So here we are...

I got quite a reality check this week. As some of you know, aw dumped me last year. And over the past year, I've been pining away, hoping he would wake up and realize what he lost. Well, he hasn't. While I was wishing and hoping and dreaming, he was moving on with his life- in a big way. He is now engaged. That's right- someone so emotionally crippled that he couldn't handle a woman crying is getting married. And where am I? Still alone.

It finally hit me- I've wasted the last three and a half years on someone who couldn't accept me for who I am. He knew going into the relationship that I was an emotional person- he read this blog before we even met. Yet, he couldn't handle my emotions. He made me feel like they were wrong- like somehow there was something wrong with me because I cry. I felt like I had to keep my emotions inside. Hell, I even went to therapy to try to change for him. Jesus, what the fuck was I thinking? Even my therapist told me that there was nothing wrong with me- that my emotions were fine.

For three and a half years, I have romanticized both him and our relationship. I thought he was a better person than me. I thought that I was lucky to have him. I neglected my friends, my hobbies, hell even this blog because I just wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. My world revolved around him. When I did talk to my friends, it was "aw this, aw that..." I became that woman. The one who has nothing to talk about other than the man in her life. And I slowly started becoming less and less of the person I am. I couldn't wait to see him- a week away was too long. I kept ticket stubs from every damn movie we went to. I kept receipts from our shopping trips. I thought he was my soul mate. I was obsessed.

Yet, even through all of that, there was this little voice in the back of my mind that kept telling me that he wasn't "the one;" that I just wanted him to be because he was the first man in a long time that didn't treat me like shit. But I ignored it. I told myself that that little voice was wrong- it was doubt and that it was the part of my brain that thought that I did not deserve to be happy. Even over this past year, I've tried to silence that voice- every time it told me to move on and finally get over him; that he would never be the person that I need in my life; that he would never accept me for who I really am; he was not the amazing, perfect, well-balanced person that I thought he was. Yet I ignored it...for three and a half fucking years. I don't think I can stress that number enough. In that time, I could have met and married the person I should be with- the man who would accept me for who I am, instead of wasting my time with someone who couldn't even buy a fucking tv without first finding the perfect stand for it (he started talking about getting the tv when we started dating- he still hadn't gotten it when we broke up-2 years later); someone who had to research the shit out of every fucking thing he did.

But now I have no other choice but to move on. He will never come back; hell, he will never again be any part of my life...nor do I want him to be. He is a coward who could not even tell me the truth- I had to find out via Facebook. And now the thought of him makes me sick. I know I will still have bad days- days where I can not stop crying- days where my thoughts of him turn back to that romantic ideal; but I will get through this. Let me say that again. I. WILL. GET. THROUGH. THIS. And I'll be a stronger person for it. Never again will I try to change who I am for someone. I will embrace my emotions- because they are mine and that is who I am. If I want to cry because of an SPCA commercial, there is nothing wrong with that. If I want to yell at the driver in front of me who is going too slow, there is nothing wrong with that, either. It's who I am. And I will never forgive him for trying to change that.

And all of those souvenirs- all of the things he gave me that said "I love you" are going where they belong- in the garbage. Or better yet, maybe I'll send them to him so he can recycle them- give them to his fiance, because clearly, they were just words and meant absolutely nothing.

Oh- and Ashburnite is back. No more neglecting things that make me feel good.

One last thing- a parting thought, just for aw: