'Writing is On the Wall' Springfield- A Long Way from 'Sex and the City'

Welcome back everyone! I'm glad to see that I'm still keeping your interest (I think). As you can tell my blog isn't your typical blog.

Instead of writing about different topics each time, my posts are more or less a continuation of the previous. For those of you who have no idea what the hell I am talking about, have no fear! You have plenty of time to catch up. You can access my first two entries on the main page. Now, where were we? Oh, that's right, Ryan*.

"The writing is on the wall, you just have to read it"

He and I had just wrapped up an extremely enjoyable weekend together. If anything, I felt even more confident in our relationship after this particular weekend than ever before. However, little did I know that was all about to change.

Ryan* belonged to a men's athletic league in which they would have practice on Wednesday nights and games on Sundays. He would usually be at practice till about 9pm on Wednesday nights and would call me shortly after he returned home which was about 10pm. However, this one particular Wednesday things seemed a bit off.

It was at about 11pm and I hadn't heard from him yet and I was getting a bit nervous. So, I decided to call and send him a few texts. Now, I know what you're thinking.....this chick is a psycho. But really, I am definitely NOT that type of girl. I like my space just as much as I'm sure my man likes his, but when I don't hear from you by a certain hour anyone would start to get worried. Can you blame me?

I finally ended up hearing from him at about midnight. His excuse? "Oh, well I went out for some beers with a few of the guys after practice." This coming from the guy who appeared not to have any friends, but suddenly managed to round up some Wednesday night drinking buddies.

The whole thing just seemed a bit odd, especially since it was in fact the middle of the week and he had to get up at 6am for work the next day. But, whatever, I let it slide.

The next weekend we decided we were going to spend half of it at my place and the other half at his. I had a part time waitressing gig at that time so I was scheduled to work that Friday night. He was planning on coming down to my place shortly after I got off of work and then we were going to head up to his house the following day.

I can still remember the events of that day like it were yesterday. Other than the tiny episode that had occurred on Wednesday night, the rest of the week was normal. Until Friday that is.

He would usually call me after work every day, and so this particular Friday he did like normal.  The conversation started off like it always did, talking about his day and such. Then I had asked him what time he thought he would get down to my place, then suggested going out with some friends of mine.

He then told me that he had been really tired all week and hadn't been sleeping very well, so he wasn't sure if he was in the mood to go out. You mean, you weren't exhausted due to your little late night rendezvous on Wednesday? Anyway, I then assured him that if he was too tired to make the drive that he really didn't need to come down. After all, I was going to see him the next day and I was fine with that.

And well, here it comes, the moment in which your jaw drops, your stomach tightens up and you can feel your heart trying to pound its way out of your chest. All while you can't help thinking to yourself, "is this really happening?"

"It's not that I don't want to come down to see you- I do! I've just really haven't  been sleeping well this week because I've had a lot on my mind" Oh, a lot on your mind you say? Here-we-go.

He then basically informs me that he really, really, really, did I mention really? cares about me, BUT he needs some time to think about if a long distance relationship is something he can deal with right now in his life. It just really (there's that word again) scares him because he cares about me SO much and it's hard for him to deal with the "pain" of having to be (45 minutes) apart from me.

Cue, jaw drop!

Once I could find the words to formulate a sentence I said, "Um, okay, what does that mean?" Who was I kidding, I knew what it meant, we women always know what it means, we just of course never want to believe it.

Unfortunately when God created men, he created them lacking one itsy bitsy little trait, and that is the trait of courage. In my opinion when you look up the word Male in the dictionary it should say, "See coward."

The writing was on the wall, I just refused to translate it, and Ryan* refused to read it to me. So, we sat there on the phone both just dumbfounded.

You'd think a 28-year-old man would have big enough you-know-whats to at least do it in person instead of over the phone or tell me the whole truth. I mean, really talk about maturity.

"What am I supposed to do now Ryan*? Act single? Tell people we're on a break? What? I don't even know what you're talking about and I certainly didn't see this one coming"

His response? "I don't know, I GUESS we're not together right now."

I was shocked, I felt like someone had sucked every ounce of life from my body. My mind was racing back and forth like a tape constantly on fast forward and rewind, and then it hit, REALITY. This WAS really happening. That happiness that I had been experiencing  up until not only two hours ago was gone and it wasn't coming back.

And the worst part? He had nothing to say, NOTHING. As the thoughts that had been swirling around in my head began to take shape, it was then I felt the sting of tears roll down my cheeks. Before I could say something I would truly regret, I told him that I needed to hang up and that he wouldn't hear from me so, if he needed time, that's what he was going to get.

And he didn't hear from me, and I didn't hear from him. Four days went by, FOUR of absolutely zero contact. By this time I was driving myself insane, replaying the scenario over and over again thinking about what I should have said and what I could have done for things to have ended up this way.

On the fifth day, after much consideration, I decided to call him. I figured, now I had time to think about what I want to say and he's going to hear it. Most of all, I wanted answers. What? Why? Who was causing all of this?

I called him and he didn't pick up, and so I left a voicemail. Not an angry one (even though I was fuming) just a "Hey, we need to talk." He didn't call me back until 3pm the next day.

His excuse for not calling me back? He was in the car with his boss driving to a meeting. Whatever, maybe he was, who knows. But I'm sure he wasn't with his boss for 12 hours straight.

So, I told him how I felt. That I didn't understand, was there someone else? "Do you feel like you can't trust me? What Ryan?*" He assured me none of that was true especially the someone else part. He was just having difficulty with the distance because he missed me so much during the week.

I never thought that the distance between us was a huge issue. Call me crazy, but unless you're married or living together, I think it's nice to be in a relationship with someone where you both can have seperate lives and then have your life togethe as a couple. No one likes to be smothered.

Besides, whether it be California or Florida, if you REALLY care about someone, distance shouldn't be a problem. Not every relationship is perfect and you both have to be willing to make sacrifices to make it work.

So basically that conversation went nowhere. I can't even tell you that he was sticking to his guns and not budging, because I wasn't even sure what he would have been budging from. I preached to him my theory about distance and that's all it felt like, preaching. He told me that he had to go and that he'd call me later on that evening so we could talk about it further.

Unfortunately, I somehow thought that after that particular conversation things were going to get better. Boy, was I wrong. He never called me that night, or the next, or the week after. Things went from bad, to worse, to terrible, and it seemed that was only the beginning. I didn't hear from Ryan* again until about a month later and things just took an awful turn. Thank you, Facebook.

That's where were going to stay for now. I know that I promised not to wait a week and I actually had my whole post written yesterday and accidentally deleted it!! UGH, it was devastatingly tragic, anyway I'll keep updating more frequently.

Keep Shining :)

Lauren