Transplanted Life
Monday, October 23, 2006
 
I'm not a romantic person, but I always liked the ideal.
Alex has been offered a job. A good one. In Texas.

I've been kidding myself for the last week, saying we'd find a way to make it work. I'm making pretty decent money right now, and he will be to, and I, at least, do not fear air travel. I could look for work in that area. Talking by phone and online is cheap and instantaneous, so it's not like we'll really be out of touch.

It sounds less reasonable when you're not saying it to someone who wants to believe it as much as you do. Or who will at least pretend she wants to believe it as much as you do. Jen was there with a story of a friend who realized she missed her boyfriend enough to quit her job and go back home; Gertie doesn't even think of ending it with her boyfriend, even though he's been overseas a long time now.

Of course, Kate's been at a convention. She would have given the idea that this is just a bump or a test the scorn that it deserves, the same thing that I feel just writing this now. In a way, I guess, there is a test here, but it's not the separation. It's the knowledge that there will be one. And I think I'm failing it.

Or, "failing" it. It's become pretty clear to me that I'm willing to accept one element of my life changing because of what somebody else is doing, and passively accept it, rather than to actively change the rest of my life in order to preserve that one. It's not a right-and-wrong thing, but just a case of being forced to examine my priorities and thus realize that my boyfriend isn't quite so high a priority as having stability in other areas of my life.

Which sucks, to be honest. I'm not a tremendously romantic person, but if you're going to be with someone for better than half a year, it should be harder to walk away from. Hell, I've known more than a few people who were already engaged after that length of time. When Kate got dumped by Carter, she talked about the wasted time, how she'd invested a certain amount of her limited time on Earth when she was good looking and could conceive children on a relationship that was at best a learning experience, but when I look at the coming end of my relationship with Alex, I don't feel that, and maybe I should. Maybe I'm just relatively new to the whole biological clock thing, but maybe I'm lacking certain instincts that make it even possible for me to have a really great relationship.

Which would suck even more - just the idea of not even being capable of something more than "friends with benefits" is scary.

Of course, who knows? Maybe Alex and I will go out to dinner tonight and he'll tell me that he's turned down the job because the very idea of being that far away from me is too much for him to bear. But looking at what I've written, I think that would make me feel worse, because I can't reciprocate the way he would deserve if that were the case.

-Marti

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Note: This blog is a work of fantasy; all characters are either ficticious or used ficticiously. The author may be contacted at JaySeaver@comcast.net