Here I am again. I always come back to my writing when things start to go haywire in my life. Maybe I should just keep up with it and there would be less of that? We all know that's not how life works.

  In September, I reconnected with a great guy I'd gone to college with. It moved quickly. We wanted a lot of the same things and there was that great sense of familiarity due to the shared past we had, as well as the fact that we're both music teachers, avid readers, lovers of jazz, etc. It was going along fantastically.

   There were a few red flags for me along the way. The night he was out super late and texting me (and voicemailing) at 3:30 am talking about "putting the nail in the coffin" with his ex is the big one I think of. He also had a major health scare a couple months back with chest pain, etc. that turned out to be "heartburn." He was hospitalized for a day and I really thought that would scare him into submission as far as eating healthy, working out, and keeping a sleep schedule. But I was wrong. And somehow those things became major irritations for me. He was constantly complaining about being exhausted and not feeling well, and somewhere along the way, I began to voice my concerns. "Have you thought about a sleep schedule?" "Do you know anything about sleep hygiene?" "Maybe you could try cutting out the soda and pizza for a bit and giving your body a rest." I know how all of this sounds. Is it my place? Probably not. But when you're intimately involved with someone, you want what's best for them. I also, selfishly, started to get very nervous about how his lifestyle would affect me. I work very hard at eating well, sleeping, and working out consistently. I am a tad crazy about it, admittedly, because my father had a major heart attack at the young age of 42, so taking care of one's health is super important to me.

   Did I mention he lives 5ish hours away? Oh, yeah. So, he lives 5ish hours away, so we were seeing each other about once a month. September, October, November, and then came December- NYE in NYC. Or that's what it was supposed to be. Only I came down with stomach flu on NYE. And all I wanted was two things- 1. to be home and 2. to be not sharing a bathroom. Neither of which I could have. So I asked as nicely as I could, if he would consider going into the city and enjoying the show he'd bought tickets for. To which he said, No, I want to be here for you. Which was so incredibly kind, and yet, so incredibly infuriating to me. I don't want to be dying in the bathroom with the guy one wall over who I have only been dating for four months.

   Flash forward to a week post NYE. He breaks it off. Saying that he'd been feeling for a few weeks that things were going south and that NYE was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was not given a chance. He just broke it off.

  Now, I have logically thought about ALL of this over and over again. I was irritated with him. Our lifestyles weren't in sync. We live 5 hours apart. I know all of this, and yet, I keep coming back to the same thing. Long story short: I had my heart torn out and stomped on repeatedly by my ex husband, as well as one other long term boyfriend. And they have something in common. In both of those relationships, they both walked off like I meant nothing. And now this guy does the same.damn.thing. Guys, hear me out. I am not saying that this is not cray cray behavior. I wish I was unblemished and had no issues too. But the reality is, I've lived some shit, ok? And so have you. And I'm not judging you. So what I'm saying is, I ALWAYS subconsciously push guys away when I think it has real potential because it's a test. The message I've heard now, several times in my adult life, is that I am not enough. I am not enough for you to fight for. You just walk. Things get tough, and I hold you accountable, and you WALK. AND NOTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD HURTS LIKE THAT. TO know that you have laid your soul bare for someone, they've looked over it and said "MEH". There is NO hurt in the world like that. It feels like daggers. No matter if the relationship would've survived or was meant to work out or not. That shit effing hurts. Because the underlying message is "you're not enough for me to want to fight for this."

  I've also been living with the idea of what an awful person I must be. He walked away, having said that I made him feel unloved, unappreciated, and stupid, and wrong all the time. OH. MY. God. I have nothing else but that. That was NEVER the intent. And I am sick to my stomach thinking that I caused this heart. Literally. Sick.

  Really though, someone help me understand. How does one say that someone is the best thing that's happened to them in so long, and ten days before a breakup say that they couldn't stop gushing about you at dinner, and then ten days later, you're their ex? How does that even work? Because I literally can't wrap my brain around that. And my heart won't accept it.