This time it’s personal - the post that is.

I returned on Wednesday from a week in Belize. It was my first fully work-free trip in quite a while, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing a lot of work. I was, it was just different work.

I’m going through a really big change right now. My life is totally moving on. My relationship with Jonny is seriously shifting after 4 years together, and we both know that the next steps are very different than the steps we have taken in the past.  We are both growing a lot and nothing between us will ever be the same as it once was.

I’m celebrating and mourning this knowledge right now. The relationship, as it once was, is over. While I don’t want to delve too deep into my personal life (I’ve spent the first few years of this blog doing just that) I know what I’m going through is not unique, just something we all have to do on our own, and so it feels good to share a little more than I’ve shared in a while.

Jonny and I have both changed quite a bit since we met. And I’m so thankful for that. The relationhip has truly has been the greatest transformation of my time, but while I was going through the process I have always had my doubts. I think that’s part of this human experience, these doubts. For me, they’re about who you love, and why, and if its not only right for now, but right for as long as we can imagine forever might be (or maybe that’s just what I’m thinking now that I’m in my 30s). I can’t imagine forever, it’s a concept I’ve never quite been able to grasp, and I’ve tried to grasp it ever since I was a kid. When I couldn’t sleep I would try repeating the phrase “forever is forever is forever is forever….” I still don’t understand it as a tangible idea.

When it comes to love, I have friends who say you just know, and that’s how it is. But that’s not my personality, to just know for certain about being certain, and so I look for other sources of enlightenment to help guide my way. I think that’s one of the scariest parts of this all for me. That I’m choosing to rock the solid foundation of my relationship in order to figure out who I am. It would be easy to stay, to enjoy the love we’ve fostered, to play with the cat and continue to create our home, but right now I’m not there, in more ways than one.

Speed Levitch says “fear is joy paralyzed.” I take comfort in this opinion.

Pop culture has talked up the 7 year itch (or maybe its just a movie with Marilyn Monroe) that couples experience, but Helen Fisher’s relationship research claims that couples will more likely feel the 4 year itch first. When Jonny and I both started to scratch, it revealed that the itch was much deeper. And in accepting this itch, and embracing the fear of the unknown scratch - I realize that I this is what happens to some people, some times. Still, for me, I’m trying to figure out why the end of a beautiful love has to feel so tragic, even when it’s not?

I happen to be lucky, Jonny understands the importance of evolution, so this isn’t angry or ugly or spiteful. This process of separation in the now feels quite necessary, and overly adult. I have friends who believe that couples work best after a separation. A lot of them. I haven’t formed my own conclusions, but I know one thing for certain, the relationsihp that I have to reconnect with right now is the one with my self.

So that’s what has been going on since before Belize. But now that I’m back, and things are on the move, it feels good to share.