“When’s the last time you followed your instinct
despite not being sure it was the right thing to do?
Did it end up being the right call?”

Breaking up my with my most recent ex.

Even as I type that I feel the cool wave of reality, gently lapping against my skin.

There’s no depression, at least not anymore. No sadness to eat away at my day. Just the fact that it happened, and the only thing to do is to keep moving forward.

In a way I think this post is good. A way to explain what happened. Another step in the journey I am on to leave my past where it belongs and to heal some of the wounds I have gathered through my battles.

Sir and I dated roughly three months. In the beginning I was living with another ex. I had no place else to go. I couldn’t afford rent in two places. It felt like I was stuck, everyday coming home to an environment where I didn’t feel loved or welcomed.

Sir was understanding and supportive. Sammie, Josh, and Jessica, Sir’s roommates, were also supportive. So much so that eventually I ended up moving in with them.

Jarrett found a roommate once I left, and I didn’t have to pay rent there anymore, which made the situation so much easier to handle financially.

It was odd for me, as an introvert. Not having my own room. Being in a house full of people, and life. But I liked it. Loved it even.

I felt loved. There was always a hug for me when I came home. Everyone took turns cooking. I kept the kitchen clean.

And Sir held me during the nights that I needed to cry out my hurt and frustration. We read to each other before falling asleep most nights. We watched Doctor Who together.

It felt good.

It didn’t last though. Sammie and Josh were going to move to Texas in a few months. Jessica left as well, wanting her own room and a place closer to her school. We’re still friends, and I see her every once in a while.

But the house took on an air of frailty. It was going to end. Things were going to change. Was I ready for that change?

Sir wanted to get a place together. Just us.

I have had three relationships where I have moved in with my significant other. And all three of those situations have left me emotional hurt, and financially worse off than I was before. I don’t take the thought of moving in lightly any more.

For me it’s akin to marriage. Maybe that’s a bit extreme, but that’s how I view it. I’m tired of moving into a place only to feel like an intruder in my own home. To be forced out of it because the relationship crumbles, leaving me wondering where I’m going to be sleeping.

It’s not a fun situation, and I’m tried of putting myself through it. I owe it to myself to be kinder to me.

So not only were there issues and insecurities from my past to work through, there were also the facts staring be in the face. Red flags that I had been noticing, but not really heeding.

Sir never, literally, not ‘ex rant exaggerating’, ever cleaned. He was miffed the one time he had to go to the laundry mat with me because I had been unable to get to the laundry during the day, and the only way we would be able to spend time together at all was if he went with me.

If I didn’t clean the kitchen dishes were left until I got to them, even though I worked all day, and he had be home for hours.

He cooked one time that I truly recall, possibly twice. In three months. Even though everyone in the house worked and had crazy schedules.

He liked to spend money, which isn’t bad, as long as you take care of your expenses, which he wasn’t. He was constantly having to push bills back and pay late fees, which in my mind is irresponsible and setting money on fire.

We were supposed to be saving money for the move, the down payments, but he wasn’t helping in that area.

He had child support to pay, and he used that as an excuse for a lot of things. Everything was fine until he had to start paying that, and that’s when his life started on the downward slope he would say.

He talked about how his children were the most important thing to him, and the only good thing in his life, which made me hurt, though I know he didn’t mean it that way.

And even that I had a hard time believing because one month he spent so much money eating out with other people, not me, that he was unable to buy and mail his son a birthday present. And then felt bad about it.

For as much of a great person that he is, there were serious insecurities and priority issues that I, alone, wasn’t going to be able to help him work through. And even after expressing my concerns he gave me no sign to show that things would change.

When the subject came up again about moving in together, I said that I couldn’t.

I couldn’t do it, at least not right now. I wasn’t ready for it. I needed more time, more than three months. I wasn’t ready to be married yet. I didn’t know if he was the right one, and I just needed more time and space to figure out what I was feeling.

Time for use to date, and go to the park. More time for us to read together. To sit on the couch watching Doctor Who and building our relationship into something stable and lasting, rather than fleeting and frail.

I was thinking about the longer term. I was thinking about my past relationships and where I felt they had gone wrong. I wanted to do this ‘right’. I wanted it to last, and moving in, alone, so soon, screamed of disaster for me.

He said that if we didn’t move in together, that he would constantly wonder why I would be hanging out with him. He wasn’t good enough to live with, so why was I wasting my time with him? He said that even if we eventually did move in together, he would be resentful, and take it out on the relationship.

I was so hurt. I fought literally for four days to try to express my point of view. I would wake up to the same argument, come home to the same argument, fall asleep feeling alone, cold, misunderstood and unloved, to the same argument.

If you don’t move in with me you don’t love me, is what he was saying.

He even said that it was obvious I didn’t care for him as much as he cared for me, and that he was just going to have to accept that fact.

It made me feel like what emotions I did have were worthless. They meant nothing to him because it wasn’t to the extent that he wanted.

Four days of tears and anxiety.

And then I reached my breaking point. As an INFJ it is very final for me. It is literally a switch, a wire. Something snaps inside of me and there is no recovery, no coming back, no mending bridges. Something has died, and no amount of effort can bring the dead back.

That night when I came home he said that we would try the living apart thing. He was giving in. On day five.

He said, “You’ve won.”

I tried to explain that a relationship shouldn’t be a battle, with winners and losers. That I hadn’t ‘won’ anything, because all I ever wanted was his understanding, and I still didn’t have that. He was giving in, rather than trying to empathize with me and to see my point of view.

He said he was doing this for me. That it had nothing to do with the relationship. He was doing it to make me happy.

