't love me that way... not anymore and maybe never had.

The rest of the night didn't exist for me and the days that followed left me feeling more cold and alone than ever... or so I thought. Three days after the wedding, he didn't come home from work. He worked the night shift and I was worried so I called him. I should have known something was wrong when he told me were he was and where he had slept. He had driven a half hour passed our home to fall asleep at a friend's place. I guess he didn't know how to come home because he didn't know how to tell me.

When he walked through the door, he gave me an unemotional peck on the lips, crawled into bed and told me he wasn't going to Jamaica. I broke. That was what I had been holding out for... that time together so we could find each other again. I cried, I stormed, and I yelled that if he didn't go to Jamaica I was leaving him. The joke was on me because that was what he wanted. When I pressed him to tell me what was going on, he said those words, "I don't think we are heading in a positive direction." Did he love me? Nodding and "yes". Did he like me? Emphatic nodding and "a lot". Was he in love with me? Silence... then eventually "I don't think so".

Once said, words can never be taken back.

I think I figured out why blogging can be a good thing. I know that writing in general can be therapeutic, but doing it in a semi-private/semi-public arena is a great way of getting out everything you have to say but you don't have to look anyone in the face to do it. No confrontation or, to put it without the negative connotation, face to face means you don't have to hear what someone else is saying or see what they are thinking. Anyone who reads the blog just knows what's going on... no words need be exchanged. I like that.

I have so many thoughts crashing around in my head that I can't concentrate. They are all consuming and keep me from sleeping or working. Some thoughts are fragments while others are complete sentences or paragraphs. Some emotions are just one word, one syllable, one sound that I want to scream out loud. There are times that I scribble ferociously just to get those words out so that I can sleep or just continue on with my day. With each sentence I feel a growing sense of calm until I can rest. Until it swells up inside me once again.

I don't know where to begin. It is easy to say at the beginning, but it is hard to say where that is. In September everything felt great, not perfect, but great all the same. I was busy at work, happy at home, and I knew what direction everything was heading. I was looking forward to the months that were ahead of me. Once I could get through my busy season at work, I could relax. I had it all planned out. My down time would begin with a beautiful wedding followed by vacation #1. I was so excited to take that time and finally unpack boxes that had been laying around the house for almost a year. So excited to finish decorating and make the house look more like a home. Shortly thereafter, I would have vacation #2. A trip to Jamaica with my whole family. It would be the first real vacation that I would be spending with loved ones in 3 years. Then the holidays would have arrived. I already had plans for decorating the house and shopping for presents and then just before Christmas is was off to Las Vegas for vacation #3- a trip that spent nearly 2 years in the making. And then just to complete the year, I had off the week of Christmas- vacation #4- perfect for last minute Christmas shopping, baking cookies, and just taking a deep breath before the holidays began.

It all came to a screeching halt with one simple sentence... "I don't think we are heading in a positive direction."

I can't believe I did it.

I actually created a blog. I have thought about this a number of times and always stopped myself. I don't have a business that I am trying to build... yet. I am not a writer trying to create an audience. I don't have a theme or topic to talk about per se and half the time I don't even think I have anything worth saying at all. And stranger still... I am a very private person. It's true that I can usually babble on about almost anything, but often times I hold inside my true thoughts, feelings, and passions. There are few people who have known me well and most of them have been for a reason or a season; only one has become a lifetime.

And yet I feel compelled. Part of it is because my life had been the same for so long and then it suddenly changed. I was forced to move in a new direction. Now I am taking stock of things... weighing my options... and I am not holding things inside anymore. Part of it is because life is too short to care who reads this, if anyone does at all, and to worry what anyone thinks.

I work for a health non-profit and some of the patients and participants we come in contact with have blogs. Some blog about their health status or the treatments of their children. Others blog about their training status or their fundraising efforts. The link between them all is that they find comfort in sharing their trials and their triumphs. And they give comfort to others by saying their struggles aren't unique, but ones to which others can relate. With that thought in mind, I stopped asking why and said why not.