Coffee House

Happy Valentine's Eve!  

While some of you have plans for a romantic night out {or in} with your sweethearts, I have plans to celebrate my mother's birthday with my family and snuggle with my little furball tomorrow night.

In lieu of the traditional Valentine's post, I thought I'd share something that I wrote last June. Last June, you ask? Yes. It was a few months after ending my 6 year relationship. I had just found out a few things that drove away any doubt that I did the right thing in ending it. I spent a few weeks in tears learning of these events, but then woke up one morning feeling completely and utterly happy and content. I had my mourning period - delayed three months and only lasting two weeks - but I had a new sense of clarity. This post is empowering for me, and I hope any of you single, brokenhearted friends out there find some kind of comfort in it. The heart-wrenching pain I felt then dulls in comparison to the happiness I have found in being true to myself and my dreams.
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I'm sitting at my favorite spot in town. It's a coffee house that used to be an inn. Huge and open with beams and the coziest fireplace, this is where I go when I need to concentrate. Something about the sound of the espresso machine and happy chatter makes for perfect white noise. Maybe it brings me back to the hours I spent in my favorite coffee shop in college writing papers, studying, and more often than not, laughing the afternoon away with my friends.

The funny thing about a building is that so much can happen under one roof, without anyone else being any wiser. My life changed in a big way at this place, and until now, only one other person knew that. His life changed in a big way too that day, in this place. 

It was the last coffee together. The last attempt to have a decent conversation. So much had been said by now. Words that couldn't really be taken back, despite promises that they were never meant to hurt. So many actions that hurt more than words ever could. This was last chance to see if what we had a few years ago had even a flicker of life left in it. 

It didn't. 

We both knew it, knew it for months, but neither one of us would admit it. 

So much had happened, had changed, and our lives were on two very different paths. The life he pictured for himself was one with which I would never be content. The life I am so determined to live was one that he resented. We had nothing in common except for each other.

As I sit here, in the coffee house, looking out the window to the table on the porch where I last went with him, I am having a lot of trouble concentrating, which is the opposite intent of me being here in the first place. For some reason today I can't stop thinking about him, about us, and what we might have been. 

But then I think of what would have been if we had stayed together, and I smile to myself, knowing that my choice to end that chapter was the beginning of a lifetime of adventure.

That day I was hit slapped with a big reality:

True love will not resent and limit your dreams.

Remember that ladies. Or gentlemen. Or whomever might be reading this blog. It is something I already knew, but I didn't fully understand the magnitude of it until that moment.

That day at the coffee house, I finally let my brain and my heart work together, something that I had been preventing for a very long time.  I think my biggest and only regret is that I let myself stay in a situation that was less than desirable for so long when I knew what I should have done months, maybe even years, before. Words can't express the relief that I felt leaving him that day, knowing the fighting, resentment and cutting words were over. Words also can't express the heartache I felt watching him walk away, knowing he would never hold me again or watch me walk down the aisle one day. 

This post isn't at all what I intended to say when I began writing it. I hadn't any intention of sharing anything about my breakup with him. I hope, in some small way, it inspires you to listen to your heart and never settle for anything less than your dreams. 

Be true to yourself, not matter how hard that might be. In the end, the initial pain will dull in comparison to the pain of a life not fully lived. - Michaela's Philosophy of Life, written after hours, days, even months of thought on the matter.

Today, I am happier and more determined than ever to live my extraordinary life, which is what this blog is all about.
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Sending you all my love this Valentine's Eve.