Last week, the last 4.5 years of my life ended.. And a new beginning is starting.
Over the past year or so, I have been swinging between “Let’s get married” and “Let’s break up” with Calvin. He’s an amazing person and I love him very much. We have been through so much over the past 4.5 years and he’s been there with me since the early days of learning I was HIV+. Without him and his support and love, I’m not sure where I would be right now.
We’ve had an amazing 4.5 years together… But times changes, plans change and it’s all out of our control at this point.
When we first started dating, the idea was that he would finish Med School then get into Toronto, Vancouver or somewhere close to a big city. I would get a job there and we would move to be together. Med school ended and one day, he called me upset. He said “I got into Saskatoon”. This was the worst case scenario. I had never heard of Saskatoon, so I visited it in early spring. It was cute, small, but cute. I enjoyed the city and the time we spent there together. But I wasn’t really sure I could live there. I visited many more times since then, winter, fall, spring, summer. It really wasn’t horrible, until winter came, the sun would rise about 9:30am and set by 3:30. Even at noon, your shadow was taller then you.
We agreed that we would continue the long distance until the end of residency. I would continue to visit as much as I could and he would come here when he could. It wasn’t a horrible situation, but I saw us changing. He seemed distant when we weren’t together, often disappearing for hours on end. I was grumpy when we were together. But we had good times still.
Then back in December, we were at dinner and he said. “I think I want to stay in Saskatoon”. After discussing it more, the explanation was that it would be hard for him to get into a bigger city, would require another year of training. He knew the doctors in Saskatoon and he just thought it would be easier to stay there.
We continued to hang out when we could, me visiting him, etc. But it started to really bother me. I’m already 34. I don’t know if I want to wait another 3 years for him to find out if he’s staying in Saskatoon. At the same time, I don’t want to be 34 and single. I don’t have the energy in me to go through the dating game again. I’m just not in a place right now where I want to be dealing with that. By this age, I wanted to be living with my partner. Happy, married, enjoying life together. Not single again.
So last week we were on a trip together in Vancouver island, BC. He gave me a book called “5 things every relationship needs” and that just set off the discussion, we laid in bed, in the dark and talked it out. We both agreed that we didn’t want to wait 3 years, only to find out he was going to stay in Saskatoon. Or even worse, Moose Jaw.
We ended it.
The next day was very awk to start out with. I don’t think we said a word to each other for the first couple hours of us being awake. We agreed to go for a short hike, but we got to this pull off, stood there by the lake and talked some more. Tears flowed from us both, hugs were exchanged and it was agreed that we would head back home.
We drove to the next hotel that day and spent the night. It was nice, we talked, we cried, we watched some videos. We played with Astra. This is what I want, exactly. To hang out, enjoy each other, walk on the beach every day, play with the dog. But here it is, 4.5 years is over.
I drove him back to Vancouver the next day and left to head home. Randomly breaking out in tears the whole drive.
What am I doing… Is this the right decision.