I Don't Have to Live This Way...

So, I'm at the end of yet another failed relationship. Probably the most spectacularly failed relationship of my life. I mean, how many breakups actually require you to move to another state with twenty minutes of notice?

So, I am back at my parents' house in small town Louisiana after making a sudden, mad dash from Little Rock, Arkansas where I had been living with my (now ex-) boyfriend. I am fully aware of the white-trashiness of that last sentence. I know that ninety percent of those reading this are envisioning me with a bleach blond perm and bandanna print tube top, living in a circa- 1980 single wide trailer. But that's really not how it was. Little Rock is actually a really nice city. It has an enormous amount of beautiful early twentieth century arts and crafts architecture and nice, intelligent people.

I'm sitting in my childhood bedroom that has since been converted to the office, drinking Franzia at one o'clock in the afternoon and lamenting the loss of my year and a half relationship. But its a weird feeling of sadness, mixed with excitement for the next part of my life. I feel free--if I had stayed with him I'd never have left Little Rock (as nice a city as it is, there simply is no opportunity for me there). But despite this, I am sad. He and I have had some amazingly fun times and there for a while, I honestly thought I could settle for life in Arkansas and be happy. It wasn't exactly what I wanted from life. But I thought, well life's never what you expect it to be...so maybe this is it. But the longer I was there and the more our relationship deteriorated, I more I realized that I was settling for something that would never make me happy. I realized that if I stayed, ten years from now, I would only resent him because I never had the chance to do what I wanted to with my life.

So here I am, back at home, trying to decide what to do next. Its an odd feeling to have all of your plans destroyed in less than a half an hour. But I'll make it through. And I'm sure as this relationship fades into my past, I'll have some funny stories to tell. (Like the airbrushed tiger t-shirt I got for Christmas.) Just give me some time. It's still too soon to be able to think about it too much.