Just Let Me Love You | Part 2
If there was ever a decision in life I could pinpoint that changed everything, it was how The Adorer and I’s love story ended! Like parallel realities, my life could have taken a very different road. One road led to the life I’m living right now, but the other road led to the life I had been brought up to believe was my destination. It was supposed to be the cookie-cutter life and at that time, being 19 years old, I yearned for that copy-and-paste kind of life.
If you haven’t read Part 1, then you need to catch up. Read about this love story's beginnings before diving into this love story’s inevitable destination.
However, if you are all caught up, then let’s dig into the parallel realities.
One of the most fascinating parts of my relationship with The Adorer is how confident he made me feel. This wasn’t just internal as people would constantly comment on my changed demeanor. I remember someone even saying I wasn’t recognizable in how I carried myself.
“The idea of someone loving me for me was intoxicating!”
As we continued our long-distance relationship, The Adorer made plans to fly out and visit me for Valentine’s Day! That week was hot, and not like the Paris Hilton’s, “that’s hot” kind of hot. It was hot like Kristen Bell and Adam Brody’s first kiss in Nobody Wants This. It was two people coming together, who deeply loved each other, and had lost time to make up for!
If flying out wasn’t enough of a gift, he gave me a guitar! I had mentioned once that I wanted to learn how to play and he decided he was going to be my teacher (… I ended up not having the patience for it).
What I haven’t mentioned up until this point was that the people I was living with and was around on a regular basis didn’t like The Adorer and I together. It could have been that they saw how he treated me in college (read Part 1) or maybe they saw something I didn’t. There was even a stranger, whom I met at a gallery in the city, that was concerned about The Adorer and I’s relationship. She prayed for me while The Adorer was in the bathroom and said God was telling her that we essentially needed to break up. That was a wild moment and I chalked up her opinions to being misinformed.
“Whatever the reasons for people not wanting us together, it was hard to care so deeply for someone and to have loved ones dismiss our relationship. ”
When The Adorer flew back home, I was a puddle. I knew it would be months before I’d see him! And as that time pressed on, I began to feel more and more ashamed of our “hot” time together. You must remember, we were both devoted Christians growing up in the I Kissed Dating Goodbye and True Love Waits era. Scrutiny over any ounce of intimacy was high in the church and definitely not accepted outside of marriage. The more I was left alone with my thoughts, the more the euphoria disappeared and I became rocked with feelings of shame.
This was the stake in the coffin of our relationship. He did the best he could as a 20-something dude, but he wasn’t necessarily understanding either of the shame I was feeling. If anything, it felt like he wasn't taking me seriously. Like how I felt about our time together when he was visiting didn’t matter.
I remember one night, crying in my room. I knew I needed to break up with The Adorer, but I didn’t want to hurt him. I loved him, but things felt off. I wasn’t ready for marriage (which was a constant topic at this point) and I wanted more out of life! I wanted to travel and explore the world. I wasn’t ready to settle down and inevitably be a stay-at-home mom before the age of 25 (which is what I was taught was the ideal expectation). Not that that’s wrong, but it wasn’t right for me!
So, I called The Adorer. When I shared all that I had been processing he reassured me and asked for us to hold off a break-up until we saw each other in person again. After hearing where he was at and his desires, I agreed to hold off on the break-up. After months of waiting, we finally reunited! By this time, we were closer than ever and I had gotten over the shame that I originally felt. We soon got engaged and I comfortably settled into our new life together.
“Wouldn’t that be such a perfect little romcom—from friends to lovers to marriage to family?!
But, that’s not what happened.”
What truthfully happened is I called him in the middle of the day and broke up with him. He pleaded with me to wait until we saw each other again in a couple of months, but I had already made up my mind. I remember crying on the sofa afterwards, feeling terrible for causing pain to someone I loved. One of the guys I lived with (he was the captain of the local college basketball team and had an uncanny resemblance to Nathan from One Tree Hill) came into the adjoining kitchen to make a sandwich. He was surprisingly shy and, to be honest, we had never really spoken. As I tried to hide my face so he wouldn’t see that I was crying, he offered to make me lunch. I remember turning to look at him and knew that he had overheard my conversation with The Adorer. The look of sympathy on his face spoke louder than the silence we normally had between us as roommates.
In my emotional state, I said, “No, but thank you,” and hid in my room for days. He was one of the only people around me in my life at the time that showed compassion for my pain. Most people celebrated The Adorer and I not being together anymore or, in my family’s case, were upset that I had broken up with him. I felt misunderstood and that was hard.
It took me months to get over hurting The Adorer, but this decision to not fit the cookie-cutter life and listen to my gut, changed the course of my life. I thought my life was destined to be a wife and mother (both of which I would still love to be), but what happened that day was I finally stopped just dreaming of a life outside the mould that had been drilled into me from birth and started living the dreams. Later that year I travelled to Europe to teach English as a second language. I then toured Belgium and France with a friend before flying back to Canada to start University, which later led to me moving back to Europe for 10 years! My gut wanted me to see the world and I listened to it.
“Someone told me once, “Not everything good is good for your life.” It’s true! Life is full of forks in the roads. For me, it was to either remain in a good relationship and have my dream of a family, or it was to explore outside the small world I had lived in and find the other good waiting for me! Both were good, but only one decision truly led me to love myself.”
The Adorer gave me confidence that seemed to fade each time he was away, but my decision to have a different life gave my inner, insecure child a boost to say, “Let’s go on an adventure!”
I became the confident, independent and compassionate woman I am today because of this love story. I cannot thank my 19-year-old self more for making the hard decision that was the beginning of a beautiful life for herself!
Editor’s Note: A little while after The Adorer and I broke up, we saw each other during a reunion with a group of friends. He was then dating his now wife. As we sat beside each other at the restaurant, we awkwardly exchanged pleasantries. I can’t remember what exactly was said, but there was a moment when we burst out laughing. The look exchanged between us reminded me so much of when we were just friends. It was like the room exhaled with a sense of relief… and closure.
