If I could go back in time, I would tell my 'pre-affair' self to run far from the relationship I was in at the time.
I would have told myself to listen to what I knew was the right, which was to focus on A and leave the rest of my life to grow like ivy, on its own.
Oh, fuck it. Who am I kidding?
No, I would not have done that. I would have simply told 'The One' that I loved him sooner than I did instead of waiting for the 'right' time.
And, for all I know, the end result of our breaking apart would still have happened. But the hindsight of knowing that I would have had those extra few weeks of 'love' would have been nice.
I started to look at cost of living indexes for Philadelphia today. I remember doing this for Chicago about two years ago. Could I make it there in a relationship and out of one? It's part of the issue of being in a relationship for me: I need to know that I can take care of myself if it ends.
Sometimes, I wonder if that dooms the relationship at the onset, but I don't know how to be any other way. I think men are given a pass for this because that's just how society works. Women are supposed to still know, on some level, that someone will be taking care of them.
It's the beauty of being independent. And the horror of it, too.
I can't always make a date because I have work or some other committment that comes up last minute, but that could come across as not giving enough.
I go through this with friends, too. I find that some of them are totally understaning. And those are usually the ones with jobs more intense than mine. Or children. Same difference I guess.
I spent last year learning a lot about myself. Some of it I truly did not like. Some of it was wonderful to know.
But all of it was what has brought me to this point...this place of being able to say that there was a point where all I did was smile on the outside and be sad on the inside.
I wouldn't go back and be 'that' Bubbles again because it really doesn't feel like it was all that long ago.
