Valentine's Day has, in all honesty, never been a huge deal to me. I' not too invested in it either way: if I'm attached, I don't go overboard celebrating, and if I'm single, I don't get all bitter and angry. So today was just another day as far as I'm concerned.
But hearing all my happily married co-workers making plans (I am the only single person in my department) did make me feel a little lonely. And it definitely reminded me of how much I miss my ex, and refreshed some of that regret I've talked about before. Because at the end of the day, even with how happy I am and how well I'm doing, that loneliness and regret are still there. Maybe not overwhelmingly so but for sure at the back of my mind.
So Valentine's Day made me think.
At this point it's been almost two years since he told me he didn't want to marry me, and just about a month less that I've been in Flagstaff. I haven't seen or spoken to him since last July.
It's a pretty significant amount of time, yet I am no closer to being over him than I was the day I moved here. Far more mentally stable, sure, and far more capable of living my own life. There's no question that I'm doing better now than I was then. But I'm still not over him.
And sometimes I wonder why, because it should be enough time to let go, right? I mean . . . when this amount of time had passed after Jerbs and I broke up, I was already in love with and engaged to someone else. I honestly thought that time was really going to be what led to getting over it, but that hasn't been the case. Lately it seems that the better I get, the more I want a second chance with him.
I think it's because of the difference in myself.
Back when the break up happened, as completely miserable as I was about it, I knew it needed to happen. I knew how sick I was and I knew that, at that point, I simply wasn't capable of being in a relationship. I wasn't capable of being the kind of partner that I wanted to be and that he needed/deserved me to be. I wanted to succeed at it but I just couldn't. Even when I was engaged to and living with him, even on the good days, I would look at happily married couples (via all my married friends on FB, mostly) and just KNOW that it wasn't something I could attain the way I was then. And I would feel so sad, because I knew I had the right guy, and I would feel so frustrated, because I felt like I was this close to the life I wanted but I couldn't stop sabotaging myself.
But now, I've done a full 180 from those feelings. I know now--with 100% certainty--that I am completely capable of being in a relationship. It's difficult to even put into words because the change has been so dramatic. Things that used to bother me to the point of obsession (I'm not going to go into specifics here but he'd know what I was talking about if he read this) now seem dumb and insignificant and most definitely not worth the grief I let them cause me. I've learned the importance and necessity of accepting someone, flaws and disagreements and all, for who they are. I've learned how little someone's past matters when you genuinely love them and they genuinely love you. I've gotten a lot better at communicating and I think I know how to express myself without flying off the handle or freaking out. (Sad to just be figuring out all those skills at damn near 30 but whatever.
So I think that knowing all those things, and knowing how capable of being in a relationship I am now, makes the fact that it's not happening hurt more. Knowing you can do something makes it extra shitty to not be able to.
I remember once, when I was living in Kingman and he was massively stressed out, I told him how sorry I was for the things that were going badly then. And he looked at me and told me that I was his anchor through all of those bad things. It is still one of the kindest things anyone has ever said to me, and I was so happy and flattered to hear him say it, because I wanted to be his anchor. But at the same time I felt terrified, because I knew that I was failing at it. I could do it now. Because I'm pretty awesome now.
I'm sure that someday, eventually, I'll be able to let go--of him and the regret--and love someone else. I don't believe that I'm supposed to end up alone. But I also genuinely believe that I already found the right person for me, and I hope his feelings are the same.
Happy Valentine's Day.
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