Sometimes I miss S so much. He loved me, and I left. I had a pretty decent life there, and I just left. I built that life up from nothing, too. Very hard work, acquiring a job, friends, apartments, boyfriend...so much work that it's daunting to think I'll have to do it again. It would've been so easy to stay.

But the fights, oh man the fights.

And it wasn't really that great.

I miss him. I hope he's OK. I hope he's having lots of fun and is finding a new girlfriend. We each wanted the other to be someone we weren't. It's like withdrawl. It's like someone died. It's like detoxing. I can and must pull myself up and make my life exactly what I want it to be. I don't want to end up divorced, settling for a career I don't really like in a place I don't really want to be. It's hard now, but I have to look ahead to the future. All this pain...it's an investment. I just wish I knew it was going to pay off. And I wish I knew I could go back to him if it didn't. I wish I could just freeze that relationship where it was. Put it on hold. And if I crash and burn, go back to it as though nothing had happened. At the same time, I want him to be happy, so I want him to move on.

The guilt is overwhelming. I shouldn't've gotten involved at all. I knew it wasn't a perfect match from the beginning. I just liked the attention, and having someone love me and be with me and be on my team.

But it's over now. Time to mourn. Then move on. Don't think about how great it would feel to go running back into his arms, to have him hold me one more time. The price was too high.

He called last night, around 1am, but I didn't pick up. I was sleeping, but more, I was afraid I'd burst into tears upon hearing his voice. And I was afraid he would be drunk--a very real possibility. He's drinking most of the time. Now I feel guilty for that too. Guilt guilt guilt. It's too much.

The Not-That-Incredible Journey

Last Wednesday I left my very kind, loving boyfriend of almost two years, the career I had started, the free house I was living in, and most of my stuff and headed cross country with my dad. Today we finished the journey, and I'm living at home. At 26. With my dad, stepmother, and two half siblings, both under 6 years old.

I remind myself constantly that this is not a failure. Things had to change. The boyfriend, while kind and loving, wasn't a match for me for many reasons. The career I had started, I didn't want to continue. The free house was oppressive, filled with the boyfriend's grandfather's lifetime of possessions. The Golden State was only golden because all the grass died from the hundred-degree heat in the summer. I was 2000 miles away from almost all of my friends and family, and I had turned into someone I wouldn't hang out with.

Lazy, overeating, watching too much TV, sleeping late, expected to do tedious housework, broke, and desperately unhappy sometimes, I barely recognized the current self from the recent college grad self. I had earned a masters, worked in Hawaii and Alaska, traveled fearlessly (not really) across country, hiked Yosemite, swam in the Pacific in March, done so many things. And suddenly I was on the fast track to becoming a stagnant, obese, housewife/teacher with no greater ambition than to catch my nightly TV shows.

So, while moving home in your late 20s isn't generally seen as a trait of the hugely successful, I just had to go. It's hard to convince myself I'm moving forward when it feels so much like backward.

My friends, although I know I shouldn't compare myself, are getting married, buying houses, traveling to Haiti and Cuba, and moving ahead in careers they really want. I feel like I'm behind. Held back a grade.

But at least, I remind myself constantly, I'm not settling for a mediocre situation in a job I don't want with someone I don't actually love. At least there's that. The new goal is to stay true to myself, never settle, grow, and eventually prosper on my own terms, through my own hard work and self-discovery. I'm only 26. I have time. Just have to remember why I chucked everything.