End of an Era

Once upon a time I was in love. That kind of naive, life can never be the same without each other, kind of love that you can only really have once and only really feel when you're too young to know better.

I was 20 when I fell in love for the first (and only) time in my life. And at 28 I'm finally trying to cut the ties of that moment and move on.

I've held on to Ryan as a back up for myself for a lot of years despite the fact that I knew perfectly well that I was no longer in love with him after I returned from my visit to South Africa. I just didn't want to let go, didn't want to admit that I had been waiting for a person that no longer existed.

When it comes to dating I'm hopeless. Either I am completely uninterested immediately or I am overly interested to the point where I build things up too quickly and ruin it all. I just can't figure out the transition from casual to relationship considering the one serious relationship I have ever been in happened pretty immediately. We met and that was it, love at first site kinda nonsense (ok, maybe we weren't really in love immediately but we were an insta-couple).

Anyway, despite the 7 years of being broken up and the already mentioned fact that I know I'm not in love with him, I've still let myself keep Ryan on this strange pedestal. Until recently.

He did something that I've never been able to do, found himself in love with someone new. Someone who is also long distance but he's willing to wait around. Someone who isn't me.

After feeling my heart speed up to panic mode everytime I signed onto my stupid Facebook account, terrified to have to face another stupid "i miss her so much" or "this is such a new feeling for me" or even "the best people are worth waiting for," I finally just unfriended him. No more contact, no more heartache.

I always thought it was amazing how Ryan and I could stay in touch across the world via the internet and even text messages. Things were so difficult when we had our long distance relationship, trying to keep up with the phone booths and phone cards, scheduling exact times to be available at a certain number. And now, we could chat anytime. Catch up whenever we wanted.

Which is exactly what was holding me back.

How did I expect to move on when my once love of my life was still very much in my life?

So I cut him off. And I'm really hoping this makes all the difference.