Tuesday, May 28, 2013

the story of us, part 4...

Read part 1 here
Read part 2 here
Read part 3 here
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(beach day with Chris' family, 1998)



Habitually an over-thinker, I laid awake the next few nights thinking about what Chris had said.  Am I really with the guy that I’m supposed to marry?  This was the exact reason we had broken up the last time…why did I get back into this relationship in the first place?!  What was I going to do now…?

A few days later Chris called me and invited me to attend the annual Cal vs. Stanford “Big Game” with him and his family.  I desperately wanted to go.  I wanted to see Chris again.  It had been three months since I had last seen him and despite the fact that we hardly knew each other, I missed him. 
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(Quartet Convention, 1999)


I regretfully told Chris that I couldn’t go to the game with him because I still had a boyfriend.  It just wouldn’t be right for me to go out with someone else while I was still dating him.  A large part of me feared that Chris would get tired of waiting for me to make a decision. I could hear the disappointment in his voice as he told me that he understood why I couldn’t attend.  Before I knew it, with a pit forming in my stomach, I found myself saying, “hey…don’t give up...” 

That overwhelming fear of losing something…losing someone that I didn’t actually have in the first place finally made me realize what I had known all along:  I was not with the guy that I was truly supposed to be with.  There was someone else meant for me and I couldn’t let him slip away.
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(exhausted from wedding preparations, seven days before the big day)

That realization gave me the courage to break-up with my boyfriend.  It wasn’t easy and it didn’t go well.  If I am being completely honest, it actually got pretty scary.  All of that was made worth it when I dialed the phone number of the last guy I would ever date.  That Saturday night, as I waited for Chris to answer the phone, the burden that I didn’t realize had been weighing on me was finally gone.

Chris: “Hello?”
Me: “It’s over.  I broke up with him...” 

Check back in tomorrow for the conclusion to our story! 

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