After it was all said and done, I stated that I was in a state of denial. A state of shock. Brit Boy commented that he was surprised that I didn't see it coming. That it was really the only answer that he saw.
See, during those 4 1/2 months that he and I were apart, as I've said before, I was massive crazy busy with the legislative session. And while Brit Boy wasn't really having a grand time back in the UK, he was doing a lot of soul searching. He hadn't been happy in his career for quite some time before he came over here, and wasn't all that excited about going back into it, even though he knew it was the best possibility to find a job in the current economy. This soul searching produced some pretty radical self-realizations for him. Some self-realizations about which he was extremely happy and excited. Even though it meant he was gonna have to go back to school.
I was so excited for him. He had been struggling with this issue for so long and now he had found a path that he was excited about. So, we worked out a plan. I was already applying to grad school programs in the UK so that we could be together. Well, I want/need my masters for my career, and going to a program in the UK was really just a nice bit of icing on the cake cuz it allowed us to be together. The plan we had agreed upon was for me to spend the year in my program while he worked and took some courses for his new adventure part-time, and then once I was finished, he would go full-time.
During "the discussion" he stated that he thought me coming over so quickly after the stressful legislative session from which I had yet to really recover and starting a stressful grad school program was not an ideal situation. He was concerned that it would affect me in such a negative way that I would start down a destructive path due to the high amount of stress. He stated that he had seen some signs of what he considered self-destructive behavior and was afraid that it would get worse. And, he said, this was something he wasn't sure, due to his love for me, he could witness. For the record, I completely disagree that school would have such a negative, stressful affect on me. Sure, when I'm in school I'm really, really focused, but in a completely different manner from the work schedule I had recently experienced and which had affected me so negatively. Additionally, my recent workload had prevented me from engaging in my normal stress management activity - yoga. So, I really saw this as a non-issue.
The next day, during a follow-up discussion, I found out what I feel is the real reason he was dumping me. Not a concern for me or my well-being. Not a concern that life was going to be too stressful for me or that I would self-destruct in a manner he couldn't bear to witness. Not some uncrossable communication barrier or divide. I found out that Brit Boy had actually departed from our agreed upon plan. He departed from the plan without communicating with me. It was like he had been hiding it from me until the very end. Not only was he in discussions with universities in London to take some courses part-time, but also with another university, not in London or Leeds (the two cities in which I was applying to university) to take courses. Either part-time or full-time. Apparently he felt the need to move with some urgency on his radical self-realizations. "Here I am 35 years old and I have several years of education and training ahead of me before I can make this an actuality," he stated. "I need to get going on this." The end result was that the future he saw before him, the vision of his future he was moving toward, no longer included me.
"I'm not trying to control what you do and all, but this is what I need to do for me," he said. Of course!! How could I argue with that? Self-realization. Pursuit of self-realization. Even though it went against the plans we, together, had made for our future. The plans we had discussed together and decided upon. Pursuit of his goals in a manner he decided independent of any input from me. How could I possibly argue with that?
Actually, that's the only thing that irks me. His keeping his looking at universities outside of London or Leeds from me. Him not communicating that with me. Cuz that's really what it boils down to. Cut through all the crap of him being concerned for my well-being... cut through our challenges communicating while in the desert... and I'm left with him keeping something from me as we were supposed to be getting ready to put our plan into action. Something that completely shatters that plan. And leaves me... listening to Joni Mitchell on repeat.
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