Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Breaking up IS hard to do. I’ve never been very good at it. In my younger years, I would just stop calling a guy if I’d found that our interests diverged, that we weren’t compatible past a certain point.

Then, when I found men I actually cared about, I approached the break up differently. One I forced the break up with because I was going to lose him under other circumstances anyway, why not channel my inner bitch and make the break now? Another stopped talking to me at one point over a plate of food (long story), but we managed to begin dating again. When he revealed that he’d omitted some things about who he was, I ended it. The last one also had some complaints about me, becoming unsure if he was prepared to be in a relationship. I didn’t wait around for him to mull it over and ended it.

In each case though, I held on too long. I got huge claret red flags that he wasn’t it and I wasn’t it for him, and God woman let go. I’m faced with another kind of break up now, between me and the career I envisioned having since I was in college. Some days it’s hard to let go. Just like some of those break ups, after the decision has been made I start to wonder if I’ve made the right choice. Were those guys right, was it me and I should have done or said something different? In this job, I wonder the same thing. I should have left this company before now. I should have been making more contacts all along. I should have done more, been better, been a little less me I suppose.

It took me some time to realize it, but with those men and in this job I am not who I want to be. I don’t want to wear my hair straight all the time as one boyfriend requested. I don’t want to argue all the time as one boyfriend was prone to do. And I don’t want to keep climbing a ladder that leads to something I’m not passionate about and if I’m honest with myself never have been. Those men were stand ins for the real thing, for all my hopes and dreams of what love would look like. Our lives are filled with rest stops on the way to our true destination. There’s nothing wrong with making a pit stop, but in love and in career, it’s best to know when the time is right to get back in the car and get on with the journey.