I think it is time to get a little real, okay a lot real. I think I am ready. The last four months have been nothing less than a roller coaster. Instagram as everyone knows, or should know, is not real life. It is real and the pictures and moments we share are real, but the good cannot exist in this life without the bad, and naturally we only choose to share the good. The past four months I have worked hard to keep up “good” and “fine” appearances on social media, but I was not fine. From a few subtle Instagram stories I shared, some may have noticed that I moved, but you may not know why.

Since I have moved out of my parents house four years ago, I have moved four times and I HATE MOVING. First I moved in with one of my best friends (you all know her, it was Heather!), the next year I moved in with my boyfriend, the next year he and I moved into a new apartment (hang on, let me rephrase that, I MOVED us to a new apartment while he was away at basic training), and a year and a half later, I just moved in with my sister and her family, without him.

About four months shy of four years and he ended it. This was exactly four months ago today. Even four months later I still can’t believe it sometimes. I understand why, but I don’t understand why. Why after almost four years can you not know if you EVER want to get married? How can you start a relationship so perfectly and as the years go on, lose how to be a boyfriend? Lose affection? Why couldn’t you try? Why didn’t you want to try? Why are you so convinced you cannot change?

So things ended and we lived together. Our lease doesn’t end until October and there is no way out unless he gets military orders. We were stuck. I had to come home and see the man who broke me every night. Eventually he started staying at a friends during the week and I would come home to sit in our apartment alone. I left almost every weekend for a distraction and so he could actually come home. Finally after a month, he offered to take over the lease and my sister and brother-in-law offered to let me move in. That was the hardest move I have ever done. How was I supposed to pack up my things and leave his behind? To remove any trace of me out of that apartment that we made our home? It took a lot to get the motivation to even start. I would go through waves of emotions while packing, devastation, frustration, anger, sobbing. Mostly I just packed through constant silent tears. I got it all done and started officially living with my sister in March. Driving away after giving him the keys made it real, I would not be seeing him again. It felt like a month long breakup, the slowest band aid in the world.

I understand why. You don’t know if you ever want to get married or have a family, but you know I do, and you don’t want to waste anymore of my time. I get it. I also get that I didn’t give you that feeling that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. You didn’t love me like I loved you. These last four months have been the hardest for me. I have to drive by our old apartment twice a day and every time I am looking for your truck both terrified and longing to be even next to you on the freeway. I have never experienced such emptiness, brokenness, anxiety, and suffocation all at the same time. It was like someone was sitting on my chest and it was hard to breathe, and for hours every day I have to sit in my car with no one but my thoughts of you and how you don’t want me anymore. I think of how I wanted to be the one who changed you, to make you want to be better. But I guess you really can’t change people, only God can, and I still continue to pray for you every day. I still feel weird without you, like I am not quite myself. Sometimes I feel like I do not know how to carry on a conversation anymore because every story I want to tell has you in it. How am I just supposed to take you out of my life when I wanted you in it forever? How am I supposed to be normal at a family function when everyone is with their significant other and they all know mine left me? What do you say when all your friends say “the right guy will come,” and you just want to scream because you feel like the right guy just didn’t want you? Deep down you pray they are right, but you don’t even want to pray for the right guy because it feels wrong and you just want the old guy back. How am I supposed to breakup with your family that has become my family? I feel like I am the one that failed sometimes.

For the first time in a long time I feel like I have no control because my future is unknown, and it is an unsettling feeling that I hope turns to excitement eventually. It is often hard for me to let go, and when I say often I mean always. Life feels like it has completely turned upside down. I am so thankful to my sister and brother-in-law for letting me move in, but it is their home and not mine. I am a long term guest and I try so hard to not be in the way. For the first time I don’t feel like I have a real home, a place I can truly call mine. My days are spent in my car commuting and at work, if I am lucky I have 3 hours to do anything. My commute tripled and I now drive 46 miles one way. In order to get to work early enough to leave early enough to avoid as much traffic as I can, I have to leave for work by 5:15am and leave for home by 3:30pm. The drive in still takes at best an hour and ten minutes and the drive home averages an hour and a half to two. If I go to the gym I am not home until after 7 or 8pm. Trying to go to bed early has been a joke and waking up at 4:15am is next to impossible most days. Weeks of averaging five hours of sleep a night doesn’t work for me very well and doesn’t do any good for outrageous emotions.

Two weeks ago he picked up his dirt bike from my dad’s. That was the last lingering piece of him. I noticed after it was gone I felt a little lighter. Maybe I was anticipating him going to pick it up because I wanted to know what he would say to my dad and how he would act. It was like I was going to live vicariously through my dad to have one last connection with him. Now there is nothing left and I felt okay. I actually noticed I have been significantly better until I sat down to write this blog. You would think you only had so many tears to spare for one person, but no they come yet again. I do not regret our four years together despite everyone telling me they wished he hadn’t have wasted so much of my time. I was still in love, even if looking back now it may have been more one sided than I chose to believe. I know now I deserve better. I want someone that will hold my hand in private and in public, someone who will hug me every day like they mean it and will give me a good morning kiss, hello I am home from work kiss, I will be right back kiss, a good night kiss, and any other kiss in between. I want someone who will say I love you first and not just say it in response with no emotion. I want someone who isn’t afraid to post a picture with me and show everyone he knows that I am his. I want someone who isn’t afraid to pray and love God.

Every day I get stronger, and still some days seem like a step back. I can’t see a black Ford F150 without my heart fluttering, but last week I drove by the apartments and didn’t notice until I passed them. One day at a time, that is all I can give myself. I thank God every day for all of the friends and family He has put in my life to help get me through this. For the ones who know I don’t like to talk about these things but want me to know they are still thinking of me and praying for me even if they aren’t asking about it. I pray for him too, that God will change his heart and that one day he will find true happiness. One day at a time and eventually I will be there.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23

xoxo- B