I felt so alone.

I was crying. I wanted to break up with him then. That was what was supposed to happen.

But he was touching me, comforting me. He was warm and saying he was sorry for hurting me. All I wanted was to feel like I wasn’t a terrible, awful person.

Couples live apart for years. Why was I so horrible for wanting space? Why was it so bad to want more than three months before making a huge decision where I would be the one taking on most of the responsibilities?

It was going to be so different when it was just us, without Sammie and Josh there. I wasn’t ready for it.

Why did that mean I was bad?

Part of me is ashamed to admit that we had sex. I knew even as it progressed to that level that it would be a band aid. Nothing would be fixed or resolved. It would just be a chemical cloud inside of our brains, making this feel ok until it wore off.

Too much had been said, too much poison had entered the relationship in those four days for it to ever recover. But there was a part of me that needed the closeness and intimacy, and instead of standing against it, I caved because for the first time in a week I didn’t feel alone, and that need drowned out the screaming of my rational brain.

Sir thought we were ok afterwards. I became even more introverted, more withdrawn, which is saying a lot since I’m pretty much a hermit to begin with.

We agreed that we would live apart. We would figure out days where we could spend time together. We would find a way to make it work.

I woke up one morning, and stayed in bed, thinking about the situation, about my past.

It always seemed to come back to that. The past. History, not the present, not the future. It came back to things that could no longer be changed or altered.

And in that moment of realization a thought occurred to me. If this was going to work, I needed, we needed, to let go of the things there were affecting us the most.

Our past relationships. We needed to realize that we were not our exs, and that if we were going to work, we needed to give each other the benefit of the doubt, and to move forward without expectations. We needed to accept that things happened, and move forward clean.

For me, that required something symbolic. I am very much an action driven person. It’s not enough to ‘say’ that you have done something. You must prove that you have done it through some visible, tangible thing.

So, how was I going to show that I had moved on? How was I to show that my past was where it belonged, behind me, and that I was stepping forward into a new future with Sir?

I thought about it for a while. Maybe if I did this, the relationship would be ok. Maybe we would be fine after all. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

I thought for a few days. Wanting the action to be something for both of us, since it was partly for him as well as myself. It was for us.

I finally found what I thought was the perfect thing.

I could cut my hair.

Sir loved my hair. Soft, dark, curly, and falling to about the center of my back, just below my shoulder blades. He would brush it for me every once in a while.

If I cut my hair, all of the past would go with it. Everything new that grew would be for him. It would be his hair.

I was so nervous when I approached the subject with him. I knew he wouldn’t like me being essentially bald, with nothing for him to run his fingers through, but it was only temporary. It would grow back. And it would all be his.

New hair that had never been touched by anyone else. No Jarrett, no Warren, no Cory. Just Sir.

After I explained what I wanted to do, and why, Sir said no.

He said I could get a tattoo of a phoenix for any other type of body modification I wanted, but I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair. He said he felt like he had no control over anything any more, and that he wanted say in this one thing.

I was crushed. I had essentially just been told that he wanted me to keep all of my baggage. That this spiritual act I wanted to preform was unacceptable.

I was hurt. And I was furious.

I felt like I had been trying to reach out to him with an olive branch, and again, because it wasn’t what he wanted it wasn’t good enough. That it had been batted out of my hand to fall into the dirt as if it were unworthy.

I had already figured out where I would be moving to, so I spoke with my new roommate the next day, arranged to move in sooner, and broke up with Sir that evening, taking Scarlet with me as I left since home is where the cat is.

A week later, after much meditation and making sure it was the right action, I went and had my hair cut, buzzed down to my scalp like a military recruit.

It was actually an amazing experience. The stylist asked me why, and I explained that it was a spiritual journey, for me to return to my roots, and the start of finding myself again.

She was so happy to be part of it. It made me happy as well. I had though of buying a razor kit and doing it myself, worried that if I involved someone else that it would cheapen the action because of their misunderstanding.

But she understood, and supported my choice, rather than thinking it silly or odd.

I walked out of the salon into a damp rainy day, and for the first time in my life I felt the rain on my scalp. I felt new, clean. In a way almost born again.

I didn’t feel weak, or self conscious, walking into stores practically bald. I thought I would, that I would need time to adjust to ‘the new me.’ But I didn’t.

It wasn’t a new me. If anything, this was pure me. I am more than my hair. I am more than the clothing I wear. I am more than my past. I am complex, and there is no single thing which can define who I am. And certainly not by something which can be so fleeting and easily removed as hair.

Currently I am living with Joshua, a person I have known for roughly a year. I have been here around four months. I have my own room with my own bathroom. I cook for myself, clean my own messes. I come and go as I please. Scarlet and Seth have their spots, and the coffee table normally has my cross stitching scattered across it.

I have coffee at the kitchen table in the mornings before Joshua wakes up, enjoying the solitude as I check my emails and plan out my day.

Financially I am recovering, for the most part (for those of you who read my posts, you know where I’m at).

I am safe, sound, and in the process of healing.

I have four months worth of growth on my head, and my co-workers constantly tell me how awesome it looks, how it works really well for me. I’m not sure if they are being nice, or if they really mean it.

And even as I type that, I know that it is genuine. The people who complement me don’t give lip service, to anyone one. They call it how they see it. I suppose that’s one up side to working with super logical, left brained people. : )

I’m not sure where Sir and I would be if we had stayed together. I’m not sure where Jarrett and I would be if I had stayed at the apartment instead of moving out.

But I feel I am where I am supposed to be right now. My path was meant to bring be here, and I’m ok with that.