1 Year

In March it will be one year since I told you goodbye.

I remember coming to the realization that our 10 year relationship just wasn't going to work about three years ago. Things had just changed - I'd changed, you changed, circumstances surrounding us changed. It got more and more difficult to play the charade of the loving girlfriend when in reality I dreaded your visits and saw them more as forced visits - the kind you have with relatives that you see once in a blue moon and you would rather be doing something else than entertaining them.

We also had this countdown to when we were going to "get serious", move in together and think about marriage. As that countdown started winding down I became more depressed. I seriously thought about suicide because I didn't want to hurt your feelings and upset my family yet I also knew I would be horribly miserable with you.

I also wanted to know what life would be like without you. I knew I was strong enough. I've survived being unemployed for over a year so I knew I could survive a broken relationship. But the day that I tearfully told you that I just couldn't do it anymore, that I just couldn't be your girlfriend anymore and no - there was nothing to fix was probably the hardest day of my life. I could almost feel the knife in my hand that I knew I was stabbing into your heart. And it was a horrible feeling.

Around August I reached out to you. Months had passed. I thought maybe things had changed between us. Maybe we could try again. Maybe it would be different this time. I wrote you a letter and mailed it. Never heard from you. I accepted it and moved on.

November you sent me an email and told me that you were sorry my Grandfather had passed and you were still considering my proposal. I was angry. I thought if you had any feelings for me that when you received my letter you would have jumped at the opportunity for a reconciliation but you didn't. Instead you decided to keep this proposal on your back burner as if you were making sure there weren't any other "good deals" out there before you decided to jump back in. Thank God I had enough sense to email you back and tell you that the proposal had an expiration date and you had passed it.

That was the last time I heard from you. You didn't email me back nor have I made any other attempts to contact you. Sometimes I think it's a bad thing, sometimes I think it's for the best.

I told myself that I was going to wait one year until I started getting back into the dating scene. I'm beginning to think that maybe I need two years. The desire for anyone to be back into my life so intimately is uninteresting to me at the moment. I know in time that I'll have that desire again but for now I'm fine with it being just me and my dust bunnies.