It seems so strange that a year ago I had every piece of my life laid out in front of me. Now half of them are missing and the other half are chipped. It has been so difficult to get all the pieces to fit. I need to start all over again.

Wearing: NIN Lifestyle Steinbeck tote, Kensie pants, lord & taylor sweater, Vince Camuto heels

I ended a happy relationship. I made the decision to breakup with the person I thought was the love of my life and who made me feel the most comfortable I’ve ever felt. I knew exactly how I wanted my life to turn out, we both did. Life gets in the way. I can’t say I don’t love him anymore. That would be a lie. But as persistent as I tried to be, I knew I couldn’t make that piece fit into my life anymore.

Comfortable. That feeling doesn’t come to me so easily. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been an quiet, awkwardly timid, and nervous person. Finding someone I can be entirely comfortable with is grueling. It’s hard for me to share or be myself around others. I don’t only mean with the person I’m dating but with friends, coworkers, and even family. It’s hard for me to call someone a friend. It’s actually one of the reasons I didn’t want to end my relationship. I didn’t want to feel comfortable with anyone else. It seems childish but I didn’t want to go through it again. I just wanted to feel like I did with him all the time. It just felt right but I knew that wouldn’t be enough to keep us together.

I’m dating someone new. It feels strange. I use this word a lot because I’m not entirely sure how else to explain what I feel. We started dating a little after I ended my relationship and I made it clear that I wanted things to be strictly casual between us. It made me feel a little less terrible for dating someone so quickly. A few weeks passed and I thought it’d be easier to keep the whole casual thing going but things became so monochrome; so indistinguishable. I felt nervous and intimidated — all the time. It took me a while to realize those weren’t bad things. A lot of times I tried to find an excuse to walk away but he made me happy enough to convince myself otherwise, every damn time.

A few weeks passed and I told him I’d be jealous if he were to date anyone else. I know, this will sound silly, but I still wasn’t ready to make things official. We were practically in a relationship already but he asked me, maybe twice, and I said no. I tried to say yes (I really did) but there were too many things to overthink for me to actually feel comfortable enough to call him my boyfriend. Why couldn’t I just say yes? It had been almost 4 or 5 months.

I was clearly still in love with my ex. For a long time, as much as I hate admitting it, there was a lot of one-sided love in my past relationship. He never stopped loving me nor did he love me any less. We were just on different sides of the spectrum and my end was beginning to desaturate, slowly and subtly. I was so much more in love that I wouldn’t let myself see it fading away.

It didn’t feel great and I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel the way I did. It’s why I couldn’t just say yes. I didn’t want to. At least not until I was entirely sure I felt the same. Sure, he’s wonderful and he makes me happy but was that enough?

I was on my way back from Lima a few weeks ago and I had the most awful night. I forgot my passport, I had no cash, I was running around the airport, and they wouldn’t let me leave. I missed my flight. I had to buy another one. I was a complete mess. I don’t think I’d ever felt as much anxiety and anger at myself as I did that night but every time I looked at my phone to see a text from him (my boyfriend, as strange as it feels to type it out) it made me feel safe, comfortable.

I think that’s exactly what I was desperately looking to grab on to. There are days where I’m laying in bed next to him or reach to hold his hand and I am overcome with happiness, it feels almost unrealistic. And then an uncanny flush of despair and uncertainty clenches onto my stomach, for a split second. And I loath it. It used to linger for a long while. But now it’s only for an instant. I think it’s the feeling of falling out of love.

I saw him the very same night I landed in Orlando. I was in a shit mood from the terrible night and exhausted from the flight. I remember parking and getting out of my car to meet him at the restaurant. I was actually incredibly happy to see him and I couldn’t get that stupid smile to go away as I walked over to the restaurant. I walked in and my heart started racing as I saw him sitting by the bar. I pretended like I was asking the hostess something until I finally got that, I’m-incredibly-angry-and-super-sad-FYI-face going as I walked over and sat next to him. He looked at me and said “yeah, you look tough!” and I couldn’t help but smile and think to myself, “man, this guy makes me fucking happy”. He told me he’d wait until New Year’s to ask me out again so I could have time to think things over. I knew my answer the moment I saw him waiting for me at the bar that night.