Better to have loved and lost..

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting as of late. Not sure what started it, but I am really enjoying it.
I think it’s the fact that I am now walking to work...those twenty minutes first thing in the morning and at the end of my day, coupled with all of the walks that the pup and I go on, give me a lot of time to ponder my life.

If you had asked me ten years ago (at the ripe old age of eighteen) where I’d be at this point in my life, you can bet your ass it would not have even been close to where I am.

Back then, I was in a serious relationship with C…we ended up being together for five years...had a house together, I had the promise ring on my finger, the whole nine yards. If I had stayed with him, we’d be married now with two kids.

I had always been somewhat of a homebody before…worked five minutes from where I lived, didn’t move out until I was almost twenty two. I had dealt with alcoholism thanks to my adopted father, and as a result was pretty much responsible for raising my two brothers up until I moved out. I don’t regret one second of it, as it’s forged an amazing relationship with them, but as a result I never really had a chance to act like a kid. I had settled with C and thought that he was going to be the one I would spend the rest of my life with.

That all changed when I started working downtown and saw what life REALLY had to offer. There were drinks after work, lunches, meetings, more new people in my life than I could shake a stick at, and I was loving the new lifestyle that I was leading. Things fell apart with C…he accused me of cheating on him, was always angry that I wasn’t coming home right after work. I started to realize that this was my time to do what I wanted to do, and that he was resentful of it for whatever reason.

Being the oh-so-mature person that I am when it comes to ending a relationship (I suck at it, and would rather just fade away into the background til I’m forgotten about)…I stopped calling him. Stopped answering his calls. We did actually talk about it after a few weeks…I told him that I couldn’t do it anymore, that I wanted to pack up and move home until I got things sorted out in my head. He did not want anything of the sort, and flat out refused to accept the fact that I was no longer a part of “us”. When I went to pick up my things weeks later, he had hidden some of my favorite sentimental knick knacks. It was so very spiteful of him, and I was so angry, but felt it not right to ask him where they were as he was already hurting enough. Now, I wish that I had.

I know that I could have further discussed my issues with him, but I just wasn’t prepared to deal with the drama that I know would take place. It broke his heart, I know that now. A few months later, he dropped a card off at my parent’s place, saying that he thought I had issues that needed to be dealt with, that I had broken his heart and he’d never get over it. I felt horrible, but I had tried to explain to him how I was feeling, and his receptiveness was very notably absent.

As for the issues? Yeah, they were there. I’m not denying it at all. I was a young girl who had been forced to grow up too soon, and now had the chance to live a life that was of her own choosing…I was discovering myself, and haven’t really stopped since.

About a year ago a friend of mine told me that, through the grapevine, he was still upset about the way things went down. Six years later. I just can't imagine it.

The point of all this is that although I feel horribly about the way I treated him, I don’t have any regrets about it. I know that sounds harsh, but if I had stayed where I was, I would have missed out on so much in my life – people, love, friends, work, experiences. Regretting something like that would just eat away at my happiness, and to me, that’s just not worth it.

The plain and simple fact - this is life…you love, you lose, you laugh, you cry, you learn. That’s never going to change. I’d rather love and lose a dozen times over than settle with someone that doesn’t being me true happiness.