A new life hampered by the old.

I have been in Texas, staying with my dad and step-mom for several days now. I’ve put in several job applications so far and hold out hope that at least one of them will come through. But it is not a new life or a fresh start.

My roommate is back home, and by his own admission, missing me horribly. This makes me happy and sad at once. I am glad to be missed, but part of the reason I left was to escape him and I knew that only radical change could separate us. It is not a bad relationship that we have, but it is undeniably unhealthy and as such must be left behind. Sooner, rather than later. It hurts me in the deepest parts of my heart because I often feel so connected to him, but we will never be more than what we are now and so we must, by my own choice, be less. It is not easily explained or understood, so I understand if it never makes sense outside of my own mind. He cannot even understand or accept it.

There is another old life hampering my efforts to move forward. I have an entire “old life” here. One that I escaped years ago and have now run head first back into. I am surrounded by people who’ve either forgotten who I am or who remember me as someone else entirely – someone joined at the hip with a boy she loved dearly, but did not know how to appreciate, someone needy and dependent and everything that I have fought for many years to never be again. Sometimes, it worries me that I will become that girl again out of familiarity. Old habits are easy to fall back into, and sometimes I think that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do that have a third shot with that boy. It took me nearly three years and a near total transformation to get the second chance though, so I don’t see number three coming easily if ever. 

But I hope, sometimes secretly and sometimes not. I hope that we will have one of those “third time’s a charm” scenarios. 

Somewhere in the state of Texas, there is a boy who is not at all remarkable, but who made his mark on my soul nearly five years ago. And I will love him until the day I die, even if I should never see his face again. Even if I fall in love, move away, marry someone else, have a family, live happily ever after. I will always love this boy more. A silly thing to say, you may think, but true. You cannot love someone the way I have loved him for as long as I have loved him and doubt the truth of that statement. Or the sadness. 

Another thing I have learned … the truth is often the saddest thing. And you can only throw away your Happily Ever After so many times before you lose your shot at it altogether.