Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A little more prologue.

I don't really like to think about the break, which lasted for eight months. For a little while, it was kind of nice to see what it felt like to be single again. I had been one half of a couple for such a long time, it was fun to see what I was like on my own. I was more fun and flirty and outgoing than I had been in a while, and that was cool at first. I got to feel flattered and desirable which was a nice little ego boost. But really, the best part was when I realized I was completely over being single.

I was very happy with my boyfriend, but of course we had ups and downs as the relationship wavered closer to and further away from perfection. We had problems, we resolved those problems, we had new problems. As much as I always loved him and loved being with him, I couldn't help but wonder from time to time if it was the best, most fulfilling, most satisfying, most compatible relationship possible for both of us. I guessed that it probably was, but there was always a little bit of doubt that flared up when things seemed less than perfect. Then, when he had just graduated and I was about to graduate, there were all these other couples whose relationships were in flux. Either they were breaking up, because their relationship was just a college relationship and couldn't be expected to survive in the real world, or they were rapidly evolving into serious adult relationships. And I wasn't ready to graduate from a simple college relationship to a complicated adult relationship, just by default. A break seemed logical under the circumstances, and it was a compromise between either breaking up altogether or automatically moving in together and being totally domesticated.

But after a few months of singleness, the fun and the newness wore off and I just missed him so much. We visited each other a few times, and it got more and more difficult to say goodbye after each visit. We were both clearly over the whole "I want to see what it feels like to be a me instead of an us" thing. The problem was, I had just signed a year lease for my apartment, and I had also put in so much time and effort trying to make connections and find job leads in New York, I didn't see how I could leave at that point.

When I still didn't have a job by September, though, I moved back home and subletted my room in the apartment to a guy we found on Craigslist. Once I was free of the apartment, I didn't feel so trapped in my whole situation, and I was gradually warming up to the idea of moving to San Francisco. Unfortunately, my boyfriend had just moved into an apartment with a friend from school, and the friend wasn't so sure he wanted to live with a couple. He was pretty into the idea of a bachelor pad and he didn't want any girlfriends around to ruin it. And I definitely wasn't about to live by myself in a new city where I had no friends and no job.

So, somehow, this is what ended up happening: I lived at my parents' house in New Jersey from September through December, and basically just hung out with my mom for three months. We went to the gym every day and took yoga classes and shopped a lot, and that was about it. I went into the city occasionally, but everyone else had jobs and apartments and lives that I didn't really fit into, so mostly I just vegged out at home a lot.

On January 1, I flew to San Francisco and moved in with my boyfriend. There have been plenty of issues in terms of the living situation, which I will almost certainly go into in way more depth than anyone could possibly ever want to know. But what's amazing is that after eight months apart, I am 100% sure that my boyfriend is the best possible person for me. If I could go through a catalog and select the ideal combination of attributes and create my own perfectly customized boyfriend, he still wouldn't be as perfect for me as the boyfriend I already have. And knowing that is easily worth the eight month break.

In February, I started an internship at an advertising agency. And I think that's probably enough background information.

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