On Love...

Seeing as my family reads this blog and my family deserves to know about this kind of stuff, and seeing as I rarely ever do mention this kind of stuff, I think I may feel a kind of relief to copy and past a couple of journal entries I've made recently. Family knows best, afterall. Just please, no sad sorry email responses. Something encouraging would be preferable. And sorry, this is going to be super long...

Brief back story: Stuart and I have been dating since September of our freshman year here at Lycoming. That's a long time, especially for me. And I've come to really love Stuart - and believe me, the feeling's mutual. haha. But with graduation closing in and our lives seemingly going in very different directions, there has been a lot of thinking, talking, and crying (uh...entirely on my part) about what to do. Well, the rest of this entry is going to be very choppy because I'm cutting and pasting and I have neither the time nor the emotional strength at the moment to go through and make it more sensible or...censored. So here's EVERYTHING that I've been feeling!

I realized something this morning [Friday]. I seem to complain a lot to some people about some things that Stuart does, and that's very unfair to him. He really is a very very good boyfriend and I actually rarely have large complaints about him. He's always there when I really need him and he does many things that I have heard that other guys won't do for their girlfriends (that was not meant to be sexual in any way...). He actually is really good at communicating and whenever he sees me will give me his undivided attention, which is more than I can say for myself. I tend to be distracted and don't always give him my full attention when I really should, but he still puts up with it. I think my big thing about it all is that, while he is possibly the perfect boyfriend for me, he would most definitely not be the perfect husband. I think this causes me to be a bit distant and why I distract myself. I know that the end is coming soon and I really don't want that, so I'm doing things that are just purely unfair to him so I won't feel so devastated come the end of summer when he leaves for Spain and I for grad school. The part that makes me feel worst about it is that he doesn't realize what I'm doing. I need to talk more about this to him, I think.

I love him and I know I will be a complete and utter mess when the end of summer arrives. While I'm positive that it won't be the end of ever seeing each other again, I am sure that it will be the complete end of any kind of romantic relationship with him. I will always be here, he will always be wandering around and eventually circling back home, where we'll meet up again and catch up and reminisce. I just hope I don't drop whoever I may be in a relationship with and run off with him for a bit, which I can see myself doing. But maybe since I realize this, I won't do it? I don't know.

Anywho, after talking with Denise and Melissa Saturday, I realized that my realization of what my relationship is like with Stuart came just in time. Apparently everyone thinks the opposite of how I feel because of how I act when he's not around. That I complain and get frustrated with him, but then the second he calls me I drop everything and leave. Everyone, and especially my brother, think I'm absolutely miserable with him, but will do whatever he says at his beckon call. Not true at all. Yes, I get frustrated with Stuart at times, but who doesn't have these problems in a relationship, especially when it's lasted as long as mine has? People also ask me why Stuart never comes to hang out when I am with my friends. The truth is harsh, and it gets me irritated, but I've voiced this to Stuart and I understand his side. I am friends with loud and obnoxious people. Now wait a minute, that's not a bad thing. That's how Stuart sees it, not how I see it. Stuart does not like loud, rowdy, huge groups of people. To Stuart, a group more than 4 is a LARGE GATHERING. He likes calm gatherings of a few people, playing video games, boozing, maybe playing music. My friends are a bit much for him. I like friends who are a bit in your face and pull you out of your comfort zone just a bit. I would never have broken out of my elementary school shell if I didn't, and I am SO thankful for all that. I also love having an enormous group to eat with for dinner. If I am only eating with maybe only Denise and Melissa, he'll sit with us and eat, but as soon as that 3rd person sits down, he's gone. He just can't handle it. And I don't want him to be unhappy or uncomfortable, so I'm fine with him going off.

I'm so glad that I have Denise to talk to about all this whenever it starts to get bad. Apparently at one point last semester, she was even worried about our relationship, until I talked to her about what I am unknowingly but knowingly doing (gah! Stupid Freud! You really do show up in everything!). But she also said that she confidently knows I wouldn't let myself stay in a relationship that made me miserable. I'm a bit too much of a feminist for that, lol, so I'd like to think I agree with her. But here's what I think of it all: I could care less what everyone else is saying. Heather sees what I'm like with just Staurt because she's my roommate. Denise and Melissa know what I'm like with Stuart because all they've ever known is Staurt and I dating. My friends at home, though you rarely get to see Stuart, I tell you everything. Everyone else can just butt the hell out (unless I talk to you about it). They don't know what our relationship really is like, so they can't make judgements. The only people who really and truely can criticize my relationship with Stuart is my family. Period. They're the only people who know me well enough to know if I'm different for the good or bad. And seeing as they're the only people who will permanently and forever remain with me for sure (though I like to think that I have a number of friends who would be like that, too), theirs is the only opinion I will hold in the highest regard. If my mom tells me she's worried, then I'll think hard about it and discuss it with her. I'm sad that Eric doesn't see it all for what it is because he is my brother. I guess that's just because I assume he doesn't want to hear the mushy stuff...which he doesn't, he's told me. But that means he only will see the upset Alli. Maybe our next car ride home, I'll talk to him about it.

Despite all this, Stuart and I had an extremely pleasant weekend together. It really rejuvinated things and I managed to even talk to him a bit about what Denise and Melissa told me. I appologized to him for it, and he appologized to me for causing the frustration in the first place. We came up with a little plan to make things less aggrevating for the future. Only one thing came out that we both didn't "agree" on. I don't want to use "agree" but that's not the word I want. But I thought we'd stay together until he left for Spain - he thought we were breaking up right after graduation. I'll make him come to my side, lol. It won't be hard.

I sort of told my mom about this, too, over the weekend. She's always asking me now how Stuart and I are doing since I told her that we were definitely breaking up. She says she's very proud of me for looking at it all so level headed. I just wish it were easier and made it hurt less.